Chapter 10 - What Money Could Never Buy
Damian stood up from his chair, walked around the long mahogany table, and stood beside Maya near the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Below them, the city of Chicago stretched out in every direction—a vast grid of steel, concrete, glass, and lake water, bustling with millions of lives rushing toward their destinations.
“It’s a long way from 47th Street,” Maya said quietly, looking down at the tiny cars moving along the avenue below.
“It’s just glass and steel, Maya,” Damian said softly, standing close enough that he could feel the faint warmth of her shoulder against his arm. “This building cost two hundred million dollars to construct. But for six years, it was just a very expensive prison.”
Maya turned her head to look up at him. Her light brown eyes were clear, bright, and utterly fearless.
“And now?” she asked.
Damian reached out his hand—not with a contract, not with a checkbook, not with a grand gift meant to impress or obligate—and laid his fingers gently over hers.
Maya didn't pull away. She interlaced her fingers with his, holding his hand with a firm, warm grip that anchored him to the present moment.
“Now,” Damian whispered, a real, genuine smile breaking across his face—the first true smile he had felt in six long years, “I know the difference between what a man can buy... and what he has to be worthy of receiving.”
He leaned down and kissed her softly on the cheek, right at the corner of her smile, where the warm sunlight hit her face.
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Out on the street four hundred feet below, the city rushed on in its endless, noisy hurry. But high above the noise, in a quiet room overlooking the lake, the billionaire who had lost his faith in humanity had finally found the one thing his money could never have bought:
A love that was given simply because he was loved.
