Chapter 2 A Name That Still Hurts

Damien Westwood stood in front of the bar, drink untouched, eyes fixed on the elevator that had just swallowed Aria whole.

She hadn't changed.

Not in the ways that mattered.

Her presence still moved something inside him he couldn't name. It always had. There were a thousand things he could say about her-her beauty, her grace, the fire in her spirit-but what shook him most tonight wasn't how stunning she looked in that green dress. It was the way she walked away.

Again.

It had been three years since the divorce. Three long, grueling years of building empires and breaking records, of silencing boardrooms and buying out companies like breathing. But none of it-not the money, not the women, not the distractions-ever touched the space she had left behind.

Because Aria wasn't a memory.

She was a scar.

"Another scotch?" the bartender asked.

Damien blinked, glancing down at his full glass. "No. I'm good."

He turned away from the crowd, ignoring the people who were waiting to congratulate him. The event had gone exactly as planned-on the outside. The right partnerships, the right donations, the perfect performance.

But inside, everything felt like static.

He hadn't expected her to show up.

A part of him-God help him-had hoped. But seeing her again had shaken something loose. He'd watched her from across the room, quietly marveling at how she managed to look so strong... and so far away.

He knew that look.

It was the same one she wore the night she left him.

He hadn't chased her then. Not the way he should have. Pride. Pain. Misunderstandings layered like bricks in a wall that neither of them had the strength to tear down. And by the time the silence between them had turned to stone, it had been too late.

He hadn't been ready then.

But he was now.

Damien pulled out his phone, checking the gallery's portfolio-again. Aria's name wasn't on the ownership, but he knew she was behind it. She wasn't the kind of woman who liked attention. She was the kind who built quietly, loved deeply, and left when she was broken enough.

He had broken her.

And still, a part of him believed he was the only one who could fix it.

"You look like you saw a ghost," a familiar voice said behind him.

Damien turned to see Travis Lane, his oldest friend and sometimes worst influence, sipping whiskey with a knowing look.

"She's not a ghost," Damien said quietly.

"She looked like one-to you, at least. Pale face, haunted eyes." Travis raised an eyebrow. "Why'd you give that speech?"

Damien didn't answer.

"You were supposed to keep it clean. Make the big announcement, push the press release. Not... whatever that was."

"It was honest."

Travis smirked. "Which is exactly why it scared the hell out of her."

Damien didn't flinch. "I need to see her."

Travis coughed into his drink. "You do realize this isn't a rom-com, right? You don't just see her and get to rewrite the past."

"I'm not trying to rewrite it," Damien said, his voice low. "I'm trying to understand what I broke so I don't ruin it again."

"Assuming she'll even talk to you."

"She will."

"You sure?"

Damien's jaw tightened. "No. But I have to try."

-

Outside, Aria wrapped her coat tighter around her as she walked down the block from the venue, heels clicking against the pavement in time with her heartbeat. She needed air. Space. Anything but Damien's voice replaying in her head.

She should've known he'd make a scene. He was never one for subtlety, especially not when it came to things that mattered.

And she had mattered.

That was the problem.

Because when Damien Westwood decided something mattered, he buried himself in it until it collapsed under the weight of his control.

She had loved him so much it hurt. Had believed in the man beneath the suits and the legacy and the billion-dollar ambition. She had believed he saw her, cherished her, valued her.

Until the long nights. The boardroom calls at 3 AM. The missed dinners. The canceled vacations. The way she slowly disappeared in the shadow of the man she married.

Until one day, she realized she didn't recognize herself in the mirror anymore.

And when she finally said the words-I'm not happy, Damien-he had said nothing at all.

She had packed her things in silence. He hadn't stopped her. He hadn't begged. He hadn't even asked her why.

That was the part that still hurt the most.

Not the end.

The silence.

And now? Now he gives a speech about "truth" and "loss" like some poetic martyr, while she's spent the last three years trying to breathe again.

Aria reached the corner, paused beneath the soft glow of a streetlamp, and felt a familiar burn in her chest.

Regret?

Longing?

She hated that she couldn't name it.

"Aria."

The voice froze her.

She didn't need to turn around to know.

But she did anyway.

Damien stood there, coat unbuttoned, shirt collar loose, his eyes searching her face like he was still trying to remember every line.

"What do you want?" she asked softly.

"To talk."

"You had three years to talk."

"I know."

She blinked, forcing herself to look at him with the steel she had spent years learning to wear. "Why now?"

He took a step forward. "Because I haven't said the things I should've said. Because I never stopped thinking about you. And because I saw you tonight, and for the first time in three years, I didn't want to leave things the way they were."

Her heart raced. Her pulse thrummed with every memory she had tried to bury.

But her voice stayed calm.

"I'm not the same woman you married, Damien."

He nodded. "Good. Because I'm not the same man."

Another pause.

Another silence between them.

But this time... it felt different.

Tentative.

Unspoken.

Hopeful?

Aria looked away first. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be."

"I won't," he said, quietly. "But I will make it honest."

She shook her head. "Honesty was never our problem. It was what we did with it."

She turned, walking away before her feet could betray her again. She didn't look back.

But Damien did.

And in that moment, beneath the hum of the city and the sting of everything unsaid, a second chance quietly took its first breath.