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‘Reckless shoulders?’ Lizzie supplied. ‘I had too much emotion in play back then.’
‘And not enough now?’
His suggestion silenced her. Damon’s searching glance was disturbing in all sorts of ways. She couldn’t regret her rebellion eleven years ago, or her search for one night of love—which was probably the best way to describe the most memorable night of her life. How could she regret anything, when making love with Damon had created Thea?
‘Penny for them?’
The smile that could heat her from the inside out was back, tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘You wouldn’t want to know.’
‘Try me,’ he pressed.
Confide her concerns in him? Tell him how much of a struggle it was to keep the boat afloat, or that when Thea needed something for school Lizzie couldn’t always guarantee she’d come through? This was the man who had walked out of her life without a backward glance—as her father had. This was the man she had been unable to reach again and again. She had to remember that—always. She couldn’t face that coldness again. She had more pride than to do so. And more love for Thea than to allow her precious daughter to live through something similar.
And there was another way of looking at it. Damon might not want to know. What respectable billionaire would want to hear that he had a child with the daughter of a convicted felon? Would Damon believe Thea was his child? The shame of her father’s crime had tainted Lizzie. Sometimes she believed she would never throw it off. That same shame taunted her now, with the thought that even if Damon were prepared to accept that Thea was his daughter he might not entrust her to Lizzie’s care?
Whatever the consequences, her course was clear. She must first tell Thea, and then Damon.
‘We’re down,’ he said, startling her.
‘Yes...right...’ she said, glancing around to see the cabin had settled on its stand. ‘What a relief.’
‘Vertigo can be devastating, can’t it?’ Damon commented, but his look was shrewd and it stripped her lie bare.
They didn’t stay at the funfair. By mutual silent consent, they headed back to the bike.
‘Where did you live when you left home after the court case?’ Damon asked as the noise of the fair began to fade into the background.
‘On a park bench,’ Lizzie said bluntly, thinking back.
‘I’m being serious,’ Damon insisted.
‘And so am I,’ she admitted. ‘I spent the first night on a park bench—well, most of it...until it started raining.’
‘And then?’ His face had tightened into a grim mask.
Lizzie thought back to her first and thankfully her only terrifying, freezing night as a homeless person. She had quickly figured out that she must find a place to live fast or, quite simply, her appearance and the fact that she couldn’t wash properly would make respectable people turn her away. With no money, that had meant finding a job—any job.
‘I got a job the next morning,’ she remembered. ‘As a cleaner. I was good at that. I’d had plenty of experience,’ she said dryly. ‘My stepmother was too mean to pay anyone to do her cleaning, but she had me and she was very particular. It stood me in good stead,’ she admitted.
‘I can imagine.’
Could he imagine the woman who had insisted Lizzie must clean the floors on her hands and knees, rather than with a mop, and take a toothbrush to the corners of the room? Could he imagine that same woman making Lizzie do it all over again, after her stepmother had thoughtlessly trampled on the floor in her muddy boots?
‘Actually, the cleaning jobs I managed to get were easy after my work at home,’ she reflected.
‘And where do you live now?’
‘Haven’t you asked Stavros?’
Damon dipped his chin to stare into her eyes. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘You’re right,’ she agreed as they drew to a halt in front of the bike. ‘Stavros has been nothing but kind to me.’
‘Whereas I haven’t?’
‘You’ve only just come back to London. It remains to be seen,’ she said bluntly.
‘What makes you think I’d want to investigate your life?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly—too quickly. ‘I have a small bedsit, if you’re interested.’
‘I am,’ Damon insisted as he picked up her helmet.
‘I know that look,’ she said.
He frowned. ‘What look?’
‘The look that says, She grew up like a princess and her fall has been swift and hard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that same look over the years. But you should know that I’ve never been happier than I am now.’
That was the truth, Lizzie reflected, calming down. She had a daughter who loved her, and jobs that paid the rent. And, yes, it was tough sometimes, but she had never once fallen into debt.
‘Okay?’ she challenged Damon as he handed over her helmet. ‘Are we done with the third degree now?’
‘We’re done,’ he conceded.
‘I think we should talk about you for a change—’
‘No,’ he said flatly, startling her into silence with the force of his response. ‘I’m a very private man.’
‘Then perhaps you should understand how I feel.’
Damon regarded her coolly. ‘Aren’t you going to get on the bike?’
‘Shall I salute first?’
He gave her a look that might make some people blink, but it only made Lizzie more determined to stand up to him.
This had definitely been an interesting encounter, Lizzie concluded as they roared back to the city. Neither of them was exactly soft or malleable. She had a daughter to protect, which gave her mama tiger claws as well as an iron will, while Damon was the hardest man she knew by some margin. For all his outward charm, which he could turn on when it suited him, Damon Gavros was rock through and through.
He drew to a halt outside the restaurant. ‘Drink?’ he suggested as she removed her helmet.
‘I don’t think so, but thank you—it’s been an interesting evening.’
‘One drink,’ he insisted, getting off the bike.
In spite of her reservations, she had to admit that it was a pleasant change to be this side of the tastefully lit bar. Stavros had peeped around the kitchen door and had then retired with a broad smile on his face. That in itself was worth the sacrifice of sitting with Damon. All the drinks were on the house, the barman insisted, but Damon still paid.
‘So,’ he said, glancing at her over his bottle of beer. ‘Tell me more about your stepmother, Cinderella.’
‘Less of that,’ she warned. ‘There’s nothing needy about me.’
Damon’s lips pressed down, almost as if he agreed. ‘So...she sounds like a fascinating character?’ he pressed.
‘Luminous,’ Lizzie said dryly.
She would credit her stepmother with one thing: she’d helped Lizzie to face reality fast. Before her stepmother had arrived on the scene Lizzie would have been the first to admit she’d been spoiled. She might have reached adulthood with no concept of responsibility if she hadn’t been thrown out of the house, had her faith in her father destroyed, her dreams crushed, and discovered she was pregnant—all in one and the same month. That would have been enough to wake the dead. And she certainly wasn’t spoiled now. Her life was devoted to Thea.
‘I don’t want to talk about me. It’s your turn,’ she said.
‘Maybe it’s time for me to go,’ Damon countered.
‘Please yourself.’ Burying her face in her glass of water, she sucked on the straw, refusing to say any more about a time when life had seemed to stretch ahead of her in an endless stream of promise—promise that had turned out to be fantasy.
Her father had appeared to have money to burn when she was young. Now she knew it had been oth
er people’s money he was burning—Gavros money, mostly. Nothing made him happier than lavishing money on his darling daughter, her father had told her as they’d planned one treat after another.
He’d been showing off to her stepmother, she realised now; hoping to catch another big fish like Lizzie’s mother, the heiress. The joke of it was, the woman he’d chosen to bring home as his second wife had been a chancer like him, captivated by his apparent wealth.
Thinking her father was lonely, Lizzie had welcomed her stepmother to begin with. She had wanted nothing more than to see her father happy again. It hadn’t taken long to find out how wrong she could be.
‘You told me that night that you loved to paint,’ Damon reminded her. ‘Another dream down?’ he suggested.
‘I don’t have time to dream now.’
‘That sounds dull.’
So dull he stood up to go.
