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He didn’t find her right away, because she was surrounded. Literally. Appearing stunned, she was encircled by three women, all of whom he recognized. One was, as he’d feared, his mother. The young redhead on the left was his sister Johanna and on his mother’s right was Morgan Duffy, the daughter of his mother’s oldest friend. She’d been shoved in his face since he was old enough to understand the words arranged marriage.
Christ, this just got better and better.
“What in the hell is going on?” he snapped, pushing between his mother and Johanna, who at least offered him a sheepish wave. “Have you people ever heard of calling?”
“Since when do I have to call to visit the penthouse in one of my own hotels?” his mother snapped.
He bit his tongue, not pointing out that the amount of stock his father had left her didn’t come anywhere close to meaning they were “her” hotels.
Damien went to Viv and put his arm around her waist. She was wearing just a robe, her hair a loose, tangled curtain around her shoulders, and her face was pale and strained. If his family had upset her, set back her recovery, he’d pitch them all down the elevator shaft.
“What happened? Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked, his voice low, meant only for her.
“I came to check out the flowers,” she mumbled. “They smelled so nice, all the roses. There was a knock at the door.”
Huh. He supposed he should be grateful his family hadn’t just gotten a manager to let them in to “surprise” him.
“Did you invest in a florist as well as a team of ice-skating hooligans?” his mother asked, her cold expression matched by the icy tone.
Okay, so apparently the news media was all over the story, and had revealed that he was a majority shareholder in the Vanguard. He didn’t care that his mother knew, though he hadn’t gone out of his way to inform her. Perhaps it had been too much to ask that he have one thing—just one thing—that wasn’t subject to the constant meddling, opinions and demands of his family.
He considered it for a moment, and realized he was no longer that guy who only had one thing.
Now he had two.
Because he had Viv. And she was the one thing he couldn’t bear to lose.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” His mother gave Viv another of those glances that both assessed and dismissed. “Although I recognize your little friend from all the media coverage, we hadn’t gotten around to introductions.”
Viv winced; he could sense the quiver in her body. Jesus, how on earth had his father ever stayed married to his mother? He’d never met a harder person. He’d been aware she had ice in her veins, of course, never having remembered a single moment in his childhood when she’d wiped his tears or tucked him into bed. But she’d gotten worse as she aged, when she’d begun to go through husbands like tissues, all of them breaking her heart. Or whatever she had that masqueraded as a heart.
He’d realized long ago that his mother didn’t love him. She might care a bit about his sisters, but definitely not her only son. He’d long suspected it was because his father had loved him so much, and had never tried to hide it. She hadn’t been able to stand not being the center of her husband’s world.
“Viv, this is my mother, Sylvia Tyson, my sister Johanna Black, and...” He waved toward the woman his mother had been trying to fix him up with for years. “That’s Morgan, a friend of my mother’s.”
Morgan, a tall, willowy brunette whose beauty was matched only by her arrogance, had the audacity to appear betrayed, though he’d never so much as held her hand.
“This is Vivienne Callahan,” he announced.
“We know who she is,” his mother said. “She’s the little tart who has you so tied up in knots you ignore your business and get into public brawls that make you national news.”
Viv gasped. Damien growled. He’d never witnessed her being so damn rude to a perfect stranger, and he took a step forward. “Get out.”
“It’s all right, Damien,” Viv said, putting a hand on his arm. She lifted a hand to her face, as if pushing her hair out of her eyes, but he’d swear she was surreptitiously dashing away tears.
“No, it’s not. Go, Mother. I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour.”
Johanna seemed as if she wanted the floor to open up beneath her, Morgan flared her nostrils and his mother’s eyes turned that frigid gray that so perfectly matched her personality.
“Thirty minutes,” the woman said. She cast a disparaging glance at Viv. “You will allow me to talk to my son? Alone?”
