HOLIDAY ROYALE (14 page)

“You’re free for the weekend, then, and in the evenings?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Yay!” She kissed him again, a brush of her lips along his jaw. “Four or five days, you and me. Together.” But then she grew tentative. “I mean, if that’s good for you. If it’s, you know, what you had in mind?”

He clasped her bare shoulder. “It’s exactly what I had in mind.”

“Oh!” Her smile lit up her face again. “Wonderful.”

“What about you? Will you be busy?”

“Well, I did volunteer to make costumes for a children’s Christmas show and wrap presents for kids in need. But I can put most of that off until after you leave, so while you’re here, I can spend every spare minute with you.”

“Excellent.” He pulled her closer and never wanted to let go—which of course was ridiculous. He
always
let go in the end. The heat and hunger never lasted, and when it went, his interest went with it. Some men weren’t made for forever and he accepted that he was one of those. “We have a plan, then.”

“Oh, yeah, we do. A Christmas love affair, the two of us. To go with our Thanksgiving love affair. I could really get used to having love affairs with you.”

He stroked her hair and heard himself asking in a casual tone that belied the extent of his interest, “What about that Brandon fellow? Still hoping to make something happen with him?”

“Brandon.” She groaned. “Oh, I don’t think so. He’s not all that after all— Plus, he’s in L.A. and likely to stay there. And he’s met someone special, he said.”

Good. The guy with the butterscotch eyes was out of the picture. Dami smiled against her hair and baldly lied, “Too bad.”

“It’s okay. Believe me. It’s not meant to be with Brandon and I’m totally good with that.”

He tipped up her chin, rubbed his mouth across hers, savored her tiny sigh. “About our Christmas love affair?”

She grinned against his lips. “Now you’re talkin’.”

“Five days is too short.” He spoke the bald truth without stopping to think if the bald truth was wise.

She made a happy little sound and tucked her head down on his chest again. “Maybe you’ll stay longer, like until New Year’s. After all, a Christmas love affair would logically last until New Year’s Day, wouldn’t it?”

The idea of staying longer held far too much appeal. “Love affairs and logic. I’m not so sure the two go together.”

Her lips brushed the side of his throat and her breath flowed across his skin. “I suppose they don’t. And I’m sure you have important things you need to be doing in Montedoro, so I’m going to be happy with what I can get. The rest of today and four more days. Maybe five. Too short, but so very sweet.”

* * *

A little while later they made love again.

And then she cuddled in close to him and chattered away about all she’d been doing since she left him in Montedoro. She talked about her new friend, Tabby, whose family owned the diner across the street. And about the widow in the three-bedroom across the landing. She said that Viviana Nichols made the best cookies in the world.

“I love Viv,” she told him. “Her door’s always open and she’s easy to talk to. It’s already beginning to feel like I have a family here, you know? People I really like, good people I want to spend time with.”

He wasn’t surprised that she made friends so easily. She looked for the good in others and almost always seemed to find it.

Eventually, they shared a quick shower. He would have lingered to make love with her again, but he wanted to take her up to his place. So they put on their clothes and went up to the sixth floor.

“Wow,” Lucy said when he ushered her in the door. “I’d forgotten how big it is.” He’d brought her up to the apartment briefly when he’d first moved her to New York in October. “All these great windows. An open living space. A real, true New York loft apartment.”

“I’m so pleased you approve.”

She made a face. “It’s just too white, though.”

He said what the designer had told him. “Adds to the open effect.”

She shook her head, her green sweater drooping off one shoulder, making him want to reach out and slide it down even more—or better yet, to take it off her again. “It needs color. But I do like the art.” Large canvases, mostly modern abstracts in the vivid hues she so admired, covered the half walls that marked off the spaces: living, dining, kitchen, all large areas, each one flowing into the next. There were two bedroom suites on that floor—the master suite and a slightly smaller suite. Above, there was another bath, an office and a studio, along with two smaller bedrooms, one for his man, Edgar, when Edgar accompanied him, and one for his bodyguard.

Damien was about to take her up the wide steel staircase and show her the other floor when someone tapped on the door. He checked the peephole. “It’s Quentin and the food.” He let in the bodyguard and the man with the grocery cart full of meat, staples and produce from a nearby gourmet-food store.

Lucy smiled at the bodyguard, who gave her a respectful nod and then stood to the side so the deliveryman could carry the bags in from the cart and line them up on the kitchen peninsula. Once that was done, Dami signed the bill.

Quentin said, “I’ll show you out.” He ushered the deliveryman through the door and Dami shut it behind him.

Lucy began pulling things out of the bags. “Yum. Looks good. Is the chef coming soon?”

He came up behind her, drawn as though magnetized to her flesh, to her bright, joyous spirit. Just being near her made him feel electric with energy and heat. He clasped her hips and drew her back against him, lowering his mouth to the sweet-scented curve where her neck met her shoulder. “I
am
the chef.”

She turned in his arms and put her hands on his chest. “You can cook, too? I knew it.”

“Edgar cooks when I want him to, and brilliantly. But I left him in Montedoro this trip, so I’m on my own.”

She stepped out of his hold, scooped up a carton of milk and carried it to the refrigerator. “Come on, Your Highness. Let’s put the perishables away.”

He watched her move, so light and quick. Desire, stirred by simply touching her, flared higher. He thought what he
shouldn’t
be thinking: ways to keep her with him, to keep her close. Ways to have her for as long as he wanted her. Because he’d always been a junkie for sensation and she gave that to him—sensation. Pleasure. Excitement. The burning, false promise of continued delight. In recent years, there hadn’t been all that much that gave him the thrill he craved.

But Lucy did. Lucy, of all people. She gave it to him. She made him burn again, made him
care.
Made the world brim with color and happy laughter, with hunger and fire.

He kept reminding himself that she was his friend and he owed it to her to help her get whatever she needed—and what she needed wasn’t him. She had shining dreams and ambitious goals. He would only make her forget her dreams, distract her from her goals and leave her wiser in a bad way, hurt and disappointed.

“Dami. The groceries?” She sent him a glowing smile over her shoulder—and he was captured. Enchanted. Completely ensnared.

It was wonderful to feel this way.

His negative thoughts blew away. He decided to stop giving himself a hard time for taking her innocence, for not letting her go when she left him in Montedoro.

She wanted to be with him and he wanted to be right here with her. For now. He was making way too much of this, acting like Alex, his grim, thoughtful twin. He needed to stop that. Introspection, after all, had never been his strong suit.

There was no reason not to take this fine thing between them and go with it. At the moment, it was working for both of them. And who said it had to end badly? Of course he wouldn’t hurt her. He would never hurt her.

He reached into the nearest bag and pulled out a crusty loaf of bread and a tub of unsalted butter. As he put them away, he reminded himself that she understood the situation. She had no illusions about him. He’d made it clear that this was no more than a mutually satisfying holiday interlude, that this visit would be a short one.

He only wanted to be with her a little longer. Only four days. Maybe five....

* * *

Lucy went down to her apartment later to feed Boris. And then she went back up to Dami’s and spent the night in his bed. They made love for hours and it was beautiful. Making love with Dami was about as good as it got. She was so glad she’d chosen him to teach her about sex.

In the morning, she stopped in to check on Boris again and then took Dami over to the diner for breakfast. She introduced him to Tabby, who fanned herself and pretended she might faint when his back was turned. Quentin, the bodyguard, who was lean and sandy haired and mostly expressionless, came with them. He stood near the door, in front of the almost-life-size Virgin Mary and Jesus in the manger, where he could see the entire restaurant and keep Dami in view.

When they left, Lucy hugged Tabby and whispered, “Have a great time with that special guy tonight.”

Tabby whispered back, “I will. You, too....”

It was cold outside but clear, with piles of snow left against the curbs from yesterday. Dami suggested they do the usual Christmas-in-New-York things.

And they did. They went window-shopping on Fifth Avenue and ice-skated at the Rockefeller Center rink. Then his driver took them to Central Park, where they rode on the carousel and strolled the snow-covered paths. It was lovely. And nobody bothered them the whole day. Apparently, the paparazzi didn’t know yet that he was in New York. They even stood on the most romantic bridge ever, the cast-iron Bow Bridge over the lake, as the snow started falling again.

Dami kissed her right there on the bridge. His lips were cold at first. But they quickly grew warm. When he lifted his head, the snow caught on his thick black eyelashes.

“Merry Christmas, Dami.”

He gave her a slow smile. “Merry Christmas, Luce.”

She thought that right then she was as perfectly happy as she’d ever been. She knew it couldn’t last and she didn’t expect it to. Life wasn’t that way. Now and then there was great sweetness and if you were smart, you cherished the sweetness. You held it close and tasted it fully.

But nothing could stay sweet forever. The struggles came. They made you stronger. Even if they never were a whole lot of fun. You cherished the happy times, held them close to your heart to warm you and keep you focused on finding the joy again when things got tough.

That night he took her to a private party at a West Village hotel. They danced and they sat together on a white sofa and drank expensive champagne. He introduced her to the host and to a few other people he did business with in New York. It was all very glamorous and upscale and trendy. A great party, really.

But she had only a few days with Dami. She would have preferred to have been somewhere they could talk without shouting at each other. And then she spotted the photographer taking pictures of them.

Dami saw him, too. He leaned close. “Let’s go.”

“Great idea.”

Quentin appeared with her coat and bag. They were working their way through the crush toward the elevators when she heard a woman’s voice behind them. “Damien!”

The woman, tall and gorgeous with platinum hair, emerged from the crowd. She threw her arms around Dami and planted a big one right on his lips.

Dami laughed, a slightly weary sound. “Hello, Susie.”

Susie wrapped an arm around his neck. “How long are you in town?”

“A few days. And we were just—”

She shook a French-nailed finger at him. “You know it’s been much too long. Let’s go somewhere private and talk—or not talk. I can think of any number of interesting ways to pass the time.”

“As I was saying, we were just leaving.” Dami was no longer smiling. “Let me go.”

Susie gripped him tighter. She went further, reaching out her other arm and hooking it around Lucy so she had hold of both of them. “Who’s this?”

He repeated flatly, “Let go.”

Susie batted her eyelashes Lucy’s way. She smelled of expensive perfume and too many drinks. “Aren’t you a sweet little thing?”

Lucy gazed back at her patiently. She’d met a few women like Susie. Noah used to date women like her in the years before he found Alice. Beautiful, sexy women who liked to party. A lot.

“Oh, you are just too cute!” Susie hauled Lucy closer and cooed in her ear, “We could have a lot of fun, all three of us.”

At which point Dami had had enough.

He reached around Susie and snared Lucy’s hand as Quentin moved in behind the blonde, took her shoulders and lifted her neatly out of the way. Dami herded Lucy toward the elevators and Quentin took up the rear, leaving Susie behind.

* * *

Dami didn’t say a word during the ride back to the apartment building. Lucy kept quiet, too. He seemed pretty upset about the encounter with Susie and she wanted to give him a little time to cool down before trying to talk to him about it.

The driver let them off in front of the building. Dami took her arm then. Her heart lifted a little just to feel his touch. Quentin led the way up the steps and opened the door.

On the elevator, Dami pushed the button for the third floor. Apparently, they were staying at her place tonight. That surprised her a little. His was larger and not chockablock with sewing equipment. But then again, it didn’t matter to her where they stayed.

As long as they stayed together.

The elevator stopped. The doors slid wide.

“Hold it,” Dami said curtly to Quentin. His brusque tone surprised her. He was never curt, especially not with servants and the people who watched over him. Lucy sent him a questioning glance, but he stared straight ahead as he led her out of the elevator and over to her door.

He turned her to face him then, there in front of her door. His eyes were distant, not really connecting with hers. He brushed a cool hand along the side of her cheek.

Behind him the elevator doors stood open. Quentin waited within, shoulders back, legs wide, expression carefully blank.

“Dami, what—?”

He didn’t let her finish. “Good night, Luce.”