The storm hit just after midnight.
It wasn't rain or wind that rattled the glass panes of Damien's penthouse windows—but the flood of flashing cameras outside, the downpour of headlines breaking like waves across the internet.
"Billionaire Damien Thorne and Ava Hart: Engaged or Enraged?"
"Inside the Sham Engagement That's Fooling No One"
Ava sat on the edge of Damien's custom Italian leather couch, a tumbler of untouched whiskey in her hand. Her phone kept buzzing—notifications, alerts, voice messages from her publicist, concerned texts from Lena.
Across the room, Damien stood with his arms folded, jaw locked, staring at the wall-mounted screen where a news panel debated the legitimacy of their relationship.
"…PR stunt or genuine connection? Is Thorne trying to humanize himself, or just buy better headlines with a beautiful woman on his arm?"
He turned off the television with a curt snap of the remote.
"I knew this would happen," Ava said quietly. "You're a target, Damien. They want to dismantle you piece by piece. And I walked straight into it."
"You walked into nothing," he said, striding toward her. "We made a deal. I dragged you into this."
She looked up at him, eyes searching. "Why did you agree to it in the first place?"
Damien didn't answer right away. He poured himself a drink, the ice clinking like tension crystallized in glass.
"Because," he said at last, "you were the first person who dared to look me in the eye and tell me I needed saving."
Ava's breath caught.
She wanted to say something—something true, something that wouldn't break whatever fragile bridge was forming between them—but the words tangled in her throat.
Instead, she stood. "We need to act fast. They're circling. If we don't control the story, it will control us."
His eyes narrowed. 'What do you suggest?"
She straightened, her strategist mask slipping back into place. "A retreat. The Hamptons. Just us. We 'get away' for a few days. No press. No staged appearances. Just... privacy."
"And when they follow us anyway?" he asked.
She smiled, fierce and unshaken. "Then we give them a love story so convincing they stop asking questions."
He took a long sip of whiskey, watching her over the rim of the glass. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Pack a bag. We leave at dawn."
By morning, they were halfway down the coast in a black SUV, silence thick between them.
Ava watched the trees blur past, her fingers absently twisting a strand of hair. Damien sat beside her, a tablet open on his lap, but his eyes weren't really reading.
"Why the Hamptons?" he asked, breaking the silence.
"My father used to take donors there," she said. "It was the only place he ever acted like a human being."
"You think we'll find humanity there?"
She glanced sideways at him. "I think we might find a version of ourselves the city won't let us be."
Damien said nothing, but for the first time, his shoulders eased, just slightly.
The house was glass and stone, perched like a secret on the edge of a cliff. The ocean roared below, relentless and wild. And for a moment, Ava forgot about the cameras, the contracts, the ghosts.
Here, she could breathe.
They unpacked in silence. Separate rooms. Separate lives.
But when the storm rolled in that night, unexpected and violent, something changed.
The power flickered. Rain lashed the windows. And Ava, unable to sleep, found herself wandering into the music room at the back of the house.
That's when she heard it.
"Piano."
Soft, hesitant notes rising from the shadows like confessions.
She stepped closer and found Damien at the grand piano, head bowed, fingers brushing the keys like they were made of memory.
He didn't see her at first. Or maybe he did and didn't care.
The melody was haunting—minor chords, slow and searching.
When it ended, Ava spoke.
"I didn't know you played."
Damien looked up, caught off guard. "I don't. Not anymore."
She crossed the room, barefoot, drawn in by something more dangerous than music.
"Why stop?"
He stared at the keys. "Because the last time I played, I was in love."
Silence. Thunder rolled in the distance.
Ava sat beside him, careful, like stepping onto sacred ground.
"Then maybe it's time you start again."
He looked at her. Really looked. And in that moment, Ava felt the mask slip from both their faces.
No roles. No rules.
Just two people in the eye of a storm, trying to find shelter in each other.
The storm had turned the ocean into a restless thing—waves hurling themselves at the rocks below like they were trying to claw their way inland. Inside, the house creaked faintly with the weight of wind, but the air between them was still.
Damien's fingers lingered above the piano keys. He hadn't expected to be seen like this—unguarded, quiet, playing a song he hadn't touched in years. Yet Ava wasn't mocking or pitying him. She just sat there, waiting. Listening.
"I composed it when I was twenty," he said, finally. "For someone I thought I'd marry."
Ava didn't flinch. "What happened?"
He stared straight ahead. "She fell in love with someone else. Or maybe she never loved me at all. I only realized how much of myself I gave away when she left and took it all with her."
Ava nodded slowly. "That kind of leaving… it teaches you how to build walls high enough to touch the sky."
His eyes flicked to hers. "And yet you keep climbing other people's."
"I guess I never learned to stop hoping there's something on the other side."
Damien's expression shifted—something softened, something cracked. He looked at her like she was a puzzle he was beginning to want to solve.
A flash of lightning split the sky, and the room lit up for a heartbeat before falling back into dimness.
Ava stood. "Well. We're officially trapped together in the middle of a PR nightmare and a literal storm."
"You sound almost excited."
"I am." She smiled faintly. "There's something oddly comforting about being where the rules don't apply."
Damien rose, slowly. He stepped closer, so close she could feel the tension humming between them like electricity. "Then tell me, Ava. What are the rules you break?"
She tilted her chin, unflinching. "I fall for people I shouldn't."
"Are you falling now?"
Her breath caught.
And then, just like that, she took a step back. "You tell me."
Before he could answer, she turned and left the room, leaving the air behind her thrumming with everything unsaid.
The next morning, the world outside was washed clean—sky pale, waves calm, the media buzz oddly muted.
Ava woke early and wandered into the kitchen, finding Damien already there, barefoot, sleeves rolled, making coffee like he hadn't once been called the Ice King of Wall Street.
"Morning," she said cautiously.
He handed her a mug. "I didn't sleep."
"Me neither."
They sipped in silence, the kind that wasn't awkward but oddly grounding. Like they were learning the rhythm of a song neither of them had heard before.
"I meant what I said last night," Damien said suddenly.
"About the piano?"
"About you making me want to stop pretending." His voice was low, sincere. "I'm not good at this."
"At what?"
"Letting someone in."
She looked at him over the rim of her mug. "Good. Because I'm not interested in breaking down your walls, Damien. I'd rather walk in through the front door—if you ever decide to open it."
For a long time, he didn't respond. Then, just before she left the room, he said quietly:
"The door's not locked."
Later that day, their photos from the beach—unscripted, unguarded, full of unspoken tension—hit the tabloids.
"Could This Be Real? Damien Thorne Smiles (Yes, Smiles) with Ava Hart"
The media storm calmed. Investors called with new interest. And Ava's inbox exploded with offers for interviews, brand deals, and client meetings.
But she couldn't stop thinking about the look in Damien's eyes when he said her name. Not in front of cameras. Not for anyone else.
Just for her.
That afternoon, the rain slowed to a steady drizzle, mist curling around the edges of the windows like breath against glass. Ava wandered into the study, aimlessly at first—but found herself drawn toward a low shelf filled with leather-bound journals.
She paused. They looked out of place in Damien's immaculate, modern world—worn at the edges, spines cracked with use. She knelt, brushing a finger over the edge of one.
"You'll find more than PR disasters in there."
Damien's voice made her jump. He stood in the doorway, watching her. No tie. No armor.
"Yours?" she asked.
He nodded. "Sketches. Designs. Old things. I used to think I'd build things that made people feel something."
"You already do," she said softly. "Just not in the way you expected."
He came closer, crouching beside her. "You think I feel anything now, Ava?'
She turned her head, her voice barely above a whisper. "I think you feel too much. You've just been punished every time you dared to show it."
His eyes searched hers, something raw flickering in them.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the space between them. Then Damien leaned back slightly, deflecting.
"I have a meeting with Tokyo tonight. You're welcome to sit in—if you're not tired of playing fiancee."
Ava stood. "Playing is easy. It's feeling that's dangerous."
He didn't argue. But as she walked away, she felt his gaze linger like the echo of a touch never given.
That night, Ava sat beside Damien during the call, watching him slip back into the polished shell the world knew: precise, commanding, untouchable.
But when the call ended and the screen went dark, he didn't move.
"What would you be," she asked quietly, "if you weren't trying to be someone else's idea of powerful?"
He glanced at her, slow. "What would you be if you weren't trying so hard to prove you're more than your father's scandal?"
She blinked. That was low—and accurate.
"Touches," she murmured. "Guess we're both prisoners with very expensive cages."
Damien stood, walked toward the window, and stared into the dark. "The worst part is when the world praises your cage and calls it a castle."
For the first time, Ava saw it—how lonely it must be, to be admired but never seen.
"I'd rather be broke and honest than rich and hollow."
He looked at her then. "You're already both."
Her laugh broke the tension. "Wow. I think that's the nicest thing you've said to me."
He didn't laugh. Just took a step closer.
"I'm not good at... this," he said, voice rough. "But I see you, Ava. Even when I wish I didn't."
The words hung between them like a held breath.
"I see you too, Damien. And that scares me more than any fake engagement ever could."
They stood in silence. Not touching. Not retreating. Just standing on the edge of something neither of them had planned for.
And in the storm-washed hush of that house by the sea, the rules they'd written for each other began to blur.
The car ride to the gala was nearly silent, but it wasn't the kind of silence that came from emptiness. It was thick with awareness, humming between them like an electric wire stretched taut. Ava sat across from Damien in the back of the town car, legs crossed, her hand resting on the clutch in her lap like it was armor.
Damien looked out the window, but she could feel him watching her reflection.
"You're quiet," she said finally, breaking the tension.
"So are you," he replied, not looking at her.
She traced a circle on the leather seat. "I'm trying to remember which version of myself I'm supposed to be tonight."
He turned then, eyes finding hers. "Just be the version that wins."
Her smile was faint. "You mean the one that plays by your rules."
"No," he said, voice low. "The one that knows when to break them."
She looked away before he could see the effect of those words. Damien Thorne had a gift for unearthing your deepest fault lines without lifting a finger. He didn't force his way in—he just waited for you to crack open.
When they arrived, the lights of the Hamilton Foundation gala gleamed like they were dipped in gold. Photographers swarmed the entrance, their flashes a staccato of demands. Damien's hand found the small of Ava's back, firm and confident. She stiffened at first—then let herself lean into it, just enough for the cameras.
Inside, chandeliers glittered overhead, and old money whispered in every corner.
A woman in red glided toward them, champagne flute in hand. "Mr. Thorne. So rare to see you smile."
Damien didn't miss a beat. "That's because you're rarely around Ava."
Ava nearly choked on the compliment. But she met the woman's gaze with a smile sharp enough to slice through glass. "He's had to practice. I run a PR firm—it's part of the training."
Laughter followed them as they moved through the crowd, hand in hand, two actors in a play that neither wanted to admit was starting to feel too real.
Later, Damien disappeared for a moment, pulled aside by someone from the board.
Ava stood near the gallery of paintings lining the ballroom's side wing, letting herself breathe. The act was flawless, but it was still an act. And acts exhausted her.
"Looking for your fiancee?" a voice asked beside her.
Cameron Blake.
Of course.
She glanced sideways. "I wasn't aware reporters were invited."
Cameron smiled easily. "I wasn't invited. But I rarely wait for permission."
She gave him a slow, pointed once-over. "You're good at pretending you belong."
"So are you," he countered, sipping his drink. "But you and Damien... tell me, when exactly did love blossom between a stone wall and a PR pitch?"
Ava's fingers curled around her clutch. "What is it you think you're digging for, Cameron?"
He leaned closer. "The truth. But more importantly—what you're hiding behind all this polish."
Before she could reply, Damien reappeared, expression cool. "Is there a reason you're speaking to my fiancee uninvited?"
Cameron just smiled, seems like he doesn't bothered. "Curiosity, Damien. You know I've always had a weakness for impossible stories."
"And I've always had a weakness for closing doors," Damien said smoothly. "This one's about to hit you on the way out."
Ava's breath caught—not at the words, but the protectiveness underneath them.
Cameron gave a mock bow. "As you wish."
When he was gone, Damien turned to her. "He doesn't get to talk to you like that."
She studied him. "You didn't have to intervene."
"Yes," he said quietly, "I did."
He offered his hand again, and this time, when their fingers laced, it didn't feel like part of a deal.
It felt like a promise neither of them dared speak out loud yet.