Play with Me

I frown. “Why isn’t your office phone ringing?”

“I turned it off when I saw your letter.” He grabs his pants and pulls them on, then reads the text messages Terrance is screaming about. He grimaces at the content. “Wonderful. More potential breaches. The mob was easier to deal with than this mess.” He slips on his shirt. “I heard about the missing charity funds.”

Already dressed, I slide on my shoes. “Did you see the coded messages on the back of Natalie’s pictures?”

“Not yet. Terrance has an update on what it is, though.” He reaches for my hand and pulls me close. “I can’t wait to get you in my bed tonight.”

I grab his tie and slip it around his neck, pulling the knot for him, but I don’t step away when I’m done. I hold on to it like I want to hold on to him. “Damion—”

“Stop worrying and let me handle things. And that’s an order, Ms. Miller. I’m still the boss.”

* * *

Once Damion is gone and I’m at my desk, business is back to usual. No one seems to want to ask me questions, and I can’t help but wonder if Damion has done something to make sure they don’t. I spend the rest of the afternoon doing final confirmations for the charity event, and I email Terrance the complete list of participants.

Finally, near six o’clock, Dana gives me a shy wave goodbye, as if I’m the plague, and the press releases for the charity event land in my in-box. And they are bad. So bad that I’m appalled. The overall promotional plan is lacking, as far as I can see.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway carries to me in the silence of the now-empty offices, and I hold my breath, expecting Damion. Instead, Terrance appears, his suit and security jacket pressed and perfect, his blond hair a bit longish and wild. I know why he’s here and I lean back in my chair, hugging myself, ready to put all conversations of Kent behind me.

“I’ll get right to it,” Terrance says, stopping in front of me. “My team messed up. We were so wrapped up in protecting the company in the midst of internal havoc that we got too aggressive in our actions. I can’t take back what we did.” He leans forward on the desk, fist on the wooden surface. “But I can promise you that if he comes near this place or you again, he will land flat on his ass, and I’ll enjoy putting him there.”

My spine stiffens. “Damion told you.”

“He told me the bastard was worth the mud on my shoe, nothing more. But I saw the footage. I saw how upset you were. That’s enough. He won’t get to you again.”

My heart squeezes at the realization that I’ve gone from having no one care to having two men who seem to be willing to fight for me. “Thank you.”

“And I told the staff you had a family emergency and ‘Mr. Ward’ was helping you deal with it. You’re both still in the closet.”

I should be happy. Disaster for Damion avoided. I am happy. “Does Damion know?”

“Yes, Damion knows.” We both turn to find him walking around the corner toward us, and I relax into the warmth in his eyes, which tell me he has not had a change of heart. We are still us. We are together. “And we aren’t rubbing anything in anyone’s face, but we aren’t hiding, either.” He glances at me. “Ready for dinner?” He cuts Terrance a look. “And before you invite yourself as usual, forget it. She’s all mine tonight.”

“I kind of got that read on my own,” Terrance says drily, and fixes me with a hard look. “We okay?”

“Yes. We are okay.”

“Good. Call if you need me.” He starts to leave and lifts his cell at Damion. “I’ll text you if I get any more updates. Read them this time.” He heads toward the hallway.

“Let’s go eat,” Damion says, walking around the desk and turning my chair to face him.

“I can’t. I just got the press packet for the charity event. It’s a disaster. I need to rewrite it and get a new angle on it.”

“I volunteer at the shelter on Saturday morning. You can come and write the release there. And we’ll deal with PR once and for all on Monday.” He pulls me to my feet, hard against his body. “We both need a night off.” His palm flattens on my back, molding me closer. “I’ve had a change of heart. Let’s go to my place and order Chinese food.”

“Yes, please,” I find myself saying for a second time today. There is nothing I’d like more tonight than to shut the rest of the world out. Maybe I’ll even convince myself we can do it forever. But that would be a fairy tale, and the past few years have taught me that fairy tales don’t exist. But, then, Damion didn’t exist, either, and now he does.

Part Eleven

Home is where the heart is…

Saturday morning I wake in Damion’s bed, with him wrapped around me as if he thinks I might escape, and I am at peace in a way I have not been in years. Safe. Warm. Right. Remarkably, as delicious as Damion is with a one-day shadow on his jaw and his thick, dark hair rumpled, I am not even slightly self-conscious about no makeup and my own wild mess of hair.

Still naked from the night before, we are in no hurry to abandon the bed, talking about everything from the casino, to my mother, to the politics of doing business in Vegas. But I don’t miss how he dodges the subject of his mother and his youth, and I wonder if this is the source of his bruises.

It’s nearly ten when we order room service. He tugs on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and looks as gorgeously male as he does in a suit and tie. Clinging to the intimacy between us and without any clothes except my dress at his place, I grab his shirt from the night before and pull it on.

Despite Damion’s insistence that I throw on his robe and stay in the room when the food arrives, I hide in the massive, sparkling white-tiled bathroom of his fancy suite, which makes mine look like an economy spot. I just don’t understand how he seems to want to announce our relationship to the world at all costs. And there will be costs.