by Anna Antonia
“I would’ve kept you forever if I thought we were right for each other.”
Terrible anguish filled the breezeway. I felt my throat prickle uncomfortably. I risked a glance over my shoulder and wished I hadn’t.
The beautiful redhead had collapsed at Damian’s feet, face pressed hard against his thigh. His long fingers tunneled through her hair in a precious attempt at comfort.
I met the woman’s stare. Pity, hatred, and misery slammed into me. I couldn’t hear the whisper but I could read her lips.
“He’ll do this to you too if you’re not careful.”
13
I saw her words then as a warning. Now I saw it as a curse.
My mind struggled in a web of its own making even as my body kept feverish pace with Damian.
That was hate I saw in his eyes. I know it now…I knew it then…I just didn’t want to admit it. He knows I’m in love with him and all he wants is to fuck me. That’s all I’m good for to him…unless I become too much trouble. That’s why he got rid of the redhead…and the others…they loved him and he didn’t love them…so he got rid of them…like misbehaving dogs.
Damian’s body stiffened. His hips a seal against mine, he flooded me until I could feel him trickling down my thigh. Normally I moaned like a bitch in heat when I felt his release. This time, however, I remained quiet. I waited until Damian dropped onto his back before I made my move. Once his breathing slowed, I dared to look over my shoulder.
Arm resting above his head, face relaxed, and large gorgeous body at ease, Damian appeared angelic. It was as close to happiness as I ever saw him emote without persistent prodding from me.
“Where are you going?”
I took perverse pleasure in feeling him touch my thigh as I stopped in mid-motion. “I’m going to get cleaned up.”
“So soon? Wouldn’t you rather lay here with me?”
Under normal circumstances? Absolutely. “I’m really messy.”
“An apology would be a lie since I’m not sorry for filling you up.” Damian’s naughty grin created a flutter in my tummy, especially when he took my hand in his and kissed the knuckles before falling back against his pillow. “Okay. Go. Come back soon.”
That I can’t do.
Swallowing hard, I slipped off the bed and padded into the bathroom. I took one of the gray “sex towels” out of the linen closet and wet it before wiping myself clean. Rinsing the cloth thoroughly, I left it on the counter as Damian preferred. Half-smiling, I remembered the time I threw it into his hamper and the discipline that came afterwards.
Why didn’t I see all this for what it was? Maybe I just thought it was a game…no. There’s no maybe. I never saw this as a game. I saw it as a new way to live. It was exciting and gave me everything I thought I wanted.
I still want it but not like this. Not anymore. Not if he’s going to resent me and if he resents me he can’t love me. And oh God! What’s happening to me? Why does this bother me now?
I couldn’t answer why but it did. And because it did, I couldn’t continue as if I didn’t know. I owed myself at least that much.
And in a twisted way, I owed Damian that much as well. I didn’t want to be the one who couldn’t let him go. Not if he wanted to leave. As much as I loved him, I wanted him happy. If not with me, then he needed his freedom to find it with someone else.
Gripping the edge of the bathroom counter, I felt my body grow cold and numb. Self-sacrifice sounded noble in theory but it was hell to actually go through.
Maybe being a little selfish could be allowed in this as well. I had to care for myself and being here with Damian, waiting for the axe to fall and sever our connection, was much too hard.
It’s not reasonable for me to expect that, is it? It’s so much better to leave now while I still can. And maybe, just maybe, Damian will come to realize that he doesn’t want to let me go?
I glared at my reflection in the mirror. That was entirely too pitiful to accept. I may have been in love with the most emotionally-unavailable man on the planet, but that didn’t mean I had to chuck out the last of my pride, did it? If he didn’t love me by now, after all that I’d shared with him, after all that he’d taken, then Damian would never love me.
So there’s no more point in this. Leave now and maybe you’ll keep what’s left of your dignity intact.
Logically, it all made sense. Emotionally, I felt a crevice growing in my chest. It hurt to breathe. Somehow, I walked back into the bedroom. My attention flicked over the beautiful man sleeping peacefully in the middle of the king-sized mattress. He had been mine for too-short a time. My heart squeezed so sharply in obsessive need I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to breathe without feeling it always.
You can do this. Just focus on what you have to do right now. You can cry later for as long as you want.
I picked up my clothes from the end of Damian’s dresser and undid the neat stack one piece at a time. I dressed calmly, putting on underclothing, jeans, and sweater as if it were any other time—as if I weren’t shattering on the inside. Once finished, I had to plant my feet to keep myself from trailing back to Damian’s side like a demented moth to his indifferent flame.
No. The way he looked at me and how he avoided my question proves that I’m on my way out of his life. I have to leave before he gets a chance to throw me out. That way I walk out of here with at least some kind of peace in knowing I didn’t make a scene and that I didn’t really get hurt.
Or at least look that way.
Dignity may have been on my mind but confrontation wasn’t. I crept out of the bedroom and quietly closed the door behind me. I made it across the small living room and to the entryway when I heard him call out to me.
Damian stood a few feet away, naked and intimidating. He repeated my name.
“Yes?” I dared ask with a questioning smile on my face. As if I weren’t sneaking out like a thief. As if my heart wasn’t breaking into a million little pieces.
Damian looked at me for several tense seconds. “Take off your clothes and get into bed. Now.”
I took a step back, mindful of the very real rage I sensed behind his smooth expression and soft tone.
“No.”
Damian blew out a hard breath of air. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s late—”
“Don’t lie to me!”
I startled at his yell. My hands reached behind me, trying to find the door knob and missing. Damian had never lost his temper with me.
Ever.
He’d always kept his composure even when I was my brattiest. The layers were unraveling and I couldn’t handle it. Shame flushed all along my cheeks. I didn’t know what I really wanted anymore. All I knew was that I had to break away, to look for the space between my obsession and the truth of Damian.
Maybe things would’ve turned out differently if I’d just given voice to my bleak thoughts.
I’m a coward because I won’t be able to handle you leaving me first. I don’t want to end up crying at your feet because you don’t love me anymore. Let me have this, Damian. Please.
“I have to go.”
“You’re leaving me.” Damian stated it without inflection, all visible signs of fury dead and buried. “May I ask why?”
I swallowed hard and found my eyes fixating several inches past his naked shoulder. I opened and closed my mouth several times. Finally I answered, “It’s time for me to go.”
“Why? Do I bore you?”
Perhaps it was my imagination but I heard pain tinge the colorless notes of his smooth voice. “No! It’s just…”
“Just what, little girl?”
The reminder of our inequality, of what he surely saw me as, finally made me snap. “I’m not some fuck-doll for you to play with and then throw away whenever you feel like it, Damian. I’m not like them.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m done.”
No, no, no!
But it was too late. The words couldn’t be unspoken. Damian didn’t so much as blink. His posture erect, he looked like marble—unfeeling and untouchable. Still, I searched his hard expression, to see if it faltered even the tiniest bit.
Nothing. His gaze was frozen bits of silver and gold.
I sighed and then put on a good face. My flippant words did much to hide the heartache inside. “It was bound to come to an end eventually, right? At least let’s end it on a good note.”
Damian finally clenched his jaw in response.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked lamely.
“What’s there to say, Risa?”
Hope rose and then crashed. I struggled to keep my cheerful mask. “Okay, then. Goodbye.”
“Other than I’m afraid your reasoning isn’t good enough for me, Risa.”
I jerked my attention back to him. “I don’t understand.”
“Exactly.”
I wanted to drop to my knees and beg for him to forget what I’d said. I wanted to turn around and run far away. I wanted to be brave and ask him what was so wrong with me that he couldn’t feel anything but lust.
I wanted all of these things and did none of them.
Instead, I pretended nothing had changed in the last month. We just happened to be employed by the same company and just happened to have ended a relationship. We could be adults about it and when I passed him in the hallway I’d pretend that I could still look at him and smile.
“Let’s call this what it is and no hard feelings, okay?” Bending down to slip my shoes on, I never saw him coming.
Again, maybe things would’ve turned out differently if I had.
14
DAMIAN
I never meant for Risa to become a permanent fixture in my life. Frankly, she irritated me often. She made too many assumptions about me, which were wrong more times than not, and she regularly made messes everywhere she went. Order and discipline were clearly not virtues she valued.
And worst of all was she never, ever told me what she really thought—not unless I was buried deep inside her naked body.
I should’ve been glad to have her warbling about ending things between us. I wasn’t. The things about Risa that irritated were also the very same things that I loved most about her.
Rage and disbelief topped my emotional range. I’d never had anyone leave me before and the experience should’ve registered as novel. Maybe it would’ve been if it had been anyone else.
Risa was mine from the first moment I saw her. Period.
15
One Month Earlier: Risa’s Office
I stood at the door for a second longer than necessary. An uncharacteristic bout of nerves flared before I ruthlessly killed it.
All my machinations led me to this and I would take what I wanted.
Risa Kelly was a tiny, curvaceous slip of a thing who gracefully strode about on towering heels that only managed to emphasize how deliciously short she was. I’d seen her when I’d first come onsite the week before. Risa had effortlessly snared my attention from the CFO when she’d leaned against a wall and took off her black heel.
My gaze had zeroed in on the lovely curve of her thigh. Immediately, I imagined what it would be like to see that very same thigh cradling my hips as I hammered relentlessly into her.
Normally, I didn’t lust after employees. It was bad for business and could put me square in the sights of lawsuit-hungry attorney. Temptation may have slinked about my heels like a naughty cat once or twice before, but it hadn’t really affected me at all.
Not like this.
My company visits were generally a necessary evil that I performed for the betterment of all parties involved, but never had I been so glad of a particular assignment.
I wanted her, this gorgeously short brunette who had yet to see me. Conceit notwithstanding, I knew my handsome face would pave the way into her bed much easier than not.
Now that I was in her office, I found it difficult to bring forth the charming façade I used with the fairer sex. Instead, I simply stared at her as if she was the most fascinating woman I’d ever seen sitting at a desk.
I opened my mouth, struggling to find my introduction to her, when out popped out “You’re having a problem with your e-mail.”
Risa looked up at me and went still. So did I.
I wasn’t foolish enough to believe in the romantic notion of love at first sight. After all, my parents had and looked where that got them? Laura Peters Konstantinov got a bullet-riddled body and permanent rest in a casket and Grigor Konstantinov got a vendetta that still wasn’t satisfied.
No, love at first sight was a dangerous myth.
Still, I found myself understanding Laura and Grigor more than ever.
Risa fixated on my unusual eyes. I’d gotten more than enough of my share of attention over them. But I didn’t mind it so much this time. It allowed me the freedom to stare back at her without consequence.
This was my chance to begin my wooing. I just needed to recall my flirtatious side, the one that had me in the beds of more models and actresses than I could possibly count.
“I’m Damian Black. Miss Kelly?”
Fuck me.
That did not come out the way it should’ve. It was overly blunt and jarring. I could’ve complimented her clothing, her name, or even just asked her about her day. Anything would’ve been better than the coldly worded sentence I’d just delivered.
“Umm, yes. I just called IT. Thanks for coming so quickly.” Risa’s gaze roved over me again. A pretty smile parted her rose lips.
My frustration eased. I liked that I had her complete attention. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to bring up the easy words I’d said a thousand times before. I opted for impersonal competence until I figured out what happened to my silver tongue. “It’s my job.”
“Aren’t you the new director?”
“Yes.” She knew about me. Very good.
“Then why are you here?”
“This company isn’t so large that I shouldn’t be available for tech support.”
“Oh. It’s just that the old director never answered these kinds of calls.”
“That is why he is no longer employed here.”
It seemed that the charismatic façade refused to come forth with Risa. As disappointing as it was perhaps this wasn’t such a bad thing. I wasn’t going to be here for long. I just needed to evaluate the company and then I was due back to HQ for the rest of the year. Risa Kelly didn’t fit in my plans and I didn’t need the hassle of detangling myself from her and I definitely didn’t need the potential liability.
Still, it would’ve been delightful to have her dangling from my every word. Curtly, I guided our conversation back on track. “What’s wrong with your e-mail?”
“I can’t send any out.”
“You’re still receiving.”
“Uh, yes.”
Her blushing wore down my convictions. I wondered if she blushed all over. Something told me she did. I imagined Risa to have very sensitive nerve endings. I’d love to find out for myself if it was true…
“Have you restarted your computer?” I asked her much more nicely as I imagined her naked on my lap, a delightful pink flush kissing the sweet curves of her lush body.
“No. I like to follow the rules, Damian, and we’ve had it on longstanding policy not to do perform our own troubleshooting on our computers once we put in a call. I thought it best for me to wait for…someone…you…to come down here first before I did anything.”
She liked to follow the rules, did she? Risa had no idea how alluring that sounded to a man like me. I felt the smile appear unbidden, genuine for the first time in a long time.
Suddenly, I remembered Gretchen and felt guilty for lusting after this woman when I’d broken Gretchen’s heart so recently. I didn’t do relationships often, preferring sex over emotional connection, but the ones I did do mattered. Gretchen mattered even though I couldn’t give her what s
he wanted.
I could at least allow enough time to pass before I sought out another partner.
“Please restart.”
“Now?”
I nodded and crossed my arms. My curiosity for Risa had to be satisfied with just this. I wasn’t going to be drawn in to her delightful smile or her sweet, girlish voice. Nor was I going to drown in darkness of her eyes or seek out the secrets making them dance with secret glee.
Risa Kelly was a beautiful distraction, but one I could put out of my mind. And I would.
“Okay, just give me a minute to save everything before I shut down.”
“Restart.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not shutting down. You’re restarting.” I couldn’t help but correct her. It would be just the thing to push a spirited creature like Risa far away from me.
And if I needed further encouragement, I just needed to look in the mirror to see the only obvious physical legacy my birth mother had left me—her one amber eye.
I’d always taken it as a reminder to never let passion overwhelm lest I or someone else suffer for it permanently. I needed that reminder more than ever before.
“Oh, I know. It was just the wrong choice of words.” Risa didn’t let on that my words had irked her. But I knew they did. Her expressive face couldn’t hide it from me. She waved towards one of the chairs in front of her large desk. “Would you like to sit down while you’re waiting?”
“No. I won’t be here long.”
“Okay. Suit yourself.”
Now I knew she definitely was affected by my impersonal treatment. I’d lost a bit of her smile and felt regret steal across my soul. I could’ve stood there in silence but didn’t. I searched for something to say and found myself bullying her a bit.
“CTRL S.”
“What?”
“CTRL S is the shortcut to save a document. Shortcuts keep you from relying solely on your mouse.”
Risa’s smile died. She blushed furiously. Her lack of control over her emotions made the devil in me want to prod her more. I controlled myself but regretted it.
