"Don't you feel like you're giving too much?" You ask him.

He just smiled and said, "I didn't marry you to get something back. I just didn't want you to be alone."

"I'll love enough for the both of us...until you're ready to love me back."

The words linger in the air between you, heavy with a promise you're not sure you can ever fulfill.

Damien isn't like other men. He doesn't expect you to show any form of affection, doesn't pressure you into sleeping with him—doesn't even touch you unless absolutely necessary. The arrangement has been going on for almost a year now.

It's suffocating sometimes, the way he looks at you from across the dinner table. All adoring and patient. Like he genuinely means what he says every time.

You've been married to him for eight months now. A marriage of convenience, or so you initially thought. Damien Chen, the brilliant lawyer who'd known your parents since forever, had swooped in like some knight in expensive Armani when your world collapsed.

It's been two years since the accident. Two years since you became a widow with a toddler. When Damien proposed this arrangement, it felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman.

"Emma needs a father figure," he'd said so matter-of-factly. "And you need stability."

"You don't have to love me back," He told you on your wedding day. A courthouse affair, quick and painless. "This is for Emma, and for you to have security."

But the way he looked at you when you signed the marriage certificate told a different story. The gentle brush of his fingers against yours as he placed the simple gold band on your finger wasn't just for show.

Damien Chen is a patient man. He's played the long game, inserting himself into your life so seamlessly that sometimes you forget there was a time when he wasn't there.

But, what he didn't say was that he'd been in love with you for years.

You see it now. The way his eyes follow you around the room. How he spends hours playing with Emma, teaching her things with such patience that sometimes, it makes your chest ache.

Every morning, he leaves his credit card on the counter before heading to work. "Buy something nice for yourself and Emma," he'd say. He never checks what you spend on. Never questions you.

He comes home with groceries, helps with dinner, bathes Emma, reads her stories until she falls asleep.

And then he retreats to the guest bedroom, where he's slept since day one.

You're not blind. You see how he sometimes pauses at your bedroom door on his way to his room. Just a brief hesitation, like he's gathering himself before continuing down the hall.

"He's a good man," your mother keeps telling you during your weekly calls. "Better than most."

But that's the problem, isn't it? He's too good. Too understanding. Too willing to wait for something that might never come.

Sometimes, you catch yourself watching him when he's not looking. The way his brow furrows when he's concentrating on work documents. The gentle way he handles Emma, as if she's the most precious thing in the world.

Your daughter adores him. "Dami!" she calls him, stubby arms reaching up whenever he walks through the door. And he always picks her up, spinning her around until she shrieks with laughter.

You wonder if someday Emma will stop asking about her real father. If someday she'll just accept Damien as her dad without question. The thought both terrifies and comforts you.

"I can wait," he tells you one night, after Emma's been put to bed. You're both sitting on the couch, a respectable distance between you. Some mindless show plays on the TV, neither of you really watching. "I know you still love him. I'm not trying to replace him."

But aren't you? you want to ask. Instead, you just nod, the weight of his kindness crushing you slowly.

"Take all the time you need," Damien says "I'm not going anywhere." His voice is firm but gentle. "You deserve everything, and i'm just happy to give what I can."