‘Me! She’d call me,’ Lizzie insisted furiously. ‘How could you do this? I’ll never trust you again as long as I live. Get out. Get out now! Get out!’
She broke several nails flinging the door open.
In one breath Damon had denounced the letter and accepted Thea as his daughter, and then in that self-same breath he had admitted that he was speaking to Thea behind Lizzie’s back on a semi-regular basis.
To say she felt unnervingly threatened would be massively understating the case. She was on the outside looking in at a relationship that was obviously developing between Damon and Thea without her involvement. How had it come to this? Had Thea already made her choice as to where and with whom she wanted to live?
She had to tell herself not to be so ridiculous. Thea was an intelligent girl. They loved each other. Love like theirs couldn’t be threatened or stolen away by anyone.
And when Damon strode out of the house without a backward glance, leaving Lizzie with no idea if she’d ever see him again, she wondered if maybe that was a good thing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HE CALLED HER from the car. He had been sitting right around the corner from Lizzie’s bedsit for almost an hour before he called. Her tiny room was not the right forum for big emotions to run wild.
He smiled faintly as he waited for her to pick up, imagining the answer he might get when she did. This passionate creature was the Lizzie he remembered, and while one part of him wanted nothing more than to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about another part of him was glad to have her back.
‘Hello?’ She sounded suspicious.
‘Hey...’
‘What do you want, Damon?’ She sounded hostile.
‘To fill in a few gaps for you.’
‘You think that will help?’ she demanded sceptically.
‘It can’t do any more harm.’
There was a long pause, and then she asked, ‘Where are you?’
‘Not far away.’
Silence.
‘If it helps with all that guilt you’re carrying around,’ he said, deciding to be blunt, ‘you should know that all your father’s victims got their money back.’
‘How could they?’ she demanded. ‘My father didn’t have any funds left when he died. My stepmother saw to that.’
‘The Gavros Foundation took care of it.’
‘I should have known,’ she murmured.
He waited.
‘So I’m in your debt now?’
‘You’re in no one’s debt,’ he assured her. ‘You were a victim as much as anyone else in that courtroom. I should have found a way to tell you what my family intended to do, but I was always too busy thinking about rebuilding the business.’
‘That doesn’t make me feel any less guilty,’ she assured him. ‘You shouldn’t have had to rebuild your family business. You wouldn’t have had to do that if my father hadn’t defrauded yours.’
‘Lizzie, if you’re guilty I’m guilty too. I didn’t spare a thought for the fallout of that day, beyond the financial implications for Gavros Inc. I seem to remember we’d had a good year, so it was no problem for the foundation to grant funds to the victims. Knowing they’d got their money back gave me a good feeling. But I didn’t spare a thought for the emotional consequences. You’re right. I was all about money then—ruthless and uncaring. I thought my duty was done, and that was enough.’
‘And now?’
‘And now I understand how incredibly courageous you’ve been.’
‘Please,’ she said wearily.
‘I’m not patronising you. You were down on the floor and fate kept on kicking you. I only wish I’d been there to pick you up.’
‘I didn’t need anyone to pick me up,’ she countered fast. ‘I picked myself up. And about time too.’
‘And now I need your agreement to move forward—the three of us together,’ he explained.
‘You didn’t need my agreement to speak to Thea,’ she pointed out with justifiable fire. ‘So what’s changed, Damon?’
‘I have,’ he admitted.
There was a long silence, and then she said, ‘Where are you? And I want a GPS fix this time.’
He wondered if he’d ever felt so happy as he swung himself out of the car.
* * *
They met halfway down the street. Lizzie was in her slippers, with a coat thrown over her pyjamas.
‘Can we start over?’ Damon asked her as the rain started to pelt down.
‘We’d better get back,’ she said, pulling her coat over her head.
They ran for it, but by the time they got back to the house she was soaked.
And drained.
Exercising emotions was every bit as exhausting as a hard day’s training at the gym, Lizzie had discovered, and after eleven years of holding things in that amounted to a lot of fatigue. The faintest of smiles on Damon’s mouth was enough to bring her strength flooding back, but for how long? she wondered.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk in my room.’
‘So you trust me now?’ he said, leaning back against the door.
‘Do I have an option?’
‘No. And I’ve got a better idea than discussing this in your room. Come back to the island with me and we’ll talk there. Not tonight. Sleep tonight, and tomorrow I’ll come and get you.’
She was just figuring out the pros and cons of this when Damon seized the initiative. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure, Lizzie? All I’ve ever wanted is the best for you and Thea. And if you can’t believe that believe this—’
Her world exploded into vivid colour as Damon drove his mouth down on hers. It was rain after a drought, a rock in a shifting sea of doubt and guilt. She wanted him—wanted this—tongues tangling and stroking in an arousing reminder of the act she longed for while she clung to him and he growled with pleasure as she pressed her body hungrily against his.
Eleven years of caution and protecting Thea with everything she’d got made it hard to give in to her own selfish pleasure, but with Damon’s physical heat surrounding her, and her body begging her to relent, she was at least prepared to hear him out.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked ten
sely when he released her.
‘Heal you,’ he said.
* * *
Damon left Lizzie in a tantalising state of extreme arousal after giving her instructions to pack. He’d seemed in a hurry to get somewhere, and she’d warned him that she wasn’t very good at taking instructions. But she wasn’t very good at feeling sorry for herself either. What good did it do?
When Damon’s car had roared off and it was quiet again she felt lonely, standing on her own in the middle of an empty room in an empty house, and then she decided that she could sit down and cry or get on with things. She chose action.
First things first. She was hungry. An army fought on its stomach, and the Italian restaurant down the road was always bright and welcoming. She could walk there once she’d changed into some dry clothes. Right now pizza and a glass of rough red wine sounded like heaven.
* * *
Lizzie was carrying serious wounds from the past, and he couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure of her unless he did something epic to reassure her that he really had turned a corner and was determined to see things through.
He was like a bear with a sore head as he drove away from her bedsit. The fact that his lawyer had acted without his authority still inflamed him. The man had been growing in confidence year on year, but this latest action had set Damon back eleven years. That legal firm was history—but that was the least of his worries now.
Needing space to think, he shifted lanes so he could take the long, straight road out of town. He got what he deserved—which was all the time in the world to work on his frustration as he battled with the sluggish evening traffic—but at least his mind cleared and he made a couple of calls. He had one possible ally, and he’d call in every card he’d got if it would make things right with Lizzie.
He’d told her to get some sleep?
Who the hell did he think he was?
Should she sleep? Sleep and dream? See all those faces in that courtroom again? He knew they haunted her. And he’d left her to deal with it on her own, so soon after the shock of receiving that lawyer’s letter. To hell with that!