Chapter 2 - The Limits of Protection
Damian reached for his phone. Naomi caught his wrist before he could lift it.
“Who are you calling?”
“A doctor.”
She let go.
He made the call himself, speaking briefly and precisely. Then he looked at Enzo and told him to have the car ready. For the first time since the scarf slipped, something happened that Naomi could understand without fearing its hidden meaning.
“You’re taking me somewhere?”
“To be examined.”
“I’m breathing.”
“Yes,” Damian said. “I’d like someone qualified to make sure that continues without difficulty.”
She wanted to dismiss him, but the ache beneath her jaw had begun to frighten her now that she could no longer pretend it was merely embarrassing. She stood too quickly and steadied herself against the table. Damian moved toward her, then stopped when she stiffened.
“Your coat,” he said.
She nodded.
He went to get it.
In the car, the empty space between them felt different from the drive to dinner. Before, she had filled it with everything she was concealing. Now it held everything Damian knew and had not yet said.
Enzo drove without speaking.
Naomi watched the city lights stretch across the wet glass. She had ridden in that car to charity dinners, a museum opening, and a birthday celebration where nobody had asked her anything beyond whether she liked the flowers. She had never sat in it with her scarf untied and her hands shaking in plain sight.
“Did you believe him?” Damian asked.
She turned.
“About whatever he threatened to tell the authorities.”
“He said I ran a company for you. I don’t. He was guessing.”
“What company?”
“I don’t know.”
Damian studied her for a moment. “You’ve signed nothing beyond our agreement?”
“No.”
“Transferred money for anyone?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The word should have reassured her, but it touched the wrong place.
“You thought I might have?”
“I’m finding out what he knows.”
“He knows I was frightened of losing this arrangement. That’s all he needed.”
Damian looked away first.
At the clinic, a physician named Dr. Chen asked Naomi what had happened and requested that Damian wait outside for part of the examination. Naomi watched him absorb the instruction. She expected resistance, or at least the cold look that usually made other people reconsider what they had said.
Instead, he turned to her.
“Do you want me outside?”
“Yes.”
He left.
That small obedience nearly undid her.
Once the door closed, Dr. Chen drew her chair closer and spoke in a calm voice that made no assumptions about the man in the corridor. Naomi answered questions she had not wanted to think about, allowed photographs for the medical record, and finally admitted that swallowing hurt.
“Why didn’t you come sooner?” the physician asked.
Naomi looked down at her hands.
“I was trying to get ready for dinner.”
Dr. Chen waited.
“I know how that sounds.”
“It sounds like you were frightened.”
The kindness in the answer made Naomi’s eyes fill. She had expected a reprimand. She could have managed a reprimand.
A nurse brought tissues and a cup of water. Later, a woman from the clinic’s support team introduced herself and explained what practical help was available if Naomi wanted it. Naomi took the card, folding it into her purse beside a receipt for sandpaper and the key to her apartment.
When Damian returned, he did not ask what she had said while he was outside.
“What did they tell you?” he asked instead.
She explained the follow-up instructions in a voice that sounded tired even to her. He listened without interrupting, then asked whether she wanted to go home or stay at the estate that night.
Naomi looked toward the window.
Caleb knew her apartment. He had once lived there.
“The estate,” she said.
Damian nodded as though she had asked for another glass of water.
Back at the house, dinner had disappeared. The table was bare, the candles extinguished, the dining room restored so completely that it seemed impossible anything had happened there. Naomi paused at the doorway and saw her scarf folded neatly on a side table.
She picked it up.
A housekeeper brought warm tea and offered a guest room near the main staircase. Naomi accepted the room, the tea, and a soft sweater because her blouse suddenly felt unbearable against her skin. She wanted to call Ruth at the shop and explain she might be late the following morning, but she could not bear to hear a familiar voice yet.
Damian remained in the sitting room while she changed.
When she returned, he stood beside the fireplace with his phone in his hand.
“Where is Caleb?” he asked.
Naomi stopped.
“I don’t know.”
“Where does he usually go?”
“Damian.”
He looked at her.
The physician’s waiting room had made him briefly comprehensible. Here, beneath the portrait over the mantel, with Enzo waiting silently beyond the open door, he had become someone else again.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out who he owes.”
“Why?”
“Because a man who demands money from you may come back when his deadline gets closer.”
“I know that.”
“Then you know why.”
She placed the tea on the table, afraid of dropping it. “Finding him isn’t the same thing as helping me.”
His jaw tightened.
“Neither is leaving him free to try again.”
The answer landed because it was partly true. That was what made arguing with Damian so difficult. He could place a reasonable statement beside a terrible possibility and make her feel foolish for seeing both.
“I don’t want anyone killed.”
He said nothing.
“Damian.”
“I heard you.”
She took one step closer.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
For several seconds, she looked at him without the useful disguise of the engagement. There was no photographer, no table of men to impress, no agreement telling her where to stand. She was an injured woman asking a dangerous man to restrain himself.
He was making her wait.
Finally, he put the phone in his pocket.
“Stay with Mrs. Bell. I’ll be back.”
“Am I allowed to leave?”
He stopped at the door.
The question seemed to strike him somewhere she had not intended.
“Of course.”
“Then tell the men outside that.”
He looked toward Enzo.
“Make certain everyone understands,” Damian said.
May you like
Enzo nodded.
It was something. Naomi did not mistake it for enough.
