My Love Forgive (6 page)

“You’re not shutting down. You’re restarting.” I couldn’t help but correct her. It would be just the thing to push a spirited creature like Risa far away from me.

And if I needed further encouragement, I just needed to look in the mirror to see the only obvious physical legacy my birth mother had left me—her one amber eye.

I’d always taken it as a reminder to never let passion overwhelm lest I or someone else suffer for it permanently. I needed that reminder more than ever before.

“Oh, I know. It was just the wrong choice of words.” Risa didn’t let on that my words had irked her. But I knew they did. Her expressive face couldn’t hide it from me. She waved towards one of the chairs in front of her large desk. “Would you like to sit down while you’re waiting?”

“No. I won’t be here long.”

“Okay. Suit yourself.”

Now I knew she definitely was affected by my impersonal treatment. I’d lost a bit of her smile and felt regret steal across my soul. I could’ve stood there in silence but didn’t. I searched for something to say and found myself bullying her a bit.

“CTRL S.”

“What?”

“CTRL S is the shortcut to save a document. Shortcuts keep you from relying solely on your mouse.”

Risa’s smile died. She blushed furiously. Her lack of control over her emotions made the devil in me want to prod her more. I controlled myself but regretted it.

“I’m aware of shortcuts,” she answered stiffly. “I just like my mouse.”

“Of course.”

“No, really. I know about shortcuts. I use them sometimes.”

Risa didn’t need to justify herself to me. I was being a bastard to her simply because she’d unexpectedly gotten close to the core of me. It wasn’t safe for either of us. Not when I played at being Damian Black and not Damian Black-Price or Damian Konstantinov.

Ruthless. Remorseless. A man completely without mercy when it came to getting what he wanted. And the more I denied it, the more apparent it became that I wanted Risa Kelly.

Badly.

I closed off my emotions. Seeing through her, I knew by her expression that I’d made myself untouchable. Hurt flashed through her eyes. She quickly saved using her keyboard. Satisfaction touched me long enough to watch her frown furiously.

“You should stop that.” I ordered it before I could stop myself. Considering my lack of control over myself, it was probably too much to expect Risa to listen to me yet.

Yet? There is no yet.

“Stop what?” she asked far more politely than I deserved.

“You’re going to develop premature wrinkles with the way you frown.”

“And ruin my pretty face?”

I cocked my head, the better to see her teasing smile. “It will ruin your face.”

When she inhaled sharply, I realized my blunder. I’d insulted her for sure. Mission accomplished even if I’d already regretted my decision to push her away. Especially because my instinct demanded that Risa Kelly was mine.

Anger burned fever-bright. I wasn’t here to dally, but even that was going to be denied me because instinct alerted me that I didn’t want to dally with Risa. I wanted more.

Everything.

She managed to surprise me when she asked, “You just started this week, right?”

“Yes.” Risa was made of sterner stuff than I credited her for. I’d been rude, curt, and far from the amiable self that I usually employed as effortlessly as breathing—at least outside of the office. Or when I wasn’t using a shortened version of my name when investigating my many holdings as a near-anonymous employee.

Even so, Risa was undeterred. Usually, that kind of stubbornness in a woman meant trouble for men with my net worth. I liked that I hadn’t sent her from the room in a fit of tears like so many other women had when I hadn’t paid them proper attention. Or dared to let the cracks from my other self show.

I smiled in praise of Risa although I couldn’t share why. Apparently, it was enough to have her ask, “Would you like to go out to dinner with me tomorrow?”

“No.”

Yes.

Nothing good would come out of showing my true side to Risa. Especially now that I was emboldened by just how much she obviously wanted me. The best thing for us both was for me to sidestep this whole business and focus solely on why I was down here.

A disturbing thought broke through my resolution. What if I couldn’t put on my mask because I
wanted
to show Risa the real Damian?

The new beginning where Risa Kelly was going to learn that Damian Black wasn’t exactly the man she thought he was…

“You shouldn’t be scared.”

I laughed. It sounded as ugly as our present circumstances. Finally, Damian was comforting me. Any other time he’d have stared at me, eyes cold and clinical, until I cried “What?”

I didn’t feel so cheeky now. Instead, I stared at my legs and whispered, “I am scared.”

“I know.” Kneeling by the side of the wide bed, he kissed my bare ankle gently. “You shouldn’t be though.”

It should have comforted me to finally have his tenderness but it didn’t. It only illustrated how upside-down my world had become. Especially because I wished I could climb onto his lap and have him stroke my hair.

“Where are we?”

Damian’s immediate answer didn’t quite penetrate my shock and confusion. “My country house.”

“Your country house.”

“Yes. We’re on over seven thousand acres and the nearest neighbor is a little over fourteen minutes by car.”

The threat was implicit. “There’s no one else here?”

“No. It’s just you and me, Risa.”

I looked around, taking in the sumptuous bedding and accompanying décor with a flat gaze. “I didn’t know IT directors made so much money. Unless you won the lottery?”

“The statistical probability of winning the lottery is about 1 in 175 million. I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning.”

Once I would’ve smiled and dared to call him a nerd. Which might or might not have caused me to end up facedown over Damian’s strong thighs. Or perhaps I’d crawl to him on hands and knees where’d I end up at his feet for the rest of the night.

Now all I could do was fix my attention down on my lap. I felt defeated and I didn’t do defeat well. Given enough motivation, I could usually talk my way out of anything. But one look at Damian’s face and I knew I’d be better off saving my breath.

Still my brain and mouth didn’t get the message. Grudgingly, I asked, “You didn’t win the lottery so how can you have a place this big? I mean, I’m guessing it’s large if the size of this room is any indication of the rest of your house.”

“Is that really the question you want to ask? The square footage of your new home?”

“What? New home? What do you mean, Damian?”

“Is it, Risa?” he countered neatly, completely dismissing the phrase ‘new home.’ “Is it really what you want to know?”

Damian’s soft smile, coupled with the tenderness in his gaze, almost ruined me. “No, it isn’t.”

He patiently waited for me to ask the obvious. If I didn’t want to know so badly I probably would’ve let him rot with expectations.

“How long are you going to keep me chained up like this?” I gestured to my fettered limb with a deliberate tilt of my head.

“For as long as it takes.” Damian reached up and tucked a wayward lock of hair behind my ear. “It’s really going to be up to you.”

I withdrew deeper inside myself, unable to process the gentle and sweet Damian with the man who had rendered me unconscious, spirited me away to this isolated manor, and imprisoned me like a wild animal.

Like something to be broken.

My gaze watered, breaking the threads of my sight. Nothing could ever look the same again. “I see.”

Damian climbed up onto the bed and sat next to me. “I don’t think you really do.”

“No, I guess I don’t.” Tears tracked down my immobile face. I kept still when Damian wiped them off with the pad of his thumb.

“Are you scared of this or of me?”

“Both.”

“I’m sorry for that, Risa. I really am.”

Numb, hurt, and devastated, I wondered if I could’ve done anything to make this different. I found myself talking just to talk. Maybe it was a helpless way to normalize my new circumstances.

Or maybe it was my way to begin negotiations with a madman.

“I think this might be the first time you said sorry.”

Damian considered it. “No. I apologized to you when Gretchen was waiting at my door.”

“Gretchen. I remember her very well. She dressed so beautifully.
She
was so, so beautiful.” I drew my knees up and rested my chin. The weight on my left ankle felt impossibly real. I still half-expected Damian to turn to me and say, “Just joking!”

Except I knew Damian never joked.

Desolation swallowed my whole.

How could you do this to me? Don’t you know how much I love you? How the fuck could you break my heart like this?

I wanted to wail my despair. Instead, I sat there as Damian petted me as if I was the most beloved pet in his collection.

“It didn’t have to turn out this way, Risa, but I’m glad that it did. You’ll understand sooner than later.”

I looked at the closed door with its brand new lock. I had watched him put it on earlier, still not fully comprehending what had happened to me, only to have him smile when I asked its purpose. Instead of an answer, Damian had given me a gentle upturning of lips to indicate pity.

Just remembering it made me furious. Anger boiled and my words grew sharp teeth. “It didn’t have to turn out this way, Damian? Really?”

“No, it didn’t.”

I looked away. “I think you’re lying to me. I think this would’ve happened no matter what I did because you’re obviously a sick bastard.”

Damian guided my face back to his with one finger. “I know this is…disconcerting…but the rules still apply. You are to behave like a lady, Risa.”

“You’ve got to be joking!” I snapped my neck to the side. “A gentleman would never do this to a lady.”

“I never promised to be a
gentle
man.”

“But you want a lady.”

“I want
you
.”

“Do you do this with every girl?”

Damian cupped my cheek again. His arresting eyes brightened with passion. “No. Just you. Only you, Risa. Always you.”

A masochistic thrill shot through me before being chased away by a bolt of confusion marred by self-disgust.

“Why did you do this then, Damian?”

“Because we’re not finished and I won’t let you go until then.”

“I didn’t know you ever cared that much,” I spit out sarcastically.

“Well, you’re wrong. I do care. I care very much, Risa.” A tragic frown made itself known. “So I’m not about to let you destroy what we have.”

He couldn’t have
possibly
said that to me.

I exploded with cornered desperation. Shoving him with all my might, I hissed and spit, “It’s all about control, isn’t it? You can’t stand that I ended it first. You have to be the one to throw the girls out. No one else has that right, is that it? Well you know what, Damian? Fuck you!”

He clapped his large hand over my bitter mouth. “Stop it. That is not why you’re chained to this bed.”

I twisted my face away, not wanting to take even one bit of comfort from his touch. “Then why?”

Damian’s expression smoothed out, signifying that he withdrew deep within himself. He regarded me with something akin to clinical compassion. “I could just brush your question aside but it wouldn’t do much for our long-term benefit.”

His brow rippled again with discomfort.

“I have to tell you the truth. I should’ve told you from the beginning but I assumed you wouldn’t have believed me.”

I kept my frustrated words to myself. Even now, especially now, I hungered for the connection of trust between us. And so I waited, stretched on the rack of Damian’s confidences.

“What is it?”

He looked back at me. Entranced, I watched as his beautiful dual-colored gaze darkened with indecision.

“I love you.”

I hung there, heart expanding with joy until it shriveled beneath my disbelief. “That’s not true.”

“Why? Because I dragged you in here and did this?” Damian leaned closer until we were nose to nose. “That’s exactly why I did it. I love you, Risa.”

How the hell is this love? Did he plan this all along? But if so, why?

Damian had to be lying to me, keeping his real motives secret. What was the point? Was it to keep me quiet, to keep me from going to the police? Fear soured in my gut.

Just who the hell is this man that I’ve fallen in love with?

Apparently he was someone very dangerous to have not only planned this, but gone through with it. Was it really just me or were there other girls locked in other rooms in this house?

Cold terror prickled all along my spine. Our negotiations just took a turn for the worse. I licked my dry lips. “If you let me go now I won’t tell anyone what happened tonight. I promise. No one has to know.”

Damian clenched his jaw and I flinched. His gaze shuttered, locking any and all feelings away from my consumption. “And you’ve just proved why I have to do it this way.” He sighed and pushed off the bed. “I’m not going to kill you, Risa. You don’t have to negotiate with me.”

“Because you won’t listen to me?”

“If that’s how you see it.”

I eyed his towering form. Between the time when Damian had rendered me unconscious and the time I’d woken up in opulent luxury, he’d changed into a black sweater and slacks to match his black heart.

And he’s still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Crazy but beautiful.

Wanton lust slid inside. I still wanted Damian. In other tamer circumstances, I would’ve laid back and arranged my curvy body to its best advantage, using the chain to entice him to manacle the other leg. Self-disgust made me look away from my twisted temptation.

“And you won’t let me go.”

“No. Not yet.”

“When?”

“Until you love me again.”

His even answer deflated my righteous rage. “Damian—”