*Damian's POV*
By the third morning, the noise outside the gates had thinned.
Not gone. Just quieter.
Fewer raised phones. Fewer shouted questions thrown at stone and iron. The reporters who remained had settled into patience, the kind sharpened by boredom and obsession. Rumors did not burn forever. They cooled, reshaped themselves, waited for proof.
And proof never came.
That uncertainty was doing more damage than confirmation ever could.
Inside the house, nothing felt settled.
Aria moved through the rooms like someone measuring exits. She still worked. Still wrote. Still honored the promise she had made. But something between us had shifted since the leak. Trust did not disappear all at once. It frayed. Quietly. Dangerously.
She cornered me in the study just before dusk.
"This is not what I agreed to," she said.
I closed the folder in my hands. "You agreed to the truth."
"I agreed to write," she corrected. "Not to be turned into a symbol."
Her voice was steady, but her eyes were not. That was what unsettled me most. Fear I could manage. Anger I understood. Doubt was different. Doubt eroded foundations.
"They think I'm complicit," she continued. "They think I knew. They think I helped you hide."
"You didn't."
"That doesn't matter," she snapped. "Perception always wins before facts."
She was right. That was the part I had underestimated.
"You said this was about redemption," she said. "But every move you make feels like revenge wearing a cleaner name."
I felt the distance open between us. Not physical. Something sharper.
"This is bigger than us," I said.
"That's the problem," she replied. "I don't think you see where I fit into that anymore."
She turned away, frustration spilling into motion. "What happens to me when this memoir is published? When your truth becomes public property? Do I just disappear when you get what you want?"
The question landed hard.
I crossed the space between us before she could step back. I did not give myself time to think. Thinking would have stopped me.
I kissed her.
Not softly. Not carefully. It was frustration and urgency tangled together, a kiss meant to ground her, to silence the spiral, to remind both of us that this connection was real. For half a heartbeat, she resisted.
Then she kissed me back.
It was heated and messy, edged with anger and longing and everything unresolved between us. Her fingers twisted into my shirt as if the floor beneath her had shifted. There was no room for doubt in that moment. Only heat. Only breath. Only the pull of something neither of us wanted to name.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, the air between us tight and uneven.
"This doesn't fix anything," she whispered.
"I know."
"But it doesn't make it worse."
No. It made it more dangerous.
Because the moment I kissed her, something became irreversible.
I had crossed a line I could not pretend I did not see. Whatever distance I had tried to maintain between strategy and desire collapsed under the weight of that kiss. This was no longer just about truth or legacy or enemies waiting in the dark.
This was about her.
And that terrified me.
I had brought her into a story that could ruin her. Tied her name to mine. Turned her words into a weapon whether she wanted them to be or not. Wanting her did not absolve me of that. It complicated everything.
I could not afford to need her.
But I already did.
She stepped back first, regaining control with effort. "We need to figure out what this means," she said.
"Yes," I agreed.
Because pretending it meant nothing would be a lie.
Outside, the world waited. Not loudly. Not impatiently. Waiting in the way storms did before breaking.
The rumor had cooled, but it had not died.
And dawn was closer than either of us wanted to admit.