Black Widow Bride (12 page)

The emotion she felt now was stronger than almost four years ago. More compelling than the fierce attraction that had drawn her to Damon all those years ago. Then she’d fallen madly in lust with him.

And thought it love until it had turned to pain.

Pain that had shattered her.

It wasn’t the same as what she felt now. Then she’d only recognised Damon’s sensual magnetism, glimpsed the passion beneath the tight control.

She’d accused him of judging her without getting to know her. Well, she hadn’t known him, either. Not beyond the fierce pull he held over her body. She’d pursued him with headstrong recklessness—and paid the price.

The price had been his contempt.

Over the recent weeks she’d gotten to know him. Really know him. Not just the sexy, charismatic Greek male she’d been wildly infatuated with years before. But the real man under the corporate billionaire mask. Had grown to understand his fierce loyalty, the protective love with which he guarded his loved ones. This morning Damon had done everything in his power to rescue T.J.

T.J. was under his roof, so he felt responsible for what had happened. Even though they’d both been there. Not once had he blamed her for leaving the sliders open. Without a word he’d assumed the full mantle of guilt.

And now, watching him playing trains with T.J., their dark heads close together, she recognised the essence of his strength and his capacity to show care and tenderness to a child—a child of a woman for whom he’d had little respect in the past. A woman who was now his lover.

The woman who loved him with an intensity of feeling that scorched her. And this time it was more than lust. This love had the depth of an adult, confident woman. This was the love of a mother who trusted a strong, dominant male not to harm her child, to protect them both to the limits of his strength, with his life if necessary.

Damon was the man for her. So strong, so passionate, so gentle. A man that a woman would be proud to have beside her for all the years of her life. There would be no other man for her.

There never had been.

That night, once T.J. was sleeping, Damon insisted that Rebecca come downstairs for a break after spending the whole day closeted upstairs.

Damon had given Johnny time off to allow Rebecca some privacy and space to recover from the morning’s trauma. Once Johnny vanished to his quarters, they were alone. Savvas and Demetra would only be back tomorrow afternoon, and Damon had decided against calling them. They would find out soon enough about T.J.’s brush with tragedy.

Now, as she sat curled up on the sofa opposite him, Damon saw that her eyes were bruised with tiredness. While he was tempted to sit down beside her and pull her into his arms he resisted the temptation lest she think he was prompted by lust. Sex was the last thing Rebecca needed right now.

“Are you okay?”

She glanced up at him and nodded. There were grooves of tension beside her mouth and her face was full of hollows. The long, tempestuous day had been hard on her.

He ached to kiss the strain away. All his preconceptions were under attack. The woman he’d once considered vain and selfish was a devoted mother. She was kind to his mother. Yet thinking back to the past, he could remember instances where she’d been fiercely protective of Felicity. To the point where she’d confronted him, pleaded with him not to marry Felicity. He’d been enraged when she’d accused him of coercing Felicity into a marriage that she’d regret. He’d dismissed Rebecca’s pleas as machinations, an attempt to get what she wanted: him. But now he was no longer sure that it had been all about him. Perhaps—

“Damon…” Rebecca interrupted his thoughts.

“Yes?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She looked away, a vivid flush staining her pale skin.

“What is it?”

“Will you hold me?” The words came out in a rush and the eyes that met his were shadowed by uncertainty.

“Of course!” He moved to sit beside her. Looping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close. She nestled her head against his chest with a soft sigh. She smelled of talcum powder and something sweet. He had a strong urge to tilt her face up to his and kiss her breathless. He killed the impulse and pressed a tame, gentle kiss against her hair instead.

His thoughts drifted back to the past. Why had Rebecca been so set against his marriage? Why had Felicity left? Had Rebecca known something that he hadn’t? Rebecca had been right about one thing: Felicity had not been happy married to him. She’d tried to hide it with demure smiles. And failed miserably.

It had frustrated him. He’d showered his bride with gifts. She’d accepted them, but he’d sensed a…sadness in her. He’d given her his attention, escorted her to plays, the finest restaurants, everything that a woman who had grown up poor should have revelled in. Everything except his love.

Had her unhappiness been his fault? At the time he hadn’t considered that. Too soon she’d been gone. And he’d been furious, humiliated that his bride of six weeks had deserted him. He’d blamed Rebecca. Hated her for publicly emasculating him.

He’d wanted to go after her. But his mother had told him he needed time to get some perspective. Soula had argued that Felicity’s desertion couldn’t possibly be Rebecca’s doing. He hadn’t had the heart to disagree, but his resentment of Rebecca had grown like a cancer within him—and then Felicity had died.

Felicity’s casket. Strewn with waxen white flowers.

He hadn’t spoken to anyone except his family at the funeral. He hadn’t stayed after the burial in case he’d taken Rebecca apart with his bare hands where she stood motionless beside the raw ochre earth at the cemetery, as immaculate as ever, only her red-rimmed eyes revealing that Felicity had meant anything to her at all.

By the next day he’d calmed down and she’d been gone. Vanished. Before he could mete out the accounting. It would’ve been easy enough to have his security agency locate her, to drag her back. Instead he’d let her go. Because he’d known that his fury was beyond tempering, that his reaction would’ve cost him more than he dared risk—the loss of his self-control.

He shook his head furiously to clear it of the stranglehold of the past. It was dead, dead, dead. Just like Felicity. It was time to move on. And Rebecca was very much alive, her body soft and warm in the curve of his arms. Damon rested his unshaven cheek against her head and rubbed it back and forth.

“Damon?”

“Mmm?” he murmured.

“Will you make love to me?”

“Now?” His body kicked into action despite his disbelief.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Of course I don’t mind.” He wished he could see her face. Already his body was reacting, hardening. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“I’ve had the worst day of my life. I want to…to do something that will help me forget. To put some distance between this morning and tomorrow. Is it terrible to seek oblivion in your body?”

“No…” he croaked, then swallowed and found his voice. “No, it’s not terrible at all.” Pulling her into his lap, he said, “Tell me what I can do to make the pain go away.”

“Just love me.”

Rebecca sounded so despairing that he groaned and dipped his head to kiss her. Tonight he’d help her forget, Damon vowed. He’d wipe the shadows from her eyes and let passion replace her pain.

T.J.’s hold tightened on Rebecca’s hand as they entered the house shortly before noon on Sunday. Rebecca couldn’t help wondering if something of her own nervous excitement at the thought of seeing Damon again had communicated itself to T.J.

Last night’s lovemaking had been slow, gentle and immensely satisfying. She’d fallen asleep wrapped in Damon’s arms. By the time T.J.’s stirring had woken her this morning, Damon had already gone from her bed, the sound of splashing telling her he was swimming his daily laps. It didn’t take Rebecca long to pull on a pair of crisp white shorts and a red tank top. With trainers on her feet and her hair loose about her shoulders, she and T.J. had gone down to breakfast. Damon had come into the dining room, his hair still towel-damp. His light kiss had been full of warm affection that had caused her stomach to flip-flop. After breakfast, her spirits high, she and T.J. had walked down to a nearby park while Damon went to the hospital to fetch Soula.

“It’s okay,” Rebecca reassured T.J. now as they crossed the airy lobby. “We’re not going onto the deck or anywhere near the pool.” T.J.’s steps slowed at the mention of the pool. Hurriedly Rebecca distracted him, “Remember I told you about Damon’s mother?”

T.J. nodded.

“Well, you can come and meet her now. I can hear her voice. She’s home from hospital.” Rebecca hesitated. Kyria Asteriades was too much of a mouthful for a child of Damon’s age. “You can call her Kyria Soula. Or maybe just Kyria.”

T.J. baulked for an instant then followed Rebecca into the lounge. Damon was seated at a right angle to his mother, conversing in rapid Greek. His jagged profile stood out, harsh and barbaric amidst the immaculate, subdued decor of the room.

A pirate in civilised surroundings.

Her lover.

Flushing, Rebecca led T.J. further into the formal room. Damon broke off and rose to his feet. The smile he sent her was exquisitely warm. T.J. crept forward from where he’d huddled behind her legs.

“Come,” Damon said and switched the warm, comforting smile to T.J.

Despite the horror of the previous day, a glow of something approaching happiness surrounded Rebecca. Giving T.J.’s hand a gentle squeeze, she walked forward.

“Soula, no, don’t stand up.” Rebecca let go of T.J.’s hand and waved Damon’s mother back to the couch. She glanced at the teapot and the empty cups beside the plate of shortbread on the coffee table. “Can I pour you another cup of tea? How are you feeling?”

“No more tea for me. I’m much better for being home, pethi. I’m tired of lying, sitting. I need to stretch my legs.” Damon’s mother rose and embraced Rebecca.

Rebecca inhaled the elegant floral perfume Soula wore. Feminine, classy, slightly old-world. After a moment Soula stepped back to peer past Rebecca. “Where is your boy?”

With a sense of inevitability, Rebecca watched Soula’s jaw drop.

“The mou. Those eyes! My God. He’s the spitting image of—” Her shocked gaze met Rebecca’s.

Rebecca stared back. Hoping, praying, that Soula would not let the cat out the bag, that she’d keep what she’d seen to herself.

Soula cast Damon a fleeting glance and flashed a calculating look at Rebecca. Then she swung around to her son, her arms outstretched. “Ye mou, you should have told me.”

Damon looked thoroughly at sea. “Told you what, Mama?”

“That you and Rebecca have a child!”

Rebecca’s own shock was nothing compared to that mirrored on Damon’s face.

“A child? What are you talking about, Mama?”

Soula clasped a hand over her mouth. “You do not know?”

“Know? Know what?” But his gaze was already flickering between T.J., Rebecca and Soula. Rebecca could see him putting it all together in that lightning-swift brain.

“No.” Rebecca stepped forward. “Soula, you have it—”

“I’m so happy!” Soula kissed Damon on the cheek and draped an arm around him. “This is what I have longed for. My grandchild. Rebecca, come.” She motioned with her arm and hugged her close, including her in the circle. “You have made an old woman so happy. I have prayed for years you two would realise the terrible tension between you is not hatred.”

Rebecca didn’t dare look at Damon.

“The child is baptised?” Soula asked.

Rebecca nodded, trying to ignore the tension that vibrated in Damon’s body beside her.

“But not in the Greek Orthodox faith,” Soula stated. “We need to attend to that. You two will need to get married. I cannot have Iphegenia and the rest of my family gossiping.”

Soula’s words shocked Rebecca to the core. Marriage? To Damon? For T.J.’s sake? Never! She jerked herself out of the family circle, her heartbeat loud in her head. “No! Damon and I are not getting married. T.J. is not Damon’s child and we should not be having this discussion in front of him.”

Soula nodded, but her black eyes were sharp with curiosity as she bit back her questions.

“Mummy, can I have a biscuit?” To Rebecca’s relief T.J. seemed oblivious to the mood.

“Yes, of course, sweetie. Let me get you a napkin.” Rebecca hurried to the sideboard, where a stack of paper napkins stood, her hands shaking as she reached out.

Damon got there first. “What does my mother mean?” he muttered, his back to Soula. “Who is T.J. the spitting image of?”

“Well, certainly not you,” she huffed under her breath.

“Not unless he was born by immaculate conception.” Damon’s tone was barbed. Something flashed in his eyes. “So whose child is T.J.? My brother’s?”

Rebecca turned away. Inside the ache grew and grew as the icy coldness expanded.

In a low voice that only she could hear he said, “My mother desperately wants a grandchild.”

Shaking her head, desperate to escape him, Rebecca huddled into herself.

“Stop whispering, you two,” Soula’s voice broke in.

“Rebecca’s right—now’s not the time. Rebecca, dear, I’ve poured you a cup of tea. Come sit next to me. Damon, do you want a cup?”