She was right—he didn’t believe her. His disgust was evident on his face as he made his way back to the pavement with Emily still asleep in his arms.
‘Damon…’ Charlotte rushed after him. ‘I swear to God, Stacey has never done this before! She would never dream of betraying me like this.’
He sent her a withering glance as he reached with one hand for his mobile, somehow managing to keep Emily secure in his arms. ‘Your sister is just as untrustworthy as you. How dare you expose my daughter to such depravity?’
Tears spilled from her eyes. ‘She promised me she would get help! She gave me her word.’
His dark eyes narrowed. ‘To get help for what?’
Charlotte felt her chest cave in as she realised what she had revealed.
‘To get help for what?’ he repeated, his voice scraping along her nerves like the blade of a serrated knife.
She lowered her gaze, her stomach churning in anguish and dread, her voice coming out flat and empty. ‘She’s a heroin addict…ever since our mother got sick, she became involved with an unsavoury crowd…I couldn’t stop her…it went downhill from there…’
‘So she sells herself to feed her habit?’ he asked, his dark eyes almost closed in fury.
Charlotte couldn’t meet his narrowed glittering gaze. Shame felt like a searing brand all over her. She felt its imprint on every surface of her body—even her eyes were stinging with it.
She heard his harshly indrawn breath in the aching silence. ‘You have allowed my daughter to be exposed to this?’
‘I didn’t have any choice,’ she said, dragging her eyes back to his. ‘What could I do? Abandon my sister? I am all she has. I wanted Emily to grow up knowing her aunt. I had to do what I could to keep Stacey alive, even if it meant at times compromising myself in the process.’
‘You have not just compromised yourself but my daughter!’
‘I had no choice!’ Charlotte fought back. ‘Do you know what it’s like to watch someone you love destroy their potential and be unable to do anything to stop it? I have tried everything. I have begged, I have bribed, I have given her chance after chance, and time and time again, just when I think she is turning the corner, she lets me down.’
‘Then get rid of her out of your life.’
She sent him an accusing look. ‘Like you did to me?’
‘As far as I was concerned, you were guilty. I saw no reason to continue our association.’
‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Anyone who steps over your boundaries, you cut out of your life, but she is my sister. My only living relative, apart from Emily, and I won’t write her off like you did to me. She is guilty of being weak—yes—but she needs help and I will not give up on her.’
‘I will not allow my daughter to be exposed to such a person,’ he said as a cab pulled into the kerb. ‘You will not be returning with Emily to your flat. I will make arrangements for your things to be moved to my hotel immediately.’
‘A hotel is not the place for a small child,’ Charlotte argued as he bundled her into the cab.
‘Neither is a back yard brothel,’ he threw back as he settled Emily between them.
‘I told you—she’s never done that before. She promised me she was going to go to detox. I planned to take her to a new clinic. That’s why I took your money—to pay for it. It’s expensive…I couldn’t do it without—’
His eyes cut to hers. ‘You used my money for that whore?’
Charlotte tightened her mouth. ‘You sit so high up in your ivory tower seat of judgement, but what price would you have paid for your sister to get well again?’
Damon looked at her in dumbstruck silence. She was right. He would have paid any price to get Eleni well again, but no amount of money had been able to achieve it.
‘You don’t know what the real world is like, Damon,’ she went on as the cab tyres swished over the rain-slicked roads. ‘I’ve done everything possible to help my sister. She’s broken my heart so many times but I won’t give up on her. I don’t believe in giving up on people, unlike you, who with just one whiff of suspicion threw our relationship away. You didn’t give me a fair trial; you had made your mind up and nothing I said was ever going to change it. As far as you were concerned, I was guilty, but only because you wanted me to be guilty.’
‘I did not want you to be guilty.’ Damon spoke the words but he wondered deep inside if they were true. Had he been looking for a way out of their rapidly escalating relationship? His family had always married within the Greek community. A bride had already been selected for him—Iona Patonis, a pretty young woman who had all the makings of a submissive wife. She had been a close friend of Eleni’s and so everyone had assumed that in time he would settle down and make her an offer…and yet…
‘I did not want you to be guilty.’ He repeated the words, but even the second time around they didn’t ring with any more conviction.
‘Yeah, right,’ she said, flicking him a disdainful glance as she drew her daughter closer. ‘Your so-called love for me didn’t last the distance, did it, Damon? If you had truly cared anything for me, nothing would have stopped you from defending me, but you let me go the first chance you could.’
‘If it is any comfort to you, it was not easy for me to do so,’ he said, looking down at his hands resting on his tiny daughter’s pink pyjama-clad bent knees.
She gave him an embittered look and turned her head to look at the raindrops beading on the window of the cab. ‘Then you escaped lightly,’ she said. ‘The hardest thing for me was walking away from you and staying away.’
But she hadn’t walked away of her own free will, Damon reminded himself with a deep pang of regret as he settled back in his seat, his hands still on his tiny daughter’s legs.
He had sent her away…
CHAPTER TEN
EMILY started to stir in Charlotte’s arms once they arrived at Damon’s hotel.
‘Where are we, Mummy?’ she asked, blinking at the bright lights of the hotel foyer as the cab drew to a halt outside.
‘We’re at a hotel, darling,’ Charlotte answered. ‘This is where your…er…daddy is staying.’
‘My daddy is here?’ Emily asked with wide eyes.
Charlotte caught the tail-end of Damon’s look and felt another wave of guilt crash through her. He was so very angry but in amongst the anger she could see he was deeply hurt. His dark eyes shone with it, the pain evident every time he looked at his little daughter.
‘Yes, he’s here, darling.’
‘Emily—’ Damon’s deep voice brought the little girl’s head around ‘—I am your daddy.’
‘Weally?’ Emily’s eyes grew even wider.
He smiled and gently stroked a long finger against her creamy cheek. ‘Yes I am—really.’
‘Are you going to live wif us now?’ Emily asked, her thumb sneaking up to her little mouth.
‘That hasn’t been de—’ Charlotte began.
‘That is certainly what I will be doing,’ Damon said, interrupting her. ‘In fact we are going to go on a holiday together, just like a real family.’
‘In an aeropwane?’ Emily asked around her thumb.
He nodded as he lifted her out of the cab. ‘Not just any old aeroplane, little one, but my very own private jet.’
‘I’ve never been on an aeropwane,’ Emily said, nestling against his shoulder, her eyelids beginning to droop once more. ‘Is Mummy coming too?’
Damon met Charlotte’s mutinous look. ‘Yes, she is, Emily.’
‘Are you going to get married?’ Emily asked.
Charlotte’s eyes moved away from the burning probe of Damon’s to address her daughter. ‘Not all mummies and daddies are married to each other,’ she explained.
Emily’s little forehead started to wrinkle. ‘But I want to be a flower girl like Janie was. I want to wear a pretty dress and have flowers and stuff in my hair.’
‘I will see what can be arranged,’ Damon said and led the way into the hotel.
Charlotte had to wait until Emily was settled and sound asleep in the second bedroom of the penthouse suite before she could confront Damon over his autocratic plans to take over their lives.
‘How dare you imply to Emily we’re getting married?’ she fumed as she came into the main room. ‘She’ll be so disappointed when she finds out the truth.’
He held her flashing blue gaze for a lengthy moment without speaking. Charlotte didn’t care for the intransigent set to his features and wondered what was going on behind the dark screen of his eyes. She could almost hear the cogs of his incisive mind ticking over.
‘Emily has raised an important issue,’ he said at last. ‘She is a child crying out for a normal family life. We can give that to her.’
Charlotte stared at him in alarm. ‘Don’t even think about it, Damon. You’re the last man I would ever consider marrying.’
‘I am not going to give you a choice,’ he said with an intractable set to his mouth. ‘If you do not agree to become my wife, you will find yourself not only without a job but without a daughter. There is not a judge in Australia who would allow a little child of three years of age to be exposed to a heroin-addicted prostitute, and you damn well know it.’
‘I am her mother! You can’t just waltz in and take her away.’
He moved past her to get himself a drink from the well-stocked bar on the other side of the room. ‘Well, I am her father and, since I have not had any say in her upbringing thus far, I am taking full control now.’
Charlotte drew in a breath that scraped at her raw throat. ‘How can you expect to know what’s in her best interests? You don’t even know how to be a father.’
His eyes hit hers. ‘And whose fault is that?’
She couldn’t hold the burning accusation in his gaze. ‘I told you I had no choice. I would have told you years ago, but you wouldn’t listen.’
He moved back to stand in front of her, his height so intimidating she felt herself shrink backwards. ‘Tell me something, Charlotte—’ his voice was like an ice floe passing over her skin ‘—were you ever going to get around to telling me of her existence? You have known I was coming to Sydney for months. You could have at any time contacted me and told me and yet you did not. Not only that, over the last few days you have spent hours and hours in my company and yet you have not said a word.’
Charlotte felt the probe of his gaze against hers and knew it would be pointless to lie to him now. ‘I was trying to work up the courage…’ she said, her throat moving up and down painfully.
‘I do not believe you.’
‘I was!’
‘You are lying. You have had numerous opportunities to tell me. No wonder you found it hard to look at me. All that talk of you finding things difficult between us was a pack of lies. What you were finding difficult was facing up to your guilt.’
‘I was going to tell you! I wanted to, but I was worried you’d do exactly what you’re doing now!’
‘You bitch.’ His embittered words slashed the air like a machete. ‘You thieving little lying bitch.’
Charlotte raised her hand without thinking but he caught it in mid-air, his rapid block sending every bit of air out of her lungs.
‘You want to play it rough, do you, Charlotte?’ he asked, his fingers tightening around her wrist until she was sure it would bruise. ‘Go on, then. Hit me.’
Her eyes blazed with hatred. ‘Let go of me or you’ll regret it.’
He gave a mocking laugh as she pulled ineffectually against his hold. ‘How are you going to make me regret it, agape mou?’
She kicked out with her foot but he spun her around so her back was towards him, every hard ridge and plane of his body now pressing against hers. She could feel his warmth seeping into her, the fragrance of his aftershave filling her senses and the unmistakable swelling of his erection probing her erotically from behind.
‘I do not think violence becomes you, Charlotte,’ he said against her neck, his lips a temptation she knew she would not be able to bear for much longer. ‘I prefer you purring like a kitten in my arms.’
‘L-let me go…’ Her plea was halfway between a gasp and a groan as he pressed even harder against her.
His mouth found the sensitive skin behind her ear. ‘That was my mistake four years ago,’ he said. ‘This time I will not let you go.’
She shivered as his tongue slid from behind her ear to her neck, tasting her in tiny teasing kisses that made her stomach quiver and her legs go weak and watery.
He turned her in his arms and looked down at her, his eyes alight with desire as his hand cupped her breast, his other reaching between her legs, rubbing her intimately until she was leaning into him unashamedly. ‘See how you respond to me, Charlotte?’
‘I don’t want to respond to you…’ she breathed into the hot moist cavern of his mouth as it hovered just above hers. ‘It doesn’t seem right…’
His lips brushed against hers, the tickling, teasing touch stirring her into a mindless frenzy of need. ‘What would indeed be wrong would be to ignore this passion that sizzles between us, Charlotte,’ he said, stroking her bottom lip with the rasping, sensuous glide of his tongue.
She opened her mouth as his tongue pushed tantalisingly against her lips, her stomach hollowing in need as he thrust in once, stroked her tongue with his and then retreated. She brought her mouth back to his and met his tongue with her own, tentatively at first and then, when he responded with a deep groan, with even more fervour.
It was a kiss of combat and the angst fuelling it somehow made it all the more thrilling. Her teeth nipped at him, inciting him to do the same, her bottom lip his tender target. He suckled on its fullness before capturing it with his teeth again in a series of playful little bites that had her senses instantly screaming for release.
He pushed her backwards until she was up against the nearest wall, his mouth feeding hungrily off hers, his chest heaving in and out with the effort of staying in control.
Charlotte didn’t want him in control. She wanted him in full-throttle mode, no holds barred. She tore at his shirt with her fingers, searching for the springy hair on his chest, her nails raking along his skin with an almost animal passion as her tongue fought with his for supremacy.
His hands went to her breasts, shaping her through the fabric of her dress possessively before he reached behind her for her zip and lowered it. The feel of his hands on the naked skin of her back was intoxicating, every pore of her skin tensing in delight as he brought his hands around to where her breasts were aching for his touch.
Her dress fell in a pool at her feet, leaving her with nothing but her knickers and thigh-high stockings and heels, her whole body quivering in anticipation as he reached beneath the damp lace of her underwear to stroke her intimately.
‘You want me,’ he said in a husky tone, his dark eyes glittering with victory. ‘You can deny it all you like, but your body speaks for you.’
Charlotte couldn’t see any point in denying it now. Her whole body arched to bring his fingers deeper but it still wasn’t enough. She threw her head back and gave a whimpering groan as his fingers began to massage the wet swollen bud of her femininity with devastating expertise. She could feel the tension building all through her body until her mind switched off and she became conscious of nothing but the spiralling sensations his masterful touch was evoking. She felt the first flicker and then the full-on rush of feeling as the spasms took hold, rocking her body against his hand, her hips undulating with the sheer force of trying to hold on to that exquisite feeling for as long as she could.
Her whole body sagged against the wall when it was over, her legs feeling as if they were going to fold beneath her.
Shame coursed through her like a hot red tide when Damon stepped back from her. Whatever desire he had felt was now gone. She could see the disdain in his eyes as they raked her slumped form and she inwardly cringed at her appalling lack of control.
She rustled up a tattered remnant
of pride and, affecting a sultry expression, met his gaze. ‘What’s wrong, Damon? Not feeling up to it again tonight? I thought you had more stamina.’
His mouth tightened. ‘I do not intend to sleep with you again until we are married.’
Her eyes flashed back at him defiantly. ‘I don’t intend to sleep with you at all, married or not!’
His lip curled as his gaze ran over her half-naked form. ‘I can have you whenever I like. I just proved it.’
‘You proved nothing but what an unscrupulous man you are,’ she spat back.
He stepped towards her again, his arms locking hers above her head. ‘You like to brandish those insults of yours around, don’t you? But I should warn you that once we are married you will have to tame that tongue of yours or you will regret it.’
‘How are you going to make me regret it, Damon?’ She threw his own words back at him, her taunting tone setting off a blazing inferno in his eyes as they clashed with hers.
She sucked in a little breath as his hands pulled her from where she was pressed up against the wall, her body slamming into the tempting heat of his.
‘I will teach you to bend to my will if it’s the last thing I do,’ he growled.
‘Then you’re going to have one hell of a fight on your hands,’ she warned him with a lift of her chin.
His eyes warred with hers, his jaw so tight she could hear his teeth grinding together.
The tension was like an electric current zinging in the air. The scent of his arousal was there too, teasing her nostrils until she felt as if she was breathing him into the secret depths of her body.
His eyes burned into hers as he pulled her towards the huge bed, his free hand undoing his belt, his shoes thudding to the floor as he pressed her down on the mattress, his weight pinning her beneath him.
‘Is this what you want?’ he asked, releasing himself, the hard probe of his erect body already sinking into her wet warmth.
Charlotte gasped as he drove forward with a deep thick thrust, her inner muscles grabbing at him greedily, wanting all of him, again and again. Her hands clawed at him, holding him, caressing him, stroking him until he let out a deep primal groan as he sank even further into her warmth, his movements quickening as the pressure built.
Bought for Her Baby Page 10