Damon (Starkis Family #2)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “And what about your job at Starkis Inc.?”

  I’d known that would be his first question. “Obviously, I can’t do it all. But I would like to remain on in some capacity so I can have a say in the vision for the company.”

  He sighed. “I want to say I’m angry, but I knew it would come to this. You’re a free spirit. You were destined to do your own thing, make your own mark in the world.”

  I breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Then you’re not mad?”

  He smirked. “You’re not the only one capable of change, my boy. I just want you to be happy. It may have seemed that all I wanted was for you to follow the path that I set out for you, but I only wanted you to have some direction in your life. If you believe this is what will make you happy, you have my blessing.”

  I hugged him for the first time in what seemed like forever. “Thank you.”

  “But couldn’t you have chosen another partner?” He shook his head. “Blake? Really?”

  I was still laughing as my father walked away, but my amusement died when Mia approached me.

  “Your daughter is lovely,” Mia said, touching my arm.

  “Thank you.”

  “Does El know about her?”

  “No.”

  She sighed. “God, Damon, how could you keep something like this from her?”

  Mia had every right to be outraged on her best friend’s behalf, but that didn’t lessen the sting. “I wanted to tell her, believe me. But I guess I was scared. I know how she feels about kids.”

  Mia scowled before bringing a glass of water to her lips. “She’s not a monster, you know. If you’re worried about how she would treat Dalia, don’t be.”

  The last thing I wanted was to argue with my sister-in-law, and I certainly hadn’t intended to call Eleni’s character into question. “I know how wonderful she is,” I said, hoping to defuse the situation. “I’m crazy about her.”

  “If that’s true, how could you keep this from her? Aren’t relationships supposed to be about honesty and trust?” The question obviously prompted her to remember her own experience with Deacon. “I’m sorry, Damon. I don’t mean to judge you. I just feel really protective of El. She’s never really had anyone to look out for her, and I’ve always kind of felt like I’m the only family she has.”

  I couldn’t help but think of Eleni’s father, lying in a hospice and waiting to die. “What do you know about her family?” Eleni had told me she hadn’t shared the entire story with her best friend, but that didn’t mean Mia couldn’t give me some insight into the man I was planning to meet with later.

  “Not a lot. We didn’t become friends until after her mother died. I knew her parents had split and her mother left them.” Mia sighed. “It was kind of weird. As close as we were, I never even went to her house. She always came to mine, or we’d meet somewhere.”

  “Huh.” I was sure there was a reason for that—hopefully one George Litras would share with me. I had mixed feelings about listening to the man’s story, especially since I didn’t think he could be trusted, but I still loved Eleni. If there was anything I could do to help her put her past to rest, I would.

  “She doesn’t like to talk about her parents,” Mia added. “And I don’t push. I know how hard she’s worked to build a new life for herself. At least I had my parents when I moved to the city. She had no one to support her.”

  I hated to think of Eleni all alone in a new city, trying to figure out how to make it on her own.

  “Of course, she stayed with my family until she was old enough to live alone, but she insisted on paying room and board. I know she always felt like more of a tenant than family.”

  Looking around the room, surrounded by the people I loved, I realized the only person missing was Eleni. I wanted her to be a part of this, to experience the love of a real family, even if it was a dysfunctional family like mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Eleni

  Making my way up to Damon’s penthouse, I cursed myself for not calling first. I missed him. So much. I’d come under the guise of recovering my lost earring, but in truth, I was dying to see him, to tell him that I’d made a mistake and wanted to try to figure things out. I didn’t know how, since it seemed we wanted different things, but maybe, just maybe, there was a way. There had to be since I didn’t think I could go on without him.

  A part of me was curious about his houseguest. Was she still staying with him? If so, I intended to put her on notice, as I should have done from the beginning. Damon may not have been my boyfriend anymore, but I wanted that woman to know how I felt about him, how important he was to me. I held my breath as I knocked on the door, waiting for someone to answer.

  Finally, she opened the door, stealing the air from my lungs all over again. God, she was gorgeous. With long dark hair, olive skin, dark eyes, and a petite figure, I had no trouble seeing how she’d turned Damon’s head.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling. “You’re Eleni, right? I’ve seen your picture in a few magazines with Damon.” Without waiting for me to respond, she stepped back, gesturing for me to enter. “My name’s Andra. Damon told you he invited me and my daughter to stay with him for a while, right?”

  “He did.” I wanted to remind her she’d had plenty of time to find a new place, or better yet, work things out with her husband, but I didn’t want to sound petty and jealous.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be out of his hair soon.” She laughed. “We’re due to fly out tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh?” Thank God.

  “Yes, my husband’s anxious to have us home, and Dalia can’t wait to get back to her dance classes.”

  “Were you calling me, Mommy?”

  A beautiful little girl with dark ringlets rounded the corner, and déjà vu hit me full force. I didn’t think I’d met Dalia before, but I felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity. Then it hit me. When we’d been at Tiana’s house planning for the wedding, Mia had asked to see pictures of Deacon as a child, so Tiana had pulled out the family albums.

  “She looks exactly like Tiana…” I whispered. Which meant…

  I didn’t even realize I’d said the words aloud until the little girl grinned, dimples bracketing her gap-toothed smile. “You mean my Aunt Tiana?” She giggled. “I know. She showed me pictures of her when she was a little girl. Do you think that means I’ll grow up to look her?” She tilted her head, looking confused when I didn’t respond. “I hope so ‘cause she’s really beautiful. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” I forced myself to mutter. “She’s very beautiful, just like you.”

  “Um, Dalia,” Andra said, obviously sensing my shock, “why don’t you go play in your room for a while? Dinner should be ready soon.”

  “Will Daddy be home for dinner?” she asked, gripping a stuffed pig against her chest. “It’s our last night, and he promised he’d try to make it home so we could all eat together. Did he call?”

  “No, he hasn’t called,” Andra said with a tight smile. “But I’m sure he’ll make it home if he can. You know he’s a very busy man, and he said he had an important meeting he couldn’t get out of.”

  Dalia pouted, fisting a hand on her hip. “Yeah, but he promised he’d always make time for me. You heard him. He promised.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” With a quick sidelong glance in my direction, Andra said, “Damon said you could watch TV in the study. Why don’t you go pop in a video while I speak to Daddy’s friend for a while, okay?”

  Daddy. Damon was someone’s daddy.

  “I should go,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Damon said I’d left a diamond earring here, and I just wanted to pick it up.” Thankfully that earring had given me a legitimate excuse for showing up on his doorstep when it was painfully obvious I didn’t belong there. “Do you happen to know where it is?”

  Andra took my hand and guided me toward one of two sofas in the living room.

  I tensed up, wanting to withdraw my hand fro
m hers. I didn’t want to talk to this woman, the mother of his child. “I really should go.”

  Andra sat, encouraging me to do the same.

  I considered leaving, but I had to admit I was too curious, so I sat beside her, keeping a safe distance without being too obvious.

  “He didn’t tell you about Dalia, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t.” I cleared my throat before looking at my joined hands. Whatever you do, do not cry in front of her. “But it’s not like I expected him to. We weren’t all that close.” Liar! “You see, my best friend married his brother. That’s how we got to be friends.”

  “According to Damon, you were much more than friends. He loves you very much.”

  I didn’t know if I should be angry or relieved that he’d shared his feelings for me with his ex-girlfriend. At least I knew he wasn’t interested in her. But that was irrelevant now that I knew about the double-life he’d been living. “He obviously didn’t love me enough to tell me the truth about his daughter.”

  “Dalia just found out herself.”

  “She seems to have warmed up to the idea pretty quickly.” I wanted to bite my tongue when I realized I sounded like a petty bitch who begrudged a little girl a relationship with her biological parent. I smiled, trying to soften my jibe. “You and Damon must be relieved.”

  “We are.” She adjusted the pillow behind her back before leaning into it. “For what it’s worth, I think Damon wanted to tell you about Dalia, but something was holding him back.”

  Probably the things I’d said about never wanting to have a family of my own. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  Andra smiled slightly, as though she was considering her words carefully. “Damon did a really wonderful thing for me and my family, and I feel compelled to return the favor, if I can. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

  I considered it but ultimately said, “Go on.”

  “I’m sure you know Damon better than I do, Eleni. We only spent one summer together eight years ago, and I’ve just gotten to know him again since we’ve been staying here. But one thing is obvious—he’s not the same man now that he was then. I think you have a lot to do with that change.”

  I now suspected his transformation had more to do with Dalia than with me. “Can I ask you something?” When she nodded, I asked, “When did Damon learn about Dalia?”

  “Last summer.”

  So he’d known he was a father even before he met me. I couldn’t help feeling duped, betrayed even. “I see.”

  “Do you?” She studied me carefully. “Do you know what kind of man he is? The kind of man you may be walking away from?”

  I wanted to leave, to run away from the painful truth as fast as I could. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  Instead of being insulted, she seemed amused. “He helped put our family back together, not because he had to but because he wanted to.”

  I didn’t want to hear her life story. I just wanted to go back to my apartment, draw the blinds, pull the blankets over my head… or maybe dig into the container of Ben & Jerry’s stashed at the back of my freezer for emotional crises.

  “I didn’t tell him about Dalia when I should have. Most men would have set out to ruin me when they found out the truth, but not Damon. He was angry and determined to get time with Dalia, but he was also fair. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”

  I wondered if Damon had been so fair because he had residual feelings for his ex. “You mentioned something about him helping your family. What did he do?”

  “We were having a really hard time financially,” Andra said, lowering her head. “My husband’s been out of work for a long while. I’ve been trying to keep us afloat, but I wasn’t making enough to keep the creditors from calling.”

  I suddenly felt sympathy for this woman, probably because I’d always had a soft spot for women who were struggling to survive. “So Damon helped you?”

  “He did more than that.” Andra smiled. “It would have been easy for a man like Damon to throw money at our problems, but he didn’t.”

  Now she’d really piqued my curiosity. “What did he do?”

  “He took me and Dalia back to Boston and let us pick a house. You should have seen the look on his face when Dalia ran up and down that staircase as though we’d just won the lottery. I knew how happy it made him, being able to do something like that for her.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the picture Andra painted. I knew Damon was a generous lover, but hearing about his generosity as a parent was bittersweet. “I’m sure it did.”

  “But that’s not all.” She drew a deep breath before looking me in the eye. “I lied to my husband about Damon. I told him that Damon knew about Dalia and didn’t want her.”

  “But that wasn’t true?” I didn’t even have to ask. The Damon I knew would never turn his back on his child the way my father had turned his back on me.

  She shook her head sadly. “Nic hated Damon for so many years because he couldn’t understand why a man would reject this precious child.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  Andra nodded. “So when Nic found out that I’d never told Damon about his daughter, he was outraged. He couldn’t believe I’d lied to him. He said that because of my selfishness, we could lose our little girl. He said with Damon’s money and power, he could sweep in and take her from us.”

  I couldn’t imagine Damon taking a child away from the only parents she had ever known, but I understood why Andra and her husband had been terrified. They didn’t know Damon the way I did. “Clearly you found a compromise. You mentioned you and your husband are back together?”

  “Thanks to Damon.” Her smile lit up her pretty face. She leaned in and squeezed my hand, almost as though she were sharing her excitement with a girlfriend instead of a total stranger. “He went to Nic and told him he wanted to be a part of Dalia’s life but that he appreciated everything Nic had done for her and felt there was room in her life for two fathers and more than enough love in her heart.”

  “That’s very sweet.” I felt tears rush to my eyes at the sight of Andra’s tears.

  “He’s an amazing man, Eleni, and he loves you. Please don’t make the mistake of holding this against him. We all make mistakes.”

  God, she was right on that score.

  ***

  Damon

  I followed the uniformed nurse down the hall to Mr. Litras’s room, trying to ignore the pervasive sense of impending death, desperation, and despondency surrounding me. I heard the cries of agony, saw the blank expressions of tired faces, and heard the whispered prayers. I couldn’t help but think how horrible it would be to spend my final days in a place like this, where the only thought running through everyone’s mind was how much time they had.

  “Try to keep it short,” the nurse whispered before opening his door. “We gave him something for the pain a little while ago, so he’ll likely drift off soon.”

  “I will.” I didn’t want to be there any longer than I had to, but I felt as if a magnetic force was drawing me to this man who held answers I had no other way of finding.

  “Damon, you came.”

  Walking farther into the small, stagnant room, I considered shaking the man’s frail hand but thought better of it. After the hell he’d put Eleni through, he didn’t deserve my consideration. “Mr. Litras.”

  “Please call me George.” His voice was weak, as close to lifeless as I’d ever heard.

  I ignored his directive as I walked to the window. I needed some source of light in the darkness, an assurance that there was still a strong life force beyond these walls.

  “I tried to hang on ‘til you got here.” He shifted in his bed, wincing. “Glad I could.”

  I’d never witnessed someone hovering so close to death. It was unnerving. “Why did you want to see me?”

  “Had to tell you things…” He sucked in a sharp breath before curling his bony hands around the hem of the crisp white sheet
s. “Things she wouldn’t.”

  “I think Eleni has already told me all I need to know.” I wanted him to understand that I had his number. Even though he was a sickly old man now, I knew he’d once been a tyrant who had ruined an innocent child’s life.

  “She’s told you all she knows, but she doesn’t know the whole story.” He closed his eyes while pinching his pale lips together. “Her mother was cheating on me.”

  I was stunned. Eleni had painted a picture of her mother as the victim, and I wanted to believe she was right.

  “You probably don’t believe me, but it’s true. That’s why we fought, why she left.”

  “She left?” I heard the derision in my voice, so I knew he did too. “That’s not the way I heard it.”

  “I couldn’t tell Eleni the truth. It would have crushed her to think her mother chose to leave her.”

  “If she had another man, how did she end up homeless?”

  He raised one bony shoulder, bared by a hospital gown that was too big for him. “I don’t know what happened to her after she left me. I only know that when she left our home that night, she planned to go to him.”

  “Eleni said you threw her out, that you tossed her and her clothes out in the middle of a winter’s night.”

  His dark eyes were hard all of a sudden, and I saw a glimpse of the bully Eleni had described. “Let me ask you something. How would you feel if the only woman you had ever loved told you she was leaving you for another man?”

  I couldn’t pretend it wouldn’t ruin me. “That’s why you wouldn’t help Eleni find her, because you believed your wife was living with someone else?”