Trust and Lies

The receiver clicked gently as she set it down, her face smooth as glass, but her breathing uneven. Damien stared at her—chest bare, skirt still hiked up from the desk, a fading bruise forming on her collarbone where he’d bitten too hard in his hunger. The silence between them stretched like a blade.

“What was that?” His voice was low. Dangerous.

Aurora didn’t flinch. She never flinched. Her fingers twitched in her lap, stilling only when he moved toward her again, shirt rumpled, belt hanging undone.

He grabbed her wrist before she could sign.

“Answer me.”

Her eyes lifted—calm, distant, unreadable. Like they always were before she stripped him bare. But now there was something else. A shadow.

He released her wrist slowly. She stood without a sound, smoothing her skirt, adjusting her blouse with methodical grace. Then she walked to the mirror above the fireplace, pulled a strand of hair behind her ear, and wrote in the dust on the mantle with the pad of her finger.

Trust is earned. Not given.

Damien’s jaw tightened. “You’re in my house. In my life. In my head. You want me to trust you while you make secret calls and answer phones that don’t belong to you?”

Aurora turned, slowly. She reached for the notepad she always kept tucked in the pocket of her cardigan—now discarded on the floor beside the bookshelf. She tore off a sheet and scribbled a single line:

Don’t you wonder why I was the only one who could calm your daughter?

His breath caught.

“Who are you?” he asked hoarsely.

She didn’t answer. Not in words. But her silence was no longer passive—it was a wall. She handed him the note, brushed past him, and slipped out the door, her bare feet silent on the marble floor.

And Damien stood alone, the paper crumpling in his fist, the words echoing louder than any scream.

Don’t you wonder why I was the only one who could calm your daughter?

—

That night, he didn’t sleep.

The cameras were still. Her room was dark.

She wasn’t in it.

He scanned every feed, every angle—empty hallways, a shadow by the stairwell, movement in the kitchen. Then the feed blinked.

The screen went black.

NO SIGNAL.

He cursed, stormed down the hall, bare-chested, gun holstered at his back. His footsteps thundered in the silence, a sharp contrast to the ghostlike stillness Aurora always carried. When he reached her suite, the door was ajar.

Empty.

No signs of struggle. No mess. Just the faint scent of her lavender soap in the air.

Then he saw it.

On the pillow: a black origami crane. Identical to the one she’d left on his desk. Except this one was unfolded, flattened. And on the inside, in red ink, was a name he hadn’t seen in years.

Amara Quinn.

He was speechless who is Amara Quinn he didn’t read meaning to it, it probably might be someone related to her or someone else but the name Quinn lingered in his memory and felt it was no cause for alarm since she said trust is earned and not given…

Later that evening Aurora’s breath came in shallow gasps, the darkness of her room pressing in around her like a vice. Her eyes snapped open, wide and unseeing for a moment as she fought the lingering grip of the nightmare. Sweat clung to her skin despite the chill in the air, her nightgown damp at the neckline, her hair sticking to her forehead. She sat up with a jolt, heart hammering against her ribs like it was trying to escape. The silence in the room wasn’t comforting—it was suffocating. Even the distant thunder rolling across the sky felt too quiet, swallowed by the weight of memory.

No, no, no…

The images from the dream hadn’t faded. They were still etched into the back of her mind—chaos, the sound of screams, and her own voice, useless and unheard. The man in her dreams, his face distorted by memory but no less terrifying, hovered at the edges of her vision. His voice was still in her ears. Cruel. Cold. A voice that had once shaped her reality with fear.

She pressed her palms to her eyes, willing it all to stop, to disappear, but the darkness only made it worse. Her chest rose and fell in erratic bursts, the panic still alive under her skin. Her hands trembled as she reached for the sheets, fisting the fabric to keep herself grounded. It didn’t help. It never did. Night after night, the ghosts came for her. And night after night, she woke like this—sweaty, breathless, hollowed out by the things she could never say aloud.

She was supposed to be safe here. This fortress of glass and stone, owned by a man who terrified and intrigued her in equal measure, was meant to be her sanctuary. But even Damien Thorne’s mansion, with its sprawling corridors and locked doors, couldn’t keep the past from finding her.

A soft knock at the door jolted her.

She stilled, every nerve in her body tensing. It was too late—past midnight, well into the witching hour. No one should be awake. No one should be coming to her. And yet, the door creaked open with a slow groan, the hallway light spilling in like liquid gold.

Damien.

He stood in the doorway, dark and unreadable. The storm behind him cast flickers of lightning across his sharp features, carving shadows beneath his cheekbones. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes locked onto hers like he could see straight through her. He didn’t speak at first. He didn’t need to.

Her fingers gripped the sheets tighter as she tried to steady her breathing, but she couldn’t hide the tremble in her shoulders or the panic still lingering in her gaze. The nightmare clung to her like a second skin. And now, Damien was here, watching her fall apart in the middle of the night.

“Are you alright?” His voice, low and rough, broke through the silence.

Aurora blinked hard, then slowly shook her head. Her throat was tight—too tight to form words even if she could speak. The room spun slightly, her body still caught between waking and memory. A tremor ran through her limbs.

Damien stepped forward, cautious. He moved like he was approaching something wild, dangerous, something that could bolt at any moment. His eyes never left her face.

“What happened?” he asked again, softer this time.

Aurora didn’t answer with her hands right away. She couldn’t. Her fingers refused to cooperate, stiff with fear and something else she couldn’t quite name. She swallowed hard, trying to pull herself together.

“I’m… fine,” she signed, though the message was rushed, shaky. The lie was obvious.

Damien’s gaze flicked to her hands, then back to her face. He didn’t believe her. And more than that—he didn’t leave.

He crossed the room without another word, each step echoing through her chest. Then, slowly, he sank down to one knee beside the bed, eye-level now, his presence a quiet gravity.

Aurora froze. The closeness was overwhelming, his scent—dark, clean, masculine—seeping into her senses. Her fingers twitched where they rested on the edge of the mattress, an instinctive reach toward something steady.

He didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to. His silence was comfort enough, grounding her in a way words never could.

Her hand, acting of its own accord, slid slightly toward him—toward the edge of the bed, toward him. Just a brush. Just enough.

Their fingers touched.

A breath caught in her throat. It was the lightest of contacts, skin to skin, but it felt like something cracked open inside her. Her heart beat harder. Faster. Too fast. His fingers didn’t move away. They stayed right there, still, warm, solid.

He looked at her, something fierce and unreadable flickering in his eyes. She didn’t look away.

“Let me help you,” he murmured, his voice barely audible over the storm outside.

She wanted to say yes.

She wanted to say no.

She wanted to run, to scream, to curl into herself and disappear. But instead, she squeezed his hand. Just once. A silent answer. A fragile surrender.

And in that moment, she realized just how dangerous it was to let him in.

Because Damien Thorne wasn’t just her employer. He wasn’t just the man who watched her with those predator’s eyes, who caught every twitch of emotion on her face like it was his job.

He was the storm itself.

And she had just opened the window.