The water still clung to the tiles, warm and silent, as if refusing to let go of the intimacy that had just happened.
Damian stood still for a moment, fingers lingering on her skin, eyes fixed on the scar that seemed almost alive.
He shouldn't touch it.
He shouldn't even look at it. And yet he leaned forward and pressed his lips along that mark as if he could erase it from her body, from her memory.
A gesture too human. Too real.
You're losing yourself, Damian, he thought. You're letting her in.
He couldn't tell where the lie ended and where the truth began anymore.
He had sworn not to feel anything, she was only a tool, a way to break Leo, to shatter his heart like Leo had shattered his. But that warm skin under his mouth was rewriting something inside him he thought was long dead.
Naiara stiffened. Her body, moments before soft and surrendered, closed like a fist.
A touch. A memory. A man who had once hurt her. She stepped back, clutching a towel around herself.
Her stare was sharp, wounded, and for a moment Damian felt exposed, as if this woman had seen more of him than anyone ever had.
"I have to go," he said at last, voice rough, almost breaking.
He stood, grabbed his shirt without buttoning it, and left.
The door shut with a low, decisive thud.
Naiara stood frozen, surrounded by fading steam. She listened to his footsteps disappear down the corridor, then silence.
Only her heartbeat remained, frantic and stubborn.
She touched her chest.
What just happened? It wasn't fear, not fully.
Something else had slipped under her skin, warm and fragile, and had left a tremor behind.
Her fingers brushed the scar, the line Damian, or Leo as she still believed, had kissed with such reverence.
No one had ever touched her there.
That kiss felt like a confession. Yet he had fled.
Maybe I'm losing him, she thought. Or maybe I never had him at all.
She fell back onto the bed, still damp, and closed her eyes. She saw his gaze, those storm–colored eyes, the low voice that felt like an old memory. And in a whisper she couldn't stop, she wondered: Why do I feel like I love you, when I don't even know who you are?
Outside, Damian ran a hand over his face.
His reflection in the glass was a stranger's.
He had Leo's eyes, Leo's body, Leo's blood.
But something inside him had shifted.
Every time he looked at her, a crack opened and ice couldn't seal it fast enough.
His phone vibrated. A number he knew too well.
"Damian."
His boss's voice, slick and absolute.
"I hope the merchandise is in good condition."
"The… merchandise?" Damian's jaw clenched.
"The girl," the man continued. "Take care of her. In a week you'll deliver her for the exchange. I'll send the place and time."
Damian's blood froze.
"Exchange? What kind?"
"Money, of course." A short, cold laugh. "Did you really think her father just wanted to keep her safe? Miguel is selling her. For a price you can't imagine. But he moved too slowly. Now she's mine. And once I'm done, he'll have nothing left to sell."
Silence weighed between them.
"And if anyone finds out you hesitate, or that your brother knows anything, you know the consequences."
Click. Call ended.
Damian stayed still, phone clenched, staring at nothing. For a moment the sea beneath him seemed to whisper that there was no turning back.
He hadn't known.
He hadn't known she would be sold.
He had thought this was punishment, a twisted revenge, a game of power. But now… now it was her life.
Her.
His hands shook. He dropped onto a small sofa, head falling into his palms.
His heart hammered: alive, inconvenient, disobedient.
It's just a job, he told himself. But the lie tasted bitter.
He saw her eyes again: brave, terrified, shining with a strength so fierce it burned.
A girl who had survived pain and still stood tall enough to look her monster in the eye.
And in that picture, Damian felt something that scared him more than any enemy:
the urge to protect her.
The monster inside him snarled.
His boss's voice echoed like iron chains. And above it all, the name of the brother he hated burned like acid.
Leo.
I won't give her up. Not to him. Not to anyone. But even that thought terrified him, because he didn't know anymore if he wanted to save her for her sake… or for his own.