His pace was almost too hard and too fast but somehow she kept up, her body responding without restraint, her soft but frantic cries making her pant as she felt herself climbing to the summit again.
Damon lifted his mouth off hers and forced her chin up so that she met his eyes. ‘Look at me,’ he demanded hoarsely.
Her eyes skirted away from his but he wouldn’t allow it. ‘Look at me, damn you! I want you to see what you do to me, what you have always done to me.’
‘You hate yourself for it, though, don’t you, Damon?’ she asked a little breathlessly as his hard body thrust deeply and determinedly into hers. ‘You want me even though you hate me.’
‘The less said about my feelings towards you right now the better,’ he said, and with one last powerful thrust he triggered her release with the mind-blowing explosion of his own.
Charlotte lay in the tight circle of his arms, her heart still racing as the aftershocks of pleasure filtered through her body. She could feel the deep thud of his heart against her breast and his uneven breathing against the soft skin of her neck. She wanted to say something but for the life of her couldn’t think of how to break the awkward silence. She felt so ashamed of her weakness; she had practically begged him to make love to her again.
She felt him roll away and turned her head to see him put his hand up over his eyes as if warding off a nasty headache. She watched as his chest rose and fell in a sigh before he removed his hand and turned his head to look at her.
‘I am sorry, Charlotte,’ he said in a gruff tone. ‘That was not meant to happen, or at least not like that.’
She gave him an ironic look. ‘I thought that was why you paid me in the first place. Wasn’t that the deal? I was to become your paid mistress for the period of time you’re here?’
A dull flush appeared along his sharp cheekbones. ‘I did not know then that you were the mother of my child,’ he said.
She raised her brows expressively. ‘So that makes it somehow different, does it?’
‘You know it does.’
She got off the bed and scooped her clothing off the floor, dressing again with angry, agitated movements. She pulled the hair out of the back of her dress once she had zipped it back up and glared at him.
‘You’re a hypocrite, Damon. You were content to employ me as your mistress when it suited you but now you want me to be a faithful, obedient wife.’
He got off the bed and reached for a robe. ‘You will be my wife, Charlotte,’ he said, tying the ends together almost viciously. ‘But, as to whether you will be faithful and obedient, that remains to be seen.’
‘How will you explain this to your mother?’ she asked. ‘I can imagine she’s going to be rather shocked that you lowered yourself to marry the hired help.’
‘She will understand my motivation to protect my daughter at whatever cost.’
‘But what about the cost to me?’ she asked. ‘You’re asking me to walk away from my life here.’
‘As far as I can see it, your life here consists of juggling a career and a child and the consequences of the criminal behaviour of your sister. You will be much better out of it. As my wife you will have everything money can buy. Emily will not only have the benefit of two parents, but she will also have the devotion of her grandmother.’
‘You think by waving your wallet around you can have anything you like, don’t you?’
His eyes glittered as they clashed with hers. ‘I bought you, did I not?’
She drew in a sharp little breath, her blue eyes flashing with spite. ‘Then I hope you enjoyed this evening, for it’s not going to happen again.’
‘It will happen again, Charlotte, for you cannot help yourself. We are alike in that, if nothing else. We still share the fierce attraction we felt from the first moment we met.’
‘But we hate each other,’ she said. ‘What sort of home environment are we going to provide for Emily? We’ll be bickering and sniping at each other all the time.’
‘We will act like the responsible, mature adults we are meant to be,’ he countered. ‘We will treat each other with respect, most especially when in the company of our daughter.’
‘That’s going to be quite a challenge for you then, isn’t it?’ She gave him a pointed look. ‘I can see nothing but hatred in your eyes.’
‘You should consider yourself fortunate that I am actually prepared to marry you. On the basis of what I witnessed this evening, I could take Emily off you permanently.’
‘So I’m supposed to be grateful that you’re forcing me into marriage, am I?’
‘You could do a lot worse.’
‘Yes, I suppose I could,’ she shot back sarcastically. ‘I could have married someone who loved me.’
‘You had the chance to do that four years ago but you threw it away.’
‘There is no way of convincing you, is there?’ she asked, ashamed that tears were prickling at the backs of her eyes. ‘You still see me as a thief. You will always see me as that.’
‘I am prepared to put aside the past to deal with our future,’ he said. ‘We have a child to consider now. It would not be good for Emily to hear about that incident. I will make sure no one speaks of it ever again. Besides, as far as I know, only my mother, Eleni and I knew about it.’
Charlotte frowned. ‘You didn’t tell anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘But…but why not?’
‘I thought it best at the time.’
‘But how did you explain our sudden parting?’ she asked. ‘Surely people wanted to know what had happened between us.’
‘I told them you had study commitments back home, which was partly true. You would have had to return at some point to finish your degree, even if I had asked you to marry me. I would not have expected you to sacrifice your education.’
‘And yet you are demanding I sacrifice the whole point of my education now—my career.’
‘You have a child, Charlotte. You have clearly struggled to provide for her alone. Once we are married and settled into a routine you can think about returning to your career. There are numerous opportunities on Santorini for a person with your qualifications.’
‘You really expect me to do this, don’t you? To just walk away from my life and take up with you.’
‘You do not have any choice. It is either marry me or lose your daughter.’
‘Even though by doing so I will be losing myself?’
‘You will not lose yourself, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘I will try to be a good husband to you.’
‘Does that mean you’ll be faithful?’
He held her challenging look for a long time before answering. ‘That remains entirely up to you.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘If you do not want to conduct a normal physical relationship with me, then I will have no choice but to have my needs met elsewhere.’
She gave him a disgusted glance. ‘You mean pay someone?’
His eyes swept over her in a raking manner. ‘Up until now I have never had to pay.’
She tightened her mouth. ‘I only took that money to help my sister. I was never going to sleep with you.’
‘So what changed your mind?’
Charlotte turned away in case he saw her vulnerability. She could hardly tell him she was still in love with him, even though it was painfully true.
‘I asked what changed your mind,’ he said again.
She turned back around once she was sure her expression was bland with indifference. ‘Sex with an ex holds some sort of appeal, don’t you think? I wanted to see if you still had what it took.’
‘And your verdict is?’
She had to look away. ‘Revisiting relationships is always fraught with the danger of disappointment.’
‘If you were disappointed you showed no sign of it,’ he commented wryly.
‘A hungry person would think contaminated food is a feast,’ she returned with an arch look.
> ‘So you thought it was worth the risk?’
She gave a little shrug.
‘But we do it rather well, don’t we, Charlotte?’
She gritted her teeth and crossed her arms over her chest, scowling furiously. ‘I hate myself for responding to you.’
He moved across to stand in front of her, his hand tipping up her face so she had to look at him. ‘You are always going to respond to me, agape mou,’ he said. ‘It is something that is inescapable.’
Charlotte could feel the magnetic pull of his gaze as it held hers, all her senses going into overload as his eyes dipped to her mouth. Her lips buzzed in anticipation of the erotic pressure of his mouth on hers, her skin prickling all over at the thought of his body invading hers so commandingly, her eyelids slowly closing as she prepared herself for his devastating kiss…
‘Mummy?’
Charlotte’s eyes sprang open as Emily padded into the room.
‘Darling…’ She rushed across the room to crouch down before her daughter. ‘Is your arm hurting?’
‘Yes…’ Emily gave a little sob. ‘And I had another bad dweam.’
‘I’m here now, sweetie,’ she soothed.
‘And so am I,’ Damon said.
Emily rubbed at her eyes and padded over to him. ‘I was dweaming about you,’ she said, looking up at him with huge black eyes.
‘W-were you?’ Damon felt his throat tighten as he looked down at the little pixie face in front of him.
‘I fought you were going to go away…’
He bent down to her level, his eyes warm as they met hers. ‘I am not going away, little one. You can count on that.’
‘I can’t count past ten,’ Emily said with a sheepish look. ‘Mummy’s been teaching me but I’m not berry good.’
Damon felt as if someone had clamped his heart in a vice. He had never felt such emotion before. ‘You are only three years old,’ he reminded her. ‘You have plenty of time to learn.’
‘Can you count to a hundred?’ Emily asked, slipping her thumb into her mouth and sucking so hard he could hear it.
He smiled as another emotional gear shifted in his chest. ‘Yes, I can.’
The tiny thumb came out long enough to ask, ‘Will you teach me?’
He gathered her into his arms and breathed in the small child scent of her, his heart contracting at the thought of all he had missed out on so far.
‘I will teach you whatever you need to learn, little one.’
‘Mummy?’ Emily peered past her father’s broad shoulder. ‘Did you hear dat? Daddy’s going to teach me to count to a hundred.’
Charlotte smiled even though her face hurt with the effort. ‘That’s wonderful, darling. I’m sure he’ll be a wonderful teacher.’
Emily snuggled up close to her father as he carried her back to the spare bedroom. ‘I like having a daddy,’ she said, hugging him tight around the neck with her little arms.
‘And I like having a daughter,’ Damon said, trying to control his voice.
Emily eased herself away to look at him with big serious black-brown eyes. ‘You won’t go away again, will you?’ she asked.’ Cause I haven’t shown you my special fings.’
‘What special things do you want to show me?’ he asked as he tucked her back into the spare bed.
She gave him an assessing look, as if deciding whether he was to be trusted or not. ‘I have a teddy bear and a doll and a wabbit with one ear.’
‘What happened to the other ear?’ he asked, trying his best to disguise the choked emotion in his voice.
‘I cut it off when I was berry little,’ she confessed. ‘I found Mummy’s scissors and cut it off. I got into big twouble, didn’t I, Mummy?’
Charlotte’s throat felt too tight to get the words out. ‘Yes…I was very worried you could have hurt yourself.’
‘Will you read me a story?’ Emily asked her father. ‘Mummy always reads me a story and sometimes if I’m berry good she makes one up in her head. Can you do dat?’
‘I’ll give it a try,’ Damon said. ‘What sort of stories do you like?’
Emily wriggled underneath the covers. ‘I like the ones with a happy ending. Do you have any of those in your head?’
‘I guess I could try to find one,’ he said, scratching his temple.
‘The best ones start with once upon a time,’ she told him with solemn authority. ‘I can start you off if you like.’
He smiled down at her, his heart feeling so big it felt as if it was taking over his body. ‘That would be great.’
She took a little preparatory breath that reminded him so much of Charlotte he could scarcely inflate his own lungs.
‘Once upon a time…’ She gave him an impish grin. ‘Now it’s your turn.’
‘O-K,’ he said and settled himself on the bed beside her. ‘Once upon a time there was a beautiful little girl who was called Emily…’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘IS SHE asleep?’ Charlotte asked when Damon joined her in the main suite some time later.
‘Yes.’ He pushed his hand through his hair and began to pace the room, anger and tension visible in each and every stride.
She twisted her hands together, her mouth drying in anguish. ‘Damon…’
He turned to glare at her. ‘I have missed out on so much. Do you have any idea what that feels like? I have nothing! No memories of her as a baby—nothing. You have taken that from me.’
‘I tried to tell you.’
‘You should have kept trying.’
‘For how long?’ she asked, her tone bordering on despair. ‘My mother was dying, my sister was going off the rails and I was juggling my studies with a difficult pregnancy. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I felt I had no choice but to leave you to your life while I did my best to get on with mine. The words you said to me that last day…’ She stumbled over the memory and continued, her voice ragged with emotion. ‘I was so hurt. The way you spoke made me worried that if by some chance you did come around to believe me you might force me into having a termination. I couldn’t take the risk. That’s why I didn’t try and contact you again until I had passed the point of no return.’
‘I would not have asked that of you.’ His voice sounded as if it was coming from very deep inside him.
She gave him an embittered look. ‘Wouldn’t you? Come on, Damon, don’t you remember what you said to me? You told me I wasn’t to be believed, that I was a slut who had her eye on snaring herself a billionaire. Not exactly the words I wanted to hear when I was trying to do the right thing by telling you.’
He let out a heavy sigh. ‘I deeply regret how I handled the situation. But if you had persisted in trying to contact me I would have come around eventually.’
‘Yes and whipped her away from me as you’re threatening to do now.’
‘I want her in my life. I am not leaving without her. You have the choice of marrying me and coming with us or letting her go.’
‘That’s not what I call a choice. It’s blackmail.’
‘I do not care what you call it, Charlotte. I want my daughter and I am prepared to marry you to have her.’
‘Well, thanks very much for the romantic proposal,’ she said with a cutting edge to her voice.
‘What do you expect me to say?’ He glowered at her. ‘I am still so angry with you I can barely think straight.’
‘You should be angry at yourself, not me. If you hadn’t been so arrogantly assured of my guilt you wouldn’t have missed out on Emily at all. Have you considered that, Damon? What if I wasn’t guilty? What then?’
His throat moved up and down convulsively and it was a moment or two before he answered. ‘You have to be guilty.’
‘Why?’ She looked at him coldly. ‘So you can still be the good guy, the injured one, the one with victim written all over your face?’
‘There have been no thefts since,’ he said. ‘And certainly none before you came.’
‘So that somehow makes me automaticall
y responsible?’ She looked at him incredulously. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Damon, surely you’re not that blindsided?’
‘I do not wish to talk about that incident.’ He turned away from her and began to pace again. ‘I wish to discuss how we will manage things from now on.’
‘I can’t leave until the exhibition is launched,’ she said. ‘I can’t let Julian down like that.’
‘All right.’ He turned to face her once more. ‘We will stay for you to complete your commitments to the exhibition, but in the meantime we will formalise our relationship. I will see to it tomorrow.’
‘It takes a month to procure a marriage licence,’ she pointed out.
‘I can apply for a special licence.’
‘Emily doesn’t have a passport.’
He frowned at her. ‘Why the hell not?’
She rolled her eyes scathingly. ‘Strange as it may seem to someone with the disgusting wealth you have taken for granted all of your life, other people, especially single mothers, do not have the money to travel the length and breadth of the globe. I have had to put food on the table and pay for childcare so I could work, even though I didn’t want to when Emily was a baby. It broke my heart leaving her with strangers while my breasts ached and leaked all day.’
His features twisted with anguish. ‘You struggled like that without once trying again to contact me?’
She turned away in disgust. ‘What would have been the point? I was sick of beating my head against a brick wall. Look at the way you treated me the first day you were here. You’ve made it pretty clear how low your opinion of me was.’
A tense little silence tightened the air.
‘I admit I left you with little choice that first night, but why did you agree to see me again?’ he asked. ‘You could have told me you were not interested and left it at that.’
‘I did tell you I wasn’t interested but you kept dangling threats over my head,’ she reminded him coldly. ‘Then when you said you wanted us to meet as friends…I thought it would be good for us to establish a relationship based on mutual respect…I thought that it would be a better way of revealing the truth about Emily. I didn’t want to spring it on you; neither did I want you to find out some other way.’
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