Chapter Eight
Damian
The night and morning went much better than he had expected. Damian smiled as he cut up fruit and arranged it on a plate with muffins. Two cups of coffee along with dishes of milk and sugar went onto the tray next.
He had discovered a great many things about Lydia while formulating his plan to win her, but he didn’t know the simple things yet. How she took her coffee. How she kept that toned body in such great shape, what side of the bed she preferred, what TV shows she couldn’t miss. He looked forward to discovering those things with her over the course of their lives.
For the first time, he wasn’t thinking just about the next fuck, the next visit to Zion. Instead, forever was on his mind. How they would join their two lives. Would they have children? It really wasn’t something he thought about until Trent and Francie announced the impending arrival of their first baby. Seeing his friend beaming with pride had made something stir inside Damian though. He wanted that with Lydia.
But only when she was ready. She had a career and goals she wanted to achieve, and he wouldn’t get in the way of those. His own career goals had been surpassed years ago, in his late twenties. There was nothing else he wanted to accomplish in life except helping his woman to reach her own goals. Hell, maybe he would even be a stay-at-home dad if the time ever came. The guys would get a kick out of that.
Making his way back down the hall, he tried to school his enthusiasm. Lydia wasn’t quite there yet, he knew that. They had made a lot of progress in the past twenty-four hours, but he had no illusions that she was ready to talk about forever. No, they would eat breakfast in bed, maybe another round of sex, before he showed her the office he had set up for her.
The setup would be perfect for them. What once had been two medium bedrooms he had turned into one large room. A beautiful sliding wall he had imported from Japan split the office and gave her privacy when she felt the need to be alone with her work. But when collaborating on the new app expansion, they could slide the whole wall open to join their two workspaces. He hoped they would leave it open most the time.
He crossed into the bedroom, and the bottom fell out from his pleasant thoughts. Lydia stomped from her closest, a silk negligee barely covering her delicate body. “What were you doing with my phone?”
“What are you talking about?”
“My cell phone.” She held up the device in her hand. “It wasn’t on the bedside table, where I know I left it last night. It was plugged into your computer. Did you hack into that too? Is this all some game to find out my company secrets? Exposing my sexual activities isn’t enough for you? You need to take my company too?” She stormed back into the closet, pulling off a sweater and jeans from the rows of clothes he had bought just for her. He’d spent hours poring over designer websites, picking pieces he thought would suit her body and be both beautiful and comfortable. “I should have figured it out earlier. How I ever thought you would actually want to work together on improving my company I don’t know. No, you want to steal it out from under me.”
“Lydia, what the hell happened in the past twenty minutes it took me to put together breakfast that you think I would do any of this?” How had this happened? Everything had been so wonderful only minutes ago. He knew he would still have to pace himself, but he thought they were on the way to being of the same mind. “I had your phone plugged into my computer because I designed an app that charges phones ten times faster than the manufacturers’ chargers, and it was almost dead. And I do want to help your company succeed. I explained my plan for the app yesterday.”
“Yeah, right before you bribed me into being your sex slave for the next two weeks in exchange for not telling the press about my membership to Zion. That doesn’t put your business intentions in the best of light, now does it?” Lydia stepped into the jeans and pulled them up over her ass. Even with the confusion and panic flooding Damian’s system, he still had to hold back a groan as he got a glimpse of her delectable ass in a thong he had picked out just for her.
“I never had any intention of telling anyone about what you do or don’t do in Zion. I never said I would tell if you didn’t come home with me. I just let you believe it to get my foot in the door. And sex slave, really? Did I force you to make yourself come on top of me last night? No, that was you using my hands. Did I force you to come harder than you ever have before this morning? No. I would have stopped the second you made any indication you weren’t one hundred percent down for what I was doing.” Damian’s chest huffed with the effort of forcing the words out through his racing heart. This couldn’t be happening. Six months of planning to get the woman he knew was meant to be in his life for the rest of his life couldn’t be falling apart over a stupid phone. “What do you think I am, some kind of monster?”
Lydia’s hair floated around her face as she shoved her head through the neck of the sweater. Her face flamed red with anger, and her jaw was set in a stubborn line. “No. I don’t think you’re a monster. I think you’re a shark.”
Grabbing her purse from the drawer beside him, she avoided even brushing his arm as she practically ran from the closet and toward the door.
Shark? What the hell did that mean?
Realization came crashing down around him in a landslide of dread. Fucking Brant and his fucking email. He’d read it just before going to the kitchen that morning. His computer must not have fully gone to sleep when he went to make breakfast. And if she grabbed her phone from the desk, it was more than likely she saw the email. Brant was always an asshole who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and he definitely didn’t understand the need to have one woman. Hell, neither had Damian before he met Lydia.
Racing down the hall after Lydia, he made it to the elevators just as the doors slid shut, closing her off from him. “Fuck!”
As fast as he could, Damian ran back to his closet, pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt before stepping out onto the fire escape and making his way down the side of the building fast enough that he began to worry that the old metal contraption might not hold up. He’d picked an older building on purpose, liked the idea of improving the history of the neighborhood. But he had concentrated on renovating the apartments inside and hadn’t gotten around to replacing the old relic. It passed inspection, so he hadn’t thought about it too much. That would be changing. Soon.
The last section of ladder clattered against the concrete as he hurried down in his bare feet. Scrapes and sores were already making themselves apparent after abusing them against the rusted escape, but he didn’t have time to think about that, or remember when the last time he had a tetanus shot was, because just down the street, Lydia was pushing her way out of the apartment building, joining the throng of weekend tourists and neighborhood dwellers. Fuck, was Damian ever second-guessing his decision to buy a building in Battery Park.
Just as he was about to give up, the crowd on the street seemed to part, and there was his girl, the tail of her negligee hanging out from between the waist of her jeans and the hem of her sweater, her hair a mess from both her quick change and the morning of orgasms.
The sidewalk light changed and she began moving once again, but he had gained enough ground to come even with her, pulling her arm to spin her around into his chest. “That email was not what you think, sweetheart. Come back to the apartment and let me explain.”
“Fuck you, Damian. I’m not listening to shit.” Lydia turned, attempting to rip her arm from Damian’s grasp, but he was having none of it. Determined to make the stubborn woman see reason, he held her tight against his frame. “What do you want me to listen to, Damian?” His name spat from her lips like something toxic. “More manipulations? More lies? Every word you’ve said to me has been carefully maneuvered to get me into your bed. You must think I’m some kind of idiot that I fell for it all.”
“I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met in my entire life. I am not letting you go.”
“You underestimate me.”
Shaking his head in confusion, he realized too late what she meant. With a growl, Lydia stomped her heel into his foot, making him wince and bend at the waist in agony. His grip on her loosened, and she took the opportunity to swing her arm up and away from his hands, then back down, punching him right in the gut.
All air rushed from his lungs, leaving him dizzy and disoriented. She’d been right, he underestimated her. Not in the boardroom, not in the bedroom, and not in any intellectual manner. But he’d never even considered that the feisty little blonde would pack quite the wallop.
As he struggled to catch his breath, Lydia leaned into his ear, whispering just for him. “Be glad I didn’t kick you in the nuts. I wouldn’t want to disappoint all those women in and out of your bed.” The words were barely out of her mouth before she turned and stomped off down the street.
Fucking Brant was going to pay for that email.
