Updated Oct 25, 2025 • ~11 min read
Damon Cross was everywhere.
Not physically—though that would have been easier to deal with. Instead, he existed in the periphery of Sienna’s life like a ghost she couldn’t exorcise. A text when she left the office late. A delivered lunch when she skipped breakfast. His car idling outside her apartment building at odd hours.
He was watching her.
And the most terrifying part? Some broken piece of her felt safer because of it.
“This is harassment,” Bianca declared, staring at the latest delivery—expensive prenatal vitamins left at Sienna’s desk with no note. “He’s literally stalking you.”
“He’s being careful,” Sienna corrected, turning the bottle over in her hands. “These are the exact brand my doctor recommended. How does he even know that?”
“Because he’s a psychopath with unlimited resources?” Bianca grabbed the vitamins, shoved them in a drawer. “Sienna, this is escalating. He confronted you at your engagement party, he’s tracking your movements, he’s sending you pregnancy supplements—”
“Allegedly sending.”
“Who else would it be? Lucas doesn’t know you’re pregnant, and I sure as hell didn’t buy those.” Bianca’s expression softened. “You need to tell Lucas. Before Damon does it for you.”
“He won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
Sienna wasn’t sure. That was the problem. Damon operated on his own moral code, and she had no idea what his endgame was. But every interaction suggested he wanted something from her—acknowledgment, maybe. Admission.
Surrender.
“I need more time,” she said finally.
“You’re almost fourteen weeks. You’re running out of time.”
“I know.”
But knowing and acting were different things, and Sienna had become an expert at compartmentalization. Work during the day, wedding planning with Lucas at night, and Damon—Damon occupied the spaces in between, the moments when she let her guard down.
Like Tuesday afternoon when she’d felt dizzy in the parking garage and found herself leaning against her car, breathing through waves of nausea.
A hand had steadied her elbow. “Easy.”
She’d known without looking. “How long have you been following me?”
“Long enough to know you haven’t eaten since breakfast.” Damon had pressed a protein bar into her hand—the kind she liked, naturally. “Eat. You’re feeding two now.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Why? Because it makes it real?” He’d stepped into her space, backing her against the car. “It’s already real, Sienna. That baby exists whether you admit it or not.”
“Even if I were pregnant—which I’m not confirming—it wouldn’t be your concern.”
“Tell me to leave.” His voice had dropped, intimate and dangerous. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me here, and I’ll go.”
She’d opened her mouth to do exactly that.
Nothing came out.
Because the truth—the terrible, complicated truth—was that she did want him there. Wanted his steadying hand, his infuriating concern, the way he looked at her like she was the most important problem he’d ever tried to solve.
“That’s what I thought,” he’d murmured, and walked away before she could find her voice.
Now, three days later, she was still thinking about that moment. About the space between what she should want and what she actually wanted.
Her phone buzzed. Lucas: Dinner at my place? I’m cooking.
She smiled despite herself. Lucas was trying so hard—cooking elaborate meals, planning their future, talking about honeymoon destinations like they had all the time in the world.
She texted back: Perfect. Need me to bring anything?
Just yourself. Love you.
Love you too.
The lie came easier each time. Or maybe she was just getting better at believing it.
Lucas’s apartment smelled like garlic and ambition when she arrived. He greeted her with a kiss and a glass of sparkling water—he’d stopped offering wine without her having to refuse, which was both sweet and terrifying.
“You look exhausted,” he said, guiding her to the couch. “Rough day?”
“Just busy. The new division is kicking my ass.”
“In a good way?”
“In a good way,” she confirmed. Working for Lucas had been the right choice professionally—the projects were challenging, her team was solid, and she finally had the autonomy she’d been craving. It was almost enough to make her forget the foundation of lies it was built on.
Almost.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lucas said, settling beside her. “About the wedding timeline.”
Her stomach tightened. “Yeah?”
“I know we said spring, but what if we moved it up? Maybe December? I know it’s only four months away, but—” He took her hand. “I don’t want to wait. We could do something small, intimate. Just family and close friends.”
December. She’d be almost seven months pregnant by then.
Showing, obviously pregnant, unable to hide behind strategic clothing and careful angles.
“That’s really fast,” she managed.
“Too fast?”
“No, just—” Think, Sienna. “My mother would kill me if we didn’t give her time to plan properly. You know how she is.”
“We could elope.”
“Lucas—”
“I’m serious.” His eyes were bright with the idea. “Vegas, or somewhere tropical. Just us, no pressure, no expectations. What do you think?”
She thought she was drowning. Thought the walls were closing in. Thought she needed to tell him the truth before this went any further.
“Can I think about it?” she asked.
Something flickered in his expression—hurt, maybe, or confusion. But he smiled anyway. “Of course. No pressure. I just—I want you to be my wife, Sienna. The sooner, the better.”
“I know. I want that too.” Another lie to add to the collection. “Just let me wrap my head around the timeline.”
They ate dinner—pasta that Lucas had definitely burned slightly but was trying to play off as “rustic”—and talked about safe topics: work, his mother’s increasing wedding interference, the new restaurant opening downtown.
Normal couple things.
Except nothing about this was normal.
Sienna’s phone buzzed during dessert. A text from an unknown number: You look tired. Are you sleeping?
Her blood ran cold.
“Everything okay?” Lucas asked.
“Fine. Just work.” She silenced her phone, but her mind was racing.
How did Damon know she looked tired? Was he outside right now? Watching Lucas’s building?
The thought should have terrified her.
Instead, it sent a treacherous warmth through her chest.
She left Lucas’s place around ten, citing early morning meetings. He’d wanted her to stay—had given her the same hopeful look he always did—but she’d pleaded exhaustion and escaped into the night.
Her car was parked two blocks away in a public garage. The walk should have taken three minutes.
She made it halfway before she saw him.
Damon, leaning against a streetlight like he’d been waiting. Which he probably had.
“Are you kidding me right now?” She didn’t slow down. “This is next-level creepy, even for you.”
He fell into step beside her. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“Your penthouse is on the other side of the city.”
“Then I came out of my way. Sue me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and in the streetlight, he looked younger, less certain. “You didn’t answer my text.”
“Because you’re not entitled to updates on my sleep schedule.”
“I’m entitled to know if you’re taking care of yourself. And our baby.”
“There is no ‘our baby.’ There’s no baby at all.” But the denial sounded weak even to her ears.
They reached the garage. She expected him to leave, to have made his point and disappear back into the shadows.
Instead, he followed her inside.
“Damon—”
“Just let me walk you to your car. It’s late.”
“I’ve been walking to my car alone for years.”
“And now you don’t have to.” His voice was firm. “Humor me.”
She was too tired to fight. Too tired to pretend she didn’t feel marginally safer with him there, even though he was part of the problem.
They walked in silence through the concrete maze of the parking garage. Her car was on the third level, tucked between an SUV and a pillar.
She hit the unlock button, reached for the door handle.
Damon’s hand covered hers.
“What are you doing?” she asked, but didn’t pull away.
“Making sure you’re okay.” His thumb traced circles on her knuckles. “You’re running yourself into the ground, Sienna. Working twelve-hour days, planning a wedding you don’t want, lying to my brother—”
“I’m not lying—”
“Stop.” He turned her to face him, and in the harsh garage lighting, his expression was raw. “Just for one second, stop lying. To me, to yourself. Stop.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I stop, if I admit what this really is—” Her voice cracked. “Everything falls apart. My job, my engagement, my entire future. I can’t afford the truth, Damon.”
“Even if the truth is that you’re pregnant with my child?”
The words hung between them, impossible to take back.
“Even then,” she whispered.
He stepped closer, crowding her against the car. “And what if I can’t let you do this? What if I can’t stand by and watch you marry my brother while carrying my baby?”
“Then what’s your alternative? Blow up both our lives? Destroy Lucas? Force me into some arrangement because of one night that never should have happened?”
“Maybe.” His hand came up to her face, cupping her jaw with devastating gentleness. “Or maybe I just want you to admit that it meant something. That I’m not crazy for thinking about it every goddamn day.”
Her breath caught. “Damon—”
“Tell me you don’t think about it. About that night, about us. Tell me Lucas makes you feel even a fraction of what I did, and I’ll walk away. I’ll let you marry him, raise my child as his, and I’ll never interfere again.”
It was a trap. She knew it was a trap.
But looking up at Damon—at the raw vulnerability in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders, the way he was barely holding himself together—she couldn’t lie.
“I think about it,” she admitted. “Every day. Every time Lucas touches me, every time I plan another detail of a wedding I don’t want, every time I look at my reflection and see what we created.” Her eyes burned. “But thinking about it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make this situation less impossible.”
“It changes everything.” He leaned in, forehead resting against hers. “Because it means I’m not alone in this.”
“We can’t do this.”
“I know.”
“I’m engaged to your brother.”
“I know.”
“I’m pregnant with your—” She caught herself, but it was too late.
His eyes flashed with triumph. “Say it. For once, just say it.”
“With your baby,” she finished, the admission tearing out of her. “I’m pregnant with your baby, and it’s destroying me.”
The confession hung between them, terrible and true.
“Good,” Damon said. “Because it’s destroying me too.”
He kissed her then—not like that night in his penthouse, all heat and desperation. This was slower, sadder, a kiss that tasted like surrender and regret.
She should have pushed him away. Should have slapped him, screamed, done anything but kiss him back.
Instead, she melted into it, let herself have this one moment of honesty in an ocean of lies.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, reality crashed back in.
“I need to go,” she said.
“Sienna—”
“Please. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
She got in her car before he could respond, before she could do something even more catastrophically stupid.
But as she drove away, checking her rearview mirror, she saw him standing in the garage, hands in his pockets, watching her leave.
And when she pulled into her own building’s parking lot twenty minutes later, she found a bag hanging on her door handle.
Inside: a pregnancy pillow, decaf coffee, and a note in sharp, masculine handwriting.
I’m not going anywhere. —D
She carried the bag inside and cried for the first time since seeing those two pink lines.
That night, she fell asleep with Damon’s note clutched in her hand and Lucas’s ring heavy on her finger, caught between two impossible choices.
She found him waiting outside her building at midnight, leaning against his car, and she knew—whatever happened next, Damon Cross was done watching from the shadows.
The war for the truth had officially begun.
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