When Zara exited Damon’s private jet, it was night. She didn’t think she would be recognizable as Petra Hunt’s daughter on Medinos, since it had been years since she was last here, but even so, she took precautions.
As she stepped onto the tarmac outside the terminal, she fished in her handbag and pulled out the white ball cap she had bought before boarding the flight. She had bought it expressly because it matched her white linen shirt and she could pull the bill of the cap down low over her forehead so the upper half of her face was shaded.
They stepped into the terminal and waited to clear customs. Zara relaxed a little when she noticed groups of tired tourists, a couple of people with high-visibility vests and uniformed officials, but no one resembling either a journalist or photographer.
She sent Damon a brilliant smile and tried not to notice how gorgeous and natural he looked with Rosie over his shoulder. She glanced anxiously around for their luggage. “Mark’s taking a long time with the suitcases.”
Damon gave her an odd look. “It’s only been fifteen minutes.”
Just then Mark appeared, trundling some kind of prehistoric cart with all the luggage from the flight, including that of the flight crew, who would be staying on the island until Damon and Zara were ready to fly back.
Despite the fact that it was night, it seemed to have gotten even steamier. She wiggled her toes in her white sneakers, which had been perfectly comfortable on the flight, but which were now hot and sticky.
Damon glanced at her hat as they collected their luggage. “Aren’t you hot in that cap?”
Beneath the cap she was pretty sure her hair was already wet and plastered to her scalp. That was the second reason she wasn’t taking it off. “It’s not that hot.”
“It’s got to be over ninety degrees.”
“I like the cap.”
Damon lifted a hand to his mouth. It could have been an innocent gesture, but as Zara wheeled her case to the customs line she was pretty sure Damon had the nerve to think something about her cap was amusing. She sucked in a lungful of damp, warm air, feeling irritated because she longed to fling the blasted thing off. Her hair was already thick; the cap just added an extra sweltering layer. She caught Damon’s gaze on her again as he joined her and this time she was sure he was laughing.
“I guess Rosie’s going to be just like this.”
“Just like what?”
“Frustrating. Cute.”
There was a moment of vibrating silence during which Zara found it increasingly difficult to breathe. The moment was broken as the line moved forward to the customs desk. Zara dragged the hat off and quickly tried to finger comb her hair, which did feel horribly flattened and damp. The cooling relief was only momentary because a pair of dark, vaguely familiar eyes met hers. She froze like a deer caught in the headlights. Jorge—the son of her mother’s gardener, Aldo—who now clearly worked for airport customs, was looking at her as if he had seen a ghost.
Before he could open his mouth and say the only name he had ever known her by—Angel—she shook her head. His eyes widened perceptibly, but he seemed to get the message, because his gaze swiveled to Damon.
Groaning, she kept her head down, and Jorge whisked her through customs so quickly she barely had time to look around and log the changes. The last time she had been on Medinos, the airport had been on the small side and lacking in amenities. Now it was considerably larger and more complicated, with a sophisticated set of duty-free shops attached.
Half an hour later, they arrived at the hotel, an old but sumptuous building that looked like it had once been a palace of some sort, with gorgeous tiled floors, jewellike water features and lavish displays of white roses and trailing star jasmine.
The suite Damon had booked was on the sixth floor. It was was breathtakingly luxurious, with three bedrooms, two reception rooms, a study and a fully equipped kitchen.
Feeling a little off balance that Damon had booked a multiroomed suite rather than two separate suites, as if they were already a family, Zara stowed Rosie’s things in one of the rooms. When the bellhop had gone, and Rosie was tucked into bed, Damon opened the French doors that led out onto a stone balcony. He threaded his fingers with hers, sending a sharp pulse of awareness through her as he pulled her outside.
As distracted as she was by Damon standing beside her, muscular and relaxed in a white T-shirt and jeans, as problematic as being on Medinos was, Zara couldn’t help but drink in the view.
The stars were out, along with a silver half-moon. Whitewashed buildings, bleached by moonlight, with their dark, terra-cotta tiled roofs, tumbled down to the bay below. In the distance, she could make out the promontory, with its cluster of villas that used to be home.
Out of nowhere, her throat closed up. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed Medinos, missed having a place to truly call home. Added to that, since her mother had died, she hadn’t been able to afford to come back. This would be her first opportunity to visit Petra’s grave.
“It’s...beautiful.”
Damon plucked the cap from her head and tossed it over the balcony.
Utterly surprised, Zara yelped. She had no time to grab for the cap; all she could do was watch as it sailed down to the gardens below.
Damon tugged at her fingers, coaxing her in close. “That’s better.” His fingers tangled in her hair. “Your hair is too gorgeous to hide. Never wear that cap again.”
Terminally annoyed, because she needed that cap, Zara’s palms landed on his chest. Although, as annoyed as she was, a renegade part of her loved that he had pulled her close and didn’t want to push him away. “That hat was mine.”
His expression turned rueful. “I suppose you’ll just go out and buy another one.”
“I don’t need to—I’ve got a spare in my suitcase.”
He shrugged and released her. “Okay, wear it if you want. Just not around me.”
In the instant he let her go, contrarily, she didn’t want to be free. Taking the half step needed to bring her close again, she wound her arms around his neck in a loose hold.
She was aware that she was playing with fire, but she couldn’t resist. Something had changed with Damon, and she couldn’t put her finger on quite what it was, except that he seemed suddenly extremely confident of her.
“I’m interested. What else am I not allowed to wear around you?”
“Clothing. Of any sort.”
With a grin, Damon swept her into his arms and carried her to a sumptuous master bedroom. He tumbled her onto the very large bed, which looked like it had been made for an entire family.
A little breathlessly, Zara watched as Damon peeled out of his shirt and pants. Lit by the golden glow of a single lamp, she decided that with his broad shoulders and olive-toned skin, the black hair and tough jaw, he looked remarkably like one of the Templar knights depicted in a Medinian oil painting she had once seen.
He came down on the bed beside her and propped himself on one elbow. He ran one finger down her throat to the first button of her shirt, popping it open. “Now you.”
Her breath dammed in her throat at his playful streak, which was new and unexpectedly precious because it seemed to signal the kind of intimacy she hadn’t dared hope for. She climbed from the bed and began to undress, but when she got down to her bra and panties her nerve gave out, and she clambered back onto the vast bed, making up for her sudden shyness by straddling him.
Damon pulled her so that she sprawled across his chest. “That’s it?”
She cupped his jaw, the clean scent of his skin making her clench her stomach. “Uh-huh. I’m not that experienced at this.”
Damon went oddly still. “What, exactly, are you saying?”
She frowned because when they had first made love she had expected him to know. When he hadn’t mentioned anything, she had kept the knowledge to herself because the relationship was so new and she hadn’t wanted him to think she was trying to tie him to her.
Before she could actually say it, he muttered something short and flat beneath his breath. “You were a virgin.”
She traced the line of his mouth with the pad of her thumb and tried to make light of it She hadn’t consciously set out to stay a virgin; she had just never met anyone she actually wanted to make love with until Damon. Petra’s death and the problems with the media hadn’t helped. Zara had basically retreated into her shell and stayed there.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. But I’m glad that you know.” Then, even if the worst happened and he hated her for being Petra’s daughter, he would at least know that the tabloids had lied about her.
He caught her fingers in his and pulled them to his lips. “I’m sorry I missed that moment, babe. But I’m glad you’ve only ever been mine.”
Babe. Happiness seemed to expand inside her as he rolled so that she was beneath him. But despite the heat that shimmered through her, despite the coiling tension that was already making it hard to breathe, let alone think, a tiny thought niggled. “What about you?”
Damon had dispensed with her bra, now he cupped her breasts, his palms faintly abrasive against her tender skin. His thumbs swept across her nipples, making it difficult to concentrate on what was, suddenly, a very important question.
His gaze captured hers. “What do you mean, what about me?”
She drew in a sharp breath as he took the nipple of one breast into his mouth. “I mean, Caroline.”
Damon moved and she lifted her hips to assist him as he peeled down her panties. “Remember that reporter who came to your office?”
Zara drew in a sharp breath as Damon parted her legs with his thigh. She tried to think, but with his muscular weight now pressing her down into the mattress, her normally excellent memory had deserted her. “Um...Red Glasses.”
Damon grinned and rewarded her with a kiss, which sent a ridiculously happy glow through her.
“Vanessa Gardiner. She was a friend of Caroline’s. Why do you think Caroline put a reporter on my tail?”
Zara tried to gather her thoughts, but with the enticing pressure between her legs and the heated ache low in her belly, it was difficult to think of anything but how long it was going to take Damon to actually start making love to her. “I give up.”
Damon’s darkened gaze pinned her. “Caroline wanted to know who I was sleeping with.”
Understanding finally dawned. “Because you weren’t sleeping with her.” She swallowed, feeling suddenly, unexpectedly teary. “That means—”
“I haven’t slept with anyone else.”
Feeling just the tiniest bit fierce and possessive, she coiled her arms around his neck and pulled him close, relieved when he finally began entering her. When he was fully sheathed, she wrapped her legs around his hips, trying to pull him closer still.
She thought she had already felt everything she was going to feel with Damon, that nothing could be more intense and more meaningful than the lovemaking they had already shared. But as they began making slow, exquisite love to each other she discovered she had been wrong.
The knowledge that he had been celibate for the last thirteen months changed things. It made the deep, lasting love she craved with Damon seem possible. As she kissed him back, touched him back, with every breath, suddenly the night was alive with emotions that shimmered and burned, melded and entwined...
* * *
Zara awoke to sun streaming through the French doors and Rosie patting her cheek. A little startled that she had slept so late and that Damon had taken charge of Rosie, Zara shifted up in the bed, pulling the linen sheets around her breasts as she cuddled her daughter.
Damon looked gorgeous in light jeans and a white T-shirt, his phone to one ear. He terminated the call, bent down and kissed her on the mouth.
“Stay in bed and rest. I’m driving out to the house to talk to Ben. Rosie’s had her breakfast, so if you like, I can take her with me. I’ll only be a couple of hours at most, and Mark ordered a car with tinted windows and a car seat, so she’ll be safe and incognito.”
Zara watched, a faint lump in her throat, as Damon strapped on the front pack and neatly fitted a gurgling Rosie into the cushioned frame. He seemed to be an expert at the fatherhood thing already. But she was all too aware after Damon’s revelation and the fact that they seemed poised on the brink of a real relationship that the bubble of happiness she was presently living in could burst at any moment.
She needed to tell Damon the truth today.
Zara showered and dressed in an ice-blue dress that made the most of her tan. Humming beneath her breath, she sat at the exquisite antique dressing table to do her hair. As she coiled the heavy, glossy strands into a knot on top of her head and began sliding in pins, she couldn’t help noticing that she looked different. She had heard women speak of glowing when they were in love. She was glowing. Her eyes were alight, her skin radiant, her mouth softly curved.
She applied minimal makeup, fitted earrings and did a final check of her appearance. She had a floppy-brimmed hat to wear, but at the last minute decided she was over the hat idea. She dragged a pair of large sunglasses out of her handbag instead. Good! With the sunglasses hiding her eyes and her cheekbones, she barely recognized herself.
She checked her watch. Damon wouldn’t be long. If she was going to visit Petra’s grave, see her mother’s lawyer, then go to the bank to see what, exactly, Petra had stashed in the safe-deposit box—if anything—she needed to hurry.
She bought an armful of pretty flowers from a street vendor, then took a taxi to the local cemetery, which was situated on the windblown side of a hill overlooking the sea. Finding Petra’s grave was easy, because she was buried near the ancient stone chapel, right beside Zara’s father. Chest tight, her throat locked, Zara gently laid the flowers down. She hadn’t quite known how she was going to feel, but there was a wild beauty about the hillside and the stone cross of the chapel etched against blue sky, a curious sense of peace and closure.
A few minutes later, the taxi delivered her to the address on the last letter she had received from her mother’s legal firm. The white limestone building was situated on one of the steep, narrow streets that were a feature of Medinos.
She stepped out of the glaring heat of the sun into the inky well of shade offered by the foyer. She stopped by the front desk, and the receptionist, who was on a call, put the phone down. Before she could show Zara to Takis’s office, a plump, balding man with a rumpled suit stepped out of a door.
The receptionist spoke in rapid Medinian. Zara heard her own name and realized she was looking at her mother’s lawyer.
Takis stared at her for a long moment. “You do not look like your mother.”
Tell me about it. “Nevertheless, I am Petra Hunt’s daughter.”
He held his door open with discernible reluctance. Jaw set, Zara walked into the small, rather messy office.
“Please, take a seat. What can I do for you?”
“I would like to view my mother’s file.”
“You know she signed the prenuptial—”
“I’m not worried about that.” She attempted a smooth smile. “It’s the offer by the McCall estate that I’m really interested in.”
Takis frowned. “I don’t understand. I sent you a copy—”
“I burned it.”
There was a moment of taut silence. Takis walked to a wall of files, searched for what seemed an age before pulling out a folder. The chair behind his desk squeaked as he sat down. He flipped open the file, turned it around and pushed it across the desk toward her.
Zara skimmed the document, turned a page and froze. Damon’s signature seemed to leap off the page. When she had originally received the offer, she hadn’t paid much attention to the signature. Since then, a part of her had hoped it hadn’t been Damon who had signed it, that it actually had been some faceless lawyer.
“May I have a copy of this?”
Minutes later, still feeling numb because Damon had been the architect of that horrible offer after all, Zara strolled down the steep street and into the bustling center of Medinos. The midday heat poured down as she crossed at a busy intersection, thronged with holidaymakers, but she barely noticed the swarms of brightly colored tourists.
Feeling suddenly thirsty, she stopped at a small café and bought one of Medinos’s signature drinks, an enticing cordial of plum and lemon poured over shaved ice that quickly dissolved in the heat.
The bank her mother had used was easy enough to find. An entirely new tension hummed through her as she took in the high-vaulted ceilings, plaster frescoes and elegant marble floor. A pretty bank clerk directed her to an office that opened off the reception area. A trim, darkly suited clerk checked Zara’s ID and the copy of Petra’s will she had brought with her before escorting her down an echoing corridor. He entered a code into a thoroughly modern keypad and waited for her to precede him into another room.
A guard seated at a desk asked to see her key. He took note of the number and disappeared into an adjacent room. Seconds later, he appeared with a key, then opened a steel door into the vault and indicated she follow him. Zara watched as he unlocked a steel compartment and pulled out a long, narrow steel box, which he laid on a small table. Nodding politely, he withdrew, leaving her in privacy to unlock the box.
Out of nowhere, her heart began to pound.
When her mother had died, Zara had been thousands of miles away and had not had the funds to get back for the funeral. A model friend of her mother’s had packed up Petra’s things and freighted them to Zara. Opening those boxes and sorting through her mother’s clothes and personal effects had been the only ritual left to her. That was possibly why she was now unbearably aware that the last time this safe-deposit box had been opened, it had been by her mother.
Petra had stood in this same sterile room while she placed whatever it was that she had held most precious in the narrow steel box. Emotion swelled in Zara’s chest—a sudden, powerful sense of connection with the mother she had lost, emotions she had avoided because losing Petra had cut the ground from under her. Despite their differences they had always been a pair—two against the world.
Taking a deep breath, she inserted the key, turned it and opened the box. She instantly recognized the faded leather cases that held Atrides family jewelry; she had seen them often enough as a child. After lifting them out, she opened them, emotion swelling as she looked at the pretty collection of French brooches and pendants, the huge old-fashioned cameo her great-grandmother had worn with a black bombazine dress.
Her fingers brushed against a small black velvet bag. She loosened the cord and emptied the contents into the palm of her hand. Not jewelry as she had expected, but a glittering cascade of diamonds; single stones of varying sizes, all of them glowing with an expensive fire.
Once, over a glass of wine, Petra had alluded to her life savings. She hadn’t said what the savings were exactly. Zara had thought she was talking about money, but the amount in Petra’s bank accounts had been too small to qualify as savings of any sort. Now she knew that her mother had been referring to this cache of diamonds, her hedge against the hard times that would come when her looks faded.
Heart thumping, she poured the diamonds into the pouch like so much liquid fire and carefully retied the cord. Her mother hadn’t lived long enough to need the money the diamonds would bring. But Zara was certain Petra would love it that her savings would be put to good use, and not just for a deposit on a house—she would buy the whole thing.
The final items in the box were a plain white envelope, a solitaire engagement ring, a gold wedding ring worn thin over the years and a silver cross that she recognized as once belonging to her father.
Zara’s throat closed up as she extracted the jewelry that had been the intimate, personal belongings of her parents. She had wondered what had happened to her mother’s rings, which Petra was usually never without. She had assumed they had been lost in the accident somehow, or maybe misplaced by the people who had sorted through Petra’s things.
Frowning, Zara opened the last item, the envelope, and extracted a sheaf of what looked like certificates. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest as the name McCall Electrical jumped out at her. Stunned, Zara flipped through a sheaf of numbered shares in McCall Electrical. Voting shares, the shares Damon had been chasing for the past year or so and which had blocked his takeover bid of the company. Shares that Tyler must have gifted to Petra and which now, technically, belonged to Zara.
With careful precision, because her fingers were shaking, she placed the certificates on the table. From her work on the McCall deal, Zara knew they represented a 10 percent chunk of McCall Electrical, which meant they were worth tens of millions of dollars.
Suddenly, her aunt Phoebe’s motives in placing Zara at Damon’s business made an even more horrible kind of sense. Her aunt must have known about the existence of the shares and their value. She had obviously hoped that if Zara got to know Damon before she found out about the shares, that she wouldn’t reject them as she’d rejected the cash offer by Damon.
“Sorry, Phoebe,” Zara muttered beneath her breath. “You should have known you were wasting your time. I wouldn’t touch these with a barge pole.”
As far as she was concerned, they belonged to Damon and Ben; she wanted no part of them. She stared at the shares, feeling suddenly utterly panicked. It was bad enough that she had to explain her true identity to Damon; having to explain the shares was too much.
First off, if she gave the shares back to Damon, he would know that her mother had had them, which would confirm his opinion of Petra and make him doubly suspicious of Zara. Second, she was almost certain that Damon would view her gesture as calculated. He was a billionaire and had already proposed marriage, so financially she would not need the shares. Whichever way she looked at it, giving the shares back to Damon herself could mean he would no longer want marriage with her, and she could not risk that.
She would have to find a way to get them back to Damon so that he would never know she’d had them all along.
Last night she had seen a glimmer of what the future could hold for them. She couldn’t bear it if he rejected her outright. She loved him, and she wanted him to love her. With the shares in her possession, more than ever, she needed to pick the right time to tell him. Although, she was beginning to wonder if such a moment existed.
Hating even to touch shares that she would rather die than accept, Zara shoved them back into the envelope. As she did so, she noticed a slip of paper. It was a note written from Tyler to Petra in a clean, slanting hand. In essence it said that because Petra had insisted on a prenuptial agreement and refused to share in his wealth and assets, he insisted she accept the shares, which were an engagement present.
Knees feeling wobbly, Zara sat down. Her spine and scalp were tingling, all the fine hairs at her nape raised, her chest tight. The words Tyler had written were straightforward and businesslike, but Tyler giving Petra stock in his firm could mean only one thing, just as Petra taking off the wedding rings Zara’s father had given her could mean only one thing.
They had been deeply in love.
Zara’s fingers closed automatically over the thin wedding band and the pretty solitaire diamond. Petra had loved Zara’s father to the point that no man had ever lived up to him. Even after his death, she had worn his rings and had never consented to wearing anyone else’s jewelry. Zara had known that, because as a child, worrying about who might replace her father, she had come to realize that as long as Petra wore her wedding ring, there would be no replacement. Every time Petra had visited her at school, or taken her away on holiday, the first thing Zara had done was check her mother’s left hand. Despite all the speculative media reports about who Petra was dating, if she was still wearing her wedding rings, that meant their small family of two was still intact.
Zara reread the note Tyler had written, and this time she noticed the date. Two days before Petra and Tyler had died.
Petra had been engaged. Her relationship had been real and valid. The shares proved that.
The shares.
Zara felt like flinging them somewhere, burning them, but she couldn’t do either thing. She was caught between a rock and a hard place, because Damon needed the shares to gain control of McCall Electrical.
Feverishly, she tossed Tyler’s note onto the table while she examined the envelope itself. It was plain and white, with no writing on it. Good. She would find a way to have the shares delivered to Damon, maybe pay someone to drop them off at the concierge desk. It had to be someone she trusted, yet who couldn’t be connected to her.
Feeling like a cat on hot bricks—elated because the diamonds represented the financial security she and Rosie desperately needed, and utterly stressed at finding the missing McCall shares—she gathered everything from the table and shoved it all into her bag.
She had hoped she would recover some family jewelry today, and she had; what she hadn’t expected was for the past to rush back at her like a freight train. A past she had to explain to Damon so he wouldn’t end up hating her.
Above all, she didn’t want him to think the reason she was so attracted to him had anything to do with his money. It wasn’t true and it would never be true. What she wanted was what she had always wanted, to be loved and cherished for herself.
Pushing to her feet, she hooked the strap of her bag over her shoulder and checked her watch. Anxiety made her stomach hollow when she saw how much time had passed. Almost an hour, although it had felt like a lot less.
After handing in her key because she wouldn’t be needing the box again, she made a beeline back to the main foyer of the bank. As she stepped out onto the pavement, the glare of the afternoon sun had her rummaging for her sunglasses. Sliding them onto the bridge of her nose, she hailed a cab. Relieved when the cab veered toward her, she slid into the back seat and gave the cabbie the hotel’s address, suddenly anxious to get back to Rosie.
Five minutes later, the cab stopped at the hotel entrance. After paying the fare, Zara stepped into the foyer. She stopped dead when she saw Emily, who was sitting in one of the leather chairs, watching the entrance and clearly waiting for her.
“What’s wrong?”
Emily dragged Zara toward the most secluded couch, positioned beneath a lush indoor palm right next to the elevators. “Damon’s talking to Ben.” Her face crumpled. “At first I thought Damon was okay with Ben and I being together, then Walter called, and everything changed. We had to come here because the cell phone coverage is practically nonexistent out on the coast and Walter had emailed some kind of report—”
“An investigative report.”
Emily’s face went white. “I think so, because Ben knows about Daniel now.”
Zara took the seat next to Emily. “Daniel? I thought his name was Jason.”
Emily flushed. “I guessed by now you would know too. Daniel was before Jason. He was a business partner of my father’s. My father wanted me to marry him. I liked him quite a lot—I even thought I might be in love with him—so I agreed, but then I met Jason.”
“So you pulled out of the marriage.”
She shrugged. “I fell for Jason. He could have been a pauper for all I cared.”
“But he wasn’t. He was even richer, so it made you look like you were chasing a bigger catch.”
Emily looked miserable. “I thought I’d made the right choice until Jason dumped me. Unfortunately, when it happened some columnist wrote a snarky piece about it, accusing me of bed-hopping and chasing a rich husband. I felt so humiliated, I left my job in my father’s business—”
“Changed your name and came to work for me.”
Emily flushed. “You seem so calm about this. I thought you’d be steaming mad. I thought you’d hate me.” She grimaced. “Just like Ben will. I’m pretty sure Walter will have dug up that horrible article.”
Abruptly, the fear that had been sawing at Zara ever since she’d discovered the shares died and was replaced by an odd sense of calm. If Walter had investigated Emily, then he would be investigating her, which meant she was out of time. She grimly wondered if Damon had also received a security report about her.
The last few days, her life had been tipped upside down and spun around and, quite frankly, she was over the stress of it. She was a good person. She loved her daughter and she loved Damon and she wanted to share her life with him. But if he preferred security reports and the rubbish the media invented over her word, then she was out of options.
A painful flush suffused Emily’s face. “Damon’s very protective of Ben. I can understand why he would want to warn him off—”
“Ben’s an adult,” she said crisply. “He doesn’t need his older brother interfering in something that is none of his business.”
Emily looked startled. “I thought you’d be furious, which is why I wanted to catch you before you spoke to Damon. It was bad enough that I walked out on my job—” She fumbled in her handbag, found a tissue and blew her nose. “I’ve made a real mess of things. I don’t even know if Ben will ever let me explain—”
The elevator doors opened. Ben strode out, his face pale, his expression taut. His gaze zeroed in on Emily.
“You’re still here,” he muttered. “Thank goodness. I thought you would have run a mile.”
Emily jumped to her feet. “Why would I run?”
“Because my family’s so messed up. Why would you want to be a part of us? I’ve just heard it all. My father was a crazy, violent drunk and a womanizer who squandered the family fortune on mistresses. I was born after he died, so I never knew him, but Damon did, and he’s literally got the scars to prove it. That’s why he’s so...overprotective. He doesn’t want me falling into the same pit of snakes.” Ben grinned lopsidedly.
Emily looked devastated. “He thinks I’m a pit of snakes?”
Ben instantly clasped her upper arms and pulled her close, his expression anxious. “Baby, that came out all wrong. The pit of snakes is the out-of-control, addictive behavior Damon thinks runs in the family line, not you.”
“Phew,” Emily said, with the glimmer of a watery smile. “For a moment there I thought Damon must hate me.”
“Damon doesn’t hate anyone. He just doesn’t want me to get hurt.”
Emily stiffened. “And do you think I’ll hurt you?”
“Only if you leave me.”
“I wasn’t intending to leave. Why would I? I love you.”
Relief washed over Ben’s face. “Ditto. I don’t care about your past relationships, and the truth is I’ve hardly been an altar boy myself, if you know what I mean. If you’re happy with me, that’s all I want to know.”
Emily threw Zara a radiant glance as Ben hurried her out of the hotel. “Sorry about the job, Zara, but it looks like I’m definitely not coming back!”
Zara watched as Ben settled Emily into a low-slung sports car, which was parked just across the road. Feeling a little stunned by what Ben had revealed about Damon’s past, Zara made a beeline toward the elevators.
Damon having a father who had driven the family broke with his spending on mistresses neatly explained his attitude toward Petra, and to Angel Atrides. It also made sense of his attempt to pay her off and get her to sign that insulting “go away” agreement. Ben had also mentioned scars, and that their father had been violent. She had always thought Damon’s scars had been earned in battle, but some of them must have been inflicted by his father.
Slowly, quietly, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place and her heart squeezed tight at what Damon must have endured as a child. She was beginning to understand why he had such an issue with trust.
As the elevator whizzed upward, her stomach tensed. Emily’s expression had glowed; she had gotten her happy ending. An ending Zara now very much doubted would be hers.
When she stepped into the suite, Rosie, who was lying on a rug on the floor playing with a rattle, crowed, flung the toy aside and held her arms out to Zara. A rush of pure maternal love brought tears to Zara’s eyes. It might not be possible that she could ever have the true, adult love she needed from Damon, but she had her daughter.
Zara carried her handbag, with all of its incriminating evidence, into Rosie’s room and stashed it in a dark corner. She walked back out to the sitting room and scooped Rosie up, needing the comfort of her child in her arms.
Damon strolled out of the adjoining study, a cell in his hand. Zara decided to take the bull by the horns. “I saw Emily and Ben in the lobby. Luckily, Ben had the maturity to see beyond Emily’s past to what a nice person she is.”
Damon dropped the phone into his back pocket. “I agree that Emily is nice,” he said mildly. “But if she had been up-front about her past to begin with, there wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“Maybe Emily had some very good reasons for keeping her life, and her name, private.”
“Most people don’t deal with it by changing their name.”
Zara stared at Damon for a long moment, wondering if there was a double meaning to his words because he knew she had changed her name. Rosie, who had slumped into a contented doze almost as soon as Zara had picked her up, stirred, as if even in sleep she could sense the uncomfortable currents. “You say that as if she did it to deliberately deceive Ben, when all she wanted was to escape the press and keep her privacy.”
Damon frowned. “The press were not exactly hounding Emily. As I recall, it was one gossip columnist.”
“Just one? Then Emily can’t have been that notorious.” Afraid that she would lose her temper and reveal too much, Zara walked through to Rosie’s room, placed her in her crib and covered her with a light cotton blanket. She drew a deep breath and discovered that her hands were shaking. The one ray of hope was that, given that they were still talking about Emily, maybe Damon hadn’t yet received a report about her.
When she walked out to the sitting room, Damon’s gaze was wary. “What have I done now?”
He was standing at a set of French doors that opened out onto a sun-drenched patio. With his arms crossed over his chest, making his shoulders seem even broader, he looked brooding, utterly masculine and more than a little dangerous.
Zara got straight to the point. “Emily said you got Walter to dig into her past.”
“Ben’s my brother. He’s in love with a woman who, at some point, changed her name.” He shrugged. “Of course, I got Walter to do a little digging—”
“I suppose you think Emily’s not good enough for Ben?”
Damon’s brows jerked together. “These days what I think doesn’t really impact Ben.”
But it impacted Zara! “Okay, then, you don’t think Emily’s good enough.”
Damon reached her in two strides. Linking his fingers with hers, he pulled her close, which was disorienting when she was still bracing herself for the fact that he had received some kind of damning report on her.
“Forget Emily,” he muttered. “I had hoped we might be doing something else right about now.”
The bell to the suite buzzed. Damon swore softly. “Talk about bad timing.”
He opened the door to a waiter, who wheeled in a cart with a bottle of champagne on ice and two glasses. Damon tipped the waiter and closed the door behind him before wheeling the cart off to one side.
His expression was rueful. “I was supposed to give you something before that happened.”
He fished a velvet box out of his pocket and flipped the lid. For a split second she thought he had an engagement ring, then she saw a pair of gorgeous diamond earrings.
For a moment she battled disappointment, then the sheer relief that Damon still wanted to give her a gift, and the sheer beauty of the earrings, took over.
Despite his contention that he wanted to keep things on a businesslike footing, he had obviously been thinking about her and wanting to please her, even down to doing something romantic like ordering champagne. A lump formed in her throat as it occurred to her that, even though everything seemed to be happening in reverse—as in having sex and a baby!—Damon was now courting her.
“You don’t have to give me jewelry—”
“After last night, I wanted you to have something.”
Understanding dawned. Last night she had told him that she had only ever been his.
Fingers shaking slightly, she picked up the gorgeous earrings, walked over to the mirror and inserted them in her lobes. She had been about to say that she couldn’t accept them, but now she didn’t want to let them go because she was certain they were a genuine gift of love, even if Damon didn’t realize it.
“They’re...beautiful.”
Damon came up behind her and pulled her back against the warmth of his chest. “You’re beautiful.”
He turned her around in his arms and kissed her. Zara wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back, happiness shimmering through her as she wallowed in the sheer warmth and comfort of being back in Damon’s arms, but the moment was bittersweet. As wonderful as it was to just be with Damon, to let her imagination run riot and pretend that they were both in love, it was a fact that they were on borrowed time.
And she had the sudden premonition that if she didn’t make love to Damon now, she never would again.
A little feverishly, she began undoing the buttons of his shirt.
Damon lifted his head, his gaze heated. “Now?”
For an answer, she kissed him again and dragged at more buttons. Damon’s shirt dropped to the floor. This time he pulled her close and kissed her. Long drugging seconds later her dress followed suit and she found herself propelled in the direction of the bedroom.
Damon kicked the bedroom door closed behind them as they stepped through. By the time they reached the bed, Damon had stepped out of his pants and her bra was gone. There was a momentary pause while Damon sheathed himself with a condom then they were lying tangled together on the sun-drenched bed.
She felt the glide of Damon’s fingers as he peeled her panties down her legs. Desire shivered and burned as he came down between her thighs. With one smooth thrust he was inside her and they were deeply, perfectly linked.
Damon’s gaze locked with hers and his fierce tenderness struck her to the heart. For a split second, she felt the utter rightness of being together, that he truly belonged to her and she to him.
She clasped his shoulders as they began to move, tears blinding her at the sheer intimacy of what they were doing. She felt as if she was finally, truly getting to know Damon and at the same time saying goodbye.