Zara ended up at one end of her tiny sitting room, staring at the rain streaming down her window. Feeling like an automaton, she jerked the curtains together, closing out the night.
Blankly, she forced herself to face the fact that Damon and Caroline were soon to be engaged. And why not? They had been dating for months. It should not have come as a shock.
But it had, she thought grimly, especially after the kiss they’d shared.
Numbly, she moved to the small set of French doors that opened out onto a drenched patio and yanked a second set of curtains closed. The fact was, the kiss had stirred up feelings she had thought she had suppressed, making her feel intimately, possessively connected with Damon, as if he was still her lover. And now Caroline had taken him.
The reality was that Damon had never been hers. Neither of them had ever committed to anything more than a brief, secretive fling, and that fling had been more than a year ago.
But they had a baby together. That meant something.
Surely Damon could have taken some time to reassess. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she tried to rationalize the emotions that kept hitting her out of left field. Maybe she felt so shocked because, for the past year, even though she had left Damon, in a sense he had still been hers because, until Caroline, he had only dated sporadically.
Jemima had only lasted three weeks. Zara knew, because she had checked.
As she sat down, her knee brushed the mouse pad of her laptop, jolting it. The screen saver dissolved and she found herself once more looking at the happy couple.
If Damon was getting married, that meant Caroline would become Rosie’s stepmother. Somehow that thought made her feel even more miserable.
If she was brutally honest, it was the knowledge that while Damon had been happy to sleep with her on the quiet, he clearly wanted marriage with the kind of woman who moved in his own social circle. Just seeing Caroline and Damon together ignited the same kind of deep, tender hurt Zara had experienced when she had left him and realized that, as formidably equipped as he was to find her, he had not cared enough to do so.
An unpleasant thought struck her. If Damon was planning on remarrying, it made all the sense in the world to clean out any skeletons in the cupboard. She and Rosie were a substantial skeleton.
Zara found herself back on her feet and pacing. Just seconds ago, she had felt chilled and more than a little sorry for herself. Now heat flamed through her, flushing her cheeks and making her heart pound.
It was no wonder Damon had left his sealed penthouse office and prowled the streets to find her. No wonder he was suddenly so keen to keep her close, even down to offering her a job and dangling a huge fee! Locked in his high-security office with all his ex-army cronies there to help him keep an eye on her—that was the definition of keeping her and Rosie, his two shady secrets, under wraps.
Zara tried to calm down. She had been feeling guilty about keeping Rosie a secret. She had even been feeling guilty about who she was, Petra’s daughter, as if she had to apologize for her very existence.
But she wasn’t the only one with secrets. She did not imagine that Caroline would be very happy to find out Damon had recently become a father.
Burning with indignation at Damon’s double-dealing sneakiness and suddenly sick to death of living in the shadows and trying to be invisible—of feeling that she had committed some terrible crime just because she had slept with Damon a few times—she snatched up her phone. Unlocking it, she hit Redial on Damon’s number. The second Damon picked up, Zara froze, caught in the kind of panicked state that usually had no part in her carefully organized life.
“Zara?” Damon’s deep, curt voice sent adrenaline zinging through her veins.
Her throat seized up. A fraught second later, she disconnected the call.
Horrified that she’d lost control to the point that she had actually called Damon to find out whether he really was marrying Caroline—as if she had a right to ask that question—Zara placed the cell on the coffee table. She needed to pull herself together, to get back to the crisp, businesslike state of mind that had been her go-to with all things Damon over the past few weeks.
The phone chimed, almost stopping her heart. Damon’s number glowed on the screen.
She stared at the cell as if it was a bomb about to explode, then kicked herself for not answering when a message popped up, informing her she had a new voice mail. With a sense of inevitability, she picked up the phone. Damon’s message was edged with impatience. He wanted to know if Rosie was okay. He finished with the command that she call him.
When hell freezes over.
She should never have called him in the first place. With a jerky movement she did what she should have done just minutes ago—she turned the phone off altogether.
Still feeling crazily on edge, she looked in on Rosie, who had finally fallen into a deep sleep. Softly closing the door, Zara padded to the laundry and put on a load of clothes to wash, then did her last job of the night, which was preparing a bottle for Rosie’s night feeding. As she tightened the screw lid on the bottle, the chime of her doorbell made her hand jerk.
Her first thought was that it was Damon, but she dismissed that possibility, because he was at the charity ball with the love of his life, Caroline. She glanced at the oven clock, disoriented to see that it was only nine thirty. It felt a whole lot later, probably because it had gotten dark so early.
Frowning, she put the bottle in the fridge and walked through the hall. Her front security light was on, illuminating the porch. Through the frosted glass side panels of the door she could make out a tall masculine figure, wearing a dark suit.
Adrenaline pumped. It was Damon.
Keeping the chain on, she opened the door a few inches.
Damon’s gaze pinned hers. “You didn’t call me back. What’s wrong?”
The cool directness of his gaze paired with the five o’clock shadow decorating his jaw gave Damon a remote edge that made her spine tighten. “Nothing’s wrong.” She tried for a neutral smile. “It was a mistake.”
His cool gaze seemed to laser right through her. “Is it Rosie? I thought she might be sick.”
“Rosie’s fine. She’s asleep.” Despite knowing she shouldn’t, but too furious not to, Zara took the chain off the hook and opened the door wide enough that she could look past Damon to where his car was parked. She wanted to know if Caroline was with him. Frustratingly, because the windows of his car were tinted, she couldn’t see a thing. He could have half a dozen women in the car for all she knew.
A little impatiently, Damon’s gaze recaptured hers. “Now that I’m here, we should talk. I think we need to get clear on a couple of things.”
Such as his impending marriage to a woman who was perfect for him, and the fact that Zara and Rosie had the potential to ruin those plans.
Zara gave the sleek black car at her gate a last probing glare. “It’s late. Can’t we do this some other time?”
Damon gave her a look of disbelief. “It’s only just past nine thirty.”
Zara stared at Damon’s jaw. Now that she was aware of the scary chinks in her armor when it came to him, she was determined to avoid eye contact where possible. The last thing she needed was for him to know how much he affected her. “I usually go to bed early, because I have to get up for Rosie in the night.”
He leaned one shoulder against her porch wall and crossed his arms over her chest. “Okay, let’s talk here.”
“Can’t we discuss whatever it is you want to talk about at work?”
“We could, but I thought you were concerned about keeping our relationship and Rosie under wraps.”
Her gaze snapped to his, which was a problem because then she had trouble ripping it away. “We don’t have a relationship.”
His expression was infuriatingly calm. “But we do have a daughter.”
And suddenly the gloves were off. “And I guess, at this point, keeping our relationship and Rosie under wraps suits you just fine, doesn’t it?”
His brows jerked together. “Would you care to explain that?”
Bright light, intense enough to make her wince, washed across Zara’s front lawn and lit up her porch. Her next-door neighbor’s security lights had just come on. That meant that Edna Cross, who lived alone and seemed to be unusually inquisitive about every move Zara made, had no doubt logged that she had a visitor. Edna was the secretary of the local neighborhood watch group, and so was also likely now to be out with her flashlight and possibly even a digital camera. Any conversation on Zara’s porch could no longer be considered private.
Damon stared in the direction of the high-powered light. His gaze narrowed. “There’s someone standing on the other side of your hedge.”
“My neighbor Edna Cross. She’s head of the local neighborhood watch.”
“That would explain the military-grade spotlights.”
Ignoring the dryness of his voice and feeling embattled, Zara opened the door a little wider. She didn’t want Damon in her house, but he clearly wasn’t going to leave anytime soon and what she had to say needed to be said in private. “You had better come in.”
With a last glance in the direction of Edna’s silhouette, Damon stepped into Zara’s hall, dwarfing it and making the space feel distinctly claustrophobic. Zara closed the door and, out of sheer habit, locked it, although the second she did so, it occurred to her that the one person she didn’t want in her house was already inside.
As she turned, she realized Damon was waiting for her. She noticed that his tie was dragged loose, the top button of his white shirt was undone and his hair was disheveled as if he’d run his fingers through it repeatedly. All of it made him look even more sexily gorgeous. A pang of heat shot through her, making her clench her stomach. She could not believe she was turned-on, even in a marginal way when she was still so angry. Grimly, she reminded herself that it was far more likely that it was Caroline who had run her fingers through his hair.
Suddenly self-conscious about her leggings, the old sweater that dragged past her thighs and the fact that beneath all the soft layers she wasn’t wearing a bra, Zara led the way to her sitting room.
Damon padded straight to the window that looked over Edna’s property, pulled back the curtain and looked out. He lifted a hand. Seconds later, the glaring security lights flicked off. Amazing. Usually, if Edna felt impelled to investigate at night, the place was lit up like a landing strip for a good hour. In his blunt, masculine way, Damon had dealt with Edna by summarily checking her out and dismissing her.
He closed the curtains. “She’s persistent.”
Amusement invested his tone with an intimacy that spun Zara back to evenings spent together in his apartment watching movies and eating gourmet takeout. As he turned from the window, the easy humor was replaced by a flicker of masculine awareness that informed her that if she thought he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra, she was wrong.
Folding her arms across her chest, Zara indicated that Damon should have a seat. Unfortunately, he chose the seat she had been sitting in and her laptop was still sitting on the coffee table.
Panic gripped her. She couldn’t remember whether she’d closed the video clip about Damon and Caroline, or not. In her rush to grab the laptop, all while avoiding getting too close to Damon, she brushed the mouse pad again and the screen saver dissolved.
Damon’s gaze settled on the screen a split second before she snapped the laptop closed.
His expression answered the question. No, she had not closed down the video.
Cheeks burning, she found her briefcase, which was on a sideboard, and stowed the offending laptop away. When she turned, Damon was no longer seated, but prowling her small sitting room. He came to a stop in front of a small oil of a Medinian ancestor, one of the few family pieces left from her Atrides past. As he studied the gloomy picture, she felt a crazy sense of relief that, in keeping with her new identity and her new life, she had made it a rule not to have any family photos on show. Those were all kept in albums in a drawer in her room.
Plastering a bright smile on her face, she decided to grab the bull by the horns.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
Damon seemed to go very still. “What for, exactly?”
“Your engagement to Caroline Grant.” Despite every effort at control, she couldn’t quite keep the husky note from her voice. “No mystery now as to why you were so keen that I should come and work for you and bring Rosie along.”
There was an odd moment of silence. “I’m guessing that would be because you think I don’t want Caro to find out that you’ve given birth to my child.”
Caro. A red mist seemed to form in front of her eyes. Zara could feel her precarious hold on her temper slipping. “I don’t think—I know. I can see why we never had a chance, quite apart from the fact that Caroline’s blonde.”
Two steps and Damon had covered the distance between them. “As I recall, you were the one who laid down the ground rules for the time we spent together.”
Zara flushed guiltily at the reminder that she’d had very good reasons for limiting their involvement. “Ground rules that suited you.”
His brows jerked together. “Why, exactly, did they suit me?”
Zara met his gaze squarely. “Because I’m not your type.”
“Which is...?”
“Blonde. Your wife was blonde. Caroline is blonde.”
Damon pinched his nose, which made her even more furious, so she listed another three blonde socialites from the past. Even the names made her feel slightly crazy: Jenna, Hayley, Tiffany. They were all pretty, flirty names, nothing like Zara, which sounded somehow heftier. “It’s all over the media that you like blondes. And not just blondes. You like a certain type of blonde. Basically, slim, elegant and rich. I’m not any of those—”
“Therefore, I couldn’t possibly want you.”
She drew a rapid breath and tried to calm down, but she couldn’t seem to stop hemorrhaging the disappointment and anger she’d bottled up for over a year. At some point she must have taken a half step closer to Damon, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, smell the faint, enticing scents of soap and cologne.
She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Maybe if I had dyed my hair blonde or bought a wig, we would have had a chance at a real relationship.” She delivered the kicker. “I don’t even know why you slept with me in the first place.”
His fingers closed around her upper arms. “That would be because I wanted you,” he growled.
Shock reverberated through her at the statement. Both palms were flattened on his chest. She could feel the steady pound of his heart, feel the heat blasting off him. She could have pulled back, stepped free, because his hold was loose but, crazily, it was the last thing she wanted to do.
Something had happened to her in the last hour or so; it was as if all the emotions she had suppressed had burst free and, like a Pandora’s box, she couldn’t put them back in. And if that wasn’t enough, being held close to Damon, having his complete, undivided attention even though they were arguing, filled her with an intoxicating elation.
She glared at him. “Wanted, as in past tense.”
In answer, he fitted her close enough against him that she could feel his clear arousal. “Does this feel like past tense?”
She drew an impeded breath and tried to think, which was difficult when tingling heat was pouring through her and all she wanted to do was drown in the intense sensations. Damon bent his head and bit down gently on the sensitive lobe of one ear. A white-hot pang of heat lanced through her.
His jaw brushed her cheek, sending a sensual shiver through her. With a breathless effort, she resisted the urge to sag against him, even though her bones had turned to water. “You can’t kiss me. You’re engaged.”
Irritation registered in Damon’s gaze. “There’s no engagement. As a matter of fact, Caroline and I are finished.”
“Because of Rosie?”
“Rosie is part of it.”
Damon lifted his head before she could ask if the rest of the reason was that he thought he now had some kind of responsibility toward them both. Afraid that she was pushing him away with her questioning, Zara’s fingers gripped the lapels of his jacket, keeping him close. Minutes ago, she had been furious with Damon and determined to keep him at a distance but, in the space of a few seconds, somehow everything had changed. She took a deep breath, then finally asked the question that had tormented her ever since she had found Damon on her porch. “So...Caroline’s not in your car?”
Damon gave her a look of disbelief. “Why would she be in my car?”
Relief and pleasure cascaded through Zara. He really wasn’t going to marry Caroline, after all. The media had made up the story, and didn’t Zara know how that went?
In some distant corner of her mind she knew she should be reacting differently; she shouldn’t feel so happy and so relieved that Caroline was out of the picture.
Damon’s expression was curiously intent. “What would you have done if Caroline had been in the car?”
Emotion surged through Zara. A list of scenarios flashed through her mind, all of which involved getting Caroline out of the car.
Damon grinned. “Thought so.” He dropped his hands to her hips and pulled her closer still but, frustratingly, he didn’t kiss her. Zara finally realized that he was waiting for her to make the next move.
Her mouth dry, her heart pounding—the memory of the kiss they’d shared that morning emboldening her—she lifted up on her toes, looped her arms around his neck and kissed him A split second later his arms came around her, locking her tight against him, as if he had missed her, as if he wanted her just as badly as she wanted him, as if he truly needed her close.
Ridiculous tears burned beneath her lids as she gave in to the simple pleasure of soaking up the heat and comfort of being back in Damon’s arms. A comfort that she had tried to forget but which, against the odds, she still desperately needed.
He released his hold for the moment it took to shrug out of his jacket and toss it over the back of a chair. Another slow, drugging kiss, then she found herself slowly, irresistibly propelled backward into the narrow hall, which led to the bedrooms.
Damon lifted his head. In the deep shadows of the hall the narrow band of light that flowed out from the sitting room glanced across mouthwatering cheekbones and the rock-solid line of his jaw, turning his gray gaze molten. “This room?”
Dimly, Zara logged another opportunity to call a halt, to throw cold water on a passionate interlude she should already be regretting. Somehow, they had gone from zero to out-of-control passion in the space of minutes. The problem was, she had been so upset at the thought that Damon was engaged, then so relieved when he wasn’t, that her rules for dealing with him had dissolved. She had become someone she barely recognized—fiercely possessive and determined to reclaim him, even if only for one night.
By pure luck Damon had chosen her room. She caught a glimpse of her bed with its rich red coverlet and pretty cushions, the deep blue drapes and the jewel-bright Medinian rug at the foot of her bed. The lush riot of color was very different from the restrained image she was so careful to project through the rest of the house, and in the way she dressed. She was suddenly unbearably conscious of her vulnerability in inviting Damon into a room that was an intimate and unashamed expression of herself.
But for the first time in years she didn’t feel like apologizing for loving the flamboyant colors and rich fabrics of her childhood, for being Angel Atrides. With him, right now, she felt bold and passionate, and she knew exactly what she wanted.
“Yes.”
Lifting up on her toes, she kissed Damon on the mouth, tangled her fingers with his and drew him into the room. Three steps and she felt the soft quilt of her bed brush the backs of her legs. Another kiss and she had managed to undo most of the buttons on Damon’s shirt.
With an impatient movement, Damon completed the job and shrugged out of the shirt, revealing tanned and sleekly powerful shoulders, a broad chest and washboard abs.
She caught the quick gleam of his teeth. “Time this went.”
His hands settled on her waist then swept upward, peeling her sweater and T-shirt up and over her head. The chill of the air was instantly replaced by the hot shock of skin-on-skin as he pulled her close.
Feeling a little vulnerable, because it had been more than a year since they had made love, Zara buried her face in the curve of Damon’s throat and allowed herself to be swamped by his masculine heat and scent. It occurred to her that being held in Damon’s arms made her feel oddly like she had come home. She stiffened at the thought.
“What’s wrong?”
With relief, she decided that the familiar timbre of Damon’s voice provided the explanation for what she was really feeling. Not homecoming, but familiarity.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
This time the hungry pressure of the kiss made her head swim.
Long seconds later, Damon cupped her breasts then bent and took one nipple into his mouth. Her breath came in as sensation coiled and burned for long aching moments then, with shocking abruptness, splintered.
Damon said something short and flat. A split second later she found herself lifted and deposited onto the bed. The cool softness of the quilt beneath her overheated skin was subtly shocking, but not as much as the disorienting fact that Damon had barely touched her and she had climaxed.
When he began peeling her leggings and panties down her legs, she automatically lifted her hips then felt hopelessly shy because her body wasn’t as toned and sleek as it had been before she’d had Rosie. The chill of the air made her shiver, which was a convenient excuse to wriggle under the coverlet, dragging it high as Damon stripped off his pants.
When he straightened, she caught her breath at how beautiful he was with the murky half light turning his skin to bronze and making the trace of scars that criss-crossed his chest seem beautiful in a completely masculine way.
Damon retrieved something from his pants pocket, a condom. She watched as he sheathed himself and the blunt awareness of what they were about to do hit home. Somehow, in the space of one day, they had gone from cool, businesslike distance to passionate lovemaking. The knowledge should have made her feel disoriented and angsty, instead, for the first time in a year, she felt oddly settled and, for want of a better word, happy.
She wasn’t yet ready to examine exactly what it was she still felt for Damon. For now, all she wanted was to forget the heartache and loneliness of the past year and simply feel. For this one night it was enough that Damon was hers.
Damon joined her in the bed, flipping the coverlet aside as he did so. Zara surreptitiously attempted to drag the sheet over her breasts, but he stymied her plan by pulling her close so that she was half-sprawled against his chest.
Pleasure cascaded through her at the blazing heat of his body, the clean, faintly musky scent of his skin and the automatic, sensual way they fitted together, almost as if more than a year hadn’t passed since they had last made love.
“Don’t cover yourself,” he said quietly. “You’re beautiful.”
She cupped his jaw, enjoying the faintly abrasive feel of his five o’clock shadow. “It’s been a while.”
He stopped in the process of trailing his fingers from the small of her back to the curve of her bottom. “No one else?”
She tried to muster up some indignation, but with the slow, enticing stroke of his hands it was hard to concentrate. “Why would there be anyone else? I was pregnant, then having a baby. There was barely time to breathe.”
An entirely masculine brand of satisfaction registered in his gaze. “My baby.”
He rolled, taking her beneath him. The fiery, seductive heat of Damon’s weight pressing her down into the bed made it incredibly difficult to marshal her thoughts. And why would she want to think?
As much as she might deny it, this was what she had missed so much and still craved. The plain fact was that she had never gotten over the attraction that had hit her the very first time she had walked into his office. It was the reason she had slept with Damon in the first place, the reason she had let him back into her life. It was probably also the reason why there had been no other man in her life.
Zara went still inside as a thought she had resolutely suppressed over the last year once again surfaced.
Could she be in love with Damon?
She desperately dismissed the sudden tension that gripped her, because loving Damon was a worst-case scenario...unless he fell in love with her.
Suddenly, intensely curious about how he felt, she cupped his face. “Would it have mattered if there was someone else?”
“You were pregnant with my child.”
The answer was flat and unequivocal, and sent a sharp thrill through her. Despite being a modern woman, she couldn’t help but adore that Damon was possessive of her, even if it was only because she had borne his child. And his response was proof that he felt something genuine, even if only sexual desire.
Although, in her heart of hearts, she didn’t want just the desire, she thought fiercely.
She was very much afraid that she was falling for Damon, despite all the reasons they should never be in the same room together, let alone in the same bed.
But perhaps making love could create a bond that would hold. And maybe, just maybe, that bond would be strong enough to survive the revelation of her past.
Dipping his head, Damon kissed her. Feeling suddenly acutely vulnerable, Zara gripped his shoulders, arching against the blunt pressure of penetration as he slowly, carefully entered her. When they were fully joined, Damon stopped, his darkened gaze locking with hers.
“Are you sure this is all right? It’s not so long since the birth.”
With the aching heat of him deep inside her, it was difficult to think. “It’s been four months.” And before that, nine months. In total it had been thirteen long months since they had last made love. She inhaled at the sensations that gripped her, some familiar, some even more intense than she remembered.
“I’ll take it easy.”
In answer, she pressed closer still. An agonizing second later, Damon began to move. The heated, stirring pleasure that, lately, had only been a part of her dreams, wound tight, pressing all the air from her lungs until it finally peaked, splintering into the night.