by Joanne Rock
That scenario made her head hurt less, but her heart protested just as much. She had been wildly in love with her husband, and no amount of secrets or betrayals could dim that fact. Stepping into warm blue flannel pj pants, she reminded herself that she’d seen evidence of her happiness in those honeymoon photos. The joy in the pictures couldn’t be faked.
She ran a brush through her hair and tapped her phone to pull up the video feed of Lucas in the nursery. The baby curled against Marcie while the young woman sat with him in a rocker, the lights dim. The fresh air had tired them all out today.
Stepping out of the dressing room, she found Damon in front of the fireplace in the small sitting room. He’d rearranged the furniture a little so the gray couch was closer to the hearth where he’d built a real fire from the supply of logs in a wrought iron grate. An elaborate white mantelpiece was decorated with a relief sculpture of figures in ball gowns beside a carriage, surrounded by servants with torches lighting the way.
Pivoting from the grate with a poker in his hand, Damon watched her move toward him.
“I just wanted to stay long enough to build a fire and make sure you are okay.”
The authenticity in his voice washed over her. He truly was a kind and thoughtful man underneath the intense, work-driven exterior. If Damon had done nothing wrong in all this, and her father bore the full brunt of the blame for what happened to her, she couldn’t begin to imagine how hurt her husband must have been at her disappearance.
He had missed out on so much by not being a part of Lucas’s birth. And if she didn’t handle things well moving forward, if she couldn’t sort through what had happened and recover some additional memories, she ran the risk of hurting him all the more. Yet she ached everywhere whenever she tried to force herself to remember.
“It causes physical pain to think about my father...” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. Her eyes stung, but that pain was minor in comparison to how her head throbbed.
“Then don’t think about it.” He set aside the wrought iron poker and rose to meet her. He laid his hands on the part of her upper arms exposed by her tee. “Are you warm enough in this?”
“Kind of.” She wasn’t. “Actually, I don’t think there are enough sweaters to ward off the sort of chill I’m feeling anyhow.”
“Come and sit.” He tugged her phone from her hand and propped it on the arm of the sofa before gently pushing her onto the seat cushion directly opposite the blaze in the hearth. “I’ll get you a blanket.”
Drawing her feet up underneath her, she double-checked that she could still see the nursery video feed. Marcie had moved the camera so that it was closer to the crib, where Lucas now slept with his favorite dinosaur blanket.
“Here you go.” Damon returned with a snowy white quilt for her, and he draped it around her so that it covered all of her from the neck down.
“Thank you.” She caught at his hand where he’d tucked the quilt closer to her chin. “Lucas is already sleeping if you want to stay with me a little while longer.”
She needed him, ached to have his arms around her to help bear a burden she still couldn’t wrap her brain around. She could not hurt this man any more than she already had.
“I don’t want to keep you from your rest.” He leaned closer to her, stroking a thumb over the back of her hand. “I know you must be exhausted.”
“I’ll never sleep with so much on my mind.” She snaked a hand out from the blanket and gripped his arm, drawing him toward her on the sofa. “Please.”
They could find comfort in a physical connection, at least. She would not deny them that.
“I know you don’t want to think the worst of him.” He dropped onto the cushion beside her. He’d taken off the vest and flannel he’d worn for sledding, leaving just his gray tee between her hands and his warm chest as she nestled closer to lay her head on his shoulder.
“He’s my father. My only living parent.” She bit her lip as soon as she said it, knowing he didn’t have a relationship at all with his remaining parent. “Didn’t it hurt sometimes when you first made the decision to cut your father out of your life, even knowing he hadn’t treated your mother fairly?”
She stared into the flames in the hearth, which provided the only light in the room now that the sun had fully set for the evening. She felt the steady thrum of Damon’s heart beneath her ear. He slid his arm around her, stroking her hair where it lay on her back.
“I was twelve. It wasn’t a decision so much as a fact of life. Dad wasn’t coming back and Mom was sick of his pretending he would ever leave his wife to be a part of our family. She made the decision, not me.”
“But what about later? After your mother passed and you could have contacted your father again?” she prodded, honestly needing any guidance she could get to figure out how to excise a parent from her life. “I mean, how can you go from loving someone to deciding not to love them anymore?”
Her eyes stung when she spoke the words aloud. Because that was where things stood for her now. She’d have to find a way to un-love someone who didn’t have her best interests at heart. But after a lifetime of looking up to her dad, that wasn’t going to come easily.
“By the time my mother died, it wasn’t hard to hate my father. We blamed him for not being there to help her through the chemo.” His voice was rough and he cleared his throat. “For forcing her to move halfway across the globe far from her family. Hell, we blamed him for everything.”
“But it was your mother’s idea to move far away, right? He never knew she had cancer.” She tried to remember the bits that he’d shared with her long ago about his family. He wasn’t a man who willingly shared much personal information.
Damon McNeill might be a tech genius and an ambitious businessman she admired, but he kept his emotions in check and his past closely guarded.
“My brothers and I didn’t see it that way. My father was a serial cheater with a whole other family. It was Liam’s fault that Mom felt like she had no options. I believe she secretly hoped that a drastic move might shake up her lover and force him to realize he loved her.” His shoulder lifted a fraction beneath her cheek. A subtle shrug. “When it didn’t work, she lost some of her joy. Her will to live. The cancer found a victim without much fight left.”
Caroline kissed his chest, rubbing her cheek against him there. “I’m so sorry you lost her at such a young age.” She lifted her head, straightening so she could see him. “No wonder you didn’t want to see your father afterward. I don’t really want to see mine, either. Although I guess a part of me still wants to just ask him why?”
The fire popped and crackled in the hearth, the flames leaping higher as a windy gust blew over the chimney, making a whooshing sound. The shifting of logs stirred the scent of wood smoke.
“Maybe one day you’ll be able to. But until we can be sure you’re not in danger around him—and that you’re not putting Lucas in danger—you’ll have to settle for whatever answers the police can shake loose from this investigation.” Damon’s response was careful. Considered.
And she could read between the lines enough to know he didn’t ever want her to have anything to do with Stephan Degraff again. But what about her brothers who were still in his legal care? She couldn’t simply write them off. Or worse, leave them in the custody of a man who might not have their best interests at heart.
Wouldn’t she need to maintain some kind of dialogue with her family because of them?
“I’m hoping the police find him soon.” There had been no news today outside of the report from the security guard about the inquiry at the Los Altos Hills house. “He’ll have to put in an appearance at the Transparent investors meeting this week, won’t he?”
She felt Damon’s shoulders tense. His hand stilled on her back.
“If he’s going to follow through on his plans to oust me from the CEO position, yes.” The m
uscle under one eye ticked, and he seemed to weigh the merit of saying anything more. Finally, he let out a gusty breath. “I realize you have a stake in this business, Caroline, but considering all you’ve been through, I’m hoping you don’t feel the need to be a part of a contentious board meeting.”
“You’re right I have a stake in Transparent. And I will have a lot of guilt and responsibility to bear if my father succeeds in railroading you out of the business before the launch.” She’d convinced her dad to invest heavily in the company because she believed in Damon. Now, her husband could be pressured into vacating his seat if Stephan convinced other investors that they would make money with a more seasoned CEO at the helm.
A bloodless, professional executive who took a huge salary to mine the business’s assets for the sake of a fatter bottom line.
“I won’t let that happen.” Damon gripped both ends of the blanket around her shoulders. “Thanks to the notes you shared with me last night—all your research into the business—I know what Stephan knows. That gives me an edge.”
Her head throbbed again as she remembered happier days with her father. He’d been so proud when she’d been accepted into a prestigious business program for her master’s. She had always thought of him as her biggest champion. What happened to that man?
But her business know-how—the degree and experience her father had helped give her—provided her with unique insight into the situation now. “You won’t have enough of an advantage to regain control. His share is significant, Damon. Even if he can’t convince other investors to remove you, he’s not going away. He added a right of first refusal clause into your initial contract with him so he could invest more in Transparent.”
Stephan Degraff had put himself on a track to rule the company with that restrictive clause.
Yet Damon tipped his chin up, a gleam in those deep blue eyes.
“The McNeills can afford to buy him out.”
The realization of his calculated move shouldn’t have surprised her. Maybe if she wasn’t recovering from amnesia and childbirth, she would have seen it sooner.
“Of course.” Understanding dawned more fully. “So you’re not in New York City to join the family fold. You came here purely for business reasons.”
“And safety purposes. I wanted to get you and Lucas out of Los Altos Hills.” He smoothed his fingers over the embroidery on the edge of the quilt, and no matter how frustrated she felt that he’d kept this secret from her, she still wished his hands were on her instead of the blanket.
The picnic and sledding had eroded her defenses. She wanted the comfort of his arms, his kisses that made her forget everything but him.
“So you’re not interested in being a part of McNeill Resorts? Inheriting the McNeill legacy?” She took some small comfort that at least he hadn’t married her to fulfill the requirements of Malcolm McNeill’s will the way she’d once feared.
“Transparent is the only legacy our son needs. And it’s one I built with you at my side.” The heat in his eyes, the fierceness of the words, convinced her.
He might have hidden his deeper motive for traveling to New York, but perhaps he’d only wanted to shield her from more of her father’s schemes. She absolutely believed Damon was the kind of man who would want to build a corporate empire all his own—something apart from his wealthy father and grandfather. She understood that desire a little too well. With the benefit of hindsight, she sure wished she’d put more separation between her work and her dad’s company.
But right now, she didn’t want to look backward.
“Then you really want us to be a team again.” She plucked Damon’s hand from where he played with the quilt binding, holding it between hers. “We would need to be stronger than we were before all this happened.” She was a different woman now. A mother.
And things were far more complicated.
He watched her with an almost predatory stillness.
“I thought I made that clear the night I put your rings back where they belong.” He used his free hand to lift her left one to his mouth.
He kissed her ring finger just below the wedding band set. The feel of his lips on her skin incited awareness. Promised pleasure. And yes, added to her fears about where all this was heading.
She worried about the board meeting. Her memory. Their future. But for now...she could savor this moment with him. This one thing they had that had always been perfect.
“You said you wanted us to start over.” She remembered that night so clearly. His invitation had mesmerized her into an explosive kiss. “That you wanted us to be a couple again.”
“I do.” His fingers aligned with hers before he pivoted his palm a few degrees, bending his fingers into the spaces between hers. An act suddenly intimate.
He stole her breath.
She had to lick her lips to speak again, her mouth gone dry. “Then I think it’s time we lived up to those words.”
Ten
There had been a time in his relationship with Caroline where those words would have scorched Damon’s skin, launching a blistering encounter against the back of a door, the top of a desk, or anywhere else they happened to be. They’d spent weeks on their honeymoon indulging every erotic impulse, driving each other crazy over expensive dinners, only to race back to the hotel before dessert so they could peel one another’s clothes off.
But he couldn’t afford to let that instinct take over quite yet. Not when his future—his family—hung in the balance of this marriage.
“What about your health?” He hadn’t talked to her about her visits with the obstetrician. They’d spoken about the amnesia. About Lucas’s well-being after the way Caroline had been drugged while pregnant. “Are you sure it’s safe for you? So soon after giving birth?”
He had to grit out the words, doing his damnedest to ignore the blaze of heat climbing his back, the need for her stronger than ever after so long apart.
“My doctor in Vancouver said I could resume all normal activity.” She walked her fingers up his forearm, a teasing invitation to touch her that worked so well he felt the first hint of sweat bead along his shoulders.
“How can you be certain that means—”
“I asked,” she interrupted, a sure sign she was feeling the effects of holding back every bit as much as him. “Point blank.”
Her gaze dipped to his mouth.
Yeah. Game over.
He speared a hand through her long, silky hair, angling her head for his kiss. Her quick intake of air caused her breasts to brush against his chest, that sexy gasp of surprise only fueling his fire.
She tasted like marshmallow and strawberries, her lips soft and yielding. The kiss sealed them, drawing her body closer to wrap all over his. He didn’t know if he did that, or if somehow she did, but the blanket fell away as her breasts pressed to his chest, the subtle curves molding against him. Even through their two tees and her bra, he could feel the tight points of her response, which echoed the same fiery desire that had been riding him for days.
Consumed with the need to see her, feel her, he broke the kiss enough to scrape aside the cotton V-neck, to shove away the lace of the bra enough to taste one rosy-pink peak.
Her fingers curved along his shoulders, scraping lightly as her head fell back. Her spine arched, giving him more access, her throaty moan vibrating on a sizzling frequency he could feel like a physical stroke up his sex.
He unclasped the hook in the front, freeing more of her. With impatient hands, he skimmed the clothes up and off of her, baring her to his view in the firelight. One tousled strand of honey-gold hair curled down her neck to land between her breasts. Her body was different—the curves fuller, the tips darker—than he remembered. And even more tempting.
With that visual reminder, he took a deep breath. Told himself to be careful with her no matter how much they both wanted this.
&nb
sp; “Let me take you to bed.” He slipped one arm beneath her and another around her shoulders. “We should go slow. And you should be comfortable.”
He said it to himself as much as her. A stern reminder to the possessive hormones urging him for more. Now. Faster.
For her, he would shut that voice up.
“I dreamed of you all the time.” She whispered the words while he cradled her against his chest, scooping up her phone to bring with them before carrying her from the sitting room to the sleeping area of the suite. “Before they drugged me too much to remember. I dreamed about you holding me, just like this.”
She rubbed her cheek against him, her eyes closing in a sweep of dark lashes. He hated that he hadn’t been there for her when she needed him. When she’d been frightened, and alone, and expecting his baby.
He kissed the top of her head, pausing at the edge of the king-size poster bed. Holding her steady, he used two fingers to sweep back the snowy white duvet and lay her on the sheets, resting her head on the thick down pillow. He tugged off his shirt and his dark denim pants before sliding into bed beside her.
“It’s not a dream anymore.” He trailed his fingers down her cheek to tip her chin up. “We’re together now. And I’ll never let anything happen to you again.”
A small smile curved her lips and she sidled closer to him, her hands smoothing down his chest, slowing at his waist.
“I don’t want a bodyguard forever.” She kissed his shoulder, her tongue darting out to flick along the spot she kissed. “I’d settle for you making the sexy parts of my dreams come true.”
He stilled her questing hand and flipped her to her back.
“I’m being careful with you, Caroline.” He splayed his hand on her bare stomach, his fingers spanning narrow hips to cover the place where she’d carried his son. “At least this first time.”
“I’m not fragile.” She burrowed her hand beneath his to untie the drawstring on her pajama pants. She used the loosened ribbons to snake along his arm. “If there’s one thing this year has taught me, it’s that I’m stronger than I knew, Damon McNeill. And I want this.” She arched up to kiss him fully on the mouth. “You.”