She Kissed a Stranger to Save His Life, Then Learned the Entire City Was Afraid to Say His Name

Two nights after the gala, the city was plunged into an unseasonable freeze.

The security detail Damian had placed outside Bennett Blooms had become part of Harper's daily reality. Two black SUVs sat across the street around the clock, their engines idling quietly, their dark-suited occupants politely nodding whenever Harper carried out empty cardboard boxes.

At nine o'clock on Thursday evening, Harper was alone in the back workroom of the shop.

The heat in the old building was rattling through the radiator pipes, filling the room with a comforting warmth that smelled of wet moss, eucalyptus, and gardenias. Maya had gone home hours ago, but Harper couldn't sleep. The tension of the past forty-eight hours—the headlines announcing Damian Vale’s mysterious engagement, the whispered rumors sweeping the city, the heavy diamond ring currently sitting in a velvet box inside her purse—kept her awake.

She hadn't put the ring on. That felt too real. Too binding.

A soft tap sounded against the rear alley door.

Harper froze, reaching instinctively for the heavy brass shears on the table.

"Harper."

The voice through the wood was muffled, but unmistakably his.

Harper hurried over, unlocking the heavy deadbolt and pulling the door open.

Damian stood under the amber glow of the alley lamp. He wasn't wearing his tailored suits tonight. He wore dark jeans, heavy leather boots, and a black sweater beneath an unzipped leather jacket. But what made Harper’s breath catch was the paleness of his face, the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and the way his left arm was pressed tightly against his ribs.

A dark, wet stain was spreading across the fabric of his sweater.

"Damian!" Harper gasped, grabbing his good arm and pulling him inside. "You’re bleeding!"

"A minor disagreement at the shipping docks," Damian grunted through gritted teeth as she helped him onto a wooden workbench in the center of the warm greenhouse. "Thorne tried to hijack a cargo vessel. We intercepted them."

"You were shot?"

"Grazed," he corrected, his breathing shallow. "Lucas wanted to take me to our private clinic in Cherry Hill. But Thorne has eyes on the bridge. I couldn't risk leading them there."

"So you came to a flower shop?" Harper cried, frantically pulling clean towels from a shelf and running warm water into a basin. "I sell peonies, Damian! I'm not a surgeon!"

"You're safe," he whispered, leaning his head back against the glass pane behind him, his silver eyes looking at her through heavy, dark lashes. "With you... everything is quiet."

Harper stopped. The frantic rhythm of her hands slowed.

She looked at him—this terrifying monarch of the city, stripped of his guards, his weapons, and his armor, bleeding onto her potting soil.

She swallowed down her panic, set the basin on the bench, and grabbed her sharp floral shears. "Take off the jacket."

Damian hissed in pain as he shrugged out of the leather. Harper carefully used the shears to slit open the side of his black sweater, peeling the fabric away from his skin.

The wound was ugly—a deep, jagged furrow along his lower ribs where a high-caliber bullet had torn through flesh, missing his lung by inches. Blood welled up, bright and hot.

"Hold this," Harper ordered, pressing a clean, folded towel against the wound with firm pressure.

Damian’s hand clamped over hers, his grip tight enough to bruise, his jaw clenching as pain rippled through his body. "You're remarkably calm for someone who faints at gala small talk."

"I don't faint," Harper snapped, grabbing a first-aid kit she kept for deep cuts from wire and thorns, along with a bottle of high-proof rubbing alcohol. "And I don't panic when someone needs help. Now shut up. This is going to hurt."

She poured the alcohol over the wound.

Damian groaned, his head snapping back, the veins in his neck bulging as he fought not to scream. His hand gripped Harper’s waist, pulling her closer against him as an involuntary anchor against the agony.

Harper didn't flinch. Her hands, usually so delicate when arranging fragile orchid petals, worked with swift, steady precision. She cleaned the torn skin, applied antiseptic ointment, and used butterfly bandages to pull the edges of the laceration together before wrapping sterile gauze tightly around his torso.

When she finished securing the tape, her hands were covered in his blood.

She stood between his spread knees, breathing heavily, looking down at her handiwork.

"There," she murmured softly. "You're not going to bleed out on my floor."

Damian didn't release his grip on her waist. His hand moved up, his fingers splaying across her lower back, drawing her an inch closer until the heat between their bodies became unbearable.

"Why didn't you put the ring on?" he asked, his voice low, raw from pain and something far more dangerous.

Harper looked down into his gray eyes. "Because it's a lie. We're pretending."

"Is it?" Damian whispered.

His hand slid around to the nape of her neck, his thumb tracing the soft curve of her jawline.

Harper’s breath hitched. "Damian..."

"I have spent ten years surrounded by people who smile at me while praying for my death," he murmured, his thumb brushing her lower lip just as it had in the rain. "I have built an empire of concrete, steel, and terror because it was the only way to survive the men who killed my father. I thought there was nothing left inside me that couldn't be bought, traded, or killed."

He pulled her down slowly, inexorably.

"And then you ran into a dark alley," he whispered against her lips. "To save a monster."

"You're not a monster," Harper breathed, her fingers tangling into his thick, dark hair. "Just a man who forgot how to bleed."

Damian closed the remaining distance.

Unlike the desperate, frantic kiss in the rain, this kiss was slow, deliberate, and consuming.

Damian’s mouth claimed hers with a possessive tenderness that shattered the last remnants of Harper’s defenses. A soft moan escaped her throat as she melted against him, her hands gripping his shoulders, her body molding perfectly to the hard contours of his chest. The scents of rain, iron, cedarwood, and night-blooming jasmine swirled together in the humid warmth of the greenhouse.

When Damian finally broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, both of them were breathing hard, their hearts pounding in a shared, frantic rhythm.

"If you stay with me, Harper," Damian whispered against her skin, his voice thick with agony, "Julian Thorne will burn this city to get to you. I will protect you with every breath in my body, but I cannot promise you peace."

Harper looked into his eyes, seeing the storm within him.