The Last Time He Touched Me Chapter 03

The Last Time He Touched Me Chapter 03

Damien finally looks up and meets my eyes with a calm gaze.

“Because she wants it.”

I freeze.

Just because she wants it, he can spend a billion dollars to pave her way.

Just because she wants it, he can ignore five years of my sleepless, relentless effort at the station.

He is not unaware of what I have sacrificed for this program. I have given up sleep, rest, and my own health.

At my worst, I even suffered a brief loss of consciousness from exhaustion and ended up in the ICU.

Tears fall uncontrollably. My voice trembles as it rises.

“Damien, that’s not fair—”

“Kristen.”

He cuts me off, still calm.

He sets down his pen and leans back in his chair.

“If I remember correctly, there were three candidates for that hosting position when you first applied at the station.”

“Besides you, the other two were professionally trained graduates from top universities, both domestic and international.”

“Do you know why you, a community college graduate with a different major, were hired?”

I freeze.

He continues slowly.

“Because I invested ten million dollars in the station, with one condition: they had to hire you.”

Damien looks at me as if I am just an object under evaluation.

“Kristen, there is no absolute fairness in this world.”

“When you are in a position to sit where I sit, then you can talk to me about fairness.”

I stand there, feeling as if all the blood in my body has been drained.

So that is it.

The day I received my offer letter, I cried in my small rented apartment for an entire night.

I thought I had earned it with my own ability.

But the truth was never that simple.

I do not even know how I manage to leave his office in a daze.

His words feel like a full-scale humiliation, leaving me nowhere to hide.

…

When I first met Damien, I was just a new intern at the station.

At a business dinner, after several rounds of drinking, the atmosphere becomes thick and unpleasant. The manager sitting next to me, drunk and emboldened, slides his hand under the table toward my thigh.

I stiffen, trying desperately to pull away, but I do not dare make a scene.

Tears well up in my eyes as I silently beg for help from the team leader who brought me in.

He hesitates for a moment… then turns away.

At that moment, Damien, who has barely spoken the entire night, suddenly stands up.

He walks over to me and pulls me up from my seat. Looking into my reddened eyes, he says,

“Crying in front of people like this doesn’t work.”

Then he takes a bottle from the table and presses it into my hand, covering it firmly with his own.

A flash of ruthlessness crosses his face. He guides my hand and smashes the bottle hard into the man who was harassing me.

The glass shatters with a heavy sound. The man collapses to the ground.

The room goes completely silent.

Damien stares at me without blinking.

His voice is calm, but every word is sharp.

“This is the only way that works. Understand?”

I stare at him, stunned.

I fall straight into those deep green eyes of his. The noise around us fades away, leaving only the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

So when we meet again, and Damien asks in the elevator, “You are Kristen Mercer, right?”

“Can you accept a relationship that is only physical, with no love?”

In my dull, unremarkable life up until my twenties, nothing had ever shone as brightly as he did.

So at that moment, I nod almost instinctively.

After that day, every time we sleep together, Damien leaves a generous amount of money on the bedside table, along with luxury bags and jewelry.

Later, I join a new station.

I do not know then that my acceptance was not only about talent, but also tied to that unspoken, invisible relationship with Damien.

What cannot be denied is that these years by his side are the fastest period of growth in my life.

Because of his protection, those predatory sponsors and advertisers at business dinners never dare to touch me. I am able to focus entirely on my work.

Over time, the longer we stay together, the more our bodies and habits fall into sync.

Sometimes, he even picks me up after work.

We walk together, shop together… like an ordinary couple deeply in love.

Little by little, I begin to develop expectations I should not have.

That night, as the wind brushes across Boston Harbor and the water glitters under the lights, I finally gather the courage to ask,

“Damien, can we end this twisted situationship… and actually try dating for real?”