Play with Me (Novella) (12 page)

Damion jerks back, his expression as shocked as mine must have been when I found them together. “What? I knew I should have beaten that little prick’s ass. Tell me your stepmother is now your ex-stepmother.”

“She’s not. I was sure she would be, though. I went to my father, worried about this hurting him, thinking we’d both share in the horror—but, no, that’s not what happened. He blamed me, not her or Kent. No protective papa for me. I was furious and hurt by his reaction, and I lashed out. In short, I told him she was white trash and he was a drunk. He disinherited me and now we don’t speak. And that’s how Kent shredded me. Kent knew how much I craved my father’s love and so he took it from me, the way he felt I had taken mine from him.”

“How the hell could your father blame you for what happened?”

His reaction reminds me of how he protected me with Kent. How good it felt to have him there at just the right moment, and it gives me courage to share the most painful truth with him. “I didn’t think he would, but I guess, working with my father, Kent knew him in a way I didn’t allow myself to know him. The quote from my father went something like: ‘You aren’t as pretty
as her, so try spending less time chasing worthless stories and more time on your knees. Then maybe you can keep a man.’ ”

Damion tightens his hold under my knees and drags me closer. “You know you aren’t to blame, right? And you’re gorgeous. Absolutely fucking beautiful.”

I reach out and trace the handsome lines of his face. My Tony Stark. “Thank you,” I say. “I had a rough six months of questioning myself. I’d lost my mother and my father. My job was going nowhere. And even though I wasn’t in love with Kent, he was gone, and life had changed. It all fell apart at once and so did I. I’m not proud of it, but I did.”

His thumb strokes my cheek. “You didn’t fall apart. You’re strong and you’re a fighter, or you wouldn’t have come to Vegas on your own, with barely a resource in your pocket. You’re right. You didn’t run, and I’m a prick for saying so without knowing the truth.”

“It’s done and I’m okay. Or I’m getting there. It’s been a long process.”

He draws my hand to his lips. “I’m going to make you better than okay,” he vows.

I don’t question that he means what he says. I don’t question us. I question what happens when we leave this room. “I can’t believe we let the world know we’re …”

“Together?” he finishes for me.

“How can we be? You are my boss.”

“A technicality.”

“It’s more than a technicality, Damion.”

He stands up and pulls me to my feet. “Get dressed and let’s get this day over with.” He kisses me soundly on the lips. “Then I’m taking you to dinner.”

A knock sounds on the door, and, no longer drugged by arousal, I jump and snap up my clothes.

“Damion, damn it,” Terrance calls out. “Read your text messages if you aren’t going to answer the damn phone or the door.”

I frown. “Why isn’t your office phone ringing?”

“I turned it off when I saw your letter.” He grabs his pants and pulls them on, then reads the text messages Terrance is screaming about. He grimaces at the content. “Wonderful. More potential breaches. The mob was easier to deal with than this mess.” He slips on his shirt. “I heard about the missing charity funds.”

Already dressed, I slide on my shoes. “Did you see the coded messages on the back of
Natalie’s pictures?”

“Not yet. Terrance has an update on what it is, though.” He reaches for my hand and pulls me close. “I can’t wait to get you in my bed tonight.”

I grab his tie and slip it around his neck, pulling the knot for him, but I don’t step away when I’m done. I hold on to it like I want to hold on to him. “Damion—”

“Stop worrying and let me handle things. And that’s an order, Ms. Miller. I’m still the boss.”

* * *

Once Damion is gone and I’m at my desk, business is back to usual. No one seems to want to ask me questions, and I can’t help but wonder if Damion has done something to make sure they don’t. I spend the rest of the afternoon doing final confirmations for the charity event, and I email Terrance the complete list of participants.

Finally, near six o’clock, Dana gives me a shy wave goodbye, as if I’m the plague, and the press releases for the charity event land in my in-box. And they are bad. So bad that I’m appalled. The overall promotional plan is lacking, as far as I can see.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway carries to me in the silence of the now-empty offices, and I hold my breath, expecting Damion. Instead, Terrance appears, his suit and security jacket pressed and perfect, his blond hair a bit longish and wild. I know why he’s here and I lean back in my chair, hugging myself, ready to put all conversations of Kent behind me.

“I’ll get right to it,” Terrance says, stopping in front of me. “My team messed up. We were so wrapped up in protecting the company in the midst of internal havoc that we got too aggressive in our actions. I can’t take back what we did.” He leans forward on the desk, fist on the wooden surface. “But I can promise you that if he comes near this place or you again, he will land flat on his ass, and I’ll enjoy putting him there.”

My spine stiffens. “Damion told you.”

“He told me the bastard was worth the mud on my shoe, nothing more. But I saw the footage. I saw how upset you were. That’s enough. He won’t get to you again.”

My heart squeezes at the realization that I’ve gone from having no one care to having two men who seem to be willing to fight for me. “Thank you.”

“And I told the staff you had a family emergency and ‘Mr. Ward’ was helping you deal with it. You’re both still in the closet.”

I should be happy. Disaster for Damion avoided. I am happy. “Does Damion know?”

“Yes, Damion knows.” We both turn to find him walking around the corner toward us, and I relax into the warmth in his eyes, which tell me he has not had a change of heart. We are still us. We
are
together. “And we aren’t rubbing anything in anyone’s face, but we aren’t hiding, either.” He glances at me. “Ready for dinner?” He cuts Terrance a look. “And before you invite yourself as usual, forget it. She’s all mine tonight.”

“I kind of got that read on my own,” Terrance says drily, and fixes me with a hard look. “We okay?”

“Yes. We are okay.”

“Good. Call if you need me.” He starts to leave and lifts his cell at Damion. “I’ll text you if I get any more updates. Read them this time.” He heads toward the hallway.

“Let’s go eat,” Damion says, walking around the desk and turning my chair to face him.

“I can’t. I just got the press packet for the charity event. It’s a disaster. I need to rewrite it and get a new angle on it.”

“I volunteer at the shelter on Saturday morning. You can come and write the release there. And we’ll deal with PR once and for all on Monday.” He pulls me to my feet, hard against his body. “We both need a night off.” His palm flattens on my back, molding me closer. “I’ve had a change of heart. Let’s go to my place and order Chinese food.”

“Yes, please,” I find myself saying for a second time today. There is nothing I’d like more tonight than to shut the rest of the world out. Maybe I’ll even convince myself we can do it forever. But that would be a fairy tale, and the past few years have taught me that fairy tales don’t exist. But, then, Damion didn’t exist, either, and now he does.

Saturday morning I wake in Damion’s bed, with him wrapped around me as if he thinks I might escape, and I am at peace in a way I have not been in years. Safe. Warm. Right. Remarkably, as delicious as Damion is with a one-day shadow on his jaw and his thick, dark hair rumpled, I am not even slightly self-conscious about no makeup and my own wild mess of hair.

Still naked from the night before, we are in no hurry to abandon the bed, talking about everything from the casino, to my mother, to the politics of doing business in Vegas. But I don’t miss how he dodges the subject of his mother and his youth, and I wonder if this is the source of his bruises.

It’s nearly ten when we order room service. He tugs on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and looks as gorgeously male as he does in a suit and tie. Clinging to the intimacy between us and without any clothes except my dress at his place, I grab his shirt from the night before and pull it on.

Despite Damion’s insistence that I throw on his robe and stay in the room when the food arrives, I hide in the massive, sparkling white-tiled bathroom of his fancy suite, which makes mine look like an economy spot. I just don’t understand how he seems to want to announce our relationship to the world at all costs. And there will be costs.

Once we’re alone again, we settle at the wooden table where our breakfast has been laid out, and I press him to understand. “Why aren’t you more worried about people finding out about us?”

He fills our cups with coffee. “I’ve found that what is hidden becomes gossip fodder and poison. We’re both professionals. We will still act like it at work, but we also both live here. We can’t hide all the time. And we will be caught if we do.”

“So you want to tell the world?”

“Yes. I’m not saying make an announcement, but if they ask, the answer is, yes, we are
together.”

“What about our jobs?”

“I filed a report with the board with your letter.”

My jaw drops. “You did what?”

He takes my hand. “I covered my ass and yours. I’m committed to finding out where this will go and what we can be. We can’t do that by hiding it while we try to work and live together.”

My heart skips a beat. “Live together?”

“We work too much and too long. I’m keeping you with me in our private time as much as you’ll let me have you.”

You aren’t alone
, he’d said to me at one point. And for the first time in a very long time, I think he’s right. I lean forward and press my lips to his. He wraps his arm around me and stands up, taking me with him.

Back to bed.

* * *

An hour later, I have returned to my room to shower and change and pack some things to stay with Damion for the rest of the weekend. I escaped long enough to dress in black jeans, a red tank top, and red Keds tennis shoes. Inspecting myself in the mirror—my long blond hair flat-ironed and shiny, my makeup present but not evident—I am satisfied I look casual and comfortable, not too dressy and not too drab.

I return to Damion’s room and, using the key he’s given me, enter to find him in dark-blue jeans, a blue polo, and deck shoes. On Damion, this translates to one of those Ralph Lauren Polo ads that make you want to lick the paper. He is really too good-looking for my sanity.

A few minutes later we step onto the elevator, deep in conversation, both laughing about my mother’s efforts to turn me into a cook and my many horrible failed attempts to please her. “Good thing we both like room service,” he jokes, and pulls me close.

At the same moment another couple sneaks onto the car, just before the doors shut.

I stiffen instantly, hoping the man and woman aren’t part of the very large staff. “Stop acting like we’re doing something wrong,” Damion chides when they get off on the next floor.

“I can’t help it.”

“Baby, I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I’m damn good at my job. The people who matter know it, and they want to please me because I please them. Profits talk and I deliver.” The doors open and he laces his fingers with mine. “Stop worrying, or I might have to tie you to my bed and torment you as punishment.”

“If that’s motivation to stop worrying, it’s not working.”

“How about I
won’t
tie you to my bed and torment you if you keep worrying.”

I perk up. “Much better.”

Once we’re in the parking garage, Damion holds the passenger door of his BMW for me. “We should talk about your car.”

I hesitate before I get in. “I have money set aside. I need to go buy one.”

“We’ll go this afternoon.”

“Oh, no. I’m going alone.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I have a Ford Escort budget, not a BMW budget.”

“Exactly why I need to go with you.”

“No.” I get into the car and he shuts me inside.

“No?” he asks, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“No. In fact, I think I’ll turn my rental in and wait on buying a car I’ll probably never drive. I can buy one when I need one.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

“No. We won’t talk about it.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

“Ask me again in six months.”

He cuts me an incredulous look. “Six months? This is Vegas. Six months is a lifetime to me. Two weeks.”

“Three months.”

“Christmas.”

Christmas?
Will we be together at Christmas?

“Yes,” he answers, as if I’ve spoken it out loud. “We will be together at Christmas and long after.”

“And what if we aren’t? What about our jobs?”

“We’ll be together.”

He starts the car and puts it in reverse, ending the topic of conversation, but I am the furthest thing from dismissed. I slide down into my seat and smile.

* * *

“We’re here,” he announces, pulling into what looks like a fancy movie theater with green neon rimming gray glass.

“This is the shelter?”

“It used to be an entertainment center with movies, games, and shops.”

“Surely it’s outrageously expensive to operate.”

“It is,” he says, and gets out of the car.

He opens my door and I step out. “I’m confused. How can the expense be good for the shelter even with donations?”

“I’ve made it work.” He takes my hand and drags me toward the door, and it’s clear, in no uncertain terms, that he doesn’t want to talk about this.

Another piece of what is becoming a Damion puzzle. I know, though, that pain isn’t easy to explore, and I won’t push him. I want him to choose to tell me in his own time, unlike the way things exploded on me.

We enter the building and it looks exactly like a movie theater, complete with out-of-date movie posters. Damion’s hand settles on my back, urging me toward a stand with people working behind it. “They even have a concession stand?”