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She might have yelped when the bike surged forward. She wasn’t sure. She was too distracted by Damon...by holding Damon. The power of the bike throbbing between her legs didn’t help.
Damon judged the traffic expertly, and soon they were moving smoothly through the night. Of all places, he took her to a funfair. She supposed it was neutral ground, where there wasn’t much option but to relax. There was certainly plenty of noise and colour, and dazzling flashing lights.
Dismounting from the bike, she removed the helmet, then glanced at Damon’s outstretched hand. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,’ she said, pulling back.
‘This is an excellent idea,’ he insisted.
She remembered, then, that Damon’s easy charm was as much a part of his nature as the steely side that had played its part in condemning her father to a lifetime in jail—a punishment that had almost certainly led to his early death.
Maybe it seemed odd that she was mourning her father’s passing, but however he had treated Lizzie she still thought him weak rather than bad. He certainly hadn’t stood a chance against the Gavros team.
‘Lizzie?’
Damon’s voice brought her plummeting back from an uncomfortable past to an incredible present.
And the future...?
She preferred not to think about that. Not yet. She would. Of course she would. But not while Damon’s shrewd eyes were searching hers. She would choose the time, and she would choose the place, and it wasn’t now.
He bought tickets for the big wheel. As she climbed into the small cabin and the door closed on the two of them, trapping Lizzie inside with her memories and with Damon, it was hardly reassuring to discover that her body instantly responded to his heat and his strength, reminding her with painful attention to detail of how it had felt to be naked in his arms.
‘You’ve turned pale. It’s not too high for you, is it?’
‘I’m certainly out of my comfort zone,’ she admitted, thinking about Thea, and how Damon was likely to respond when he found out they had a daughter together. ‘It’s a long way down...’ she mused quietly.
‘You look exhausted,’ he observed.
‘It’s hard work in a professional kitchen, and I’ve got more than one job.’ He could easily find that out. Better she tell him than that he started sleuthing. She needed the money to pay the rent, and to cover all the extras at Thea’s school.
‘Don’t you ever take time off?’ he pressed.
‘Hardly ever,’ she admitted. And what time she had, she spent with Thea.
‘And you live alone?’
The big wheel was a mistake. She couldn’t get away from Damon’s questions. To answer him meant telling him that she lived on her own most of the time—even in the school holidays—and Thea was often away, playing with the orchestra. Lizzie tried to go with her when she could, which meant finding a job in a bar, or as waiting staff to pay her way.
Their next trip was to Greece.
‘Lizzie?’
‘Yes. I live alone,’ she said, quickly pulling herself together.
‘It must have been a long road back for you?’
It was hard to concentrate. All she could think about now was Thea’s upcoming trip to Greece.
“Lizzie?’ I said it must have been a long road back for you?’
‘I like my work,’ she said distractedly.
‘But it’s repetitive,’ Damon pointed out, ‘and with no personal reward—’
‘Apart from earning my living and keeping my pride intact, do you mean?’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just curious.’
And now she was all heated up. How dared Damon stride back into her life and start judging her?
Wouldn’t Thea be happier with a father who could give her so much more than she could?
No. She would not, Lizzie thought fiercely. ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she said on the wave of that thought. ‘I don’t need your pity.’
‘And you won’t get it,’ Damon assured her with matching force.
CHAPTER THREE
BUT IT WASN’T long before Damon was questioning her again. ‘So what happened to your dream of attending that art college in Switzerland?’ he pressed as their cabin sank steadily towards the ground
‘I had lots of dreams when I was eighteen.’
Unfortunately they hadn’t tallied with her stepmother’s plans for Lizzie, and as those dreams would have been paid for by her father, using other people’s money—mostly Damon’s family’s—Lizzie realised now they had been meaningless.
‘I owe you an apology.’
‘For showing loyalty to your father?’
Damon read her so easily, Lizzie thought as his powerful shoulders lifted in a shrug.
‘You don’t owe me a thing,’ he insisted.
Their stares met and held for a potent few seconds, but all that did was allow Lizzie time to consider the big truth she wasn’t telling Damon. She couldn’t tell him yet. Not until she was sure of him—or as sure as she could be.
‘We were discussing your dreams?’ he prompted.
‘You were,’ she argued, with a spark of her old dry humour. ‘Life’s a series of compromises, don’t you think? If you can’t adjust, you flounder.’
‘And you’ve had to do a lot of adjusting?’ Damon guessed.
She remained silent.
‘I can’t imagine you floundering,’ he admitted. ‘Even at eighteen you had a good head on your—’
‘Reckless shoulders?’ Lizzie supplied. ‘I had too much emotion in play back then.’
‘And not enough now?’
His suggestion silenced her. Damon’s searching glance was disturbing in all sorts of ways. She couldn’t regret her rebellion eleven years ago, or her search for one night of love—which was probably the best way to describe the most memorable night of her life. How could she regret anything, when making love with Damon had created Thea?
‘Penny for them?’
The smile that could heat her from the inside out was back, tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘You wouldn’t want to know.’
‘Try me,’ he pressed.
Confide her concerns in him? Tell him how much of a struggle it was to keep the boat afloat, or that when Thea needed something for school Lizzie couldn’t always guarantee she’d come through? This was the man who had walked out of her life without a backward glance—as her father had. This was the man she had been unable to reach again and again. She had to remember that—always. She couldn’t face that coldness again. She had more pride than to do so. And more love for Thea than to allow her precious daughter to live through something similar.
And there was another way of looking at it. Damon might not want to know. What respectable billionaire would want to hear that he had a child with the daughter of a convicted felon? Would Damon believe Thea was his child? The shame of her father’s crime had tainted Lizzie. Sometimes she believed she would never throw it off. That same shame taunted her now, with the thought that even if Damon were prepared to accept that Thea was his daughter he might not entrust her to Lizzie’s care?
Whatever the consequences, her course was clear. She must first tell Thea, and then Damon.
‘We’re down,’ he said, startling her.
‘Yes...right...’ she said, glancing around to see the cabin had settled on its stand. ‘What a relief.’
‘Vertigo can be devastating, can’t it?’ Damon commented, but his look was shrewd and it stripped her lie bare.
They didn’t stay at the funfair. By mutual silent consent, they headed back to the bike.
‘Where did you live when you left home after the court case?’ Damon asked as the noise of the fair began to fade into the background.
‘On a park bench,’ Lizzie said bluntly, thinking back.
‘I’m being serious,’ Damon insisted.
‘And so am I,’ she admitted. ‘I spent the first night on a park bench—well, most of it...until it started raining.’
‘And then?’ His face had tightened into a grim mask.
Lizzie thought back to her first and thankfully her only terrifying, freezing night as a homeless person. She had quickly figured out that she must find a place to live fast or, quite simply, her appearance and the fact that she couldn’t wash properly would make respectable people turn her away. With no money, that had meant finding a job—any job.
‘I got a job the next morning,’ she remembered. ‘As a cleaner. I was good at that. I’d had plenty of experience,’ she said dryly. ‘My stepmother was too mean to pay anyone to do her cleaning, but she had me and she was very particular. It stood me in good stead,’ she admitted.
‘I can imagine.’
Could he imagine the woman who had insisted Lizzie must clean the floors on her hands and knees, rather than with a mop, and take a toothbrush to the corners of the room? Could he imagine that same woman making Lizzie do it all over again, after her stepmother had thoughtlessly trampled on the floor in her muddy boots?
‘Actually, the cleaning jobs I managed to get were easy after my work at home,’ she reflected.
‘And where do you live now?’
‘Haven’t you asked Stavros?’
Damon dipped his chin to stare into her eyes. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘You’re right,’ she agreed as they drew to a halt in front of the bike. ‘Stavros has been nothing but kind to me.’
‘Whereas I haven’t?’
‘You’ve only just come back to London. It remains to be seen,’ she said bluntly.
‘What makes you think I’d want to investigate your life?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly—too quickly. ‘I have a small bedsit, if you’re interested.’
‘I am,’ Damon insisted as he picked up her helmet.
‘I know that look,’ she said.
He frowned. ‘What look?’
‘The look that says, She grew up like a princess and her fall has been swift and hard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that same look over the years. But you should know that I’ve never been happier than I am now.’
That was the truth, Lizzie reflected, calming down. She had a daughter who loved her, and jobs that paid the rent. And, yes, it was tough sometimes, but she had never once fallen into debt.
‘Okay?’ she challenged Damon as he handed over her helmet. ‘Are we done with the third degree now?’
‘We’re done,’ he conceded.
‘I think we should talk about you for a change—’
‘No,’ he said flatly, startling her into silence with the force of his response. ‘I’m a very private man.’
‘Then perhaps you should understand how I feel.’
Damon regarded her coolly. ‘Aren’t you going to get on the bike?’
‘Shall I salute first?’
He gave her a look that might make some people blink, but it only made Lizzie more determined to stand up to him.
This had definitely been an interesting encounter, Lizzie concluded as they roared back to the city. Neither of them was exactly soft or malleable. She had a daughter to protect, which gave her mama tiger claws as well as an iron will, while Damon was the hardest man she knew by some margin. For all his outward charm, which he could turn on when it suited him, Damon Gavros was rock through and through.
He drew to a halt outside the restaurant. ‘Drink?’ he suggested as she removed her helmet.
‘I don’t think so, but thank you—it’s been an interesting evening.’
‘One drink,’ he insisted, getting off the bike.
In spite of her reservations, she had to admit that it was a pleasant change to be this side of the tastefully lit bar. Stavros had peeped around the kitchen door and had then retired with a broad smile on his face. That in itself was worth the sacrifice of sitting with Damon. All the drinks were on the house, the barman insisted, but Damon still paid.
‘So,’ he said, glancing at her over his bottle of beer. ‘Tell me more about your stepmother, Cinderella.’
‘Less of that,’ she warned. ‘There’s nothing needy about me.’
Damon’s lips pressed down, almost as if he agreed. ‘So...she sounds like a fascinating character?’ he pressed.
‘Luminous,’ Lizzie said dryly.
She would credit her stepmother with one thing: she’d helped Lizzie to face reality fast. Before her stepmother had arrived on the scene Lizzie would have been the first to admit she’d been spoiled. She might have reached adulthood with no concept of responsibility if she hadn’t been thrown out of the house, had her faith in her father destroyed, her dreams crushed, and discovered she was pregnant—all in one and the same month. That would have been enough to wake the dead. And she certainly wasn’t spoiled now. Her life was devoted to Thea.
‘I don’t want to talk about me. It’s your turn,’ she said.
‘Maybe it’s time for me to go,’ Damon countered.
‘Please yourself.’ Burying her face in her glass of water, she sucked on the straw, refusing to say any more about a time when life had seemed to stretch ahead of her in an endless stream of promise—promise that had turned out to be fantasy.
Her father had appeared to have money to burn when she was young. Now she knew it had been other people’s money he was burning—Gavros money, mostly. Nothing made him happier than lavishing money on his darling daughter, her father had told her as they’d planned one treat after another.
He’d been showing off to her stepmother, she realised now; hoping to catch another big fish like Lizzie’s mother, the heiress. The joke of it was, the woman he’d chosen to bring home as his second wife had been a chancer like him, captivated by his apparent wealth.
Thinking her father was lonely, Lizzie had welcomed her stepmother to begin with. She had wanted nothing more than to see her father happy again. It hadn’t taken long to find out how wrong she could be.
‘You told me that night that you loved to paint,’ Damon reminded her. ‘Another dream down?’ he suggested.
‘I don’t have time to dream now.’
‘That sounds dull.’
So dull he stood up to go.
‘I’ll take you home,’ he offered.
‘No need,’ Lizzie insisted quickly. ‘Stavros arranges a cab for staff when we stay late.’
Damon nodded his head. ‘Okay. Another time.’
Or maybe not. She wasn’t sure she could live through this tension again. Wanting someone and knowing they were out of reach for ever was a torture she could well do without.
‘You must enjoy heading up the family business,’ she observed, for the sake of maintaining polite chit-chat as she walked him to the door. ‘The press refers to you as a billionaire—’
‘I hope I’m more than that.’
She could have cut off her tongue. The way Damon was staring at her made her wonder if he thought she was a mercenary chip off her father’s swindling old block. There was a lot more to him than money and sexual charisma—she knew that—but everything was in such a muddle in her head she couldn’t get the words out straight.
The newspapers often referred to Damon Gavros as ‘educated muscle’, with the recommendation that no one should even dream of crossing him—which was a great thought to say goodnight on.
His phone rang and he turned away to answer, putting a hand up, indicating two minutes as they stood outside the door.
‘Business call,’ he explained succinctly when he cut the line. ‘So, I guess I’ll see you again sometime...’
After all her prevaricating about seeing him at all, she now felt rocked to her foundations as Damon mounted the Harley and roared away. She had to see him again. She must. She stared after him as he disappeared into the night. That was Damon. A massive presence when he was around, and then gone so quickly it was as if he had never been there at all.
She did well to rely on no one but herself, Lizzie thought as she turned back to the restaurant.
But could there be a more mesmeric sight than Damon Gavros astride a Harley?
Damon Gavros naked...?
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