"This is my boss, Damon Vane," I said quickly, before Damon could say something insane like I'm hers.
Damon stepped forward and extended his hand to Jaxon's mom, polite, perfect, rich. "Mrs. Cole, I'm taking care of Ariadne, she works for me now, and I wanted to make sure Jaxon has the best care, my doctor will follow up tomorrow."
Mrs. Cole blinked, overwhelmed by the suit, the watch, the voice.
Jaxon didn't shake his hand. He looked at me, over his mom's shoulder, his blue eyes pleading.
"Can we talk, alone, Ari, please, just two minutes," he said.
I looked at Damon, instinctively asking permission, and I hated myself for it.
Damon's lips pressed into a thin line, but he nodded once, sharp. "Two minutes, then we leave, Ariadne has had a long day."
Jaxon pulled me around the corner, into the empty hallway that smelled like sweat and ice, and pressed his forehead against mine, his hands holding my face like he was trying to memorize me.
"Ari, come home, please, you don't have to stay in that house, you can stay with me and my mom, we have a couch, we have food, you don't need his money," he whispered, desperate, his nose bleeding a little again through the tape.
"Jaxon, your mom can barely pay rent, I can't..."
"I love you," he said suddenly, loud, raw, like it tore out of him. "I love you, Ariadne, I have loved you since we were ten and you stole my pudding and said it was yours now, I love you and I have been too scared to say it because I thought we had time, and now he comes and he buys you and I can't compete with that."
My heart stopped. He had never said it like that, never so clear, never so broken.
"Jaxon..."
"I know you feel something for him, I saw it on the ice, the way you let him hold you, but tell me you don't love him, tell me it's just money and fear and I'll fight for you, I'll fight him, I'll fight the whole world," he said, his voice shaking.
I was crying again, because Jaxon's love was safe and warm and had waited ten years patiently, and Damon's obsession was dark and terrifying and had searched ten years obsessively, and I was just a girl who had never been loved out loud before and now two men were screaming it at me in different languages.
"I don't know what I feel, Jaxon, I swear I don't know, I just know I'm scared," I whispered honestly.
He closed his eyes, hurt, then kissed my forehead, long, lingering, like a goodbye.
"Then be scared with me, not with him," he whispered.
A shadow fell over us.
Damon was there, in the hallway, hands still in pockets, but his whole body was tense, like a predator about to snap.
"Time's up, Cole," he said, his voice ice. "My doctor says you have a concussion and should not be stressing my assistant."
Jaxon stepped in front of me, protective to the last second, even bleeding.
"She's not your assistant, she's a person, and she was mine long before she was ever yours," Jaxon said.
Damon looked at Jaxon, then at me crying behind him, and smiled, slow, dark, absolute.
"She was never yours, Jaxon," he said quietly. "She was always mine. You were just keeping her warm until I found her."
He reached past Jaxon, took my hand, gentle but unbreakable, and pulled me away from Jaxon, away from the hallway that smelled like our childhood, toward the exit where his black car waited with the door already open.
I looked back once.
Jaxon stood there alone, blood on his face, my bloody smear still on my sleeve, watching me leave with another man.
And Damon tightened his grip on my hand like he would never let go.
Damon didn't let go of my hand the whole way to the car, even when I tried to pull away to wipe my tears, even when the photographers that always hang around the arena started flashing because Damon Vane never goes to college hockey games.
He opened the back door and I slid in, angry, crying, his coat now completely ruined with my tears and Jaxon's blood.
He got in beside me and told the driver, "Home, fast."
The car pulled away from the arena, from Jaxon standing in that hallway, and I stared out the window so I wouldn't have to look at Damon.
"You didn't have to be cruel to him," I said, my voice small, hoarse from screaming Jaxon's name.
"I wasn't cruel, I was honest, he needed to hear it," Damon said, his voice tight, controlled, but I could see his hands clenched on his knees, his knuckles white.
"You said I was never his, you don't get to decide that, you don't get to decide who I belonged to before you," I snapped, turning to face him, furious now, not just sad.
His grey eyes flashed, dark, hurt, obsessed.
"You think I don't know that you love him?" he said, sudden, raw, like he had been holding it all night. "You think I didn't see you run onto that ice in those stupid little sneakers that could have broken your ankle, you think I didn't see you hug him like he is your home? I saw, Ariadne, I saw everything and it killed me."
I stared, shocked, because Damon never admits he's hurt, he only admits he wants.
"He is my best friend, Damon, he has been my family since I had no family, you can't just erase that because you bought my debts," I said, softer now.
"I don't want to erase him, I want to erase the way you look at him," he said, and reached over, his hand finding my face, his thumb catching a tear that wouldn't stop. "I want you to look at me like that, like I'm the only one who can save you."
"But you don't save me, Damon, you trap me, you buy my apartment, you get me fired, you pay my bills, you make it so I have to need you," I whispered, and that was the truth I had been too scared to say out loud.
He went still, his hand frozen on my cheek, his eyes searching mine.
"Is that what you think, that I want you helpless?" he asked, quiet.