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Something splintered inside him as he finally faced up to what a gigantic fool he’d been. He had clung to his anger when he should have been grabbing Carrie with both hands and holding on tight. Because having the person you loved in your life and by your side was the greatest gift imaginable. By refusing to let go of the past, he’d given away his future.Theirfuture.
‘Damon?’
He hadn’t heard the car behind him pull up, and he didn’t recognise its owner through the pouring rain until she hurried to his side and lifted her wide umbrella over him.
‘Why are you standing here in this rain? You’re soaked through,’ cried his Aunt Bree, casting a horrified eye over his drenched clothes before examining his face. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘He’s gone,’ he said, unable to move his eyes from the grave. ‘I lost him and now I’ve lost her too.’
‘Her? Who...? Carrie? Are you talking about Carrie? What happened?’
Through aching, gritty eyes—because he had not rested since Carrie had stormed out of the apartment in Paris—he looked at his aunt and saw that same willingness to listen and support that had always been there. Only he had been too scared to accept it. Too scared to let her close in case he lost her too. But loss was a part of love, and Carrie was right. By closing himself off emotionally, he’d closed himself from so many other good things.
Taking a deep breath, he began to talk, telling her everything until there were no more words left.
‘I was a stupid, foolish man, Aunt Bree.’
She sighed. ‘You may not be able to change anything about your father being gone, but you can change things with Carrie. She’s not lost to you, Damon, not if you don’t want her to be.’
And suddenly he remembered Carrie’s words. She’d said that people who loved someone—truly loved someone—would never stop waiting for them to come back. In that moment his aunt had proved how wise and right Carrie had been, and Damon found himself hoping they remained true of Carrie. Because without a doubt he knew that without her that hole in him would never go away.
She was the only one capable of making him whole and there was no one on the planet—no one—who could love her better or harder than he did.
But before he could go to her as a man deserving of her love and beg for her forgiveness, there was somebody else he had to face first.
Damon got to his feet as the door opened and Sterling Randolph was shown into the lounge. His heart thudded beneath his suit jacket. This was the showdown he had always anticipated, yet it would play out nothing like the way he’d once imagined.
Randolph reached the table and cast his eyes around—dark green, just like Carrie’s—taking in the silence, the emptiness. When his gaze settled back on Damon, he arched a brushy eyebrow.
‘You didn’t want an audience for your moment of triumph?’
‘There’s no need for an audience,’ Damon informed him levelly, retaking his seat. ‘We’re just having a conversation.’
‘Really? How civilised. Ending it all with a conversation.’ Sterling took a sip of the drink the waiter had deposited on the table. ‘So, this is the part where you explain that you have me right where you want me?’
‘No,’ Damon said after a beat, looking him straight in the eye. ‘This is the part where I tell you that I’m done.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m done,’ Damon repeated, feeling the last of that leaden weight lift off his shoulders as he breathed the words into reality. ‘Done with hunting you, competing with you, undermining your business. Done.’
Carrie put down the phone, her body ringing with disbelief. Her father had actually taken the time and effort to call her to reassure her about his health and, whilst that was astonishing in itself, it was the information he’d shared about Damon that had left her reeling. He had withdrawn his bid for the Caldwell building!
He’d refused to say anything more, even when Carrie had pushed him for details, adding only that Damon was a good man and she should speak with him herself.
Which was easier said than done.
Because she hadn’t spoken or communicated with Damon at all since storming out of his Paris penthouse.
Her hand moved to caress her bump, as it did every time her thoughts rewound to that awful day. To those awful, heartbreaking revelations and her own unforgiving reaction.
And didn’t this just prove what she was already struggling with? That she had been too quick to judge Damon? That she had listened to her own hurt and anger and fear instead of listening to him, the man she had fallen in love with? He’d been in despair—she’d seen it with her own eyes—and yet still she’d walked away. At their first real test as a couple she had failed him. She’d accused Damon of destroying them, but Carrie could no longer hide from the truth that she had too.
She knew she had her reasons for reacting as she had—she was still suffering from the way things had been with her father and Nate and her fear of going through anything similar again—but Damon had already proved he wasn’t like them. She should have trusted in that...in him.
And she needed to tell him that. Now. Before another day ended. She needed him to know how sorry she was for walking out on him when he’d so obviously needed her, and that she wanted to be there for him now. Because, whilst she had no idea what was going on, for him to have turned down the Caldwell contract she knew something was happening—something big!
She picked up the phone to call him before deciding against it. A phone call wasn’t enough. She needed to see him, to touch him, to look into his beautiful burnished eyes as she said the words.
