Claim Me: A Novel (24 page)

I move out of the alcove, passing the dimly lit shelving until I come to the open mezzanine. The lights twinkling on the railing are no less impressive from this angle, and I take my camera off my shoulder and focus in close, so that nothing but dots of diffused light fill my sight, each pinpoint radiating out into vibrant prisms of color.

I snap, then snap again, and soon I’m lost in the world that I’m capturing on camera. The perfection of the angles of this house I love. The tattered cover of a Philip K. Dick novel that Damien has left on a side table. Even the cocktail party guests, or what little I can see of them, as they seem to float above me. From here, I cannot make out voices. And I can see only the head and shoulders of the few who venture close to the landing.

Nor can I see my portrait, and right then, I am glad. I am so happy to know that Damien didn’t breach my confidence, but I still feel exposed and raw.

I know that Damien is behind me even before he speaks. Perhaps
I subconsciously heard his footsteps. Or maybe I caught the scent of his cologne.

More likely we are simply so attuned to each other that it is impossible to be in close proximity without my body crying out for the touch of his hand.

“I hope this means you aren’t still mad at me,” he says.

I am standing at the railing, my back to him, and I feel the whisper of a smile touch my lips. “Should I be?”

I hear the rustle of his clothes as he moves closer to me. He is right there, right behind me, and I can feel the air thickening between us. “I’m truly sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean for Giselle to know. And I certainly never expected her to tell Bruce.”

I close my eyes, thinking of Blaine and the secret Damien kept. “You are an exceptionally good man, Damien Stark,” I say.

For a moment, he is perfectly still behind me. “No, I’m not. But every once in a while I do a good thing.” He slides his hand gently over my bare shoulder and I draw in a trembling breath. “Evelyn told you?”

“Yes.” I hear the need in my voice. I am certain that he hears it, too.

His hands close around my waist and he pulls me close, then presses his lips into my hair. “I wish she hadn’t done that. I didn’t want you to be upset with Blaine.”

“I’m not. I might have been if I’d learned first that it was him, but you deflected that.” I turn in his arms, then tilt my head to look at him. “Like I said, you’re a good man.”

“I’m still sorry. And even sorrier that Giselle came early. She wasn’t invited, and I know it embarrassed you.”

“I’ll survive,” I say, and then, because I think Evelyn might be right about Giselle’s motivations, I add, “Why didn’t you tell me that you and Giselle dated?”

He looks truly baffled by the question. “You never asked.”

“You knew I wondered,” I say. “That night. Our first night.”

He thinks for a moment, and then his mouth quirks up as if my question is amusing him.

“Dammit, Damien,” I say, smacking him lightly on the arm.

“Giselle and I went out a few times, but it was long before she and Bruce got married. And if I recall correctly, at the time Giselle came up, I was in the process of seducing you. I didn’t think that outlining my dating history would be conducive to the tone I was trying to set.”

I have to smile. The memory of that ride in Damien’s limo is beyond delicious.

“After that,” Damien adds, “the topic never came up again. And there’s no reason it should. There is only one woman I’m interested in,” he says, with such fervency that my legs go weak.

He tilts my chin up. “Better?”

“Yes.” My scowl is more for myself than for him. “I don’t like feeling like a jealous harpy,” I confess. “But suddenly I’m being bombarded by Giselle. The painting, the trip back from Palm Springs, what Tanner said, and then finding out that you two actually used to date.”

“I have no idea what Tanner said or what Palm Springs has to do with anything, but I can assure you that as far as the painting is concerned, Giselle has promised me again that she won’t tell anyone that you’re the model. She can be flighty, but she won’t break her word.”

“You talked to her tonight?”

“I did.”

“Oh. Well, I’m very glad to hear it,” I admit. “And I don’t think Bruce will tell anyone, either.”

“Do you want me to talk to him? I haven’t yet.”

“No. I trust him.”

Damien nods, satisfied. “What about Tanner?”

I tell him about Tanner’s theory that I was hired to make Giselle happy, and I see the anger light in Damien’s eyes.

I laugh. “He’s already been fired—thanks for that—but don’t do anything else.”

“What would I do?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, thinking of my old boyfriend Kurt. “Sic the Yakuza on him. Task a satellite to blast him with a laser beam from space. Honestly, what couldn’t you do?”

“I rather like the laser-beam-from-space idea.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise. He’s out of Innovative and away from you. End of story.”

“Good,” I say, even though, honestly, I wouldn’t be too upset if a space laser took out Tanner.

“And Palm Springs?” he asks. “I’ve always found it to be such a relaxing place. I’m curious how such a benign location made it onto your list of suspects.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Only a little.”

“You should have told me you were giving Giselle a ride back in the limo.”

“Oh,” he says, and nods solemnly. “Yes, I can see your point. I should have. I would have. If I had given her a ride back in the limo.”

He’s patronizing me, of course, but I don’t care because I’m still caught up on the whole he-didn’t-drive-her thing. “But you came back in the limo. I assumed that was because you were giving her and the paintings a lift. But if you weren’t, then why not just come back in the helicopter? Wasn’t that your plan?”

“It was. But my meetings ended surprisingly early, and as you’ve noted so many times, I have a universe to run. It’s difficult to conduct business from a helicopter. The noise level makes dictation tricky, and I’ve found that international clients get touchy when they think I’m shouting at them. Plus, it’s much easier to make unscheduled stops along the way from a ground vehicle,
and when I realized I had the time, I scheduled a few stops in Fullerton and Pasadena.”

I cross my arms over my chest and cock my head to the side. “The point, Mr. Stark?”

“The point is that when I realized my schedule was going to change, I called my office to arrange to have the limo sent. My assistant told me that Giselle had called, hoping that I could suggest a transport company in Palm Springs that could arrange the delivery of some paintings for the show. Apparently she decided to bring back more than could fit in her car.”

“And since you were right there, you offered to bring them back yourself.”

“The paintings,” he acknowledges. “Not the woman. As you said, I can be a very nice man.”

I laugh. “Yes, you can.”

“I wonder if I might make a suggestion?”

“Um, sure.”

“Next time you have a question about whether or not I’m transporting other women in the limo, simply pick up the phone and ask.”

“Right,” I say. “I’ll do that.” I shake my head in exasperation at myself. “I really am sorry. I’ve been out of sorts.”

“As have I,” he says.

I think of the storm clouds that I’ve seen in his eyes. Of the legal troubles that seem to be brewing. “Will you tell me why?” I ask softly.

He looks at me for such a long moment that I’m afraid he’s not going to answer. “I don’t want what is between us to end.”

“Oh.”
His response is not what I expected, but I cannot deny the relief that almost swallows me. “No,” I say, my skin already warming from the heat in his voice. “I don’t, either.”

He searches my face. “Don’t you?” he finally whispers, and I
see in his eyes the same vulnerable melancholy that I saw last night.

“Damien, God, of course not.” I draw in a breath, trying to articulate to him how I’ve been feeling. “Everything feels skewed tonight, as if nothing is the way it’s supposed to be. This house, even. I’m so used to coming here. To standing up in front of that balcony and posing for Blaine, and knowing that you’re watching and that when Blaine leaves it will just be you and me in this house, on that bed.” I flash a watery smile. “I love that you thought to give it to me, but it felt so final. As if we were closing a door.”

“The bed was only a gift,” he says. “Something for you to have, to lie on, to think about us. But tonight I thought you wanted to close that door. What was it you said? No rules, no game?”

“I was angry,” I admit.

“I don’t like the thought that I’ve hurt you or upset you.”

“You haven’t,” I say. “Not really.”

“Haven’t I? I wonder …” His brow furrows, and his eyes search my face, but I don’t know what it is that he’s looking for.

“Damien?”

“I watched you tonight,” he says, and his words are measured, the vocal equivalent of walking on glass.

I say nothing, just stand there, unsure of where this is heading.

“I couldn’t help it,” he continues. “When you’re in a room, I have no choice but to watch you. You draw me in. You compel me. And I fall willingly under your spell.” His eyes light with a smile, but even that doesn’t hide the worry I see there. “I saw you with Jamie. I watched you talking with Bruce. I heard your laughter as you chatted with those ridiculous television stars. I saw the hurt on your face when you escaped the party with Evelyn. And each smile, each frown, each laugh, and each flash of
pain in your eyes were like wounds to me, Nikki, because I wasn’t the one sharing them with you.”

I press my lips together and swallow, but still I do not speak.

“But this is what wounded me most of all,” he says, and he reaches for my left hand.

I blink, and a single tear escapes and slowly trickles down my cheek. “You saw?”

My fingertip has returned to its normal color, and there are no indentations left. Even so, it seems to throb in memory of the pain. A pain that Damien now soothes with a single, gentle kiss.

“Will you tell me why?”

I want to tip my head down, but I force myself to look straight at him. With Damien, I do not feel weak or broken, but I am ashamed, because he asked me to come to him if I ever needed the pain again. And this is twice now that I have broken that promise. My finger, at least, survived my assault with more aplomb than my hair.

“I’ve told you most of it already,” I say. “It’s just been a hell of a day.”

“All right. Now tell me the rest.” His voice is easy, conversational, and it soothes me.

“This party,” I admit. “Seeing Giselle as the hostess. Looking around at unfamiliar furniture.” Now that I am articulating these things, I realize how much they’ve been bothering me. “I didn’t even recognize the third floor. That room, this house—for so long, they’ve been ours. But tonight they weren’t.”
And I wasn’t yours
.

I think the last part, but I don’t say it out loud. Instead, I shrug, a little embarrassed, because I have just spilled so many things. I feel vulnerable and fragile, and I do not like feeling that way. And so I wait for him to say something to calm me.

It takes a moment for those words to come, and when they do, they surprise me. “Come with me,” he says with an enigmatic
smile. He holds out his hand, then leads me to a reading area tucked away against the east wall. It’s the most private area of the mezzanine, and there is no line of sight to the third floor. It is dark here, the only illumination coming from the twinkling lights upon the railing.

“What are you doing?” I ask as he pulls me to the wall, then flips a switch. Immediately, soft light fills the long, glass-topped display case in front of us. There are only two things inside, as if this case is meant for treasures, and only two have been located.

They are battered copies of
Fahrenheit 451
and
The Martian Chronicles
, both by Ray Bradbury. I’m confused, but I trust that Damien has a purpose.

“Bradbury’s one of my favorite writers,” he begins.

“I know.” He’s told me about his love of science fiction as a child. In a way, it was his weapon against his father, his coach, and his life. I understand; how can I not when I’d relied on weapons of my own?

“He lived in Los Angeles, and one day I heard that he was going to be signing books at a store in the Valley. I begged my father to take me, but he’d scheduled an additional practice with my coach, and neither one of them was willing to cut me a break.”

“What did you do?”

His grin is slow and wide. “I went to the signing anyway.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven,” he says.

“But how did you get there? Didn’t you live in Inglewood?”

“I told my dad I was going to the courts, hopped on my bike, and headed for Studio City.”

“At eleven? In Los Angeles? It’s a miracle you survived.”

“Trust me,” he says dryly. “The trip was much less dangerous than my father when he learned what I’d been up to.”

“But that’s an insane distance. You rode all that way?”

“It’s only about sixteen miles. But with the hills and the traffic,
it took me longer than I thought it would. So when I realized that I’d be late, I hitched a ride.”

My chest is tight, my mother’s warning to avoid strangers and never, ever, ever pick up hitchhikers ringing in my ears. I am terrified for the boy he was, taking horrible chances because the father that he was supporting was too much of a shit to grant him the one small request that could make him so happy.

“It was close,” he says. “But I made it on time.”

Obviously I already know that he survived the journey, but even so, my shoulders sag with relief. “And you got the books,” I say, with a nod to the case.

“Unfortunately, no. I got there during the scheduled time for the signing, but they were all out of books. I decided to ask Bradbury to sign a bookmark instead, so I told him my story and he told me he could do better than a bookmark. Next thing I know, his driver is putting my bike in the trunk of his car and we’re off to his house. I spent three hours chatting with the man in his living room, then he let me pick two books off his shelf, signed them, and had his driver take me home.”