Seconds later, she felt him step to her side and slide his hand around her back. “Okay?”
“Yes,” she said, but her hands were trembling.
He caught one of them and slid his strong hand over hers. “Liar.”
“I’m working on it,” she said defensively. “I don’t have that much experience with this kind of thing.”
“Sex?” he asked, as he guided her toward the elevators.
She didn’t want to admit just how limited her experience was. “With my boss in a cabana. New for me.”
He chuckled. “I’m glad I got you carried away.”
She took in a deep breath and entered the elevator as the doors whooshed open. She closed her eyes, hating how vulnerable she felt.
“What is it?” he asked.
They were the only people in the elevator. “This is going to sound really crazy, but I don’t want you to think I’m easy.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Easy? I felt like I was breaking into Fort Knox.”
Her heart lifted and her lips twitched. She threw him a sideways glance. “Slight exaggeration.”
He shook his head. “I would have taken you in the office, in my car, in the limo, at the charity event…”
His confession squeezed her heart. “Why me?”
“You have something,” he said, his eyes darkening. “You have something I’ve never had before and I want it.”
The elevator dinged as it reached the top floor and he glanced at the doors as they opened. “But it’s up to you. You have the key to my suite,” he said and walked out of the elevator.
Emma followed him outside of the elevator and slowly walked to her room. Standing outside her door, she looked further down the hall to Damien’s room. She’d thought he was heartless and cold, but he was hotter than a fire on the coldest, scariest night of her life.
She wondered what she had that Damien could possibly want so much. Her heart did a strange flip-flop. Did she have the nerve to go to his room? Did she have the nervenot to go to him?
Ten
Two hours later, after they’d made love again, they sat together on the balcony with a blanket wrapped around them and the stars shining down. Her body was silky and warm within his arms.
“Have you ever done this before?” Emma asked, then shook her head. “Don’t answer.”
The truth was Damien had never felt magic the way he did tonight. “I haven’t done this before, sat on a balcony with a beautiful woman in the middle of the night.”
“I wouldn’t say beautiful,” she said.
“I would,” he said.
“That’s the sex talking,” she said.
But it wasn’t. Damien had glimpsed Emma’s sweetness and not only was she beautiful on the outside, she was beautiful on the inside. She was so loyal. He craved receiving that loyalty for himself.
“A lot of stars up there. What kind of wishes would you make?”
“If I believed in making wishes?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I made too many when I was a kid.”
“Blowing out candles on a birthday cake,” she said.
“Shooting star,” he said.
She nodded.
“What kind of wishes would you make?”
She took a deep breath and nuzzled against his chin. “I would wish that my mother would never gamble again. That she would neverwant to gamble again.”
“That makes sense.” He slid his hand over her silky hair. “Name something frivolous.”
She gave a soft chuckle. “Oh, wow. That’s tough.”
“So much has been about survival.”
“That’s right. You know, don’t you?”
He felt her looking at him. “Yeah, I do.” He paused. “So tell me something frivolous.”
“I’m guessing world peace isn’t acceptable.”
He laughed, hugging her against him. “Not frivolous.”
“Okay,” she said, closing her eyes. “This is hard.”
“You can do it.”
She sighed and smiled. “A new apartment with a Jacuzzi and a wonderful pool.”
“Sounds good.”
“Losing ten pounds,” she added.
“Don’t even think about it. You don’t need to lose anything.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “You could have models, women with perfect bodies.”
“Yours is perfect,” he said, sliding his hands over her soft skin. “Name something else.”
She closed her eyes. “A vacation somewhere exotic.”
“Keep going.”
“A dog.”
“You mentioned that before. So you need a dog nanny, too,” he said.
“Oh, I think that’s going a bit far. Your turn. Name some wishes.”
“I don’t have wishes. I set goals. I give myself targets and exceed them.”
“Spoken like a true tycoon,” she said. “Okay, let’s go further back, back to the time when you believed that blowing out the candles on that birthday cake meant your wish would come true.”
He shook his head, lifting his hand to rub his jaw. “That’s so far back. I don’t know if I can remember. The first few years the family was split up, I made wishes that we could get back together. Wishes that my father and brother hadn’t died in that train accident. Wishes that we hadn’t been too much for my mother to deal with after it happened.”
“That had to have been horrible,” she said.
“Yeah, kinda hard to find something frivolous when your entire world has blown apart,” he said.
“But you eventually decided you wanted a Ferrari,” she said, with just enough humor to lift him out of his gloom.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I did, but you can be damn sure I didn’t count on getting it by blowing out candles on a birthday cake.”
“No, but it proves you’ve had some wishes,” she said.
“Okay, back in the day, I wished for a bike where the chain didn’t fall off every half mile.”
“Did you ever get one?”
“Hell no. By the time I could afford one, I didn’t care that much. I waited a long time to buy my first car because I used public transportation. That first car was a piece of—” He broke off and laughed. “Let me put it this way. It was no dream machine. The roof liner hung down on my head, the color was silver, metal and rust, and it drank oil like an alcoholic drinks booze.”
“How did you accomplish so much with no support at all?”
He shrugged. “I worked,” he said. “All the time. When I wasn’t working, I was in school. By the time I hit twenty-two, I had three sideline businesses—commercial coffee service, accounting for small businesses and microstorage—when I started working for a firm that helped companies streamline and downsize when necessary. I worked my way to the top of that firm and they offered me a VP position. I passed and started my own company. My three sideline ventures exploded, demand for my services shot through the roof. I still lived like a poor foster kid and invested my money. All of a sudden I had more money than I knew what to do with.”
“What a story,” she said. “Talk about self-made. Has it been a total blur?”
He nodded. “A lot of it. The first time I celebrated Christmas in a long time was two years ago on my brother’s yacht. My brother from Atlanta came down for the day.”
“How was that?” she asked.
“Pathetic,” he said, shaking his head. “It might as well have been a funeral. Until we started drinking and playing pool.”
She chuckled. “Sounds interesting. Who won the game?”
“I did, of course. The two of them got way too sloshed. Rafe is always trying to do a rematch. I beat him almost every time.”
Emma sighed and sat silently.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking at least you made a start at getting your family back together,” she said. “And at least you have each other. That’s more than a lot of people have. Nobody has a perfect life.”
“Except for maybe Alex Megalos and Max De Luca,” he said, his resentment rising suddenly.
“Neither of them has had a perfect life. Alex’s father disowned him when he joined the company. And Max’s father nearly ruined the company. On top of that, Max had to deal with his half brother. He was involved in criminal activity. Max’s marriage didn’t start out on the best foot, either.” She stopped suddenly as if she realized she’d revealed far too much. “Of course, it’s all better now and Max is a wonderful father.”
Damien digested the information, filing each detail away for study at a later time. Emma may have just given him the key he needed to finish Max De Luca. He felt Emma give a little shiver. “Cold? I think it’s time for me to take you back inside and warm you up.”
Dressed in shorts and a tank top over her bikini, Emma accepted Damien’s brother’s hand as she boarded the yacht. She felt Damien just behind her.
“I’m Rafe. Welcome to my humble home at sea,” he said and Emma saw the resemblance between brothers. Dark hair and dark eyes. At first glance, Rafe seemed to have a lighter air about him.
“Emma Weatherfield,” she said. “I’m Damien’s assistant at Megalos-De Luca. Thank you for inviting us.”
She turned her attention to the large gleaming boat. Thankful that her expression was hidden by her sunglasses, Emma tried not to gawk.
Damien gave a rough chuckle. “Humble home? You wouldn’t know humble if it jumped up and bit you.”
“Nice to see you, too,” Rafe said, shaking his brother’s hand.
“It’s generous of you to invite us on such short notice.”
“It’s not as if I had a choice. My brother is a dictator at heart. But it’s my pleasure. If you should decide you’d like a change in environment, I’m certain I could use a woman with your talents in my organization.”