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I Walked Away from the Billionaire Who Needed My Touch
Novelix
Completed
"Damian Blackwood had severe haphephobia. Except for me, anyone who got close to him could send him spiraling. Sometimes he even hurt himself. I was the poor student he had sponsored. I was also the tactile exposure therapist who had stayed by his side for eight years. Every late night, he would push open my bedroom door and hold me in silence, like I was the only lifeline he had left. We shared the most intimate kind of closeness. But I had no title. Then my younger sister appeared, and Damian fell madly in love with her. Even though he couldn’t touch her. Even though every attempt to get close made him tremble in pain. He still gave her all his tenderness and patience. I could only accept the brutal truth. The eight years I had spent getting him through the darkness meant nothing. When Damian had his assistant bring me the renewal contract, I was packing my bags. He seemed certain I wouldn’t refuse. Certain I would never leave him. But for the first time, I told him no. “Mr. Blackwood, I’m getting married. I won’t be renewing this contract.”"
Chapters (3)
第1章
Damian Blackwood had severe haphephobia.
Except for me, anyone who got close to him could send him spiraling. Sometimes he even hurt himself.
I was the poor student he had sponsored.
I was also the tactile exposure therapist who had stayed by his side for eight years.
Every late night, he would push open my bedroom door and hold me in silence, like I was the only lifeline he had left.
We shared the most intimate kind of closeness.
But I had no title.
Then my younger sister appeared, and Damian fell madly in love with her.
Even though he couldn’t touch her.
Even though every attempt to get close made him tremble in pain.
He still gave her all his tenderness and patience.
I could only accept the brutal truth.
The eight years I had spent getting him through the darkness meant nothing.
When Damian had his assistant bring me the renewal contract, I was packing my bags.
He seemed certain I wouldn’t refuse.
Certain I would never leave him.
But for the first time, I told him no.
“Mr. Blackwood, I’m getting married. I won’t be renewing this contract.”
…
Damian pressed me into the soft mattress, and his burning kisses fell with him.
One hand pinned my wrist.
The other pressed against my waist.
His breathing was rougher than during any treatment session before.
I didn’t struggle.
I only reached up and gently stroked the back of his neck, waiting for the tension in his body to loosen.
This was how I treated Damian.
For eight years, this was the only touch he could accept.
I closed my eyes, trying to hide how pathetic I felt.
But that only seemed to displease him.
A sharp pain split across my tongue, and the taste of blood spread between our lips.
He was always like this.
When he lost control, he found ways to torment me.
I had grown used to it.
I endured it silently and let him grind against my mouth.
Then the bedroom door was shoved open.
My younger sister, Lily Hart, stood in the doorway, her face deathly pale.
Tears spilled from her eyes.
Damian froze.
Then he released me at once.
I pushed myself up, my collar still messy and undone.
Before I could fix it, Lily rushed to the bedside, crying.
Her fingers clenched tight as she stared at me with red eyes.
“Olivia, can you have some shame?”
I froze.
For a second, I thought I had misheard her.
Lily bit her lip, her voice shaking through her sobs.
“I can comfort Mr. Blackwood too. Stop using treatment as an excuse to hog him.”
I looked at her familiar face.
It felt like someone had slammed a fist into my chest.
I forced my emotions down and asked coldly, “Lily, do you even know what you’re saying?”
Lily wiped away her tears and lifted her chin stubbornly.
“Of course I do. Mr. Blackwood doesn’t love you.”
Every word was painfully clear.
She glanced at Damian, who remained silent, and her voice sharpened.
“Besides sex, what do you even have with him?”
My fingers went stiff.
Lily stepped closer, eyes red.
“Olivia, you know he doesn’t love you, but you still stay beside him every night. Don’t you think that’s disgusting?”
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
I stared at the sister I had raised with everything I had, and suddenly she felt terrifyingly strange.
After our parents died, I worked three jobs a day to pay her tuition.
When she got sick, I stayed at the hospital for days and nights without closing my eyes.
The clothes she wanted, the school she wanted, the life she wanted—I did everything I could to give them to her.
And now, because of Damian, she was tearing apart the last shred of dignity I had left.
I stared at her, my voice trembling despite myself.
“Who taught you to say these things?”
Lily lifted her chin and looked at me as if she were right.
“No one taught me. I just look down on women who cling to men who don’t love them.”
“I hope you learn some self-respect and stop being so cheap.”
“I look down on you.”
I raised my hand and slapped her hard across the face.
The crack echoed through the room.
Lily covered her cheek, frozen in place.
My eyes burned.
But somehow, my palm hurt more than my heart.
Damian’s face darkened instantly.
Without hesitation, he pulled Lily behind him.
This man, who couldn’t stand even the brush of someone else’s sleeve, was now actively shielding her.
I looked at his hand protecting Lily, and my breathing slowly went cold.
Damian’s eyes were sharp as he questioned me.
“Olivia, she’s your sister. Did you really have to take it that far?”
I opened my mouth.
But it felt like cotton had been stuffed down my throat.
Lily hid behind him, sobbing, her shoulders shaking lightly.
Damian lowered his head to look at her.
The worry in his eyes was something I had never received.
Swallowing my humiliation, I asked hoarsely, “Damian, did you hear what she just said?”
His expression remained cold.
His voice didn’t waver.
“No matter what she said, you shouldn’t have hit her.”
My heart sank completely.
Then Damian reminded me, word by word, “Olivia, know your place.”
Eight years of companionship became the sharpest slap of all.
I sat on the messy bed with my clothes disheveled and my dignity stripped bare.
And he stood there protecting my sister, looking at me like I was an outsider who had crossed a line.
第2章
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.
第3章
I had always wanted to thank Damian in person.
But I never had the chance to meet him.
It wasn’t until college that I accidentally learned from the news that Damian Blackwood suffered from severe haphephobia.
A traumatic event in his teens had made him unable to tolerate anyone’s touch.
If a stranger so much as brushed against him, he would struggle to breathe.
Sometimes he would even become aggressive.
Even doctors could only speak with him from a distance.
I stared at his cold, pale face in the report and found a clear goal for the first time.
When I chose my major, I picked psychology.
While my classmates studied general counseling, I threw myself into trauma responses and exposure therapy.
I took classes during the day, worked part-time at night, and spent the hours after returning to my dorm reading case studies.
When people asked why I pushed myself so hard, I never said Damian’s name.
I only wanted to repay him.
Without his sponsorship, I would have lost my chance to study.
And the only way I could repay him was by helping him return to a normal life.
After graduation, I joined the Blackwood household with the best grades in my program and a complete treatment plan.
The first time we met, Damian sat behind a large desk.
His eyes were cold and empty.
He flipped through my file and asked expressionlessly, “You think you can cure me?”
I suppressed my nerves and answered seriously, “I can’t guarantee a cure. But I’ll do everything I can.”
Damian lifted his eyes and studied my face.
“The previous therapists lasted one month at most.”
I clenched my fingers and answered calmly, “I’ll last longer than they did.”
In the end, he kept me.
During the first month, I could only talk to him from six feet away.
In the second month, he allowed me to sit on the sofa across from him.
Three months later, I tried touching his wrist for the first time.
That day, with a layer of soft fabric between us, my fingertips had barely landed before he grabbed my throat.
His eyes were bloodshot.
“Get away from me.”
I endured the fear and lack of air without struggling.
I looked at him and whispered, “I won’t hurt you.”
His hand loosened little by little.
But cold sweat covered his forehead.
That was our first true touch.
Later, I could hold his hand through fabric.
After that, he allowed my palm to rest on his shoulder and the back of his neck.
It took me three full years to move from brief contact to long embraces.
When ordinary contact stopped working, treatment entered a deeper stage of desensitization.
The first time we kissed, Damian’s entire body went rigid.
His fingers dug hard into my waist.
His breathing was ragged when he ordered in a low voice, “Olivia, don’t leave.”
I held him and answered softly, “I won’t.”
Back then, I thought I was only soothing a patient.
But day after day, hugs and kisses blurred the professional lines between us.
I knew his breathing.
His body temperature.
Every shift in his emotions.
And I began looking forward to every night he needed me.
By the time I finally realized what had happened, gratitude had already turned into a love I could never say out loud.
It had taken me years to teach Damian to accept my touch.
And just as long to hand him my heart with my own two hands.
All the way to ruin.