Chapter Six The Wrong Brother
Ella
"That'll be all. You can go." The servant practically runs.
I stand there a moment. Then I turn and walk back inside.
By evening, Damian is home.
I've been on the couch for the past hour, flipping through the same magazine I've already flipped through three times. Can't absorb a single word.
Helen is standing in the corner—still, quiet, watching me like I'm something she's about to catch.
She is everywhere. Even silent, she takes up the whole room. I can't even call Vivian without feeling those eyes on the back of my neck.
The front door opens. Damian walks in, jacket still carrying the cold from outside. He scans the room, looks at me once, and heads to the kitchen without a word.
Less than two minutes later, he comes back.
Hot chocolate. Rich, dark, exactly the way I like it. He holds it out.
I don't reach for it.
Because Helen is still standing there. I've already turned down the warm milk she offered me an hour ago—told her I wasn't hungry. If I take this now—
"Helen." Damian's voice is easy. Controlled. "You're done for the night. Ella and I need some time alone." A pause. "No interruptions."
Helen stiffens—just barely. Then comes that perfectly composed smile of hers. Goodnights. The door clicks.
The house goes quiet.
I take the mug. Our fingertips touch. He goes still for a second, then lets go.
"I can explain Helen." He sits down beside me and presses two fingers against his temple. "I know you're not comfortable. But she's been placed here by the Council. If I refuse their people, they start wondering what we're hiding."
"So she wasn't your idea."I ask.
"This is your home." Flat. Certain. "She's in your house and you can see her anytime. If She's outside, you have no idea what she's doing."
I really look at him then. Shadows under his eyes. Collar slightly loose. He looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep—the kind of tired that comes from holding too many moving pieces together without dropping any of them.
Now, he doesn't look like the man who runs this family with one word. He looks like someone managing a war that never makes it onto paper.
"The door in the basement," I say. Since we're being honest. "What's behind it?"
He pauses.
"You'll find out." Low. Careful. "Just not yet."
I watch his face. He closes his eyes. Opens them. Looks at me—and gives me something that isn't quite a smile.
"Hungry?"
I am not prepared for the dining room.
The long table has been set like a scene from a life I never expected to be living. Red roses in the center, petals still beaded with water.
Silver candlesticks. Candles already burning. Two place settings facing each other across the white tablecloth. Crystal glasses catching the light like they're showing off.
I've been off all day. Distracted, Irritable, the kind of low-level miserable that doesn't announce itself, just sits on your chest.
But this—
Damian pulls out my chair. I don't move. He tilts his head, just slightly.
I sit down.
He doesn't go to his seat right away. He leans over me, spreads the napkin across my lap, and his fingers graze my wrist. Cool. Brief.
Then he pours the wine himself—doesn't call for anyone, doesn't wait—and circles to the other end of the table.
I don't know what to do with any of it. Three years ago at the Dark Moon Club, he looked through me like I was furniture in Lucas's way.
Now he's pulling out my chair.
"You're allergic to shellfish," he says. "So I had the head chef from Owl Kitchen handle the filet tonight. I hope it works for you."
My fork goes still.
Owl Kitchen. My favorite restaurant in the city. Too expensive for regular visits—I've only ever gone a handful of times with Lucas, on good nights.
Damian keeps going. "You don't like green peppers, so I had them swap in asparagus. Dessert is tiramisu."
I stare at him.
Everything on that table is exactly right. The cut. The sides. The dessert. Down to the last detail, perfectly placed.
How.
He wasn't at that restaurant with us. The last time Lucas and I went, we fought over the final bite of tiramisu—laughing, ridiculous—and Damian wasn't even in the same city. I can't trace a single moment where I told anyone all of this, not in one sitting, not like a list.
Three years ago, he was just Lucas's older brother. Cold. Distant. Someone I met once and wanted to forget.
So how does he know?
Coincidence, I tell myself. Maybe Lucas mentioned it at some point. Maybe we just happen to have the same taste.
I don't believe it.
"Something wrong?" His voice comes from across the table.
"No." I cut into the filet. "It's perfect. Thank you."
He holds my gaze a second longer than he needs to. Then he picks up his wine.
The candlelight carves his face into something I can't quite name. I keep thinking about who he was at the club—cold, unreachable, like something sculpted and put behind glass. And then I think about hot chocolate made without being asked. A table set to every single one of my preferences.
I grew up in an orphanage. You learn fast not to expect much. Too many kids, not enough of everything—attention included.
Lucas was good to me. He'd follow up when I said I'm fine and clearly wasn't. He'd sit beside me when words ran out.
But he didn't say a single thing to defend me that night at the club.
However, Damian didn't let it get that far. Everytimes, He already fixed it before I had to ask.
He sets down his knife and fork. Lifts his glass.
"What are we drinking to?" I ask.
He considers it. "To us. And to this actually working."
I look at him. Candlelight in his eyes. Something I can't read.
"To us," I say.
He smiles. A real one—not the polished version he gives to rooms full of people. The corners of his mouth actually move.
Then he reaches out.
His hand comes across the edge of the table, palm up, fingers slightly open. Waiting.
I look at it. The clean lines. The knuckles. The faint, thin scar along the inside of his wrist—pale against his skin, old, not recent. I have no idea where it came from.
There is so much about him I don't know.
I place my hand in his.
His fingers close. Slowly. His thumb moves once across my knuckles, barely there.
Warmth. That is all. Just warmth.
Lucas's face flashes in my memory. Standing outside the club, looking at me with something raw in his eyes. Everything he lost because of me.
And I'm sitting here holding his brother's hand.
Damian's grip tightens—just slightly.
I let him.
The candle stutters. The roses throw long shadows across the tablecloth. The room is completely quiet except for our breathing and the faint snap of the wick.
I think about everything I am. Lucas's ex-girlfriend. Damian's "fated mate"—on paper, at least. Lady of this house. An outsider the entire Blackwood family is watching for cracks. A woman who lost three years of her own life and still doesn't know why.
I've never been treated like this. Not because of what I'm supposed to be. Not because of some title, or a bond, or what anyone needs from me.
Just because I'm me.
You can't fall for him. I say it clearly, in plain words, inside my own head.
He's Lucas's brother. You know it.
I don't let go.
Maybe it's because in a house full of careful smiles and quiet surveillance, in a world where everyone wants something from me—this is the only warm thing I've touched in a very long time.
Or maybe it's something simpler than that.
I know nothing about Damian Blackwood.
And I want to.
The candle keeps burning. The roses hold their scent.
I look at him, and for the first time, I don't look away.
But underneath all of it—the warmth, the wine, the way his thumb moved across my hand—a question pushes to the surface. Quiet. Stubborn. Impossible to shake.
How does he know?
Every detail. My allergy. My order. My favorite restaurant, my exact preferences, things I've never told him—have never had reason to tell him.
Three years ago, Damian Blackwood barely acknowledged I existed.
So when, exactly, did he start paying attention?
And more importantly—
Why?
