“I called you down earlier for a reason. I did not appreciate you leaving the way you did.”
Resolutely, I sloughed off the memories of his lips on Gretchen’s. I had to if I was going to make this work.
If I was going to win.
I just had to remind myself that it wasn’t my Damian kissing another woman. My Damian wouldn’t do that to me. Not after the lengths he went to keep me.
This Damian didn’t know me. This Damian believed he was still dating Gretchen.
This Damian was going to be my Damian.
All I had to do was keep the faith.
That was the devil in the deal though, wasn’t it?
30
Damian undid his tie. I flashed back to how often he’d do the same at the end of the day in my apartment or his. I also remembered how Damian would then tie my wrists behind my back with it.
My mouth dried. Desire pounded deep within me as I stared at the silky material. Everything about Damian was a potential trigger. I tore my gaze away, but the carnal images flooded me anyways.
Mouth and body open, pleasure without words, and long, shuddering moans as I came on his mouth, fingers, tongue, and cock.
But only if I was a good girl.
I shifted my stance, trying so hard to get relief that wouldn’t come.
“I apologize, Mr. Black-Price. I was embarrassed to have interrupted you with Ms. Smith. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re right. It won’t. Because the next time you leave without my permission will be the last. Do you understand?”
Fear of banishment dropped like a stone.
“I understand, Sir. I won’t give you cause to fire me.”
Damian smiled at me. It was the careless grin of a dark predator. “No, Risa. I’m not going to fire you. Not unless you make me do it. And no one makes me do anything I don’t want to do. Think on that long and hard the next time you ignore me when I call for you, turn off your phone, or avoid me to spend time with your bodyguard.”
There it was again. Jealousy. Possessiveness.
“I’m not avoiding you to be with Leon.”
“No? Then what are you doing?”
I licked my lips. Damian zeroed in on my mouth.
“When I see your tongue like that I want it licking all along my cock instead,” he said to me more than once.
I did it again. Just a test. A tease even. Damian’s jaw popped.
Oh God. By his reaction, I knew he wasn’t pleased with me.
Damian always said little girls who teased ended up getting fucked hard and put to bed without coming. I knew it personally.
“I…ah…”
“Yes, Risa?” He prompted softly. It was the voice of a thousand memories. He wanted truth. I’d give him some because I couldn’t give it all.
“I didn’t like seeing you that way.”
“What way?”
“I didn’t like seeing you with Ms. Smith. It made me…uncomfortable.”
“Liar.”
My mouth dropped open. I didn’t have to look in a mirror to know outrage sparked in my eyes. I deliberately looked at a point over his broad shoulders.
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“You weren’t uncomfortable. You were flaming pissed, Risa. More than pissed. You were jealous. Tell me why.”
I fisted my hands. “This conversation is highly inappropriate.”
“So was your reaction.”
Damian let his tie drop onto the table. I stared at the cobalt material as if it were a lifeline. Damian’s slow steps echoed the pulse strumming across my clit.
This pull and push was so familiar.
Even without his memories, Damian easily led me down the same path. Lost as I was, I’d follow him forever.
He stopped right in front of me, blocking my view of anything but him. Close enough to kiss but frustratingly out of reach.
Heaven and hell.
Imprisoned but free.
I wasn’t playing a part anymore. I yielded to him purposely.
“I apologize for my reaction, Sir. I won’t do it again.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, Risa. After all, my reaction wasn’t what I expect of myself. In fact…”
Damian let the words hang. Silent as a mouse to his cat, I recognized this for what it was even if he didn’t. Another tease, another test. Another way of raking his claws on the underside of my belly.
And as always, I hung there, suspended on his whim. Forever waiting for Damian…
He turned his cool gaze on me. The lines of his gorgeous face were etched in stone as he confessed softly, “I don’t like you spending any time with Leon. I want you here with me. I suspect you want the same thing.”
I did. God, I did.
“Then why did you send me away?” I didn’t mean to sound as if he’d broken my heart. “Why are you avoiding me?”
He stood there silently for so long I was afraid he wouldn’t answer. Damian’s hand twitched, as if to reach out for me before he finally murmured, “I had to see.”
“See what?”
“I had to see if it would all come back.”
I died to ask the obvious question but instinct stayed me. I didn’t want to give into hope, not after swearing I’d stay by him no matter how long it took, but the weaker side of me prayed for it.
Please mean what I hope you mean. Please mean you remember something about me. About us. I’m so alone here. I miss you so much. Don’t keep me waiting.
Damian shook his head. “Risa, I’m drawn to you. I don’t know why but I am. I can’t always keep you with me, but I don’t like to be apart from you. Why is that?”
The words trembled on my lips.
Because you love me and I love you.
His stare worked to peel back my fragile layers, to uncover the secrets that would answer the question. I stood there and braved letting my emotions dart to the surface.
Damian took a step towards me. “I’ve never had a PA before. I never wanted one. But you…why you? What did you do to me, Risa, to make me want to keep you?”
Tears burned beneath my lids. “I don’t know, Sir. We just…fit…together well.”
He reached for my face. His thumb traced a rogue tear that slipped through my defenses. “Did we? I can see that. That still doesn’t answer my question. Why do I feel this way about you, Risa? I have been with Gretchen the longest I’ve ever been with anyone. In all this time, I never felt that way about her, and she has been the most important woman in my life.”
Bittersweet didn’t begin to cover it. I dared to place my hand over his. “I can’t tell you, Sir, but all I can ask is that you trust your feelings.”
Instead of making it all better, my words had the opposite effect. Damian pulled his hand away and stepped back.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s all right. Really,” I assured him in a rush. “I didn’t mind.”
“No. It’s the furthest thing from all right. You’re an employee and I am your boss. I should not have crossed that line. Accept my apologies, Ms. Kelly.”
He slipped through my fingers. Damian no longer looked at me with bemused affection and unconscious tenderness. Losing our connection threw me in a panic.
“But there’s nothing for you to apologize for. I feel the same way—”
“Risa,” he cut in sharply. “It’s not going to go past this point. Not the way you’d want it. No matter what I feel for you. I’m in a relationship. Even if I wasn’t, nothing between us can happen. Ever.”
“Why?” I somehow managed to whisper through a throat tight with misery.
Damian leveled me with his stare. Uncompromising. Unmovable.
“Because I don’t sleep with my employees, Ms. Kelly. No matter how beautiful, charming, intelligent, fascinating, and tempting.”
He slayed me. What else was there to say? I couldn’t fight a man who was so rigid in his belief to be noble.
Clearly his allegiance was to main
taining his code. Strange how much that hurt, especially knowing I was once worth breaking the law for. But what could I expect? I was simply his PA.
A hollow smile settled on my lips. “Of course, Mr. Black-Price. Will that be all?”
He glared for a moment, as if he’d expected me to fight him and was now disappointed.
“You may leave, Risa.”
“Goodnight, Sir. I will be upstairs if you need me.”
I turned around and walked away from him, the tie, and a million memories in danger of disintegrating into ash.
“Risa?”
I came to a halt and turned around, careful to keep my face blank but confident I failed. Damian’s gaze glittered in the half-light. I imagined I saw regret and anger in their brooding depths.
Surely I was mistaken. My heart couldn’t handle being wrong right now.
“Yes, Sir?”
He opened his mouth. A foreign expression crossed his perfect features. Something like uncertainty. Before I could grab onto it, Damian clenched his jaw and gave me a tight nod.
“Be ready to leave tomorrow. We go back to New York.”
“Of course, Sir.”
I walked out of the room, blind to the few people around me. I clutched my chest, swallowing the tears and sobs struggling to be free.
Being like this hurt. Being without him would’ve hurt worse.
31
DAMIAN
The morning wouldn’t come fast enough. Darkness still swallowed the sky.
“Elaine, I need you to arrange for Gretchen’s departure back to the States.”
“Why don’t you have Risa do it?”
I wasn’t in the mood to be questioned, least of all by my guardian. I’d suffered the Devil’s temper last night after Risa left. It was so bad that Gretchen lasted all of five minutes before she made herself scarce.
Where she ultimately slept remained a mystery. I didn’t have it in me to feel the slightest remorse.
Fair or unfair, a significant part of me blamed Gretchen for last night’s debacle. She knew as well as I did that our relationship had run aground long before my ‘accident’.
Gretchen had no right to ask to come to New York. We didn’t live in the same city for a reason.
I valued my space and my privacy. To the extreme. I wasn’t interested in spending all my free time with whoever I was fucking. I learned early on women had an irritating wont to demand dominion over my evenings—especially if they lived in the same city.
Hence, my relationship with Gretchen had been satisfying. The operative word being ‘had’.
Now she demanded more. I wanted less.
What I really wanted I couldn’t have. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
My conversation with Risa plagued me. If she was jealous then that was something I wanted to explore.
But then I fucked it up royally.
I hadn’t intended to say what I did to her at the end. I hadn’t meant for things to be so final. So why did I bring it up? Especially since I didn’t want the boundaries of employer and employee to come between us.
I wanted to force her to admit to her feelings for me. I wanted to explore my fixation on her.
Instead, I caged us with bars of respectability and purpose. It was a severe miscalculation on my part. I’d yet to discover a way to rectify it.
“Because I need you to do it.”
“May I ask why?”
I smothered a curse. Elaine typically stayed out of my affairs. I didn’t appreciate her changing course. “We are going to two different locations. I do not need her to travel with me.”
My guardian crossed her arms and lifted an impeccable brow. “You wish to end things with Gretchen, yes?”
Damn! Where was this damned curiosity coming from? I wasn’t in the habit of explaining my reasons to anyone.
“Yes, if you must know. I will end things once I get settled in New York.”
“You cannot.”
“I most certainly can.”
I couldn’t believe the audacity of Elaine to tell me no. I’d outgrown that parameter by the time I was ten.
“It would not be wise, Damian.”
Dull throbbing started behind my left eye. “Elaine, I am not going to continue this conversation with you. My romance with Gretchen has run its course. She will be returning home and so will I. Arrange her flight immediately. I don’t care if you charter a jet for her use. See to it. Now.”
Elaine shook her head. Unbelievable! What the hell was happening?
“Fine. I don’t have time to argue with you. You won’t do it? Then I will.” I whipped out my phone.
“Don’t be foolish, Damian. This is not the time for theatrics.”
“You insult me,” I growled, well drained of my patience.
She put her hand on my arm. “If you are done with this woman, you should’ve never sent for her in the first place. I urged you not to, remember?”
First obstinacy and now lecturing?
“I didn’t realize you took such interest in my bed partners, Elaine. Is this new or have you always made assessments?”
It may have sounded as if I were teasing her, but we both knew I was not.
My personal affairs were just that—mine.
I wouldn’t take kindly to Elaine getting a wild, maternal hair. She wasn’t my mother. I’d lost mine at birth and no one was going to take her place.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Damian. Who you bed is your business. Except in this. We don’t know if your situation has been contained. She might have been seen, Damian. Anyone trying to get to you will first get to her. To leave her unprotected would be murder. You cannot take this chance.”
This time I didn’t bother biting back a long, vile curse. The last thing I wanted was for Gretchen to be hurt. Elaine was right—I should’ve never sent for her.
I may not have wanted to continue our liaison but that didn’t mean I’d abandon her to the wolves.
A thought serrated through. If Gretchen could be a possible target, what about Risa?
The throbbing in my head increased exponentially. If I couldn’t take a chance with Gretchen’s safety, I most certainly would not take a chance with Risa.
Never mind my fixation on needing to know where she was every minute of the day. Never mind the carnal thoughts that seduced me hourly, thoughts so explicit I’d swear they were real.
Risa didn’t sign up for having her life put in danger.
Even though this was precisely the reason I’d never had a PA, now that she was mine, I’d protect her with everything in my arsenal plus more.
I didn’t allow myself to probe deeply at the marked difference in reaction between my lover and my PA. It wouldn’t bode well regardless of the conclusions.
Intellect needed to rule me. Not thwarted passion.
Pocketing my phone, I took a seat at the table. Calm, cool, and completely in control of my unexpected emotions, I asked my guardian for her counsel.
“What do you suggest?”
“You must continue as before. No changes to your routine. No upheaval in your personal life. Socialize as you did before.”
“Keeping the status quo brings me to the same issue you suggest I avoid. Gretchen does not live in New York. She lives in Atlanta. Keeping her in the city would draw suspicion.”
“Not if you’re in her company. Secure a temporary rental for Ms. Smith and see her several times a week. Show up in the society pages. Assign security to her. In a month, maybe less, you can send her back to her life.”
It went without saying. While I wanted to keep Gretchen safe, I didn’t like where this was heading. My convalescence put the final nail in my relationship’s coffin. I appreciated her emotion for me, but I didn’t want to drag it out further. Especially after Gretchen’s emotional disclosure last night.
No matter how much easier it would be to play along, I would not do that to her.
“Things between us are not what they once were. I cannot tell Gretchen the complete
truth of things so she will assume a truth that is indeed a lie. It wouldn’t be fair to her. There must be another way.”
“What wouldn’t be fair to her is to be dead.” The cool pronouncement carried a whiff of censure.
Elaine didn’t have to say a word. I knew what she thought.
Emotion has no place in decision-making. Whether you like it or not is of no consequence. Find the most expedient point to get what you need and press it.
That was but one of many lessons I’d learned as a boy while being groomed for my position. They’d always served me well.
I tapped my fingers against the table once. “Arrange an apartment for Gretchen. Full security. We tell her nothing but the bare minimum to guarantee her cooperation.”
Elaine didn’t look satisfied that I acquiesced. It wasn’t her way, but I knew I’d pleased her. She didn’t have the opportunity to assist me with personal matters anymore. I suspected it put her in a maternal frame of mind.
I also suspected I’d given her cause to worry if my ruthlessness had exited the building along with my memories. She and Thomas had worked tirelessly my entire life to avoid that ever happening.
In this I was certain to please her.
“It will be arranged by the time we land. Wolffington will provide the security. We should assign an additional bodyguard, one of ours.”
“Done. Add a detail to her place of business as well.”
I doubted anything would happen to Gretchen’s establishment or her workers, but the “better to be safe” cliché held true in gray matters such as these.
I expected Elaine to leave and finish her preparations. She surprised me when she instead sat down across from me. “Now about Ms. Kelly.”
My body immediately went stiff. “What about Risa?”
“Have you considered what you will do with her?”
32
“I don’t think there is anything to ‘do with her’.”
My tone was a warning in itself. Risa was off-limits. I had no intention of involving her in anything to do with Konstantinov business.
“Despite your current work arrangements, you have grown closer to her.”
I stared at Elaine, not saying a word.
My Love Break Page 11