by Susan Ward
The second her face disappeared behind a menu, I swiped open my cell and angled to glance under the table to read Damon’s message.
Arrogant Prince: Leaving the Rainbow Bar for someplace called The Cock Yard to join up with your brothers-in-law and Ethan. It’s another club, isn’t it? Question of the hour: should I let Alan take me there? I’m starting to get the feeling your dad doesn’t get a lot of days out without your mum and that I might not get back to the house tonight.
A choked-back laugh escaped me.
“Everything all right, dear?”
“Yes, Mom. Do you know what you’re having?”
She shook her head and disappeared back behind her menu. Carefully, I tapped out my reply.
Cheeky Girl: Yes, another club. But with really good food. It means you’re having dinner before you go back to the house. You’ll like it there.
Arrogant Prince: Well, food will be good. I don’t think I can drink another cocktail. Where are you with your mum? Are you home yet?
Cheeky Girl: Having wine on the pier. Unless we get thrown out.
Arrogant Prince: Thrown out?
Cheeky Girl: Mom refused to wait for a table and decided to hijack one with a reserved sign on it. Waiting to order now.
Arrogant Prince: I adore your mum.
My fingers itched to text back I adore you. Thankfully, the waitress arrived to prevent me from doing something so teenage-girlish that potentially could move my chat with Damon from harmless status updates into flirty waters. This thing we were doing was good as it was, and it was surprisingly beautiful to share ordinary moments with a man. I switched off my phone.
“Excuse me, ladies,” the waitress said, her expression one of accusation. “Did someone seat you here?”
Chrissie nodded and smiled. “We’re ready to order. Two glasses of chardonnay and your dip platter with pita instead of tortilla chips. Get rid of the dairy and double load with the hummus. Also, add something spicy with the veggies. Do you have spicy salsa? That’ll do.” Her gaze shifted to me. “Do you want dinner also, Khloe? Or would you rather wait for home?”
“Home, Mom.”
Chrissie held out her menu. “Wine and the platter it is.”
The waitress stared at us both a bit longer than was good, and I worried we were about to get busted, but then she wandered off to get our order.
I tried not to laugh as I chided my mom with my eyes. “That was bad. You’re lucky she didn’t call you out on it.”
Mom relaxed back against her chair. “It worked, didn’t it? That’s one advantage to getting old. People don’t toss old people out of anywhere.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not old, Mom. You’re charmed. That’s why you still have the table you snaked.”
“Not fishing for vanity props. I like being my age.” Her phone dinged, and she quickly read a text. Her nose crinkled. “Your dad took Damon to The Cock Yard for dinner with the boys.”
“Really?” I pretended surprise.
She shuddered and rolled her eyes. Mom didn’t look happy about that, but the waitress showed up with our drinks and hors d’oeuvres, pushing Dad from Mom’s mind.
As we watched the sunset unfurl then wane across the Pacific, she said, “It’s been a wonderful day, baby girl. We need to have more days like this.”
Her loving gaze at me choked me up more than her words. It felt like for this brief span of time she’d forgotten my problems and we could be mother and daughter the way I missed. “Yes, Mom. We definitely do.”
She squeezed my hand before she reached for her wallet to put bills in the check holder. “It’s time to get home, baby girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DAD’S CAR WAS PARKED in the driveway when we arrived. My father definitely knew how to keep my mother from being upset. A day of clubbing would be quickly forgotten by her if he was waiting inside the house when she got back.
As I went up the walk with her, Mom’s phone dinged. She paused without opening the front door to read it. “Oh, Alan must have had some kind of day with Damon. He’s already gone to bed and it’s not even nine. But it sounds like they had a good time together.”
A smile brightened her face as she stared for a second at the dark screen before going into the house. Inside the kitchen, Chrissie checked the warming oven then hugged me. “Lourdes made us plates, but I’m too tired to eat, baby girl. I’m off to bed. Good night.”
“Night, Mom.”
At the entrance to the hallway, she added, “Don’t bring the shopping bags in from the car yourself. It’s clothes. They can stay out overnight and I’ll have one of the guys bring them inside in the morning.”
I waited until she was gone to set my purse on the center island and retrieve my phone to see if Damon had texted me after the bulletin that he was going to The Cock Yard. My heart sank because he hadn’t. Then I saw him waiting out back for me and I couldn’t stop my smile.
The day barhopping with my dad had left him a touch worse for wear. His hair was mussed more than usual. His bearing wasn’t quite as regal, an indication of how much he’d had to drink, but he remained every bit as irresistible as he stood there staring off toward the ocean. I held back to study him and wondered how long he would wait there before texting to see when I was joining him.
As I watched him, his head quirked as though something had triggered his senses and he looked back toward the house. He couldn’t see me through the one-way glass, but his gaze sharpened, and my heart sped up.
I knew then I’d allowed myself to be tricked into dangerous territory with him.
“Khloe, Khloe, Khloe,” I scolded myself as Damon strode toward the house. “Just because he’s gorgeous, interesting, texts with you like you’re a couple when you’re not, pretends he’s respecting the friendship line when he isn’t, in fact is patiently moving you over every hurdle toward intimacy, and the most amazing man you’ve ever met, doesn’t mean you should let this go further. He’s a prince and you’re a dying girl even if no one else will say it. You’ve gotta say it. You’ve always been the strong one, the realist, for everyone, and you can’t stop being her just because you really like Damon. You’re a short street going nowhere, and walking out there and letting down the walls for him isn’t going to change that. It’s just going to leave both of you hurt. You know that, Khloe. You can’t forget that!”
But when the French door opened and I saw Damon’s earnest amber gaze and beautiful smile, reason deserted me.
Before my eyes searched his, he closed the space between us and then his lips were on mine and his breathy groans danced in my mouth as his tongue languidly stoked my senses. His hands on my hips lifted me so we were in that perfect fit that was us, and I moaned in invitation until he drove our connection to a thing of toe-curling rightness.
His kiss was both first chapter and last chapter of two different books. The beginning of us and the end of everything as I knew it with my wandering circus. It left me craving only him.
Zane/Cade had never been enough. I’d tried hard to tell myself it was, but no, it hadn’t come close to what I was feeling in Damon’s arms. You couldn’t artificially create what there was in his kiss. And that’s what I’d tried to do with my guys, to feel the heights of love without allowing myself to be in love.
Oh, there had been the highs and lows of passion during my months in Europe. That sweet, anxious uncertainty in the pit of my stomach. The thrill of the chase followed by surrender, over and over again. All the things one imagines they would feel in love...right up to the point of experiencing something so real with Damon that my eyes were ripped wide open to the truth.
I wasn’t in love with Damon yet. I was sure he wasn’t in love with me. But this was the foundation of something, though I wasn’t ready to abandon all caution and go where my heart said he would take me if I let him.
“Damon,” I sputtered, but he didn’t let up, clutching me to him as he dove deeper and deeper into our kiss. There was another swipe of his
tongue, making me shiver. It tasted of scotch, and how he stoked our bodies into a frenzy made me wonder if he’d gotten drunk with my dad.
“I’ve been waiting all day to do that,” he groaned as he broke away. “You’re so beautiful, but this morning, how you were on your bed, it hurt to look at you. Every time my phone dinged, there in my head was Khloe on her bed in zebra print.”
He kept his forehead against mine, and I was sure it showed on my face that each ding from him I’d had a picture of him teasing my brain. “How awful that must have been while out with my dad.”
“Awful? Far from it,” he rasped out in between kisses across my cheek. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had something to look forward to, KK. Something that makes me feel as good as you do. I think about you all the time. Day and night since Paris.”
Me, too, Damon, but I refrained from saying the words.
I glanced through the wall of glass. “Are we going to walk tonight or are you too sloshed after spending the day with my dad?”
“The only thing I’m drunk on is kissing you.” He inched back and peered down at me. “Do you want to walk?”
“Yes. I do.”
And we did. To the cliffs, where we sat on the grass on the edge.
“I’m glad I followed you to California. I like it here,” Damon announced seriously, staring down at the lights on the highway below.
“I know. It shows.”
Laughing, he turned on his side to face me. “I’ve never had a day before like I did with your dad. It was quite extraordinary.”
“Why extraordinary?” I hugged my knees to keep from touching him.
Damon’s eyes went wide. “We went everywhere without a bother. Alan goes where he wants. People stare, but it’s like they bounce off him and go away. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It wouldn’t be like that in the UK. There were tabloids camped in front of The Cock Yard, but it’s like the buggers couldn’t see me while with him. Not a single person noticed me all day.”
“Ah, my poor little HRH. Feeling unloved by the Americans again?”
I pouted, and he gave me an affectionate growl. “Not at all. The only American who counts is sitting with me on the grass, smiling at me with giant blue eyes, and wanting me to kiss her.”
“Wrong,” I protested, but I leaned into him because now that I knew his touch I never wanted to be without it again.
“Cheeky girl.” The space between us disappeared and his lips were on mine. Mesmerized, I slowly melted back into the grass beneath his watchful eyes as he devoured my lips.
“It’s all worth it, you know,” he whispered, his speech slurred just enough to let me know he’d had enough to drink that whatever inhibitions he might have had had been obliterated.
“What is?” I sank my fingers in his hair.
He lifted a brow. “Everything I’ve had to go through to find you. Going to Paris. Barging in on your family and finessing a holiday here without invitation. Braving your father. Being insulted by you—more than once—to be here with you now.”
My heart flipped over. “Braving my father?” It was the safest thing I could think to say.
“Oh yes,” Damon said, turning onto his back and taking me with him. “Your dad is no man’s fool. He could see through me inside two seconds. Had quite a bit to say about my being here and about you.”
I pulled back against his arms so I could look down at him. “Me?”
“He’s an extraordinary father and loves you very much,” he murmured with a lift of his voice, exasperated by our distance and bringing my face closer to his. “He wanted to make it abundantly clear that I was to do nothing that would compromise your privacy while I was here. I told him it wasn’t that way between you and me, but I don’t think Alan believed me. The walks after dark were your dad’s idea.”
My mouth dropped. “My dad’s?”
Damon laughed and closed his eyes. “Yes. And I quote, ‘A real man walks, talks, and gets to know a girl well before he does anything that might change her life. Any man who does otherwise isn’t a man worth respecting.’ Then he stared at me with those black eyes like he could see inside my skull, and before I knew it I was nodding and saying you’re quite right, Alan.”
“Oh God,” I groaned, covering my face with my fingers. “I can’t believe my dad said that.”
Damon eased my hands from my cheeks and grinned. “Believe me, he did. And quite a bit more I don’t think I’ll ever tell you. Following you from Paris has been interesting, Khloe. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I concurred against my better judgment.
Then Damon eased me off him, rose to his feet, took my hand, and escorted me back to my bedroom.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU hiding things from Mom, but me?” Krystal grumbled, leaning around my brother’s girlfriend, Avery, to glare at me. “I knew Damon wasn’t here because of Dad. I knew you had something going on with him. And you stared right into my eyes and denied it. Not nice, Khloe.”
It was girls’ day in the beauty salon at our house, and my sisters had been grilling me relentlessly trying to figure out the Damon situation. I leaned back into my spa chair and stared at my nails. “What do you think of this color? Is it too purple?”
“God, you’re annoying. Yes, it’s purple. A royal color. You’re just messing with me.” Krystal grabbed her wine off the arm-table.
“Boy, Krystal, things have sure changed since you married Jake and were afraid to tell Dad for a year,” Kaley announced. “Khloe’s got one of her hookups from Europe staying at the house, and the folks are cool with it.”
“He’s not one of my hookups,” I pointed out.
“Then what are you two?” Avery asked. “I admit it. I can’t figure out what’s going on any better than Krystal can.”
“What’s there to figure out? We’re just hanging out. We do it at the house because one step out the front door with Damon would be tabloid mania and my privacy would be shot to hell forever. We’re not dating, but we’re not not dating. We’re in between. Get it?”
“God, you sound more like Mom every day,” Kaley observed.
Avery turned in her chair to face me. “How exactly do you not not date a guy?”
I shook my head at her. “I thought at least I wouldn’t have to explain this to you. We’re kind of in that stage you and Ethan were before you moved in together.”
“Friends lusting after each other without benefits because the guy won’t make a move on you?”
Kaley laughed. “But it worked out well, didn’t it, Avery?”
“Absolutely.” Avery rubbed her four-month baby bump.
“You two should get married,” I crooned. “I’d love if you did.”
“Not talking about that, Khloe. I’m not ready yet.”
I kissed her on the cheek. “Hurry up and get ready. I feel invested in the two of you. Wait, the three of you.”
“What do you and Damon do together?” Krystal managed always to sound confused, like she was trying to solve some big math problem. “Hang out 24/7 with Mom and Dad? That’s weird even for you. I hope you realize that isn’t even not not dating.”
I hid my smile behind my latte. “There are plenty of things to do here. Exactly the kind of things you’d do if you were getting to know a guy.”
Cody arched a brow. “Such as?”
“I don’t know. The same things anyone does. We walk and we talk. We text. And...hmm, that’s pretty much it.”
“No wonder the folks are cool with it.” Krystal slouched back in her lounger. “You’re still afraid to do anything”—she held her hands out in front of her, palms out—“that might upset Mom.”
“You asked me to tell you everything. That’s everything, and now you’re not happy and being judgy.”
“I haven’t gotten to meet the prince yet. What’s he like?” Avery asked.
“He’s very nice. Interesting. Not at all the way you’d imagine him to be.
You’d like him.”
“You like him,” Cody slipped in, and I glared at him.
“Then why aren’t you just dating him?” Krystal said.
I groaned. “We’re not there yet. And that’s fine. I like what we’re doing. It’s very mess-free. Very private. Very me.”
Cody choked on his coffee. “Very you?”
I made a face at him. “Not one more word out of you, Cody.”
He gave me the look as my phone trilled.
Arrogant Prince: What are you up to?
Cheeky Girl: Not telling. If you’re smart you won’t look for me.
Arrogant Prince: You do realize princes take everything as a challenge they must conquer. It would have been better if you’d said ‘I’m busy and I’ll find you later.’
Cheeky Girl: I’m busy and I’ll find you later.
The bubbles started going, and I couldn’t hold back my smile.
Arrogant Prince: Too late. I already asked your mum.
I lightly touched my polish to feel if it was dry. “I’m done. I think I’m going to go help Mom make dinner.”
“Help Mom make dinner?” Krystal said it in that calling bullshit way.
“Yes. You’re the one that told me I should do more fun things with her.” I carefully climbed out of my recliner. “See you guys downstairs?”
A second later, Damon stepped into the room holding two glasses of chardonnay. “There’s my cheeky girl.” His brows lifted in surprise when he noticed everyone on the spa chairs.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude,” he murmured softly. “Your mum said where you were, suggested you might enjoy a glass of wine before dinner, but not that you were with friends.”
“It’s all right, Damon. It’s just family here...oh, and Cody.”