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‘My lawyer?’ Damon frowned. ‘What’s my lawyer got to do with this?’
The way Stavros shrugged sent an icy finger of suspicion tracking down Damon’s spine. The head lawyer on his legal team had a notoriously itchy trigger finger, and remembering the warning he’d given Damon set alarm bells ringing.
‘Lizzie’s address and number now,’ he urged, in a tone that even the loyal Stavros couldn’t ignore. ‘Please,’ he added, consciously softening his tone as the restaurateur stared at him belligerently.
Finding Lizzie was too important to risk on a point of pride. He had only realised what he’d lost when she’d left the island. They’d started to build something that in these very early stages might all too easily be destroyed. He had to stop that happening now—not some time in the future. There had been too much delay on both parts.
‘If you care anything at all for Lizzie and Thea, please help me,’ he begged. When Stavros blinked with surprise at his obvious distress, he added, ‘I have to see her now.’
Rather reluctantly Stavros jotted something down on a scrap of paper. When he handed it over Damon was reminded that he took too much for granted. He shouldn’t have to ask for Lizzie’s address. He should know her address. If he cared anything for Lizzie and Thea he should have every detail concerning them locked down.
He had lived a charmed life up to now, Damon concluded as he thanked Stavros and stowed the precious piece of paper in his pocket.
He left the restaurant at speed and leapt into his car. Tapping Lizzie’s address into the sat nav, he sped away. The head of his legal team had always acted in Damon’s best interests before—as seen through his legal eyes—and in fairness Damon expected him to take the initiative at his level, rather than always wait for instruction. But there were some things that should be out of his lawyer’s control—and this was one of them. If he didn’t make things right straight away Damon would be a man who had learned too late how much he had to lose.
He headed towards the suburbs at speed. An adored only son, he had entered the world on a cloud of privilege, and that sense of entitlement had continued on into his adult life. He saw. He seized. He conquered and his empire grew.
He’d always been able to see the path ahead clearly—until Lizzie had come into his life and changed the rules. Lizzie had changed everything, and he couldn’t even be sure if she would agree to see him now.
Only one thing was certain in his immediate future, and that was that it was going to be the fight of his life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DAMON? HOW COULD Damon possibly be parked outside her door?
For a moment Lizzie couldn’t catch her breath, she was so shocked. Damon had followed her to London! She hadn’t even had a chance to collect her thoughts properly after receiving his lawyer’s letter yesterday—other than to call a family solicitor and make an appointment.
She froze behind the shutters of her room as she checked out the sleek black car parked outside the front door. The windows were tinted, so she couldn’t see the driver, but she knew who it was. There was only one man who changed his car as often as his shirt, and always for a newer, sleeker model.
Better to have this out with him now, she concluded as she glanced at the letter, still lying on the table by the phone where she’d left it. Stavros had given her some time off, allowing her the chance to think her way through this nightmare. He’d winkled the truth out of her when he’d heard the tension in her voice.
Stavros had been furious too. He couldn’t believe it of Damon, he’d said, adding that any lawyer sent by Damon Gavros would have to come through him first.
From being a wily matchmaker, Stavros had turned on a sixpence into Lizzie’s staunchest defender. He’d wanted to send his wife over right away, to comfort her, but Lizzie had said she could handle things on her own. And she would, Lizzie determined.
She drew a deep, steadying breath before opening the front door. This wasn’t the first hurdle she’d faced by any means, but perhaps it was the highest.
‘Lizzie?’ Damon called out. ‘I know you’re in there. Please open the door.’
She took a few shaking breaths and then swung the door wide. No way did she want Damon thinking that she was hiding from him.
Resolutions were one thing, but seeing Damon again was another. At least he was prepared for the vagaries of the London weather, she registered, taking in his heavy jacket and tough, workmanlike boots. Damon would look hot in a monk’s robes, and in a thick sweater and jeans he looked as darkly, wickedly stunning as usual—while she felt exhausted and hurt, and above all furiously angry.
Her body should recoil from him after what he’d done, but nothing had changed where that was concerned. Her heart still raced and her breathing still quickened at the sight of him. Worse. Her body yearned as if it had no sense—but this time there was anger in the mix.
‘Yes?’ she demanded crisply. ‘What do you want?’
‘Theos, Lizzie!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank God you’re home.’ He raked his hair in a familiar gesture. ‘Let me in. We need to talk—’
‘More talking?’ she said, still barring his way.
‘We have to talk when our daughter’s involved,’ he insisted.
Damon was a picture of power and dominance standing on the damp London street, while she had prepared for nothing and was wearing a faded old top, pyjama bottoms, and a pair of furry slippers on her feet. Her face was scrubbed clean of make-up and her hair was scraped back. Not her armour of choice, but she’d take it.
‘Our daughter?’ she queried. ‘Are you sure about that?’
Damon’s frown deepened. ‘Of course I’m sure. Can I come in now?’
She stood back, and tensed as he brushed past her. She’d forgotten how big he was. This entire London house would fit into the hallway of his beachside mansion. She hesitated before opening the door to her bedsit, hardly able to imagine that they’d both fit inside.
She didn’t waste time on pleasantries—especially as Damon didn’t look around with interest, as she might have expected, but focused solely on her face. Going to the table, she picked up the letter and fanned it in front of him.
Lifting her chin to stare him in the eyes, she demanded, ‘Did you authorise this?’
Damon’s expression blackened as he recognised the name on the top of the letterhead. ‘Of course not. What is it?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘No, I don’t,’
he insisted. ‘When did it arrive?’
‘It was waiting for me when I got home.’
‘May I?’
For the first time since she’d known him, she saw that Damon was badly thrown. She could hear it in his voice and see it in the deepness of the furrows between his eyes.
She handed him the letter and he read it quickly.
‘Lizzie.’ His eyes flicked up to meet her angry stare. ‘I didn’t ask for this.’
‘So this firm of lawyers doesn’t act for you?’
‘You know it does. It must have been a terrible shock for you to recognise the name from your father’s trial. I’m sure that’s something you won’t easily forgot.’
‘Compassion? From you?’ She huffed a laugh.
Could she believe him? Lizzie wondered. She wanted to, but sometimes it seemed that her whole life had been spent battling the disappointment of being let down.
‘I felt sick to the stomach when I saw that letter.’
‘This letter—this request for a DNA test,’ he said, with what she was sure was genuine disgust, ‘has nothing to do with me. Believe me, Lizzie. It’s a matter of trust. You have to believe me.’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’
‘You said you trusted me on the island,’ Damon said steadily. ‘Do you trust me now?’
She wanted to—so badly—but the past always stood in her way. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ she confessed.
It didn’t help that Damon’s blistering glamour carried all the sultry heat of a Greek afternoon, which lent an aura of unreality to everything that was happening in the familiar surroundings of her small, cosy home. He could light up the damp London street without any help from the lamps outside, but could she trust him?
She really didn’t know, Lizzie realised.
She felt as if she were being squeezed between Damon’s lawyers, Damon’s money, Damon, and an opulent lifestyle that was utterly alien to her. It was next to impossible to extract any judgement from that.
