Let's talk about the infamous “Hello, lover” and everything Laurent did afterwards. My personal interpretation is that, at that moment, Laurent was afraid both of being wrong about Damen and of being right about Damen.
If he was wrong about him (i.e., if Damen was only pretending to be an honorable man and to care about him), that would mean that Laurent had allowed himself to trust and love again only to be betrayed a second time. And thinking about that possibility must have been awful.
On the other hand, if he was right about Damen (if he really was the man Laurent had allowed himself to believe he was), that would mean he had enslaved, tortured, and humiliated a decent man, the kind of man his brother was. And at the same time, it would mean that he had found love in the very man who had killed his brother, the same man he had hated for years. Having used that hatred to keep himself alive for so long, the idea of losing it must also have been terrifying.
Consequently, Laurent chooses to assume that he was wrong about Damen and treat him like the monster he wanted him to be from the beginning. In fact, he tries to force Damen to become that monster by employing the cruel tactics he learned from his uncle. It is with this goal in mind that he:
- tells Damen that he only slept with him out of convenience and mocks him by repeating the words he said in a vulnerable moment (just as his uncle later repeats Laurent's words as a child when he asked not to be left alone).
- forces Damen to watch as prisoners are whipped, each lash reminding him of his own torture while his people (unaware of the true situation) applaud with approval (just as the Regent subtly reminded Laurent of his own abuse while correcting him in front of the Court and Council).
- chooses Isander (who looks slightly like Damen) to serve him, in order to remind him of his own enslavement (this backfired, though, because Damen just got jealous, lol).
- uses every opportunity to remind Damen that he hates him for killing his brother.
However, Laurent's plan to convince himself that Damen is a bad person who doesn't really care about him fails miserably, because despite everything, Damen continues to show that he is a good man and that he cares about him. For example, when he rescues and treats kindly the Veretian soldier who was being tormented by Makedon's men, or when he saves Laurent's life (again) in Marlas.
And then we get to this moment:
This is the first critical point in Laurent's change of attitude, because it is when he realizes that even he does not believe the theory of the ‘dishonest Damen’ that he so desperately tries to convince himself of. This is when self-deception begins to crumble irretrievably.
The second critical point comes when he confronts Jokaste and she accurately describes how Damen makes love. It's like hearing her say, “No, silly, he wasn't faking his gentleness, he's always like that.”
And the third (and final) critical point comes when Laurent is comforting Damen and asks him something like, ‘Well, then you just want to fuck me again, right?’. And Damen replies something like, ‘No, I want to marry you’.
And that’s when we get to this:
This is, for me, one of the most beautiful scenes in the Captive Prince books.
Here Laurent is desperate to be able to trust people again. In particular, he wants to trust Damen, he wants to believe that his feelings are genuine and not a ploy to manipulate him, as his uncle did. But he is too afraid to expose himself to that risk again. So, when he can no longer deny the evidence that Damen trusts him, despite everything he has been through, despite everything Laurent has done to him, he is genuinely astonished. He admires Damen's ability to continue trusting people and wishes he could do the same. Which leads me to find a second interpretation of his phrase, hidden within the first:
'How can I trust you, after what my own uncle did to me?
And to this, Damen gives the perfect answer. Because what he says about Laurent is also true of him. Damen is not false, as Laurent has feared all this time. He is true. He is probably the truest man Laurent has ever met, besides Auguste. And at this point, there is no doubt that if Laurent gave him his heart, he would treat it tenderly.
