by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie
Lizzie’s experience with her own father was hardly encouraging. She had never got past the fact that he’d rejected her. Lizzie’s mother had been an heiress, and had had an obvious use, but once her mother was dead and the money was spent Lizzie’s father had lost interest in her.
Lizzie had been too young to understand at the time, but she still remembered her wonderful mother being sad and wanting Lizzie to have a better and more exciting life. Maybe that had fuelled Lizzie’s night of rebellion with Damon. It was very easy to mistake lust for love at eighteen—as it was to take a late, loving parent’s suggestion and bend it to suit her own, hormonal eighteen-year-old’s will.
‘Goodnight, Damon, and thank you—’
‘Not so fast,’ he said, catching hold of her arm. ‘We haven’t made that date yet.’
‘Do you really want to?’
‘Do you need to consult your diary?’ he countered.
‘I do have other things to do,’ she pointed out.
‘But nothing important, I’m sure…?’
Damon’s black stare bored into her. She had to think of something fast—and that something didn’t include blurting out that they had a child together, here on a busy London street.
‘Why don’t you come back to the restaurant some time?’ And give me time to think and plan how best to tell Thea about this. ‘I’m usually there each night, and we can fix something up.’
‘No kidding?’ he murmured.
Letting her go, he pulled back.
She watched Damon drive away in his Bentley until the limousine had turned the corner and was out of sight. The logic she’d used at eighteen for keeping her pregnancy to herself felt more like a selfish cop-out now. Yes, she’d been facing huge upheaval in her life—and, yes, it had been a fight to survive, with her character largely unformed and her reaction to crises untested—but maybe she could have done something differently, or better.
But when Thea had been born Lizzie had wanted to protect her from the hurt Lizzie had felt when her father had rejected her. She didn’t know that it wouldn’t happen to Thea. Why would Damon want a child?
As the years had passed and her conscience had pricked she’d tried to get in touch with him, but his people had kept her away. And then, in another unexpected turn, Thea had proved to be musically gifted—a talent Lizzie believed Thea had inherited from her mother. Lizzie’s mother had used to say she had music flowing through her veins instead of blood. And once Thea’s musical life had taken off, Lizzie had been completely wrapped up in that. Thea had recently won a music scholarship to a prestigious school in London, where she was a boarder.
Didn’t Damon deserve to know all this?
‘Back already?’ Stavros exclaimed with obvious disappointment. ‘You don’t look happy, Lizzie-itsa. What’s wrong?’
‘I had a lovely time,’ she insisted, determined to wipe the concern from Stavros’s face. ‘And I’ve come back to help you to clear up for the night.’
‘You shouldn’t have come back. You deserve a little happiness,’ Stavros complained with a theatrical gesture.
Did she? She was guilty of failing to contact Damon, because keeping him in the dark had allowed Lizzie to carry on her life with Thea without the interference of a very powerful and wealthy man. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel threatened now.
She would have to tell him about Thea, Lizzie realised as she set to and got to work, but she would choose the time.
Which would mean seeing him again!
Anxiety washed over her in hot and cold waves. There was a more important thing to do first—and that was to prepare Thea for the fact that her father was back.
* * *
Lizzie Montgomery! He couldn’t believe he’d found her again.
Was it a coincidence?
Opening the front door to his penthouse apartment, located on the top floor of one of the most iconic landmarks in London, he accepted that he’d just visited one of the most popular Greek restaurants in London, and with the way the grapevine worked, someone had always been bound to know Lizzie.
Coincidence or not, being close to the woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind for more than ten years had been the most extraordinary experience. Seeing Lizzie again had reminded him of a night that hadn’t been just about sex—though the sex had been more than memorable.
Pouring a Scotch, he strolled to the window and stared out across the London skyline. The shallow society beauties he normally wheeled out for public events bored him. Where sex was concerned, they couldn’t keep up. He was a hard, driven, solitary man, whose life revolved around his work.
And he hadn’t been back in London five minutes before the first thing he did was to search out all things Greek.
Maybe to find Lizzie?
Okay, so he had. What of it?
He remembered Lizzie mentioning her love of her mother’s country, its culture and its cuisine, that night. She’d love to visit Greece one day, she’d told him when they had been lying side by side in bed, sated, with their limbs entwined.
He would see her again. It was inevitable. Eleven years couldn’t simply be dismissed over a hot dog with ketchup and mustard. Especially when his intuition told him that Lizzie was holding back more than she was telling him. He wanted to know why she was washing pots when she’d had such big dreams. What was holding her back?
He’d succeeded by working as his father had—alongside men and women who were his friends. Granted, he’d had every advantage. His father was a good man, while Lizzie’s father had been a swindler and a cheat who had sucked his victims dry, but that still didn’t explain why Lizzie was working in a restaurant, washing dishes.
Would she thank him for interfering in her life?
Did he care?
He took a deep swallow of Scotch and tried to imagine her life after the trial. However she’d played it, it couldn’t have been easy for her when he’d walked into Stavros’s kitchen to find her at the sink. He would buy her that meal. He owed her that much, and he wanted to know more about her.
* * *
‘Can I get you a drink, sir?’ the waiter behind the bar at Stavros’s restaurant asked him the next evening, when he returned to the restaurant.
‘I’m not staying,’ he explained. ‘Could you please tell Ms Montgomery that there’s somebody waiting to see her at the bar?’
‘Of course, sir.’
As the waiter hurried away he cast his mind back to that other night. He couldn’t remember talking to anyone as he’d talked to Lizzie that night. She’d trusted him, he remembered with a stab of guilt. He had never expected to find the happiness his parents had enjoyed for forty years, but that night he’d thought he could find some temporary distraction with Lizzie—until the shock of discovering who she was at the trial.
No one had ever stood up to him as she had. He admired her for that.
He glanced towards the kitchen, wondering what was keeping her. His body tightened on the thought that she was only yards away. Pushing back from the bar, he stood up. He couldn’t wait any longer for her to come to him.
‘No.’ Lizzie held up her hand as soon as she caught sight of him. ‘You can’t just walk in. You’ve got to warn me first.’
‘With a fanfare?’ he suggested with a look.
‘You can’t walk into my place of work, looking like a…a Hell’s Angel,’ she exclaimed with frustration as her glance roved slowly over him, ‘and demand that I leave with you right away.’
He lips pressed down and he shrugged. ‘You won’t need your overall.’
She huffed and gazed skywards. ‘Thanks for the charming invitation—but, no.’
Undaunted, he pressed on dryly. ‘It’s a great night for a bike ride.’
‘Then go and enjoy it,’ she suggested.
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‘You don’t mean that.’
She raised a brow.
‘If Lizzie wants time off she can have it,’ Stavros announced, appearing like a genie out of a bottle from the pantry. ‘No one works harder than Lizzie-itsa. I keep telling her she should get out more—treat herself to some new clothes, and a hairdo while she’s at it—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Lizzie,’ he said, maintaining eye contact with her.
‘Of course not,’ Stavros placated. ‘It’s just that she puts everyone else first.’
‘As do you, my old friend,’ he said, feeling guilty that he’d shut Stavros out. ‘Shall we go?’ he added to Lizzie, who was still staring at him mutinously.
She had never looked more beautiful. Her shapeless apron and clumpy overshoes tried to strip away her femininity but failed utterly in his eyes. Even with those bright red curls, made frizzy by the heat in the kitchen, peeping out from under the ugly cap, she was beautiful.
The loose ends from eleven years ago had never been in more need of tying up.
‘So you couldn’t stay away?’ she challenged.
The way she stared him directly in the eyes made his senses roar. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed.
‘You’re do know you’re in the way? This is a busy professional kitchen—’
‘Then leave with me and the congestion will clear.’ He angled his chin to smile into her eyes.
‘You’re impossible!’ she complained.
‘I’ll see you outside,’ he told her.
‘In your dreams,’ she flashed.
He had great dreams.
He caught a glimpse of Lizzie’s eyes darkening as he left the kitchen. If she only knew how he wanted to drag her away from that sink and lower her, naked, into a warm, foaming bath, where he would wash her, pleasure her and make love to her until she couldn’t stand up, she might not be reaching for her coat now.
How had he stayed away for eleven years? Yes, he’d been working tirelessly to rebuild the damage done to his father’s business, so his parents could retire in comfort, but he’d taken himself away to the furthest reaches of the world in an attempt to lose himself to everything familiar. And there, in the seemingly endless miles of the desert, he had found himself, and a purpose, which was to help those who had not been as lucky as he had. Why had he needed to get away, and to do this? Was it penance for the shame felt at the way he’d treated Lizzie—the way he’d turned his back on her after the trial?
‘Don’t keep me waiting,’ he warned her. He was eager to pick up the threads he’d left loose for the past eleven years and weave them into a pattern he could understand.
* * *
Damon was waiting for her outside on a bike. Whatever next? It was a monster of a thing—big and black, purring rhythmically beneath him. In the deep dark shadows of the night, sitting astride the throbbing motorbike, Damon Gavros was quite simply the hottest thing on two hard-muscled legs.
He handed her a helmet and helped her put it on. She tried not to react when his fingertips brushed her skin, sending tidal waves of sensation streaking through her.
‘Just a short ride,’ she warned—a warning for herself more than him. ‘Is there an approved way of mounting this thing?’
Damon laughed as he secured his helmet, lowering the black visor so she could no longer see his eyes. ‘You have to climb on behind me and put your arms around my waist.’
There was every reason not to do so.
‘You’ll have to relax,’ he said when she tried to keep her distance. ‘And hold on.’
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?’ h
e 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.