‘Who’ll support me now?’ That had been Lizzie’s stepmother’s first question when Lizzie had returned home to find her suitcases waiting in the hall.
She should have known what was happening, but she had rushed up to her bedroom, thinking to bury her grief in her pillows, only to find her bedroom had been cleared. She had wasted a few precious minutes railing against fate before pulling herself together and accepting that this was her life now, and she’d better get on with it.
On her way out of the house she’d found her stepmother in her father’s study, going through the drawers of his desk. ‘I guess we’ll both have to work,’ Lizzie had said.
Her stepmother’s expression had twisted into something ugly. ‘I don’t work,’ she’d said haughtily. ‘And if you think you can persuade me to let you stay, you’re wasting your time. You’re one expense I can’t afford.’
That had been the last time they’d seen each other, and it had taken Lizzie’s stepmother less than a week to replace Lizzie’s father with a richer man.
She decided on a heavily edited version for Damon. ‘It wasn’t all bad,’ she said, thinking back. ‘The shock of finding myself homeless was good for me. I had to stand on my own two feet, and I found I enjoyed doing it.’
‘Sacrificing your dreams?’ He frowned.
‘Sometimes dreams have to wait,’ Lizzie said frankly. She’d done more than survive. She’d thrived, and had proved herself capable of far more than she’d imagined.
‘You’ve got ketchup on your chin—’
She sucked in a fast breath as he wiped it off. His touch was still electric.
‘Next time I’ll take you out for a proper meal—’
‘Next time?’ she queried. ‘So you’re back for good?’ Her heart drummed a tattoo as she thought about all the implications of that.
He chose not to answer her question. ‘Stavros says you work too hard. You have to take a break sometime,’ he insisted.
What else had Stavros told him? she wondered. She had so much to lose. Damon had been absent from her life for a long time, but he was still a core part of her existence. He didn’t know it yet, but he could rip her world apart on a whim.
‘Soda or water?’ he asked.
‘Water, please.’ Her throat was tight and dry.
As Damon turned to speak to the vendor she thought back to her first deception on their night together, when she’d been a virgin pretending not to be, embarking on a romantic adventure with a handsome Greek—or so she’d thought. Her life had been in chaos at the time. She hadn’t been thinking straight. Hated by her stepmother, she’d been desperate for her father to notice her.
She’d failed.
She’d almost failed with Damon too. Clinging to him, begging him to take her so she could forget her wretched home life, she had exclaimed with shock as he’d taken her, and he’d pulled back. It had taken all her feminine wiles to persuade him to continue.
Of course she was on the pill, she’d insisted.
He’d used protection anyway.
Belt and braces? she’d teased him.
Damon had proved to be a master of seduction, a master of pleasure, and they’d made love all night. But there had been chances to talk too, and it had been then that they had discovered a closeness that neither of them had expected. Surprising both of them, she was sure, they had enjoyed each other’s company.
‘Let’s walk.’
She glanced up as Damon took the top off her bottle of water. ‘I’d like that.’
A walk promised a welcome break from the past. She could take in the majesty of London instead...that was if she could stop looking at Damon.
Life and responsibility had cut harsh lines into his brow and around his mouth, but those only made him seem more human. Harsh, yet humorous, ruthless, yet empathetic, Damon was an exceptional man.
‘When I’m in London I walk a lot,’ he revealed, glancing down, his eyes too dark to read. ‘Sometimes it’s good to be alone with your thoughts, don’t you think?’
‘That depends who you are and what you’re thinking, I suppose,’ she said, remembering how quickly their whispered confidences in bed had turned to mistrust the following day in court. It would take more than walking together to clear the air between them, she suspected.
At the time the press reports—coming on top of everything else that had been happening at home—had destroyed Lizzie’s confidence. She’d lost her self-belief, as well as her confidence in her own judgement. She’d lost her trust in everyone—and in herself most of all. But then she’d realised that with no one to pick her up she’d better get on with it, and so she’d rebuilt her life along very different lines, far away from privilege and trickery.
A pawnbroker had given Lizzie her first break, taking what few scraps had remained of her mother’s jewellery in exchange for enough money to pay her first week’s rent. She remembered begging him not to sell her mother’s wedding ring. ‘There’s nothing exceptional about it,’ she’d protested when he’d informed her that he wasn’t a charitable institution. ‘You must have dozens like it—’
‘Not with three seed pearls set in the centre of the band,’ he’d said as he’d studied the ring with his eyeglass.
‘I’ll clean your shop for nothing,’ she’d offered in desperation. ‘I’ll pay you back with interest, I promise...’
But life had caught up with her, making the necessity of keeping a roof over her head more important than her mother’s wedding ring, so it would have to wait. Maybe one day...
‘Something wrong?’ Damon asked as she bit her lip and grimaced.
‘Nothing. Why?’ she gazed up at him evenly.
‘You made a sound like an angry kitten.’
She made no comment. Being compared to a kitten would not have been her choice. She felt as if the past few years had required her to be a tigress.
‘Enough?’ he said, when she shivered.
‘I’d better get back,’ she agreed.
The Bentley sat waiting for them, gleaming black and opulent. It was attracting admiring glances from passers-by, and now they were attracting interest too, as they approached it. The elegant vehicle was a fabulous representation of privilege, and Lizzie thought it the most visible proof of the yawning gulf between them. She couldn’t imagine what people must be thinking about the suave billionaire and the shabby kitchen worker getting into a car like that.
Did there ever come a point when a cork stopped bobbing t
o the surface? she wondered as Damon opened the passenger door and saw her safely settled in?
No. She hadn’t come this far to give up now.
‘Home?’ he asked.
So he could see where she lived?
‘Back to the restaurant, please.’ She tried not to look at him. ‘There are things I need to pick up.’
She didn’t want him visiting her home. She couldn’t risk it. This had been pleasant, but there was more to life than Damon’s riches and his personal success. What Lizzie was protecting was infinitely more precious, and she had no intention of risking everything she cared about by acting carelessly now.
Damon had the power to steal everything away from her.
She wouldn’t let him. It was as simple as that. Whatever it took, that wasn’t going to happen.
He started the engine and the Bentley purred obediently.
‘Your mother was Greek, wasn’t she?’ he asked conversationally as he pulled onto the road.
‘Yes, she was.’
‘I suppose that accounts for your unusual colouring. I never thought about it before, but with your Celtic red hair and those chocolate-brown eyes and long black lashes your colouring is quite unusual...’
‘I suppose it is,’ Lizzie agreed, realising that she had never thought about it either, beyond the fact that when things had been at their bleakest she had sought refuge in the warm, home-loving Greek community in London, where there was always someone who knew someone, she reflected wryly. But wasn’t life like that? Paths crossed, then separated, and then crossed again.
‘I think we should see each other again.’
She stared at Damon in amazement, feeling a little defensive. ‘Should we? Why?’ Her heart thundered as she waited for his reply.
He shrugged. ‘I promised you a proper meal?’
‘I won’t hold you to that.’ But they would have to see each other again, she accepted. That was inevitable now.
‘We’ll make a date before I leave tonight,’ he said, glancing across at her.
Would they? Could she risk spending an entire evening with Damon? Could she risk becoming relaxed with him and yet not telling him about anything of significance that had happened in her life over the past eleven years? Could she risk her feelings for him only to lose him again—and for good this time?