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She could hardly imagine him being so deeply in love with a woman that he would want to take it to the very limit, that he would propose marriage. She couldn’t get her head around the notion of him offering commitment rather than talking about the natural course of events. For a man as intensely proud and intensely passionate, she could understand how he could have been permanently damaged by the most significant relationship in his life going belly up. Eleanor had never broached the subject of Annalise again and neither had she. Damien’s past was none of her business. This was the here and now. Everything he said made sense. This was her one opportunity to ditch her comfort zone and there was no point having a mental debate on the pros and cons of the clauses attached.
‘We’ll go our separate ways but as long as we’re lovers you’ll find, my darling, that I am exceedingly generous...’
‘Your money doesn’t mean anything to me.’ She tried not to feel hurt at the implication that she could be shoved into the predictable mould of one of his women, eager to take whatever gifts were on offer. ‘That’s not why...I don’t care if you own the Bank of England. I don’t want anything from you.’
Damien thought that whilst she might say that now, her tune would change the second he presented her with her very first diamond-encrusted bracelet or top-of-the-range sports car.
‘Frankly, my mother would expect it.’
‘She already knows that I’m not the materialistic kind.’
‘More confidences exchanged during one of your cosy tête-à-têtes?’ But he liked her protestations of wholesomeness. What guy in his position wouldn’t? Even if, sooner or later, the moral high ground took a bit of a beating? Greed and avarice were frequent visitors to his life. It was nice not to have them knocking on the door just yet.
‘We don’t just talk about you!’
‘I’m hurt. I thought I was never far from your thoughts...’ He moved fractionally against her and she squirmed and her eyes fluttered. To stop herself from losing control altogether once again, she reached down and firmly held him in her hand. The steel thickness of his girth made her shudder with wicked pleasure.
‘You’re not in my thoughts,’ Violet denied vigorously. Having someone in your thoughts implied a connection. Even jokingly, she didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to let him think that he might be anything more to her than she was to him. ‘You crop up in conversation with your mother because you’re the person we have in common and, under normal circumstances, a girlfriend would be really happy to hear her stories about the guy in her life from his mother. It’s natural that your mother would want to talk about you. Now, though, we talk about other things. Art, the garden, life in a small community, the treatment and what it might involve...and I don’t just have conversations with your mother. I talk a lot to Dominic as well. He has a lot to say. You just have to be patient. He gets frustrated because he can’t communicate as fluently as he’d like, but he’s smart.’
Damien gently removed her hand from him. Reluctantly. Of course, warning bells shouldn’t be ringing. They were, after all, singing from the same song sheet but still...just in case...
‘Don’t get too wrapped up, Violet.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean...we might become more involved with one another than either of us anticipated or probably even wanted, and your role might have been extended beyond what I envisaged, but don’t start nurturing ideas of permanence.’
‘I wouldn’t do that!’ She pulled away from him. ‘And you don’t have to warn me! You’ve already made the parameters of what we have perfectly clear. I understand, Damien. It suits me! I’m not an idiot.’
‘But you’re forming links with my family,’ Damien said drily.
‘I’m having conversations!’ But she could detect the coolness in his voice. This wasn’t a gentle caution. This was a warning shot across the bows, a blunt reminder that she was not to go beyond the Keep Out signs he had erected around himself. If she did, and the message was clear though unspoken, she would be ditched. He would enjoy her but that was as far as things would go. In short, don’t start getting any ideas...
‘I’m a big girl. I know how to take care of myself. And because the women you’ve dated in the past might have wanted more from you than you were prepared to give, that’s not the case with me. I’ve always been careful. I’m just having a go at what it feels like not to be careful for once in my life. And do you always have a list prepared of dos and don’ts when you start a...something? With a woman? Or is this specially for me because I happen to have met your family?’
Violet knew that she shouldn’t be pursuing this. This wasn’t part of her decision to be daring for once in her life.
‘I’m always upfront when it comes to women. I let them know that I’m not in it for the long-term.’
‘Because you’ve been hurt once doesn’t mean that you have to spend the rest of your life keeping your distance.’
‘Come again?’ Damien said coldly.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ But had he laid down loads of rules and regulations for Annalise? No. She wasn’t in the same category—of course she wasn’t—but neither did she need to be subjected to a hundred and one boundary lines because he thought she was too gullible or too stupid to know how the land lay.
‘Let’s move on from this conversation, Violet. My past is not fertile ground for discussion.’ And he was willing to let it go. His magnanimity surprised him because he categorically did not invite anyone’s opinions on certain aspects of his life. Naturally, he didn’t want to engineer an argument. He hadn’t enjoyed the past few days of awkwardness. And also, for once, he was thinking with that part of his body which he always had under control. Never had elemental desire been so important a factor in his response.
‘As I said, I understand the parameters and it suits me.’
‘You’re using me, in other words.’ His voice was light and amused.
‘No more than you’re using me.’
Not quite the response he had expected. He gave a low laugh. Fair’s fair, he thought. Wasn’t it? He’d never had any woman admit to using him before. So what if the feeling didn’t sit quite right? He wanted her. She wanted him. Trim away the excess and that was all that mattered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAMIAN REACHED INTO his jacket pocket and flipped open the lid of the black and gold box which had been nestling there for the past three hours.
A necklace with a teardrop pendant, a blood-red ruby, surrounded by tiny diamonds. He had chosen it himself. Well, why not? Suitable recompense for the past three and a half months, during which Violet had proved herself a superb and satisfying lover. He always gave gifts to his lovers. She might have thwarted every attempt he had made thus far on that front, rebutting his offers of a car, because who needed to become snarled up in traffic, not to mention contributing to global warming whilst having to pay the Congestion Charge the second you needed it for anything really useful? an expensive weekend in Vienna now that his mother seemed to be responding so well to her treatment programme, can’t, too much work, sorry, some really expensive kitchen equipment because he had seen what she had, no, thanks, a girl becomes accustomed to working with old, familiar pots and pans and ovens and fridges and microwaves...
But this necklace was a fait accompli. She would have no choice but to accept it.
He snapped shut the lid of the box and returned it to his jacket pocket before sliding out of his car and heading up to her house.
He had grown accustomed to the confined space in which she lived. Literally two-up, two-down. Phillipa was still doing whatever she was doing in Ibiza. He couldn’t imagine the claustrophobia of actually having to share the place with another adult human being. Personally, it would have driven him mad. He was used to the vast open-plan space of his five-bedroom house in Chelsea. When he had moved there years ago, he had hired a top architect who had re-configured the layout of the house so that the rooms, all painted stone and adorned with a mixture of established art and newer investment worthy pieces, flowed into one another.
Violet’s house was more in the nature of a honeycomb. Two weeks previously, he had offered to have the whole thing gutted and redone more along his tastes, but predictably she had looked at him as though he had taken leave of his senses and laughed. Alternatively, he had said, they could just spend more time at his place. He was now splitting his time between London and the West Country. Why not make love in luxury? But she had told him, in the sort of semi-apologetic voice that managed to impart no hint of remorse, that she didn’t like his house. Something about it being sterile and clinical. He had refrained from telling her that she was the first woman to have ever responded to opulence with a negative reaction.
