Chapter 34
Damien pov
There was a long pause, and I could hear her moving around, I could hear Noah making soft sounds in the background. “I’m home now p>
“I know,” I said as I pulled onto her street and found a parking spot. “I’m outside your building p>
“What?” I heard her footsteps quickening, moving toward what I assumed was a window. “Where p>
“Black Mercedes, the one I’m flashing the lights on right now.” I did just that. “Directly across the street from your building p>
I saw her appear at the window, Noah balanced on her hip, and she stared down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read from this distance.
“Come up,” she said finally, her voice quiet but firm. “We need to talk about this p>
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” I asked as I got out of the car, my heart pounding harder than it had any right to.
“No,” she admitted, and I saw her step away from the window. “But come up anyway. Third floor, apartment 3B p>
She hung up without waiting for my response.
I stood on the street for a moment, looking up at her building, at the light glowing in what must be her window. This was it, the chance I’d been hoping for without really believing it would come. Maybe my only opportunity to make things right, or at least to start trying to make them right.
I couldn’t afford to screw it up.
My hand trembled slightly as I pocketed my phone—a tremor I hadn’t experienced since I was a child facing my father’s cold disappointment. Damien Blackwood didn’t tremble. Damien Blackwood didn’t feel nervous or uncertain. Except apparently, he did. When it came to facing the family he’d destroyed.
I walked to her building and climbed the stairs slowly, giving myself time to think about what I needed to say, how I needed to say it. But with each step, my carefully prepared words dissolved into noise. What could I possibly say that would matter? “I’m sorry” was laughable. “I was manipulated” was an excuse, not an explanation. “I’ve changed” would mean nothing to a woman who’d watched me be cruel with perfect clarity and intention.
The truth was simpler and more damning: I’d been a coward. When Aria had started to matter to me, when I’d caught myself noticing the way she tucked her hair behind her ear while reading, or how her eyes lit up during the rare moments I’d actually spoken to her about something meaningful, I’d panicked. Caring meant vulnerability. Vulnerability meant weakness. And weakness was something Richard Blackwood had beaten out of his son years ago.
So I’d pushed her away, maintained my distance, and when Vivian and Charles had given me an excuse to cut her out completely, I’d taken it. Not because I’d believed their lies—not entirely—but because believing them had been easier than admitting I was terrified of how she made me feel.
And now I was about to face the consequences of that cowardice.
When I reached the third floor and stood outside apartment 3B, I raised my hand to knock. My heart hammered against my ribs. Behind that door was my son—a child who didn’t know me, who I’d rejected before he was even born. A boy who was three years old and had never heard his father’s voice, never felt his father’s arms around him.
What kind of man does that to his own child?
The answer stared back at me from my reflection in the peephole: the kind of man who’d become exactly what his father had shaped him to be. Cold. Calculating. Emotionally dead.
But I wasn’t that man anymore. Or at least, I was trying not to be.
I had to try. For Noah. For Aria. For the family I’d thrown away and spent three years desperately trying to find again.
The door opened before I could, and Aria stood there with Noah on her hip, both of them watching me with identical wary expressions that made my chest tighten painfully.
Time seemed to stop.
I’d seen Noah before. But nothing had prepared me for this. For seeing him up close. For the reality of my son, solid and real and impossibly perfect, staring at me with eyes that were mirrors of my own.
His hair was dark and messy, sticking up in impossible directions despite what looked like Aria’s attempts to tame it. He had her nose, her elegant bone structure, but those eyes—ice blue and piercing—were undeniably Blackwood. On him, though, they weren’t cold. They were curious, bright, alive with the kind of openness I’d lost decades ago.
You,” Noah said, his eyes widening with recognition. “You’re the man from school! The one with the strong name p>
My throat tightened. He remembered me. From one brief conversation at the playground, he remembered.
“Hi, Noah,” I managed, my voice rougher than I’d intended.
“Did you come to play?” He squirmed in Aria’s arms, trying to get down. “Mama said we couldn’t do the relay races, but maybe we can race here! I’m really fast p>
“Noah, baby, no.” Aria’s grip tightened on him. Her eyes met mine, and the warning in them was clear. Don’t you dare hurt him again.
But Noah was already wiggling free, dropping to the floor with the boundless energy only three-year-olds possessed. He stood between us, looking from his mother to me with an expression far too perceptive for his age.
“Are you here to make Mama sad?” he asked suddenly, his small face serious. “Because she was sad after we saw you at school. She cried in the car p>
The words hit me like a punch. She’d cried. Because of me. Again.
“No,” I said, crouching down to his level, needing him to see the truth in my face. “I never want to make your mama sad. I came to… to keep you both safe p>
“From what?” Noah tilted his head, curious.
“From bad people,” I said carefully. “People who might want to hurt you because of who I am p>
“Are you a superhero?” His eyes lit up. “Do you fight bad guys p>
Despite everything—the tension, the pain, the impossible situation—I felt my lips twitch. “Not exactly p>
“Oh.” He considered this. “That’s okay. Superheroes pretend anyway. Mama says real heroes are people who keep their promises and take care of people they love p>
The innocence of the statement destroyed me. By Aria’s definition, I was no hero. I’d broken every promise, abandoned everyone I should have cared for.
“Your mama is right,” I said quietly. “She usually is p>
Noah studied me for another moment, then apparently decided I passed some internal test. “Do you want to see my room? I have glow stars on my ceiling. They’re really cool p>
“Noah” Aria started.
“Please, Mama?” He turned to her with pleading eyes. “Just for a minute? I want to show him my drawing of the spaceship p>
I watched Aria struggle with the decision, and saw the conflict play across her face. Finally, she nodded, but her eyes stayed on me.
“Just for a minute,” she said. “Then Damien and I need to talk. Grown-up talk p>
“Okay!” Noah grabbed my hand—his small fingers wrapping around two of mine—and tugged. “Come on! It’s this way p>
The feeling of his hand in mine, the trust in that simple gesture, nearly broke me. This was my son. My child. And he was leading me into his room, excited to show me his drawings, completely unaware that I was the man who’d almost prevented his existence.
“Come in,” she said quietly, stepping back to give me room. “But Damien? If you hurt him, if you hurt us again, I will destroy you. Not with revenge plots or lawyers or any of that. I’ll make sure you never see Noah again, ever, for the rest of your life. Do you understand what I’m saying p>
“I understand,” I said, meeting her eyes and letting her see that I meant it. “And I promise you, in my life and everything I have, I won’t hurt either of you again p>
She stepped aside and let me in, and for the first time in three years, I found myself standing in the same room as my son in a space that wasn’t neutral ground like a playground or a parking lot.
Noah’s room was an explosion of color and chaos—toys scattered across the floor, books stacked haphazardly on shelves, and yes, glow-in-the-dark stars covering every inch of the ceiling in no particular pattern.
“See?” Noah pointed upward proudly. “Mama and I put them up together. That’s the Big Dipper, and that’s… um… I forget the name. But it’s really pretty at night p>
“It’s beautiful,” I said, my voice thick. On the small desk sat dozens of drawings—rockets, planets, stick figures labeled “me and mama p>
“This is my spaceship!” Noah grabbed a crayon-covered paper, showing me a colorful mess of circles and lines. “It goes to the moon and Mars and everywhere. Do you like space p>
“I do now,” I whispered.
“When it’s dark, the stars glow and it’s like magic and” Noah’s excited chatter stopped abruptly. His small face went serious. “Why are you crying p>
I hadn’t realized I was. I reached up, feeling the wetness on my cheeks.
Before I could answer, Aria’s voice cut through from the doorway, cold and sharp.
“Noah, sweetheart, go wash up for dinner. Now p>