Release Me (23 page)

“I worked.”

“Earn another billion?”

“Not quite, but the time was profitable. And you?”

“Laundry,” I admit. “And we went dancing Saturday night.”

“We?”

“Ollie,” I say. “And my roommate, Jamie.”

His expression is tense. Is that jealousy? I think maybe it is, and I’m just petty or vain or something enough to be a little bit glad of that.

“Shall I take you dancing this week?”

“I’d like that,” I say.

“Where did you go with Jamie and Ollie?”

“Westerfield’s,” I tell him. “It’s that new place on Sunset close to the St. Regis.”

“Mmm.” He looks thoughtful. I’m guessing that loud clubs aren’t his thing.

“Too wild for you?” I ask. “That harsh beat? Those bright lights?” I know he’s only thirty, but he usually seems so much older. I wonder if he belongs to a ballroom dancing club. Surely they have those in Los Angeles. I consider the idea, thinking of all the movies I’ve watched with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Yeah, I could handle dancing like that in Damien’s arms.

“Did you like Westerfield’s?”

“I did. But, you know, I just left college, and Austin has a lot of clubs. So the loud music and the heavy beat don’t really—” I
stop, suddenly aware of the amused expression on his face. I feel my shoulders slope as I figure it out. “You own the place, don’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Hotels. Clubs. What happened to your little technology empire?”

“Empires are often widespread,” he says. “I believe there’s strength in having a varied portfolio. And my empire is not little at all.”

“I pegged you wrong,” I admit.

“Did you?”

“I was picturing us as Fred and Ginger. When you take me dancing, I mean. But I’m okay with a nasty little bump and grind, too.” I give him my most flirtatious smile and am shocked at myself for doing so. I blame it on the martini. Well, the martini and the man.

He smiles enigmatically, then stands and crosses the terrace. I see him fiddling with something on the wall. A moment later, I hear music. It’s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” one of my favorite Astaire and Rogers numbers. He returns to me with his hand out. “Ms. Fairchild, may I have this dance?”

My throat constricts and my pulse races wildly as he pulls me up and into his arms. I’m not a good dancer, but with Damien leading I feel like I’m floating. We glide over the terrace, his hand on my back as light as a feather. And when the music ends, he pulls me close and bends me backward, smiling down at me with devilish intent.

I’m breathless, my chest rising and falling in his arms. His lips hover over mine, and I find myself unable to think of anything but the way his lips would feel pressed against mine. The touch of his mouth. Of his tongue.

“Is there something on your mind, Ms. Fairchild?”

“No.”

He lifts an eyebrow, and I hear his voice in my head.
No lies
.

“I just—I was just wondering.”

“Wondering what?” He eases me up, and our bodies are pressed close. Hips touching. My breasts against his chest, my hard nipples revealing my arousal. “Tell me,” he whispers, his lips grazing my ear and making me shiver with desire.

“I was wondering if you were going to kiss me.”

He turns his head slowly, then looks me in the eye. I want to lose myself in the heat I see there, and my lips part in anticipation of a kiss.

“No,” he says, and then he takes a single step away from me.

I blink, confused.
No?

His smile is wicked. “No,” he repeats. And that’s when I understand. He’s punishing me for pulling back in his office. “Our week begins when you arrive for your first sitting.”

“Tonight?” I ask.

“At six.”

I nod, disappointed but excited.

His hand slides down the curve of my ass over the thin material of my skirt. “And, Nikki,” he adds, “don’t bother wearing underwear. You really won’t need any.”

I swallow and realize I’m already wet with anticipation.

Oh. Fucking. My
.

I hang the Leica around my neck, but we leave the rest of our stuff with Richard and exit the back door of the hotel, following a path that takes us past the pool, an outdoor dining area, and then the tennis courts. Two couples are playing doubles, laughing and teasing each other as they miss most every stroke.

“Not a lot of hotels have courts,” I say. “Was that your idea?”

“The courts were here when I bought the place,” Damien says. It may be my imagination, but I think he’s begun to walk faster. I, however, am slowing down. There’s a bench just off the courts, and I pause there, my hands on the backrest. I’m looking at the players, but I’m imagining Damien on the court. His legs taut and tanned. His broad shoulders and strong arms. His jaw tight with determination.

After a moment, I feel him come up behind me. “We should go,” he says. “I want to show you the wharf, and I need to be back in the office by three.”

“Oh. Sure. I forgot.” I take his hand and we continue walking, leaving the hotel grounds and then strolling past the charming stucco houses on Mason Street.

“Do you miss it?” I ask, as we turn right off Mason into a small, green park. Ahead of us is the beach and the Pacific Ocean, shining blue-green in the afternoon sun. “Tennis, I mean.”

“No.” His answer is flat, without any hesitation or guile. Even so, I don’t quite believe him, and I say nothing, hoping that he will elaborate. After a few more moments, he does. “At first, I loved it. But after a while, the fun went out of the game. There was too much baggage.”

“The competition?” I ask. “Maybe you could get the fun back if you just played. I’m terrible, but we could hit a ball around sometime.”

“I don’t play anymore,” he says. His tone is hard and firm, and doesn’t mirror my light suggestion at all.

“Okay.” I lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. It’s obvious I’ve touched a nerve, and I’m not quite sure how to get the flirtatious, laughing Damien back. “I’m sorry.”

He looks at me sideways, then exhales, as if in frustration. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” He smiles, and I see the ice starting to melt, revealing nice underneath. “It’s just that I’m done with tennis. Like you’re done with pageants. You don’t compete anymore, do you?”

I laugh. “Hell no. But there’s a difference. I never thought it was fun.”
Dammit
, I should have kept my mouth shut. I don’t want him icing over again.

But he’s not icy at all. He’s looking at me with interest. “Never?”

“Never,” I say. “Well, maybe when I was little I liked the dressing up. I honestly don’t remember. But, no, I don’t think I liked it even then. I can’t remember feeling like anything other than my mother’s personal Barbie doll.”

“And dolls don’t have a life of their own,” he says.

“No, they don’t,” I say, pleased that he understands so well. “Did your parents push you to play?” I’m edging up against a sore point, but I want to get to know this man better.

We’ve reached the end of the park, and he takes my hand as we cross Cabrillo Boulevard. We reach the beach and walk in silence toward the surf. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not going to get an answer when Damien finally speaks.

“At first I liked it. Loved it, actually. I was so damn young, but even then I loved the precision and the timing. And the power. Damn, I could hit that ball. It was a crappy year—my mother was sick—and I took out all my frustration on the court.”

I nodded. I got that. When I was younger, I lost myself in the computer or behind a camera. It was only when that stopped being enough that I started cutting. Somehow, everyone finds a way to cope. I think of Ashley and bite back a frown. They find a way—or they don’t.

“I started staying after school and the gym teacher coached me, but pretty soon he said that I’d blown past him. My dad worked in a factory and I knew that we couldn’t afford a coach, but that was okay. I was a kid, only eight, and I just wanted to play for fun.”

“What changed?”

“The teacher knew my mom was sick and that we couldn’t afford lessons. He mentioned me to a friend, and before I knew it this local pro was working with me, free of charge. I loved it, especially when I started winning tournaments. You might have noticed that I’m slightly competitive.”

“You? I’m flabbergasted.” I take off my flip-flops and dangle them from my fingers so that I can kick my toes in the surf. Damien is already barefoot, having left his shoes with Richard at the hotel. I don’t think many men could walk barefoot on a beach in a tailored suit and look damned sexy doing it, but Damien does. It was like a reflection of his confidence. That whatever he wanted, he would simply take.

Like me.

Pleasure trills up my spine, and I smile. Despite its rather crappy beginning, this is turning out to be an exceptional day.

There are a few people on the beach, but it’s a weekday and not very crowded. Even so, the sand has been picked clean, and I can’t find one decent shell, just bits and pieces, but the ripples that the water leaves as it surges in and out are beautiful in their precision. I drop the shoes so that I can take the lens cap off and focus, wanting a shot that includes the ridged sand and the white froth of the waves.

Damien waits until the shutter clicks, then hooks his arms around my waist. I feel the light pressure of his chin against my head. “Will you tell me the rest?” I ask. “What changed for you?”

“Success,” he says darkly.

I turn in his arms. “I don’t understand.”

“I got good enough to attract a bastard of a professional coach.” His tone is so low and biting it gives me chills. “He made a deal with my father—he’d train me for a percentage of my prize money.”

I nodded; his first professional coach had been in the Wikipedia article I’d read. They’d worked together from the time Damien was nine until he was fourteen. That’s when his coach had committed suicide. Apparently he was cheating on his wife.

I can’t help but think of Ashley, and I don’t want to raise those kinds of ghosts for Damien. Instead, I ask, “Did competing make it shift from fun to work?”

Damien’s face darkens and the change is so quick and so dramatic that I actually look up to see if something overhead cast a real shadow. But it is just him. Just the reflection of his own emotions. “I don’t mind hard work,” he says flatly. “But everything changed when I was nine.” There’s a harshness in his voice that I don’t understand. It occurs to me that he hasn’t answered my question.

“What happened?”

“I told my father I wanted to quit, but I was already earning prize money, and he said no.”

I squeeze his hand. Once again, he’s evaded my question, but I don’t press. How can I when evasion is an art I know well?

“I tried to get out again about a year later. I was playing all over the country by then, internationally, too. I was missing so damn much school that my dad just hired tutors. I focused mostly on science, and I loved it. I read everything I could on every subject, from astronomy to physics to biology. And fiction. Man, I ate up sci-fi novels. I even secretly applied to a private science academy. They not only accepted me, they offered me a full scholarship.”

I lick my lips. I’ve figured out where this is going. How could I not see the way the story was developing? We are so alike, he and I. Our childhoods ripped from us and driven by the whims of a parent. “Your parents said no.”

“My father did,” Damien says. “My mother had died a year earlier. It was—” He draws in a breath, then reaches down to collect my shoes. We start walking down the beach again, heading for the massive pier that makes up Stearns Wharf. “I was ripped up the year she died. Numb. I let it all out on the court. All the anger, the betrayal.” His jaw is tight with the memory. “Hell, it’s probably why I played so damn good.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and my words sound hollow. “I knew you were attracted to the sciences. All anyone has to do is look at the businesses you’re in. But I never realized it was a lifelong fascination.”

“Why would you?”

I tilt my head up to eye him. “You’re not exactly a blank slate, Mr. Stark. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re something of a celebrity. You’ve even got a Wikipedia page. But there’s nothing on it about turning down a scholarship to a science academy.”

His mouth tightens into a thin line. “I’ve worked hard to keep my past off the Internet and away from the press.”

I think about what Evelyn said about Damien learning to
control the press at a young age. Apparently, she was right. I wonder what other bits and pieces of his life Damien Stark has kept close to the vest.

I lift the camera and look through the viewfinder, aiming it first at the sea, and then at Damien, who puts up his hands as if to ward me off. I laugh and snap a few images in quick succession. “Bad girl,” he says, and I laugh more.

“You bought the camera,” I say. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Oh, no,” he says, and he’s laughing now, too. I dance backward as he lunges for me. I’m happy to see him smiling again and the melancholy of visiting the past fading from his eyes. I lift the camera and take another set of shots.

“And she keeps piling on the punishment,” he says, following his words with a
tsk-tsk
noise.

I let the camera hang from its strap as I raise my hands in mock surrender. “I’m a free agent today, remember.”

His grin is positively devilish. “I may not be allowed to act on it,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep a list for future reference.”

“Oh, really?” I snap another picture of him. “If I’m going to be punished anyway, it might as well be worth it.”

His expression is all heat and promise. “I assure you I’ll be very thorough.”

“Of course, I don’t think you’re being very equitable. I mean, fair is fair. You’re going to have a portrait of me. I think I should have some photos of you.”

“Nice try,” he says. “But the punishment stands.”

I ease in close to him and slide my arm around his neck. Only the bulk of the camera is keeping us apart, and I’m suddenly enveloped in the heat of him. I lift myself up on my tiptoes so that I can whisper in his ear. “What would you say if I told you I was looking forward to it?”