Chapter Sixteen: The Fight We Never Had
Ava
She didn't plan to bring it up.
But when she saw the contract papers Damien had left on her coffee table—papers with Liam's name on them—her fingers curled into fists.
He was trying to set up a legal trust. In Liam's name. With Wolfe money. Without telling her first.
When he walked back in from the balcony, wiping rain from his jacket, she was standing in the middle of the living room with the folder in hand.
"You were going to make decisions about our son without even talking to me?" she asked coldly.
Damien blinked. "It's just a trust fund—"
"You don't get to say just anything when you've been gone five years, Damien."
His mouth tightened. "I'm trying to protect him."
"You don't know him well enough to know what he needs!"
That landed.
He stared at her. Silent. Hard.
"And whose fault is that?" he said quietly.
Ava's breath caught.
"You left," he added. "You disappeared. You didn't even give me a chance to try."
"Because you weren't trying when you had me," she snapped.
There it was.
Finally.
He stepped closer. "You think I didn't feel it falling apart? I did. But every time I came home, you were further away. You stopped looking at me."
"You stopped seeing me," she said, voice cracking. "You loved your work more than you ever loved me. I was lonely in that penthouse. I ate dinners alone while you chased boardrooms and built empires."
"I was building us a future!"
"I didn't need a fortune, Damien—I needed a husband!"
Silence exploded between them. Raw. Shattered. Final.
Ava turned away, hands shaking.
"I begged you," she whispered. "For time. For space. For one night without your damn phone."
Damien looked wrecked.
And still—still—he said the one thing that made her heart break open all over again:
"I didn't know how to love you the right way back then. But I never stopped loving you."
Ava closed her eyes.
Because she believed him.
And that was the scariest part of all.