Chapter 2I Walked Away from the Billionaire Who Needed My Touch

I had wanted to tell Damian that everything just now had only been treatment.

He had suddenly gone into a stress episode.

When it got severe, he could hurt himself.

That was why I had used the method he knew best to calm him down.

But seeing him keep Lily firmly behind him made every explanation I had prepared feel ridiculous.

For eight years, Damian had never allowed a third person into the room during an episode.

Now Lily had barged in and interrupted treatment.

Yet he didn’t blame her at all.

Lily covered her swollen cheek and cried behind Damian.

She clutched his sleeve and choked out, “Damian, I was just worried about you.”

Damian’s body stiffened slightly.

But he didn’t shake her off.

Seeing his silent permission, Lily cried even harder.

“Olivia clearly could use other methods to treat you, but she insists on this one just to tie you to her.”

I stared at her hand on Damian’s sleeve.

A dull ache spread through my chest.

Lily looked up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to see her control you anymore.”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Lily, you don’t understand his condition at all.”

Lily shrank back as if I had frightened her and hid even deeper behind him.

Damian frowned and looked at me coldly.

“Enough.”

I forced myself to stay calm.

“Damian, don’t you want to know what actually happened?”

He didn’t answer my question.

He only looked at me with the detached expression of someone facing an irrelevant employee.

“I don’t need you right now. Get out.”

I had naively thought that after eight years as his tactile therapist, I could at least keep the last bit of dignity.

But tonight, Lily personally shredded the sisterhood I thought we had.

And Damian stood on her side, crushing the last of my pride.

From beginning to end, he never asked why Lily had barged in.

He never asked why she had humiliated me.

He only saw that I had slapped her.

Or maybe, he only wanted to see that one thing.

Suddenly, I had no strength left to defend myself.

I fixed my clothes in humiliation and walked out of the bedroom step by step.

When I passed Lily, she was still crying with her head down.

But her hand quietly tightened around Damian’s sleeve.

Damian didn’t pull away.

I stopped under a streetlight outside and realized my face was covered in tears.

So this was what it felt like to be pushed away by the people you trusted most.

The pain was so deep, I couldn’t even make a sound when I cried.

The late-night wind rushed toward me, stripping away the warmth that still lingered on my body.

I remembered eight years ago.

Back then, I had also held Lily’s hand in the cold wind, going from place to place asking for part-time work.

To pay her tuition, I went to class during the day and waited tables at night.

When she was hospitalized, I stayed by her bed all night, then rushed back to school the next morning for exams.

To keep my scholarship, I studied until dawn again and again, so tired I had to splash cold water on my face to stay awake.

When I was at my most desperate, it was Damian’s sponsorship that allowed me to keep studying.

He might have forgotten what that money meant to me.

But I never had.