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Damon had allowed himself to believe that it was his thirst for revenge that had been the strongest hand in guiding his future and setting him on the path he’d hurtled along—and, yes, it was revenge that dictated which projects he sought and which contacts he prioritised. But he had been born to be an architect. It was in his blood. His heart.
Somewhere along the way he had forgotten that—a fact that disconcerted him nearly as much as the amount of personal information he’d just divulged.
‘How old were you? When he died?’ Carrie asked.
Her whole expression had changed, and she was watching him with a tentativeness he usually found offensive. He was not fragile. He was not in pain. His father’s death had broken his heart and broken up his family, but it had not brokenhim. It had made him strong, purposeful.
‘I was twelve.’ Damon kept his face blank, his body straight and tall, even as the excruciating memory forced its way to the surface. The crowds. The anger. The cameras there to capture it all. And then the gunshot.
He heard it as if he was there again in that very moment. He could taste the bitter adrenaline in his mouth, feel the terrified thuds of his heart as he lay on the ground, not knowing what was happening. And then the scream, ripping from his throat when he realised exactly what had happened.
Carrie’s eyes glistened with the sudden gathering of moisture and she shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry, Damon.’
And he knew she really was. It was unnerving, how her heartfelt sympathy made his insides twist. He was used to the platitude, and the faux sympathy with which it was usually delivered, but from Carrie it was genuine. He could hear it in her words. See it in her eyes. She knew his pain even as he concealed it, even as he fought it. She felt it as though she was holding his heart in her hands and could see how it had been ravaged by that single moment in time.
And yet that was not possible, because he did not give his heart away.
‘Thank you.’
And suddenly the despised grief was upon him again, burning the backs of his eyes and obstructing his throat. Making spasms ripple across his chest like tremors of an earthquake. Threatening to bring him collapsing in on himself. The breath-stealing pain advanced as if the loss had happened only yesterday.
Damon turned away, outraged by the upwelling of unwanted sorrow. It was a wasteful, weak emotion. And pain was futile, a burden to his soul. It was for that reason he had skipped right past pain and settled happily into a state of anger. Anger was good. It instigated purpose and action. Anger was his daily fuel.
He concentrated on pulling the face of Sterling Randolph into his mind, the memory of his arrogance and the smugness of his family, wanting to feel the rage those images evoked, wanting it to rise up and smother the anguish racking his heart. But before he could summon any picture of his enemy he felt the warmth of a body, a hand curling around his bicep. Within seconds her gentle touch was bringing him back, pulling him from the edge of that black despair. Her deep green eyes were the first thing he saw, and it was their brightness he clung to until the lash of pain began to subside, to the point where he no longer needed to hold his breath.
Carrie’s lips parted, as though she was about to offer words of solace, but instead she gave a small shake of her head. There were no words. Damon knew that already. No words capable of adequately sympathising over how the squeeze of that trigger had changed his life—obliterating his present, casting his future into the wind, altering his landscape of family and love and trust for ever. But the fact that she understood that, too, created a connection that anchored him deeper than what he already felt for her. It hitched in his chest, hooked around his heart.
And just her standing beside him was enough. Her hand against his arm. Her sorrowful gaze reaching into his. He didn’t feel the pain. He didn’t need the anger. All he needed was her.
Turning his face, he grazed her wrist with his mouth and saw the shudder that shimmied through her. It drew a smile across his lips, as did the beam of hunger that flared in her eyes.
Her lips called to him again. Everything about her called to him. But there was something extra-special about her mouth that was driving him past the point of desperation. The simple act of looking at her, seeing her clear olive-green gaze blinking with a growing dazedness, was stirring his erection, and he knew he could not hold out much longer against this connection zinging between them. Nor did he wish to.
The sudden sound of music floating into the room had Carrie angling her head with curiosity.
‘It’s coming from the ballroom,’ he told her.
Her eyebrows arched, her smile full of wonder. ‘There’s a ballroom?’
He led her across the gleaming white marbled floor of the hall, opulent with its double staircase coming down in curved arms of intricately designed wrought-iron and its spectacular antique chandelier high above them, and into the ballroom.
The room was as high as it was wide, with intricate gold leaf patterning the walls, another sparkling chandelier hanging from the high ceiling and numerous sets of French doors leading to fairy-lit gardens beyond.
Carrie slipped her hand from his and walked into the middle of the room, spinning on the spot as she absorbed the fairy-tale grandeur. ‘This is magical. I didn’t think anything like this existed outside of films or...you know, royal palaces.’
She was a romantic. He would have assumed so anyway, but now he could see it in the dreaminess of her expression, in her imagining of a love story unfolding in the very setting they were stood in.
With a gesture of his hand Damon gestured to the practising orchestra to start playing again and walked towards Carrie, his arms catching her as she turned to face him. Before she could react, he pulled her in snug against his body, his right arm curling around her waist, and with her smile of delight still floating on her lips he started to move her across the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ She laughed, self-conscious colour staining her cheeks.
‘Dancing with you.’
He hadn’t planned it. It had been a complete spur-of-the-moment decision based on her obvious pleasure and his burning desire to have her in his arms and against his body. And this was something he could give her—a night that very few other men on the planet could offer. He would not stay in her life beyond these few hours and days, but he could ensure she would never forget the time they had together.
‘Is that a problem?’
The laughter in her expression faded, turning it serious. ‘No.’
