Chapter 9: The Penthouse
The elevator opens straight into the living room, and Bella's breath catches loud enough for me to hear.
Floor to ceiling windows wrap the entire penthouse. The city spreads out below us like someone spilled diamonds across black velvet. It's dusk now, the skyline just starting to glow.
She steps out slowly, barefoot on the heated marble, duffel still hanging from her shoulder like she forgot it's there.
"This… is yours?" she asks, voice barely above a whisper.
"Ours," I correct.
She turns in a slow circle, taking it all in. The seventy foot living room, the floating staircase, the kitchen bigger than her old house. Everything is sleek lines and warm woods, quiet luxury that doesn't scream money, just states it like fact.
I watch her face the whole time. The awe. The disbelief. The tiny flicker of fear that this might still be a dream she's about to wake up from.
I drop my keys into the bowl by the door, solid onyx, custom, and shrug out of the suit jacket.
"You hungry?" I ask.
She shakes her head, still staring out at the view. "I don't think I could eat right now."
Fair.
I walk over and stand behind her, hands settling on her shoulders. She leans back into me without thinking, the same way she did in that tiny bedroom just last night.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
"You okay?" I ask against her hair.
She's quiet for a long second.
"I keep waiting to wake up," she says finally. "Or for someone to tell me this is a mistake. That you got the wrong girl."
I turn her around gently so she's facing me.
"Look at me."
She does. Those big dark eyes still red rimmed from crying, but steady now.
"I have spent five years," I say, slow and deliberate, "wanting nothing but to give you this exact life. The one where you never have to pull another double shift. Where nobody talks to you like you're less. Where you get to breathe, Bella. Really breathe."
Her lip trembles.
"I don't know how to be this version of me," she whispers. "The one who belongs in a place like this."
"You don't have to know yet." I brush my thumb across her cheek. "We'll figure it out together. One day at a time."
She nods, then surprises me by laughing, wet, shaky, real.
"My mom is probably losing her mind right now," she says. "Sophia too. They're going to be calling any second."
"Let them." I pull my phone out, power it off completely, and toss it onto the couch. "Today is ours."
She watches it land, then looks up at me.
"What happens tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow we get you a ring that actually means something. Then we burn that old courthouse certificate and do it right."
Her eyes go wide. "Damian…"
"I'm not asking yet," I say, smiling a little. "You deserve the full production. Down on one knee, ridiculous diamond, string quartet, the whole thing. But I'm telling you it's happening. Soon."
She bites her lip, cheeks flushing.
I lean in and kiss her, soft, slow, until some of the tension melts out of her shoulders.
When we pull apart, she's smiling for real.
"Show me the rest?" she asks.
So I do.
The kitchen with the hidden coffee bar she immediately falls in love with. The terrace with the infinity pool that glows turquoise against the night sky. The library, two stories, rolling ladder, fireplace big enough to stand in. She runs her fingers along the leather spines like she's afraid to touch.
The master bedroom makes her stop dead in the doorway.
The bed is massive, low, dressed in white linen. One wall is all windows. Another is a living garden, real plants climbing twenty feet high, lit soft and warm.
She walks straight to the glass and looks down at the city far below.
"I used to dream about views like this," she says quietly. "When I was pulling night shifts and everything hurt. I'd imagine standing somewhere high enough that all the noise just… disappeared."
I come up behind her again, arms around her waist.
"Noise is gone now," I murmur.
She turns in my arms, rises on her toes, and kisses me, deeper this time, hungrier. Her hands slide up my chest, fingers working my shirt buttons like she's done it a thousand times instead of this being only our second day.
I back her toward the bed, never breaking the kiss.
We don't make it to dinner.
Hours later, we're tangled in the sheets, city lights painting soft patterns across her skin. She's half asleep on my chest, fingers tracing lazy circles over my heart.
"Damian?" she murmurs.
"Yeah, baby?"
"I don't want to be the girl who just… lives off you."
I press a kiss to her forehead. "Then don't be. Build whatever you want. Finish your nursing degree. Open a clinic. Start a foundation. Hell, buy a hospital and run it yourself. Money's not the cage anymore. It's the key."
She's quiet for a long time.
"I think," she says finally, voice soft but sure, "I want to help kids who grew up like I did. Scared of the next bill, watching their parents choose between medicine and food. I want them to have a place that feels safe."
My arms tighten around her.
"Then we'll build it," I tell her. "Biggest pediatric wing in the state. Your name on the building."
She lifts her head, eyes shining. "You'd do that?"
"I'd give you the damn moon if you asked for it."
She kisses me again, slow, sweet, full of everything we haven't said yet.
When she settles back against my chest, her voice is barely a breath.
"I love you, Damian Lockwood."
I close my eyes, let the words settle into every crack those five years left in me.
"I loved you first," I whisper into her hair. "And I'm never stopping."
Outside, the city keeps moving.
Inside, for the first time in years, I sleep with nothing to hide.