Harlequin Presents July 2017 Box Set : Sicilian's Baby of Shame / Salazar's One-night Heir / the Secret Kept from the Greek / Claiming His Convenient Fiance (9781460351802)

by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie

‘Apparently not,’ Damon said dryly, putting the letter back on the table.

  ‘I meant in London.’

  ‘That depends,’ he said.

  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking upon what it depended. She was in no mood to soften. This was her turf, her home, her sanctuary, and his lawyer’s letter had breached that security.

  ‘So, how did this happen?’

  Damon shrugged. ‘My legal team is over-keen.’

  ‘That’s not good enough.’

  Not now the past had swooped over her like an ugly black cloak, blotting out the facts in front of her and replacing them with horrors from another day.

  ‘What does it matter if you authorised this letter or not? Your legal team work for you, in your name, as they worked that day to destroy my father. Do I want to hang around to see if any more letters like this arrive? Do I want to subject Thea to the risk of finding one some day? If you love Thea, as you say you do, I suggest you take this letter and shove it up your lawyer’s backside, where it belongs—’

  But she couldn’t wait for that, and so she shredded it instead and let the pieces drop through her fingers like a shower of toxic confetti.

  He was tempted to applaud, but guessed that wouldn’t go down well. Lizzie was never more magnificent than when she was defending their child. If he had the whole world to choose from he couldn’t find a better woman than this. He only wondered that it had taken him so long to realise Lizzie’s true worth. He guessed that while he was a speed freak in business, and had everything down to a well-oiled art where that was concerned, he was a little less adept when it came to handling emotions and human relationships.

  ‘You don’t get to tell me what to do here. This is my turf,’ Lizzie was telling him.

  He had the satisfaction of hearing the pieces of the lawyer’s letter crunch beneath his boots as he moved towards her. He would have liked to grind them through the floorboards and consign them to hell.

  ‘I quite agree,’ he told her.

  There was a silence, and then she said, ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re right. That letter should never have been sent, but I’m ultimately responsible for it. My legal team thought they were protecting me. I know,’ he said as her eyes lit. ‘I hardly need protecting. But you do. And Thea does too. And I should be first in line to do that.’

  Lizzie eyes betrayed all the uncertainty inside her, while he was stripped down to his most vulnerable, with everything to lose.

  He’d fought off emotion all his life, wanting to fight for, and protect his parents. He’d fight now, if he had to.

  ‘I won’t let Thea suffer because of my naiveté,’ Lizzie said, obviously still tense and worried, ‘so if there’s a copy of that letter in a vault somewhere, or on a computer, I want it destroyed.’

  ‘It will be,’ he promised. ‘Thea will never know about the letter unless you tell her.’

  ‘Well, obviously I won’t.’

  ‘You’re not to blame for any of this, Lizzie. You never were.’

  Damon’s will was vibrating in the room like a tangible thing, tempting her to believe him.

  ‘So you don’t think I’m a liar, like my father?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. Would I be here if I did?’

  She’d needed to hear that, but she still had to shake her head to try and dislodge the memories. The faces of her father’s victims were always with her, reminding her that she should be punished too. She had enjoyed her last birthday party at home before the trial, as the privileged daughter of a supposedly wealthy man. She had adored her dress and everything else about that night—without realising that she’d been drinking and eating and dancing at the expense of so many vulnerable victims.

  If only she could have that time over again—time to make things right and stop her father. If only she’d known—

  ‘Lizzie, you have to stop this,’ Damon insisted quietly. ‘I understand what you’re going through, but you can’t change the past, and nor can you go on blaming yourself for what your father did.’

  Easy for him to say, but guilt was eating her alive. Did he know that?

  ‘And I suppose I can’t blame myself for my father’s death?’ she suggested. ‘But I still do.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘They offered me counselling before I went to visit him in jail for the first time. I knew within five minutes that the person counselling me had no idea. Beyond offering me a box of tissues, a few murmured platitudes, and telling me that it would be “good for me to talk”, she had nothing to offer—while I still had to get my head around the basics, like finding somewhere to live and putting food on the table. I didn’t have time to waste emoting. All I could think of was getting out of that office so I could get on with the rest of my life.’

  ‘And did you?’ Damon angled his chin to stare at her.

  ‘Yes. That day in court changed me. My father’s death changed me even more. It was a wake-up call and a turning point for me. It told me in stark language that it was time to grow up.’

  ‘You did have a lot of changes to get used to.’

  ‘You think?’ She found a small wry smile. ‘I had to get used to the world I believed in turning out to be a fantasy. Having my only living relative in prison and losing my friends didn’t help…’ Her voice tailed away.

  ‘I don’t see how that makes you responsible for your father’s death,’ Damon prompted.

  ‘I was angry with him and I was homeless,’ Lizzie remembered. ‘By the time I had scraped together enough money for my first visit to the jail I got there and they said he was dead. He’d hanged himself.’

  The feelings she’d suffered on that terrible day, swept over her now. They were weaker, of course. Time was kind like that. But the sense of abandonment had never truly left her. Like the grief at having any chance of making things right between Lizzie and her father stolen away, the shock of his death, and the realisation that time lost could never be recaptured, had changed her forever.

  ‘Theos, Lizzie! You found out like that?’

  ‘Exactly like that. It was kept out of the newspapers. The publicity wouldn’t be good for the jail, they said. I’m over it now—of course I am,’ she insisted. ‘But after his death I went from feeling the weight of everyone’s disapproval to suffering their pity—which was almost worse. A lot of people turned away, and I can’t blame them. It was as if Dad and me had both been infected with the same disease. I just wish I could have done something more to help him. Hence the ongoing guilt, I suppose.’

  ‘You were very young.’

  ‘Old enough to have a child.’

  ‘Your father chose your stepmother in preference to you,’ Damon insisted. ‘He wanted you in court because he thought you might be useful to him. That isn’t love, Lizzie, that’s taking advantage of someone’s good nature—yours, in this instance.’

  She felt naked and vulnerable, having bared her soul, and she went on the defensive immediately. ‘You’re very supportive, Damon. Will you give me the same level of support when I fight you for Thea?’

  ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that, but you can’t keep our daughter from me.’

  ‘You sound very sure.’

  ‘I am. Because—’

  ‘You have another team of lawyers?’ Lizzie guessed.

  ‘No,’ Damon said carefully. ‘I am sure it won’t come to that. Because Thea has asked to see me.’

  ‘Thea has—I’m sorry.’ Lizzie paled. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Thea has asked to see me now and again,’ Damon explained. ‘And that’s what we’ve agreed on.’

  ‘You’ve agreed this? Without consulting me?’

  ‘Yes, Thea and I talked it over. We’ll meet now and then…at least to begin with…and th
en, over time, we’ll see more of each other, depending on how things go.’

  ‘I can’t get my head around this,’ Lizzie said tensely. ‘You’ve spoken to Thea without telling me?’

  ‘She rang me. I could hardly refuse to speak to my own daughter.’

  ‘Thea rang you?’ Lizzie repeated foolishly. She felt as if the ground was shaking beneath her feet and every certainty she’d ever had was slipping away from her. ‘You told me I could trust you…’

  ‘You can,’ Damon insisted.

  ‘So you go behind my back and talk to my daughter—’

  ‘Our daughter,’ he interrupted. ‘I gave Thea my number in case she ever needed it.’

  ‘Why would she need it?’ Lizzie challenged.

  ‘I’m her father,’ Damon said quietly. ‘Who else would she call?’

  ‘Me! She’d call me,’ Lizzie insisted furiously. ‘How could you do this? I’ll never trust you again as long as I live. Get out. Get out now! Get out!’

  She broke several nails flinging the door open.

  In one breath Damon had denounced the letter and accepted Thea as his daughter, and then in that self-same breath he had admitted that he was speaking to Thea behind Lizzie’s back on a semi-regular basis.

  To say she felt unnervingly threatened would be massively understating the case. She was on the outside looking in at a relationship that was obviously developing between Damon and Thea without her involvement. How had it come to this? Had Thea already made her choice as to where and with whom she wanted to live?

  She had to tell herself not to be so ridiculous. Thea was an intelligent girl. They loved each other. Love like theirs couldn’t be threatened or stolen away by anyone.

  And when Damon strode out of the house without a backward glance, leaving Lizzie with no idea if she’d ever see him again, she wondered if maybe that was a good thing.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HE CALLED HER from the car. He had been sitting right around the corner from Lizzie’s bedsit for almost an hour before he called. Her tiny room was not the right forum for big emotions to run wild.

  He smiled faintly as he waited for her to pick up, imagining the answer he might get when she did. This passionate creature was the Lizzie he remembered, and while one part of him wanted nothing more than to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about another part of him was glad to have her back.

  ‘Hello?’ She sounded suspicious.

  ‘Hey…’

  ‘What do you want, Damon?’ She sounded hostile.

  ‘To fill in a few gaps for you.’

  ‘You think that will help?’ she demanded sceptically.

  ‘It can’t do any more harm.’

  There was a long pause, and then she asked, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Not far away.’

  Silence.

  ‘If it helps with all that guilt you’re carrying around,’ he said, deciding to be blunt, ‘you should know that all your father’s victims got their money back.’

  ‘How could they?’ she demanded. ‘My father didn’t have any funds left when he died. My stepmother saw to that.’

  ‘The Gavros Foundation took care of it.’

  ‘I should have known,’ she murmured.

  He waited.

  ‘So I’m in your debt now?’

  ‘You’re in no one’s debt,’ he assured her. ‘You were a victim as much as anyone else in that courtroom. I should have found a way to tell you what my family intended to do, but I was always too busy thinking about rebuilding the business.’

  ‘That doesn’t make me feel any less guilty,’ she assured him. ‘You shouldn’t have had to rebuild your family business. You wouldn’t have had to do that if my father hadn’t defrauded yours.’

  ‘Lizzie, if you’re guilty I’m guilty too. I didn’t spare a thought for the fallout of that day, beyond the financial implications for Gavros Inc. I seem to remember we’d had a good year, so it was no problem for the foundation to grant funds to the victims. Knowing they’d got their money back gave me a good feeling. But I didn’t spare a thought for the emotional consequences. You’re right. I was all about money then—ruthless and uncaring. I thought my duty was done, and that was enough.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘And now I understand how incredibly courageous you’ve been.’

  ‘Please,’ she said wearily.

  ‘I’m not patronising you. You were down on the floor and fate kept on kicking you. I only wish I’d been there to pick you up.’

  ‘I didn’t need anyone to pick me up,’ she countered fast. ‘I picked myself up. And about time too.’

  ‘And now I need your agreement to move forward—the three of us together,’ he explained.

  ‘You didn’t need my agreement to speak to Thea,’ she pointed out with justifiable fire. ‘So what’s changed, Damon?’

  ‘I have,’ he admitted.

  There was a long silence, and then she said, ‘Where are you? And I want a GPS fix this time.’

  He wondered if he’d ever felt so happy as he swung himself out of the car.

  * * *

  They met halfway down the street. Lizzie was in her slippers, with a coat thrown over her pyjamas.

  ‘Can we start over?’ Damon asked her as the rain started to pelt down.

  ‘We’d better get back,’ she said, pulling her coat over her head.

  They ran for it, but by the time they got back to the house she was soaked.

  And drained.

  Exercising emotions was every bit as exhausting as a hard day’s training at the gym, Lizzie had discovered, and after eleven years of holding things in that amounted to a lot of fatigue. The faintest of smiles on Damon’s mouth was enough to bring her strength flooding back, but for how long? she wondered.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk in my room.’

  ‘So you trust me now?’ he said, leaning back against the door.

  ‘Do I have an option?’

  ‘No. And I’ve got a better idea than discussing this in your room. Come back to the island with me and we’ll talk there. Not tonight. Sleep tonight, and tomorrow I’ll come and get you.’

  She was just figuring out the pros and cons of this when Damon seized the initiative. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure, Lizzie? All I’ve ever wanted is the best for you and Thea. And if you can’t believe that believe this—’

  Her world exploded into vivid colour as Damon drove his mouth down on hers. It was rain after a drought, a rock in a shifting sea of doubt and guilt. She wanted him—wanted this—tongues tangling and stroking in an arousing reminder of the act she longed for while she clung to him and he growled with pleasure as she pressed her body hungrily against his.

  Eleven years of caution and protecting Thea with everything she’d got made it hard to give in to her own selfish pleasure, but with Damon’s physical heat surrounding her, and her body begging her to relent, she was at least prepared to hear him out.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked tensely when he released her.

  ‘Heal you,’ he said.

  * * *

  Damon left Lizzie in a tantalising state of extreme arousal after giving her instructions to pack. He’d seemed in a hurry to get somewhere, and she’d warned him that she wasn’t very good at taking instructions. But she wasn’t very good at feeling sorry for herself either. What good did it do?

  When Damon’s car had roared off and it was quiet again she felt lonely, standing on her own in the middle of an empty room in an empty house, and then she decided that she could sit down and cry or get on with things. She chose action.

  First things first. She was hungry. An army fought on its stomach, and the Italian restaurant down the road was always bright
and welcoming. She could walk there once she’d changed into some dry clothes. Right now pizza and a glass of rough red wine sounded like heaven.

  * * *

  Lizzie was carrying serious wounds from the past, and he couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure of her unless he did something epic to reassure her that he really had turned a corner and was determined to see things through.

  He was like a bear with a sore head as he drove away from her bedsit. The fact that his lawyer had acted without his authority still inflamed him. The man had been growing in confidence year on year, but this latest action had set Damon back eleven years. That legal firm was history—but that was the least of his worries now.

  Needing space to think, he shifted lanes so he could take the long, straight road out of town. He got what he deserved—which was all the time in the world to work on his frustration as he battled with the sluggish evening traffic—but at least his mind cleared and he made a couple of calls. He had one possible ally, and he’d call in every card he’d got if it would make things right with Lizzie.

  He’d told her to get some sleep?

  Who the hell did he think he was?

  Should she sleep? Sleep and dream? See all those faces in that courtroom again? He knew they haunted her. And he’d left her to deal with it on her own, so soon after the shock of receiving that lawyer’s letter. To hell with that!

  Swinging the wheel, he turned and headed back the way he’d come. Half an hour later he was finally getting somewhere—both in the car and with the project he had in mind. He was already calling Lizzie’s number by the time he joined the traffic heading back into London.

  ‘Where are you?’ he demanded when she picked up.

  ‘Where am I? Eating.’ She sounded surprised to hear from him.

  He could hear plates clattering in the background. ‘Eating where?’

  The silence continued until impatience was banging like cymbals in his head. ‘Where are you, Lizzie?’ he repeated tensely.

  ‘In an Italian restaurant close to home—’

  He cut the line and gunned the engine.

  Some things were worth getting a speeding ticket for.