by Jada Sioux
“What appointment,” Tasha asked, quirking her brow. By the guilty look Kiara was wearing, it must have been easy to figure out what she meant. “Oh, no! Kei! I thought you would never do that! What happened to all that conviction?”
Kiara curled up a bit tighter, Tasha’s words verbalizing the exact same questions she’d been asking herself all that time. Tasha put the popcorn bowl down on the table and pulled Kiara into a warm embrace, keeping her close.
“Come on, talk to me. What’s going on? I know the hormones must be messing with your head, but you sounded so sure when we talked about it before. I mean, I’ll support you, of course, if that’s what you really want to do. But is it?”
“I don’t know,” Kiara admitted with a small voice. “Eliza made it very clear that if I don’t go through with it, she will make my life hell. She’ll ruin my career, my reputation – I won’t be able to get a job in my field anywhere anymore. And do I really want to bring up a baby while working at some burger joint for fourteen hours a day? Is that what’s best for a baby? A mother who can’t protect it and a father who doesn’t want it? I just feel like I might be making the worst choice for the child no matter what I do.”
Tasha brushed her hand over her hair and cradled her. The human contact felt good. Kiara wished it was Damien she could be opening her heart to, but just being able to speak the words helped a little. Not to clear her head, but at least to lift a bit of that horrible weight that was pressing down on her chest.
“What do you want to do?” Tasha asked after a while.
“I don’t think that matters,” Kiara admitted, regret palpable in her voice.
“It always matters.”
Kiara didn’t have anything to say to that. Yes, she knew she should fight Eliza, fight her with all her might, but how much could she fight until she ran out of strength to go on? When the easier option also seemed like the kinder option, things got awfully fuzzy for Kiara.
It was a small bit of consolation that she wouldn’t have to really make the decision until the following morning. A sleepless night awaited her, and through it all, she felt that she’d not only let down herself, her baby and Damien, but her best friend as well. As much as Kiara was sure Tasha would support her, she wasn’t sure that her roommate would ever understand if she decided to take the offer Eliza was dangling in front of her.
And, worst of all, she wasn’t sure if she herself could forgive herself if she went through with it, or if she didn’t.
No way to win…
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Damien
“I still say that we need to trust tradition! Sunstreak has been doing great work for us for many years, and I don’t think it is right to just cast them aside!” Eliza argued passionately, her hair a violent mane around her head.
Damien leant back, watching the spirited debate going on amongst the board. They’d been there for hours now, and he was growing rather tired of the whole thing. Both sides made good points, but as with many situations that were allowed to fester for too long, this one was getting to a point where no democratic decision could really be made.
“Tradition! You speak about us like we are fossils!” James Abbott roared, red in the face.
Damien smirked to himself. The irony was that when talking about fossils, James was probably the most likely candidate in the room to be referred to as one. He had been the last person he’d expected to be swayed by the modern, upstart Mirrorview Group – just went to show that some things couldn’t really be foreseen and that some dinosaurs could adapt.
All morning, Damien had been trying his best to ignore the elephant in the room. He couldn’t really be partial to either side. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that they should go with Mirrorview. Not just because it had been his beautiful, breathtaking Kiara giving the presentation and running point on the offer, but also because it was the riskier and more daring of the two options presented to them. But doing that wouldn’t have been ethical.
Still, the longer he sat there, listening to both sides hash it out over coffee and bagels, the more he was sure that Mirrorview was the way to go – morals be damned! He was just about to say something to that effect when he noticed Eliza check her watch again. She’d been glancing at it every few minutes for the past hour and a half.
“Are we keeping you, Miss Whitcomb-Divinad? We can always continue without you,” Damien said, his voice buttery smooth and a smirk clinging to his lips.
He knew full well how much Eliza bristled whenever someone suggested that a decision could be made at Divinad without consulting the heiress to the fortune. He loved annoying her with it.
The look she tossed him was part intense hatred and part a longing so strong that he could feel it in his bones. Some of the bravado went out of him and he leant back, considering Eliza with newfound interest.
I wonder what’s up with her, he thought to himself. She’s not usually quite so… obvious.
The look she had given him had been just about enough to convince any man with less capabilities of withstanding her feminine allures that he was in for one hell of a ride – all angry sex and limited feelings.
“No, thank you. I’m quite fine where I am,” Eliza replied, ice cold. “I just want us to make a decision. The right decision,” she stressed, tossing a glare at Abbott that didn’t have an ounce of that sexual tension she had offered Damien just moments before.
Eliza checked her watch again and fidgeted uncomfortably – like every moment she wasted at the boardroom table brought the end of the world closer by a notable step.
Voices flared up again, arguing for and against the parties, and Damien felt the first tinge of a headache coming on. Eliza wasn’t the only one in a hurry to leave this meeting in favor of better things to do. Today was supposed to be the day that he went and swept Kiara off her feet. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to achieve that, but he had confidence that he could figure it out when he faced her. And he had already set some things in motion, which he could only hope would make her see that he wasn’t just some playboy out for a quick fuck.
Not that he hadn’t been that, and that he hadn’t expected to continue being just that for a good long while to come. But then again, he hadn’t expected to meet Kiara and have her completely change his worldview. Funny how life worked like that.
Like Helen of Troy, Kiara could command him with the slightest ease, and she didn’t even know she was doing it to him. It was both surprising and worrying, but she was worth any risk, that much he had decided. Even if it meant taking a step back on his rigid and set in stone ways.
Just as Damien was about to call for the discussion to end, his phone vibrated on the conference table. He frowned, seeing an unknown number on the notification screen.
Glancing up, it was obvious that no one was paying attention to him, so Damien picked up the phone and accepted the call.
“This is Damien Thatch,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Damien! This is Tasha, Kiara’s roommate. I need to talk to you! It’s urgent. It’s about Kiara, and I think there’s something you need to know before she makes a horrible mistake.”
Damien frowned to himself, his stomach icing over. Just the mere thought that something could be wrong with Kiara, that she could be physically or mentally hurt, drove him out of his mind.
“Can I call you back, Tasha? I’ll just be a minute.”
She agreed, and he hung up quickly. With determination, he slammed his fist down on the table and immediately captured everyone’s surprised eyes.
“We are putting this to a vote. Now. I’m done with the bickering. Old, new, dated, modern, I don’t care what your views are. We all have a vote, it’s time to put it to use. All those in favor of Mirrorview, raise your hand now.”
Out of the twelve people before him, six raised their hand one after another. Some were tentative, while others, like James Abbott, were immediate and decisive in their choice.
Damien looked at e
ach of the people choosing to vote for Sunstreak, until his gaze made it to Eliza. She stared at him, her usually icy eyes lit with fire and a sort of desperation in them that he hadn’t seen before.
“You seem to be the last vote, Damien. What’s your choice?” James asked, quirking one of his bushy brows.
“I vote yes. We go with Mirrorview.”
A round of groans erupted around the table, drowned out by the congratulatory cheers from the side that had come out victorious. Without losing a second, Damien was up on his feet, striding towards the door. He needed to know what was going on with Kiara and that she was safe. And if she wasn’t, well, he wouldn’t waste his time on feeling bad for whoever had caused her harm – but they were certainly going to need someone’s remorse after he got done with them.
It seemed that he wasn’t the only one in a hurry, though. Eliza brushed past him, running on heels so high that he thought it would look like the most graceful tree felling known to man if she were to fall. He stepped aside and let her pass, noting the cold, stony look on her face as she went, not sparing him a glance. Her mouth was pressed into a hard, thin line, and her fingers were gripping her Alexander McQueen bag so tightly he thought she would leave nail marks on the supple leather.
He skipped making a remark about whether or not she’d remembered to grab her broom on her way out, figuring the ice witch of L.A. wouldn’t appreciate it much. Instead, he dialed Tasha’s number, and with his heart pounding loudly in his chest, waited for her to pick up.
Please let Kiara be fine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kiara
Kiara was stiff as a board, sitting in Eliza’s sleek sports car. Eliza’s eyes were locked on the road in front of her, and Kiara could feel the tension wafting off of her, almost as painfully obvious as Kiara’s own discomfort. Only, Kiara was sure that when she was inches from bursting into tears, Eliza was the opposite – ready to lash out at anyone hapless enough to get in her way. It wouldn’t have surprised Kiara one bit if the scary young heiress decided to run someone over just to get to Kiara’s appointment on time.
“We should make it in time,” Eliza gritted through her teeth.
Kiara just nodded bleakly. Right. On. Time.
For a fantastic minute, she had thought Eliza wouldn’t come. That she had decided to let Kiara off the hook and that the whole horrific nightmare was coming to an end, and she wouldn’t have to choose between her life as she knew it and the life of her unborn child. But no such luck.
Tasha had been trying to talk her out of it until the last moment, and Kiara had agreed wholeheartedly. She’d even been ready to stand up to Eliza, though just the sight of the woman filled her with dread. But when Eliza showed up at the apartment and nearly dragged her out of there, Kiara had found herself curiously powerless again.
Eliza knew exactly which buttons to press to make Kiara feel like less than a person. She immediately remembered how Damien had talked about her once, saying that she could get a PhD in manipulating people. Now Kiara had to agree wholeheartedly. Even though she rationally knew that Eliza was playing on her emotions, she still couldn’t fight it.
On so many levels, Eliza was right and the truth itself seemed to pale in comparison to the spiteful words coming out of Eliza’s mouth.
Kiara was trying to calm herself down, breathing deeply and distracting herself with whatever she could. As if to torture her, all she could think about was Damien. How he looked when he had just got out of bed, the sunlight catching his messy hair, or how he could lock her in a gaze from across the room, pulling her to him like a tractor beam. She didn’t even need to talk to him – body language was enough, and they were both fluent in it.
Those treacherous sobs rumbled in her throat, and she choked them down, Eliza tossing her a seething look. Kiara ignored it. She didn’t need any further help from Eliza to feel like shit.
Kiara closed her eyes, and the next thing that came to her was a vision of her life without Damien, but with her child. She knew it was a boy – she didn’t know how, but she was sure. How she’d raise him in a ratty apartment, and how there would never be enough of anything to go around, but how she’d still love him and he her.
How he would show her his drawings, brimming with pride, when she got home from a double shift at some lowly job, and how she would hug him. How he’d grow up, day by day, and each day would be harder than the last, but also more rewarding.
Breath caught in her chest and her eyes fluttered open. She gripped the textured leather of the door handle, holding on as if for dear life as the clarity of the vision shook her to her core. Her heart constricted and then as if expanded in her chest. It would have knocked her over, hadn’t she already been sitting in the plush bucket seats of the sports car.
“I can’t do it,” Kiara whispered just as they pulled up in front of the familiar clinic.
“What?!” Eliza demanded, slamming on the breaks so hard it was like she was trying to tip the car over the roof.
“I said, I can’t do it,” Kiara’s words slightly louder now and her surprised hazel eyes meeting Eliza’s greens.
She could see the anger flush on Eliza’s face, and a moment later, Kiara winced as Eliza smacked her hard across the face.
“The FUCK do you mean you can’t do it!? You will do it! I don’t care if I have to take a fucking scalpel and cut that halfbreed bastard out of you myself,” Eliza roared, her pretty face contorted with rage and anger.
Kiara’s mouth fell open. She’d thought that there was nothing more Eliza could do to really surprise her anymore, but as usual, the pampered heiress was full of twists and turns.
“Now get your fucking overgrown ass out of my car and let’s get this over with before I punt your undeserving, waste of air body back into the ghetto where you bel…”
Eliza never managed to finish that sentence. The driver side door flung open, and Damien leant in, smoothly undoing Eliza’s seatbelt and grabbing her hard by the arm.
“Hey! What are you… Damien! You’re hurting me!” Eliza squealed, that crazed look in her eyes turning to true horror as she saw the way Damien looked at her.
Like a lion fighting for his life, Damien projected nothing but fury. He yanked Eliza out of the sports car and left her standing on the pavement as he sat down in the driver’s seat. Kiara’s heart leapt, but one look at him told her that whatever she said next, she’d have to choose her words carefully.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he growled to Eliza, so low and dangerous that the hair on Kiara’s neck stood up.
Eliza stared wordlessly as Damien slammed the door shut and revved the engine, peeling out of the parking lot like the hounds of hell were on their heels.
“Damien, I…”
“Not a word from you. Not a fucking word,” Damien hissed, and Kiara fell silent.
Relief and terror flooded her in equal parts. Relief, because as Damien tore through the Los Angeles streets, breaking half a dozen traffic laws on every block they passed, he was putting more distance between Kiara and the clinic. She didn’t dare ask where they were going. Terror, because the look on his face made her think that he would toss her off the closest cliff he could reach. She wouldn’t blame him if he did. She herself wasn’t far from wishing that she could just disappear.
The traffic waned slowly, until Damien had driven them so far out of the center of the city that Kiara was honestly running out of ideas as to where he was taking her. She sat on pins and needles, not daring to look at him, and he just gunned it. Soon, Los Angeles was just a backdrop to them.
Finally, Damien turned off the highway and into one of the most exclusive gated communities in the area, sweeping around a gorgeous length of the bay and going into the mountains. The villas – because that was all Kiara could call the houses they passed – were spread out, each commanding a large swatch of land. One by one, he drove past them until they were all behind them, and confusion grew in Kiara.
Over a small hill, the mos
t breathtaking mansion Kiara had ever seen came into view. It was standing behind a wide, white stone fence, and the gates opened automatically to let them in. Damien’s face was still hard and unyielding, so Kiara simply took in the gorgeous view around her.
The drive up to the building went along a scenic road, surrounded by tall trees. The lawn was meticulously kept, and flowerbeds were arranged tastefully along the huge yard. Kiara could easily envision a golden retriever and barefooted children running around the yard, laughing and chasing one another. She shook her head, trying to wipe the thought from her mind.
The car stopped in front of the main entrance, and Damien got out without a word uttered. He opened the door for her, and Kiara followed his lead. He took her hand in his big palm and her heart skipped. At least he’d done that much. Being physically close to him again felt like heaven, and Kiara found herself waiting and fearing when it would end and come crashing down around her.
He unlocked the front door, and she followed him in. When they walked through the vestibule, she couldn’t keep from gasping. It was absolutely ravishing. White and gold mixed together with banisters running along gracefully curving staircases that led to the second floor, framing the room. Large windows opened to the backyard, letting the sun shimmer in.
“Where are we?” Kiara asked, completely taken by the lavish but tasteful opulence surrounding her.
Damien didn’t reply, but his pace slowed slightly. He pushed through a pair of double doors leading to a wide, sandstone porch. Kiara stopped dead in her tracks. She’d been to Damien’s vineyard hideaway before and thought she’d never see anything more gorgeous in her life, but she’d been wrong – this mansion was even better.
She could never have even imagined being near a building like that, let alone being invited in. It seemed that the backyard stretched on for miles, finally ending at a majestic and cinematic cliff that fell down into the ocean.