Читать книгу The Dare Collection January 2020 - Lauren Hawkeye, A.C. Arthur - Страница 22

HOURS LATER, FRESHLY showered and changed into a pair of soft cotton yoga pants and a T-shirt that Damian had produced from somewhere, I lay on the couch on his terrace, curled up on the cushions, the thick heat of the Hong Kong early evening lying like a warm blanket around me. The usual tropical rain that passed over the city every afternoon had gone, leaving the night clear and full of the scents of flowers, mixed in with hints of spices and trash, plus the faint smell of salt from the harbour.

I couldn’t believe how relaxed I felt, as if a constant, low-level hum that had been buzzing in the background of my life was now gone.

I wasn’t sure quite why that was, whether it had to do with the intense physical workout Damian had given me or whether it was simply having another person around. It seemed as though I hadn’t realised until now how tough the last few months without Mr Chen had been, or how lonely. I’d had a bird I’d bought at the Bird Market once, thinking that it would be good to have something other than my mentor to keep me company. But I’d had to get rid of it in the end. It had sung too loudly and Mr Chen had thought it would draw attention.

I’d never got another, and I’d convinced myself that I didn’t need anything but the job; that knowing it was Mr Chen’s legacy I was carrying on would be enough to sustain me.

But it wasn’t. And it seemed as though only now I was here, lying on Damian’s couch with his touch still echoing through my body, could I admit it at last.

I had a lonely life and perhaps I wasn’t as suited to it as I’d always thought. Mr Chen hadn’t needed anyone else and, after he’d refused my adoption request, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t need anyone else either.

Except, maybe I did. Perhaps not Damian in particular, but just...someone.

Which makes staying here risky.

It did and doing so was probably a mistake. Wanting things never worked out well for me and there was no reason to think that this would turn out any differently. But... Damian had asked me to stay and he’d told me he wanted me. I couldn’t resist that or the way I felt in his arms.

Temptation was a bad thing and it turned out I wasn’t immune. But for the first time in years I was going to allow myself to want something and let myself have it. Because, after all, it was only a couple of days of pleasure. A couple of days when I could feel less like a ghost and more like an actual woman. When I didn’t have to remain unseen and unnoticed, or be someone else. Where I could bask in the sun and not skulk in the shadows.

That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

And what will happen when you have to leave?

Stupid question. Nothing would happen. I’d vanish like I always did and that would be the end of it. This was like...a holiday fling. Nothing more.

Damian’s deep, rich voice rolled over me and, God, the sound of it... It made me want to purr like a cat. I watched him from the couch as he paced around the terrace, talking on his phone. He’d been like that for the past half an hour, taking call after call, always in constant motion, making fluid, emphatic gestures with one hand as he talked. Sometimes his voice was hard and businesslike and sometimes it was warm and cajoling. Sometimes he laughed and, every time he did, I closed my eyes and basked in the sound.

I hadn’t had much laughter in my life, not when Mr Chen hadn’t had a sense of humour and disapproved of levity. Listening to Damian laugh was like a drug. It was deep and sexy and made me shiver every time I heard it.

You could get used to listening to that every day.

I opened my eyes again, watching Damian’s face as he smiled at something someone had said on the phone, and my chest ached. That smile was dazzling, making him even more gorgeous than he was already, intensifying his charisma to megawatt proportions.

Okay, so he had a sexy laugh and his smile made me want something I hadn’t even realised I wanted. But that wasn’t his laugh or his smile. It could be anyone’s. It was nothing to do with him specifically. Not when I only knew him as a public figure rather than a person.

Damian turned around, his tarnished-silver eyes met mine and that smile was suddenly focused in my direction, hot and wicked, and I had to catch my breath as my sex throbbed.

We’d already spent hours in bed. Surely I couldn’t want more, could I?

Oh, yes. I could.

Damian finished up his call then shoved his phone into his jeans and came over to where I lay. He was back in that soft grey T-shirt, which was a pity, as I preferred him naked with all that glorious muscle and bright ink on full display.

‘Sorry. Had to take some work calls.’ He stopped in front of the couch, eyes glittering as he surveyed me. ‘Hungry for something in particular, Sugar?’

‘Yes.’ I didn’t even bother to pretend. ‘You. Naked.’

His smile deepened. ‘Are you trying to get me into bed by any chance?’

‘Of course.’ I gave a lazy, sensual stretch, pleased by how his gaze followed my movement hungrily. ‘Is it working?’

His hand dropped to the front of his jeans, the outline of his hardening cock already obvious. ‘What do you think?’

I looked up from underneath my lashes, pleased with myself and enjoying flirting with him. ‘So what are you waiting for?’

He laughed, which made me shiver with delight. ‘You’ve got no idea how much I love an insatiable woman. But dinner won’t just happen by itself, even for super-powerful billionaires. And you need to eat.’

I pouted a little. ‘You’re always trying to feed me.’

‘Hey, it’s all pure self-interest. I want to make sure you’ve got enough energy for all the things I’ve got planned for you.’

Well, he wasn’t wrong. We’d missed lunch because we’d been too busy screwing each other senseless and I was hungry. Plus, I kind of liked being waited on. Made a nice change from having to do everything myself.

‘Fine.’ I gave him a mock-stern look. ‘But you owe me, okay?’

He grinned and sketched a cross on his chest. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die. Now, you need a drink?’

Five minutes later, I was sitting in his lap, a gin and tonic in my hand while he nursed a beer. And it felt natural to be there, leaning back against his hard chest, as if we’d been lovers for years instead of merely a night and a day.

‘So,’ he said after a moment’s comfortable silence. ‘Are you going to tell me how you got into the “reacquisition” business or do I have to guess?’

Oh. That.

I’d been hoping that if I didn’t answer and distracted him with sex he might forget about his questions. Sadly, that didn’t appear to be the case.

I still felt reluctant to talk about it, to give him any more details of my life, my guardedness by now instinctual. Then again, he’d promised he’d let me go after a couple of days, and that my livelihood wouldn’t be at risk. I probably shouldn’t have believed him, not when I didn’t know him, but I did anyway.

Or maybe it was more that I simply wanted to talk to someone.

He’ll remember you. He can’t meet that many women who do what you do.

Well, maybe I didn’t care that he wouldn’t forget me. Maybe I didn’t want him to.

‘Why do you want to know?’ I took a sip of my G&T, relaxing against his heat. ‘It’s not very interesting.’

‘Says the jewel thief who somehow got past my security, sneaked into my party and unlocked my securely locked office door,’ Damian purred. ‘Yeah, that’s definitely boring shit right there.’

I didn’t consider what I did exciting, but the way he said it made it sound as if it was.

My mouth twitched as a smile threatened. ‘I’m not technically a jewel thief. And most of that “boring shit” is actually quite boring.’

His fingers tangled in my hair, giving it a gentle tug. ‘Boring for you, maybe. But not for me. Come on, don’t leave me in suspense.’

‘You’re really interested?’

‘Is the Pope Catholic?’

I smiled up at him this time, and he grinned along with me. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Give your uncle Damian a smile.’

I laughed. ‘Now you sound like a pervert.’

‘Never pretended to be anything different.’ He gave my hair another gentle tug. ‘Gimme the news, Sugar, come on.’

‘What’s to tell? Mr Chen—that’s my mentor—picked me up off the streets when I was seventeen.’

‘What do you mean, picked you up off the streets?’

‘Well, you know the stories of kids left on the steps of the church for the nuns to find? I was one of those kids. I was left in a cardboard box on the steps of the local Catholic church when I was a baby.’

He frowned. ‘You’re shitting me. People actually do that?’

It was years ago and I didn’t blame my parents. They’d obviously had some crap choices to make and I was just glad they’d given me to people who’d cared what happened to me.

‘Sure,’ I said easily. ‘It happened to me.’

‘Jesus,’ he muttered, his expression darkening further. ‘That’s fucking appalling.’

His response scraped up against something unexpectedly painful. ‘It might be, but maybe my parents were desperate.’

‘Plenty of other options.’ There was a thread of tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before and suddenly I wished I hadn’t given him the truth. ‘You don’t have to leave a kid on the fucking steps of a building, for Christ’s sake.’

The painful thing dug deeper, and I shifted, leaning forward. ‘You don’t want to hear the rest.’

‘Yes.’ The hand in my hair tightened, pulling me back against him. ‘I do.’ His breath was warm on the side of my neck as he pressed a kiss there. ‘I’m not angry at you, Thea. And, sure, your parents might have been desperate, but that’s still no excuse. Like I said, there are other options.’

The heat of his body should have been too much, given the hot night, but it wasn’t. And I found myself leaning back against him, arching my neck for more kisses, the feel of his mouth soothing that painful thing inside me. ‘Maybe,’ I murmured, still not sure why I was defending my birth parents, not when I didn’t know anything about them. ‘But at least they left me somewhere that could take care of me.’

Damian only made a noncommittal noise, giving me another kiss before settling me back against his shoulder. ‘Go on. Let me hear the rest.’

‘Okay.’ I sighed and tried to relax, taking another sip of my drink. ‘Anyway, I ended up being fostered out to different families, and when I was sixteen I got sick of being sent from pillar to post and ran away. No one bothered looking for me and I ended up living on the streets for a year or so.’ Those had been hard times and I didn’t like to think about them too much. ‘Mr Chen caught me trying to steal some money from him and he liked my guts. Thought I had talent. He didn’t have any kids and wanted someone to pass his business on to so he took me in and taught me all he knew.’ I took yet another sip of the cool liquid, my throat feeling dry. ‘He was like a father in many ways.’

Except he never took that final step. He never adopted you.

No, but he’d been clear about his reasons. Yes, I’d been hurt and upset when he’d refused—I’d been just shy of eighteen and desperate to feel connected to someone—but I’d understood. He’d always wanted his own children and I would never be that for him. I was too different. I wanted things that he didn’t and, even though I tried to pretend, I could never quite manage to replicate his brand of cold dignity.

Nothing at all to do with the fact that it felt like you weren’t good enough for him and never would be.

Damian’s fingers had strayed to the back of my neck and began to massage some of the little knots I hadn’t realised had gathered in my muscles.

It felt so good that I nearly groaned, leaning into his hand.

‘You lost him, you said?’ he asked, a gruff edge to his rich voice.

I shut my eyes. ‘He died six months ago. His business is all I have left of him.’

‘So you’re carrying on his legacy?’

That he understood this without me having to say surprised me.

I twisted slightly to look up at him. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘My mother died when I was sixteen.’ His smile had disappeared and, without it blinding me, I saw what I hadn’t before: the lines of grief around his mouth and eyes. ‘Cancer. Basically everything I have now is her legacy.’

The honesty of the admission caught me off-guard, my throat tightening at the bleak look in his eyes. Clearly time hadn’t healed things for him, and I knew that feeling all too well.

Responding instinctively, I reached up and touched his cheekbone. ‘Your company, you mean?’

‘Yeah. She told me to make something of myself, so I did.’ His gaze turned distant. ‘She was a burlesque dancer, loved jewels and feathers and all that sparkly shit. And I promised her once that when I was rich I’d buy her the real thing.’ Abruptly, he looked down at me. ‘So I did.’

All those jewels he collected...they were for his mother?

‘She liked rubies,’ he went on softly. ‘So I bought the Red Queen. Ulysses, Everett and I are going to be launching a new non-profit in a week or so in London, and some of my jewel collection is going to be auctioned off, proceeds to go to the foundation and to a cancer research facility I started up. The Red Queen is the centrepiece.’ Something fierce glittered in his eyes and for once it wasn’t desire. ‘So, yeah, I know a little about wanting to carry on a legacy.’

I pressed my fingertips against his warm cheek, my throat too tight to speak. I hadn’t expected him to be so honest with me. Somehow we’d gone from lightly flirting to deeply emotional, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. Deep emotions weren’t things that Mr Chen had liked to talk about.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said huskily, the words sounding ineffectual even as I said them. ‘I didn’t know that about the necklace.’

‘Why would you?’ He put his hand over mine where it rested on his cheek. ‘I haven’t told anyone else.’ His fingers curled around my hand and he brought it down to his mouth, kissing my palm. Then his smile came out again, brilliant and bright, and the grief disappeared as if it had never been. ‘Not too bad a legacy for Mum, though. Could have been worse.’

I wanted to smile with him, but I didn’t. Because for the first time I realised that his smile was a deflection. A mask. A beautiful, stunning mask, but a mask all the same.

And who was the man behind it? Was this glitzy lifestyle he led really him? And, if so, why? What did he get out of it? Or was there something else behind that too?

‘How?’ I asked. ‘How did you do it?’

‘Hard fucking work.’ That smile flashed again, hiding something. ‘Plus I met a couple of guys online who were in the same dire straits I was in. One of them just happened to be great with computers and had a way with crypto-currency.’

‘Ulysses White,’ I murmured. ‘And Everett Calhoun.’

‘That’s right. Everett’s the security guy. Ulysses is the money man.’

‘So what does that make you?’ The details on his role within Black and White were hazy. I’d kind of assumed, given his looks and his ease with people, that it was the PR side of things.

His mouth took on a sly curve. ‘I’m the glue that holds it together.’

‘But how?’ I persisted. ‘What is it that you do?’

‘I collect jewels and beautiful women. I throw parties and live the lifestyle.’ He said the words casually, a throwaway, practised line. ‘I make sure everyone’s nice to each other.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘And stop smiling. I can see right through it.’

The smile on his face froze, the tarnished silver of his eyes taking on a sharp edge. ‘You’re an observant woman. Okay, then, tell me what you see.’

I studied him for a long moment and he didn’t look away. ‘I see a beautiful man who dazzles people into thinking that’s all he is. But there’s more to you than that, isn’t there? Something you don’t want anyone else to know.’

His gaze was absolutely unreadable. Then his mouth twisted and he gave a mirthless laugh, shaking his head. ‘Jesus, that’s the last time I ask that question, then.’

‘Well, you did ask.’

‘I know.’ His fingers tunnelled into my hair at the back of my head, his fingertips pressing lightly against my skull, as if he couldn’t stop touching me. He was an intensely physical man, as I was beginning to understand.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ I wasn’t sure why I was pushing him, since I hadn’t expected deep and meaningful when I’d said yes to staying with him, nor did I particularly want it. But that curious part of me wouldn’t let go. ‘You’re hiding something.’

He tilted his head slightly. ‘We’re all hiding something.’

It came to me then in a kind of rush that, though we might on the surface be quite different, we were also quite similar. Both of us were guarded, except while I stayed in the shadows, using them to hide me, he hid in plain sight. Using his looks and his charisma to deflect people.

‘I really wanted Mr Chen to adopt me,’ I said before I had a chance to think better of it, almost throwing the words at him, a gesture of trust. ‘But he’d always wanted his own kids. He didn’t want an adopted one. Especially not one like me.’

Damian stared at me, his fingers drifting from my hair down to the back of my neck again, massaging gently. ‘Why not one like you?’

Such a casual sounding question, yet it was loaded. Full of sharp edges like a handful of broken glass.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him about my reckless adoption request, not when Mr Chen’s refusal didn’t exactly reflect well on me. Still, it was too late now.

I swallowed. ‘He thought I needed to be calmer, quieter. That I was too needy. Too emotional. I tried to be calm and quiet, all those things, I really tried, but—’ I stopped.

Damian was silent, his fingers on my skull moving in that gentle, massaging motion. Then at last he said, almost reluctantly, ‘I have an eidetic memory. It makes me very, very good at remembering things.’

I blinked at the change of subject then found myself holding my breath. Because he’d given me something, hadn’t he?

‘I...see,’ was all I managed.

‘No, you don’t.’ He let out a breath. ‘The problem with remembering everything is that you end up forgetting nothing.’

I wasn’t sure why but a chill collected in my gut. ‘You don’t forget anything? Ever?’

There was no smile this time. ‘No. Not a single fucking thing.’