Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 17343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 87(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 58(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 87(@200wpm)___ 69(@250wpm)___ 58(@300wpm)
I exit the front door of the restaurant to find Mary standing to my right, her back to me, while she runs fretful fingers through her long, gray hair.
“Mary!” I call out, and rush toward her.
She whirls around, her face etched with shadows, her eyes bloodshot, in a way that tells me the brilliant, tough-as-nails CEO is on the verge of tears. And why wouldn’t she be? Damion’s father means to rip all her hard work apart and destroy her baby. I’ve closed the space between us only to have her hold up her hands in a move that reads both protective and defensive. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“I swear to you, Damion intends to do right by you. He has the board. This is a manipulation tactic by his father and nothing more. He only wins if we let him win.”
“I know Erick, and he’s not here to intimidate. He’s here to gloat. And the reality here—which I’d like to think you’re too naïve to see—is that Damion is his father’s son. By luring me into his big plans to save my company, he made me look away. I have no back-up plan.”
I reject her point of view as emotional and incorrect. “None of what you just said is true and, on some level, I know you know that. I swear to you—”
“You already said that, Alana. Stop and open your eyes. Damion has a track record of being as cold as his father. Don’t marry that man.”
“He’s not his father,” I say without hesitation. “Did he head down that path? Yes. Does he regret it? Yes. I grew up with him. I know him at his core.”
“Then why weren’t you together until now?”
“Aside from our age?” I ask, but don’t wait for an answer. “I forced the friendship thing down Damion’s throat. I was so afraid of losing my best friend that I wasn’t willing to risk it by dating. He’s a good man, and I promise you he’s as upset right now as you are. He’ll win. His father will not.”
“Are you so sure about that?”
At the sound of Damion’s father’s voice behind me, I go cold, and my eyes meet Mary’s, hers filled with warning and a promise: I’m out of my league. He’s brutal. I’ll get cut and bleed out if I dare stand against him. All of which I reject as surely as I did her assessment of Damion. I don’t even think about backing down. “I am,” I say, rotating to face him, my chin held high. “And so are you, or you wouldn’t be here tonight.”
He stuns me then by closing the space between us. We’re suddenly toe to toe, his garlic-scented breath fanning my face when he says, “You were always beneath him. That hasn’t changed. You were convenient. A fake fiancée to win over the board. They are not impressed any more than I ever was. You’re over your head and beneath his stature. Go away, little girl, before you get hurt.” With that, he offers me his back and starts walking.
I suck in a breath, and there are pins in my chest, hundreds of pins, pricking my heart, and I am bleeding on the inside in ways only Damion can make me bleed. Only it’s not Damion, I tell myself. This is his father who hates him, who is trying to hurt him through me, and I cannot let him win.
Mary’s hand comes down on my arm and I draw in a calming breath before turning, my eyes meeting hers. “He’s not like that man. Do you understand? He is not like him.”
She studies me with an intense inspection and says softly, “If you still say that after what his father just said to you, I believe you mean those words.”
“But you don’t believe they’re true, do you?”
“Alana.”
Damion’s voice hums through me, a song in the middle of the scream that is my emotions right now, suave that soothes the wounds his father has created. I turn to face him, and in an instant, he’s in front of me, his hand cupping my face, dark eyes searching my eyes. “What did he say to you?”
I swallow hard. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.”
Mary steps into view, beside us both. “He told her she’s dirt on your shoe, and you’ll never marry her. Do right by us both, Damion, or I swear to you I’ll finish this life with you under my shoe.”
Damion’s broad chest rises, stretching the fine silk of his shirt before he replies to what she’s said, but he speaks to me instead. “You are everything to me, Alana, even if you don’t know it yet, but I swear to you, if it’s the last thing I do, you will.” And then he ignores the public place and Mary watching, leaning in, his mouth on my mouth, as he kisses me, a deep, seductive slide of his tongue. He tastes like whiskey and forever, but then hasn’t he always? At least the forever part?