Chapter 189: The Lockwood Heir Returns Home
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Three dots appeared almost instantly. I watched them bounce for a second longer than necessary.
Damien😈: Why are you still awake?
I looked at the screen. Because someone decided to abandon me for forty-eight hours. Instead, I typed... The truth felt too soft, too revealing, so I settled for something safer.
Me: Couldn’t sleep.
His reply came less than a minute later. I could almost hear the quiet authority in the words even through text.
Damien 😈: Go to sleep, sunshine.
I rolled my eyes. The nickname still managed to land somewhere soft and annoying at the same time.
Me: Don’t tell me what to do.
There was a brief pause, then,
Damien 😈: So stubborn.
Me: Takes one to know one.
A final message popped up.
Damien😈: Goodnight, Oliver.
I stared at those two words longer than I should have, the cursor blinking at me in the reply box like it had all the time in the world for me to figure out what to say.
The soft blue light of the screen felt almost intimate in the otherwise dark room.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
’I miss you.’
But, because I was way too emotionally constipated...I deleted it. The words vanished as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving only the empty reply box and the lingering feeling of almost saying too much.
Me: Goodnight.
I set the phone back down on the nightstand. The room was still quiet. Still empty. But somehow... it didn’t feel quite so lonely anymore, the glow of the screen fading to black beside me like a small, temporary nightlight.
For a few seconds longer, I kept staring at the dark screen, as if another message might still appear.
[Damien Lockwood]
The black car passed through the wrought-iron gates.
The high iron bars of the gate closed behind the car with a soft, final click that felt more like a lock turning than a welcome.
Harris glanced in the rearview mirror. "We’ve arrived, Young Master."
Damien looked up from his phone. The Lockwood estate was just as he remembered it, towering, elegant, and untouchable.
Even in the moonlight, it looked less like a home and more like a monument, meant to be admired from afar rather than actually lived in by a family.
The windows glowed warmly but somehow still felt cold. Soft golden light spilled from behind heavy curtains, perfectly arranged, as if the house itself was posing for an invisible audience.
He could already feel the familiar weight of expectation settling across his shoulders like an old, ill-fitting coat.
He tucked his phone back into his pocket, Oliver’s last Goodnight lingering in his mind, small, stubborn, and way too distant.
For just a moment, he wished he could turn around and tell Harris to keep driving until the gates and portraits and that heavy silence were just a shrinking shape in the rearview mirror.
Harris stepped out first, opening the rear door.
The cold brushed against Damien’s face like a quiet reminder that he was no longer in the warmer, smaller world he had left behind.
Damien climbed out slowly, his gaze roaming over the familiar stone façade. Three years. Three years gone... and somehow nothing had changed.
The front doors opened before he reached them. Rows of servants stood waiting, perfectly poised in their uniforms, silent and arranged with a symmetry that felt carefully measured.
Their faces were politely blank, eyes lowered just enough to show respect without inviting conversation.
"Welcome home, Young Master."
They chorused...their voices were practiced, polite, and hollow.
The words hung in the cool air for a moment before dissolving, leaving only the quiet expectation that he would accept them without comment.
Damien gave a slight nod. "Thank you."
He stepped inside, immediately hit by the familiar scent...furniture polish, fresh lilies, expensive candles.
Everything was spotless, staged like a home in a magazine rather than one that actually belonged to anyone.
The high ceilings swallowed the sound of his footsteps. The marble floor reflected the soft glow of the chandelier above, and the portraits lining the walls seemed to watch him with the same quiet judgment they always had.
Without thinking, his shoulders straightened. His expression shifted to something calmer and colder.
The Lockwood heir had returned.
Footsteps echoed from above. Dianne descended the sweeping staircase, her movements graceful, one hand lightly on the railing, as if she’d been waiting up there just to make an entrance.
Damien fought the urge to roll his eyes.
She smiled, though it never quite reached her eyes. The expression was polished, practiced...the same one she had perfected years ago for family gatherings and carefully timed photographs.
Not that he had the right to talk, he too had perfected the art of faking expressions for cameras.
"So." She paused a few steps above him. "You finally decided to come home and say hello."
"I only came because Oliver asked me to." Damien’s voice was steady. "If it had been my choice... none of you would’ve ever seen me again."
He kept his gaze level, refusing to look away first.
Dianne laughed softly. "Still dramatic."
The sound was quiet and elegant, the kind of laugh that never risked being too loud or too genuine.
Damien shrugged, "I’m honest."
She walked down the last few steps, the sound of her heels against the marble sharp and purposeful.
"How is Oliver?"
The question was delivered with perfect politeness, but Damien could hear the careful curiosity beneath it, the way she was testing the edges of something she already knew she shouldn’t touch.
Damien’s expression tightened. "None of your business."
The words came out colder than he meant them to, but he didn’t take them back.
Something protective and sharp settled behind his ribs at the mere sound of Oliver’s name in this house.
For a split second, something flashed across her face...maybe surprise, or a hint of guilt, but it quickly morphed into another polished smile.
The moment of real emotion was gone so quickly it almost felt imagined.
"As protective as ever." She turned toward the staircase. "Mother and Father are waiting upstairs."
Her voice remained light, but there was a quiet finality to the statement, as if the decision had already been made long before he arrived.
"I’m tired."
"They’ve waited a month." she countered.
"They can wait until morning."
"No." The word was gentle but firm and absolute, said with the kind of authority of someone who had never heard a ’no’ and was used to it. "You’ll be having a discussion with them now."
The soft finality of it settled into the air between them like a closed door.
She glanced at the servants and ordered harshly.
"Don’t just stand there! Go get his room prepared!"