Part 1
The glow of her laptop lit the darkened room as Anne leaned back against a pile of pillows, her breasts nearly falling out of her sleep tank top. She sighed, pulling up Damien’s name in the search bar of her browser. It wasn’t the first time she’d gone digging for breadcrumbs about him, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Even when she made it past the articles about the namesake linebacker or musician, there still wasn’t much. Most of the stuff was generic articles about HuGES and its clean energy initiatives—the press releases that her team wrote, product launch rundowns from tech websites. Some articles that mentioned him were simply citing one-off quotes he’d made. There was a TED Talk she’d already watched twice, and a handful of photos from various business events and check presentations. But nothing personal.
Tonight, though, her curiosity felt sharper, more urgent. She wanted to know more—needed to. Her finger hovered over the keyboard, clicking through yet another interview featuring Damien Wilson from about a year before she started. She barely noticed the ambient music playing softly from her speaker; her focus was entirely on him.
Damien appeared on the screen, poised but relaxed, answering a question about HuGES’s latest initiative with a quiet confidence that made her chest tighten. She noticed the way he gestured with his hands as he spoke—precise and intentional, his fingers tapping lightly against the table whenever he paused to think.
That tapping. She hadn’t directly noticed it before, but now it seemed so… him. It didn’t seem like a nervous habit here, but deliberate—like a grounding mechanism. She replayed the clip, not for the answer, but to watch the rhythm of his fingers again. The way he subtly adjusted his cufflink mid-sentence, his blue eyes narrowing slightly as he considered his next words, made her pulse skip.
She clicked through a few more articles until she stumbled upon another video: a five-minute clip of Damien being interviewed for a local TV station’s segment on influential leaders. She pressed play, half-interested, her eyes immediately drawn to him as the video loaded.
There it was—that subtle habit. Damien lightly tapping his abdomen. He did it again during the interview when the host asked a particularly probing question about his work-life balance—that one seemed like a nervous tap.
Anne replayed the clip twice, watching closely. So you’re human after all, Mr. Wilson, she thought with a faint smile. The realization sent an unexpected flutter through her chest.
Still, there was nothing remotely scandalous or illuminating in the interview. Her disappointment deepened when a quick browse through his LinkedIn and public Facebook profile yielded equally little. Even the comments sections were dry, save for the occasional thirsty message from strangers. She couldn’t bring herself to read more than one or two before cringing and closing the page, even though she had left a few similarly thirsty remarks of her own on any number of social media thirst traps.
Anne wasn’t proud of the compulsive “research” she was doing, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. What began as harmless curiosity spiraled into something more consuming. When she inevitably landed on his Wikipedia page, she skimmed through the familiar details: the rise of HuGES, his early entrepreneurial ventures, the high-profile keynote addresses. But a small, quirky fact buried in the “Personal Life” section caught her eye: “Damien Wilson is known for building intricate LEGO structures as a hobby.”
A soft laugh escaped her lips. She knew that he’d built them—he had all those big sets on display in his office after all. But in time they’d just become part of his scenery, and she’d never really considered the actual construction process of them. She tried picturing Damien—meticulous, put-together Damien—sitting on the floor or at a large table in pajamas, sorting colorful bricks into piles by shape and size, looking back and forth between the undoubtedly large instruction booklet that came with the complex sets, scrutinizing each step, putting it together block by block, with the same care he gave to everything else. The image was unexpectedly endearing.
It stuck with her, this newfound quirk, as she honed in on a more specific goal. She remembered what he’d said, or rather didn’t say, during their first business dinner and she wanted to know if it was the truth. Her fingers hesitated over the keys before she typed the words she’d been avoiding: Damien Wilson girlfriend.
The search results were maddeningly sparse. She told herself it was just to fill in gaps, but not-that-deep down, she knew she was lying to herself.
A few dated articles speculated he was married to his work, one cheeky op-ed crowning him “Albany’s Most Eligible Workaholic.” No hints of a partner, no scandalous photos, not even the faintest breadcrumb trail of a relationship.
Frustrated at how unfruitful her search had been, she switched back to Instagram, her thumb idly scrolling her own feed. She didn’t post much herself, so when she spotted the post from the fashion show, she paused to admire it. Her, Damien, the model, and the designer—beaming under the glitzy venue lights. She’d captioned it simply: Grateful for the opportunity to see such inspiring talent at the @StrongYoungMinds fashion show. #sustainablefashion #HuGES #StrongYoungMinds #teamwork. She hadn’t given it much thought after she’d uploaded it, but now her eyes scanned the likes out of habit. And then she saw it. “Liked by @_wilsonder_ and others.”
Her heart did a small, involuntary flip, prematurely excited. She clicked on the profile.
It was his personal account. Locked. The profile picture—a professional headshot of him in a sharp navy suit, gazing somewhere off-camera—didn’t give anything away. He had no bio, only a handful of posts she couldn’t see, fewer than a couple hundred followers and a considerably smaller number of people he followed—also unavailable to her prying eyes. But the fact that he’d liked her post with this account and not the corporate one felt… deliberate.
Anne frowned, her mind racing. Why would he use his private account? Was it a subtle signal, or just an oversight? She could feel herself spiraling, her thoughts chasing each other in frantic circles.
It felt more intentional somehow, as if he wanted her to know it was him, not the faceless corporate entity he ran. Her pulse quickened, her mind replaying every subtle smile, every lingering glance he’d sent her way. Quickly began to scroll deeper into her feed, checking every other photo of hers to see if he had left his double-tap mark on it, but the fashion show photo was the odd one out. It was the only one he’d touched.
The rational part of her knew it was probably nothing. The self-aware part told her she was insane and a victim of limerence. But another part—the part replaying his quiet chuckle as he’d poured her coffee, his warm baritone when he’d complimented her presentation skills after all of the critique—couldn’t help but wonder.
She looked back at the list of Google articles about him, and began to scroll some more. Anne’s scrolling came to a halt when a link caught her eye—one of those net worth estimate pages that popped up whenever someone googled a notable figure. She hesitated, then clicked it.
The page loaded quickly, presenting an approximation of Damien Wilson’s wealth: $405 million. The number stared back at her, bold and unapologetic.
Her stomach churned. She shouldn’t have been this surprised; he was a CEO of a global company, after all. But seeing the sheer scale of his fortune laid out in black and white made her feel… something. Something complicated.
She’d always considered herself progressive, someone who believed in the redistribution of wealth, in holding the ultra-rich accountable for the power they wielded over the rest of society. Men like Damien—hyper-wealthy, influential, able to shape entire industries, economies, and debatably even democracies with the stroke of a pen—should have been the type she loathed on principle.
And yet…
Anne closed her eyes, exhaling slowly as she tried to wrestle with the contradictions swirling in her head. Damien didn’t fit the mold. He wasn’t some cold, detached billionaire basking in ivory tower luxury, blind to the struggles of the world below, launching his personal vehicles into space. He didn’t flaunt his wealth to the extent that would have made her even consider his pockets were that deep, and from everything she’d seen and heard, he genuinely cared about his employees and the planet. He was the kind of man who stayed in Albany, who invested in the community he called home instead of chasing tax breaks in a bigger city.
But that didn’t change the fact that he lived a life of luxury she couldn’t fathom—what was certainly an impressive house, a high-end car collection, probably even a goddamn solar-powered catamaran—or twelve. She wanted to resent him for it. She wanted to scoff at the absurdity of his expensive watches, his bespoke suits and fancy shoes that were almost certainly fine Italian leather. And oh, how he looked good in those things. But hell, even his LEGO collection was probably worth thousands—she knew those big, complex sets were expensive.
But how could she when he’d been so… human?
Her mind drifted back to their interactions. He’d been patient and encouraging when she stumbled during the run-through. He’d listened, really listened, when she shared her ideas. He made her feel seen, valued, even when she was just another cog in the machine of his massive corporation.
Anne rubbed her temples, groaning softly. She hated this. Hated that she couldn’t hate him.
Her gaze flicked back to the glowing screen, to that number—$405 million. It was obscene, sure. But it didn’t define him, not entirely. And that, more than anything, was what unsettled her. Because if Damien Wilson wasn’t the caricature of a greedy billionaire she’d built up in her mind, what did that mean for her? Was she actually that malleable?
Her heart fluttered as she set her phone aside, staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not about him. Not when everything about him was untouchable, off-limits—ethically, physically, emotionally, practically. And yet, here she was, analyzing the meaning behind a single like on social media, like a smitten schoolgirl.
Her mind flashed back to that night at the fashion show, the way she’d thought his eyes had lingered just a second too long, his voice carrying a warmth that sent a shiver down her spine as he whispered in her ear. I wouldn’t have accompanied you to this shindig otherwise.
She remembered the faint scent of his cologne, crisp and woodsy, that still lingered on the blouse she’d hung back in her closet.
The rabbit hole had been opened, and she was already halfway down.