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Other than him, though, they hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words with anyone, which was fine with Viv. Because the past thirty-six hours had been remarkable. And not just because of the intense, utterly unbelievable sex. The truth was, she’d just enjoyed being with him.
Washington, DC, was a great city to explore if you had the time and a willing victim...er, tourist. Damien had said he’d come to the area for business on multiple occasions, but he’d never been to a single one of the museums. He’d never walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, or read the names on the beautiful onyx wall that memorialized those who’d fallen in Vietnam.
Having a car and driver made things so much simpler, and they’d managed to shove a week’s worth of sightseeing into one day. They’d hit everything from the monuments, to the National Zoo, to the Smithsonian, finishing up at Viv’s favorite, the National Museum of Natural History, for a peek at the Hope Diamond.
“I’ve seen nicer,” he’d mused, staring at the stone through a thick wall of security glass.
“Maybe. But not bigger, I’ll bet.”
He’d never taken his eyes off the rock. “I thought women didn’t care about size.”
Viv had snickered. Of all the things Damien the billionaire might have to worry about, size was not one of them. “Of course we don’t...except when it comes to diamonds. Oh, and penises.”
He’d reached around and pinched her butt to punish her, and she’d emitted a squeal that had echoed through the gallery. They hadn’t stayed long at the museum after that, taking a walk along the reflecting pool before Jed picked them up and took them across the river into Virginia.
It was there they’d had the only unpleasant moment of the day. They’d been walking down a cobbled sidewalk, coming from an adorable French restaurant where they’d enjoyed dinner, and she’d spied a campaign sign with a familiar name on it. Damien had apparently felt her tense up, and asked what was wrong.
“Just a goose walking over my grave.”
He frowned. “Huh?”
“Sorry, aren’t you from the South? Don’t they use that expression in Florida?”
“We say it all the time when we travel back to the 1940s.”
Giggling, aware he was trying to lighten her suddenly dark mood, she’d admitted, “I used to go out with that guy. The one running for delegate.”
His turn to tense. “And?”
“And nothing. It’s not fun seeing his name everywhere.”
Even worse was seeing his face on the damn signs. Dale was nothing if not proud of his looks, and his dumb, smiling mug was used as a selling point in all his promotional materials.
She couldn’t help comparing him to Damien, and her ex paled in every way. Damien was far hotter, smarter, more charming, more successful. But he was not at all in-your-face about it. He never had to make himself seem bigger or more important at anyone else’s—her—expense. And, funny, since the moment she’d met him, Viv had never worried she wasn’t good enough, like she had to be on her best behavior for fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. With Damien, she was free to be herself, and was never pressured to be any other way.
What a wonderful, amazing thing. It was a gift Damien had given her that he didn’t even realize, was one she already cherished.
“More champagne?” he asked, lifting an icy bottle from a bucket, bringing her thoughts forward from last night into the bright light of Sunday morning.
Viv looked up from her plate, which she’d just cleaned of not only a delicious serving of eggs Benedict but also half a Belgian waffle, and nodded happily. She watched as Damien splashed the sparkling liquid into her glass of orange juice, then she accepted the glass and stretched in her chair. “I could get used to this,” she murmured, staring out over the river through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the penthouse dining room. From up here, she had an unobstructed view of the Capitol dome, the Washington Monument, all the beautiful structures people around the world only ever saw in books.
The breakfast, the view, the champagne, the softness of the robe, the closetful of clothes he’d insisted he couldn’t return...all of it suddenly became a bit much for Viv. Because she could get used to this, all too easily. And that was not a good thing. At the end of the day—or the week, the month, whatever—Damien would be heading for Miami. To his real life. She’d be staying here and going on with hers.
High-rises, penthouses, limo rides, designer clothes and two-hundred-dollar bottles of champagne had no place in her life. While she, with her sassy mouth, her bad reputation, her snarky attitude, her blue-collar family and her entry-level job, had no real place in his. Despite how wonderful he made her feel about just being herself, she knew that was true. He might like her as she was, might make her feel comfortable enough to be totally herself around him, but to the rest of the world, she would never be good enough.
