AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The children’s ball was an important evening to him. It was the one event he attended without fail every year, often working his schedule around the date.
Damon had learned the importance of giving back from his father. When he’d lived, Jacob Meyer had been an actively involved patron of a particular charity that focused its efforts and resources on children in difficult situations. It had seemed only natural that Damon continued his efforts and, truth be told, Damon felt a great affinity for lost and struggling children. Having been robbed of his father, and then abandoned by his mother, he was aware of those struggles and the emotions that could be overpowering.
Anything he could do to ease those difficulties Damon was willing to do—including showing his face at the heavily attended ball to raise the charity’s profile and boost the generosity of the donations given. As much as he sometimes loathed the inane small talk and huge egos, he was more than happy to help. But that night the function had seemed interminable, and from the moment he had arrived all he had been focused on was when he could leave.
Pouring himself a glass of smooth Cabernet, he walked out to the large terrace off the master bedroom of his house high up in the Bird Streets. As the name suggested, it was perched up in the Hollywood Hills, with the lights of Los Angeles glittering in the near distance. It was usually one of the few places he was able to find a rare moment of tranquillity and perspective, with his father’s most famous construction standing proudly amongst all the other towers of downtown LA, its top light like a beacon just for Damon, but there was no peace to be found tonight.
Only noise.
Fatherhood had never been an ambition of his. Nor a consideration. He was too focused on bringing down Sterling Randolph to give any thought to the concerns of normal people, like marriage and children. No man could serve two masters, after all, and Damon had long known that his purpose in life was a pursuit that requiredallof him. And, whilst he had made himself enormously successful along the way, Damon would not consider his life a success until he had settled that score and avenged his father.
Thatwas the purpose behind everything he did.
Thatwas the cause to which he had dedicated his life.
And there was no place for a family amongst that.
Except now he had no choice about that. There was going to be a child. There already was a child, growing in the womb of the daughter of his enemy. A child with Randolph blood.
Damon took a long sip of his wine, his temples feeling tight.
He didn’t have anything to offer—at least not emotionally. His heart had turned to stone after his father’s death and had remained in his chest as a useless rock. And yet his decision to be uninvolved, other than financially, was not resting easily within him. He had not rested easily since the moment he’d made it.
A child deserved more than a big house and a healthy back account. It needed the security of unfailing, unconditional love and two present, interested parents. Every day of his life his father had demonstrated that to him. Jacob Meyer had always shown Damon how much he loved him, how important his happiness was to him.
Did he not owe his own flesh and blood the same devotion? Anything less than that would be unconscionable—especially when he knew the cost of parental rejection. How the child was always the one to pay the ultimate price in an inability to open up and trust and love. In the fear of doing so.
When he had needed her the most, his mother had turned away from him and left him behind. He hadn’t been forced to contend with poverty or homelessness, so he had been luckier than many—and he never allowed himself to forget that—but it had still hurt and confused him. Would he really doom his own child to the same lifetime of confusion and questioning what they had done wrong, why they hadn’t been enough for their parent to stay?
No, he could not pass on that pain. He would not author a legacy of heartache and mistrust.
Had he been thinking clearly earlier that day, he would have known there was no way he could be separate from his child. It was unthinkable. But he had not been thinking clearly. The decision he’d reached had been birthed by panic and fear. And not because Carrie was a Randolph but because when Carrie, in all her loveliness, had stood before him, everything she’d made him feel and think had been threatening.
Threatening to draw down his barriers and throw him off course.
Threatening the life he had built and shaking its very foundations.
And he had reacted defensively.
Blinded by panic, he had thought only of ending the discomfort, of making himself safe again, and he was ashamed of how selfish he had been in those moments, considering only himself and not the wellbeing of his child.
He certainly hadn’t needed Carrie to march back into his office and tell him about the mistake he was making. On some level he had already known it. But her speech had crystallised it for him far sooner than he would have done it on his own.
To burden his son or daughter with the sins of its grandfather was wrong. And to miss out on the opportunity to know his child and be a steady and supportive presence, just as his own father had been, would be an enormous mistake.
But nothing else would change.
Carrie might not be his enemy, but she was still forbidden fruit. The only relationship he would have with her was one that was necessary for their child to be raised with both its parents.
And as for Sterling Randolph...
He still needed to pay for what he had done and Damon would ensure he did—and soon. The moment the ink of his signature was dry on the Caldwell contract was the moment when Sterling Randolph’s world would collapse faster than a house of cards.
CHAPTER FIVE
CARRIEEXTRACTEDTHEtray of muffins from the oven and set it on the cooling rack, smiling at the sounds of delight from her young students. These informal baking lessons with a small group of adolescents from a local children’s home had come about organically, largely because of Carrie’s friendship with the woman who ran the home. She always felt as if she was doing something good in those lessons, paying something forward, and it was for that reason she had ignored the pit in her stomach the size of the Grand Canyon and forced herself up and out of bed that morning, refusing to be pressed into a wallowing misery.
Carrie had too many good things in her life to let Damon’s rejection define her. And she would forge ahead with that life—a life that made her happy because it was what defined her. Her creativity. Her hard work. The community that supported her and which she gave back to.Nother name. And if Damon couldn’t recognise that...well,screw him.
