Perfect Fit (4 page)

And they accused
her
of having brass balls.

***

“Admit it. You’re having a good time.”

Rowyn slanted a glance at the man walking beside her. The hot afternoon sun beamed down on the walking trail next to the Charles River, highlighting the lighter shades of brown in his hair. The dark curls were long enough to form a sexy cap around his well-shaped head, but short enough to emphasize his patrician features. In a nutshell, he looked like the gorgeous Roman emperor he most likely descended from.

But the impression didn’t stop with his appearance. His commanding presence, confident tilt of his chin, long-legged stride—they all attested to a man accustomed to leading and inspiring others to follow. The man had established a clothing empire that dominated the northwest and western markets. That kind of success took a special kind of grit and determination, not to mention brilliance.

And to top it all off, he could fuck like he’d invented it.

“C’mon, Rowyn.” He tipped his half-eaten strawberry ice-cream cone in her direction. “’Fess up. You’re enjoying yourself. You took a day off work, and the world’s market didn’t crash, California didn’t plummet into the sea, and the earth’s core didn’t implode.”

She pulled a face. “Fine. It hasn’t sucked.”

Darius laughed, the sound low and earthy. She couldn’t help but smile in return. The day
hadn’t
stunk, she admitted, swiping her tongue over the banana ice cream that topped her sugar cone. It had been wonderful. Though Rowyn had been ready to wipe the floor with him that morning, her anger had soon given way to the secret thrill of being with him.

In that dark, hidden place that could only be accessed after several glasses of wine, she owned up to a shameful delight that he’d taken the choice of spending the day with him out of her hands. He’d made her concede to the desire that her heart hungered for but her head denied.

That thought would undoubtedly get her Women’s Lib card revoked, but Darius overrode all rational decision making.

They’d spent hours visiting such tourist traps as Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Fenway Park—she shuddered—the Bull & Finch Pub, better known as the
Cheers
bar, as well as the many shops and stores along Newbury Street. Even though she’d lived in Boston all her life, it had been years since she’d taken the leisure time to explore and enjoy her hometown. Not only was she seeing the historical landmarks and colorful sights through Darius’s eyes, but through her own as well.

Something else to thank him for.

“Thank you,” Darius said as he studied the quaint shops, vendors, and buildings that edged the banks of the Charles River before bringing his gaze back to her. He lifted his arm and stroked his free hand down the long tail of hair that brushed her shoulder blades. She fought to not close her eyes at the gentle caress and the small tug on her scalp that reverberated in her belly. In that moment, she was thankful she’d chosen the more casual ponytail over the professional chignon. “The most experienced tour guide couldn’t have treated me to the day you have.”

Rowyn shrugged, and pleasure at his praise coursed through her like a slow-moving current. This time she didn’t ignore the fluttering in her stomach; she’d stopped that futile exercise hours ago.

“Blackmail aside,” she drawled, “I’m glad I came. I’d forgotten how beautiful and fun Boston could be.” Memories overwhelmed her, as if the lock that had contained them had been picked and the mental images sprang free. A steel band constricted her chest, and Rowyn fought to drag air in her lungs. “The last time I walked this trail was with my father. We’d spent the day together celebrating my fifteenth birthday.”

“Are you close?” Darius asked, popping the last bite of his cone in his mouth.

“Were,” Rowyn corrected. And the pain that throbbed in her heart vibrated in her voice. “He died eight years ago.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured and reached out toward her. His larger hand engulfed her smaller one and held it tight. “I’m so sorry.” He drew her closer, and she didn’t resist, at that moment needing his comforting nearness. “I didn’t know.”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s okay. And to answer your question, no, we weren’t very close. Before he died, we were trying to rectify that.”

Rowyn paused beside a trash bin, pitched in her half-finished cone, and accepted Darius’s napkin to toss. Inside, the words she’d never verbalized churned in her chest like a furious cyclone, gathering momentum, ready to burst free. But fear corked the flood. She wanted to talk to Darius—confide in him—but it felt as if an invisible hand covered her mouth, trapping the words.

With a light tug, he guided her back to the middle of the path. They resumed walking, her hand still firmly clasped in his.

“You know, I grew up in a family not so different from yours. We were prominent, well-to-do, in the clothing business. My father is third-generation Italian. His grandfather had emigrated from Italy and founded a department store that started with a wheeled cart full of shoes.”

“He sounds like a remarkable, determined man.”

“From the stories, that’s pretty accurate. He died when I was a baby. But my grandfather was just like him. Proud. Hardworking. Not free with praise, but when he gave it, it felt like the sky had just opened up and beamed down a gift.” Darius chuckled. “I loved him, and though he never uttered the words, I know he loved me. Unfortunately my father could not say the same.”

Caught up in his story, Rowyn hadn’t noticed when he paused beside one of the benches that dotted the trail. Darius lowered to the seat and gently pulled her down beside him. The wood warmed the backs of her thighs through the thin material of her dress, and she leaned a shoulder against the back of the bench, her body turned toward him.

She hung on every word, hungry to learn more about this man who had captivated her from the first moment she’d noticed him standing at the end of the nightclub’s bar.

“My father disappointed my grandfather. From his choice of wife, to anglicizing his name to ‘Fury’, to how he ran the family business. So he transferred his attention and time to me…and my father resented me for the approval he believed should’ve been his.”

Darius flipped over the hand he held and, staring down at it, traced the light brown lines crisscrossing her pale palm. The tender touch tingled, transmitting hot pricks of sensation to her breasts and between her thighs. She squirmed under the caress that, compared to others they’d shared, was almost platonic. But she realized that anything Darius did—from hand-holding to an innocent stroke across her palm—amounted to foreplay.

“Since I was old enough to understand, I realized my father has been in competition with me. A spontaneous game of basketball turned into a vicious battle. When I brought home a report card full of
A
’s and
B
’s, he pulled out his report card from his childhood that contained straight
A
’s. After I graduated from college and joined the company, he fought every promotion and bonus because he wanted me to earn my way through hard work and not nepotism, regardless that I remained in the office long after everyone had left or contributed to the rise in revenue for the entire year. His bitterness toward my grandfather never allowed us to have a relationship.”

“Your last name,” Rowyn said softly, shifting her gaze from their hands to his face. “Is that why you go by Fiore instead of Fury?”

Darius nodded. “I changed it back to our original family name in honor of my grandfather. He died when I was eighteen, and I lost the person who gave me the love and acceptance my father didn’t. Or wouldn’t.”

God, she understood that. Never being good enough. Never able to attain approval, no matter the awards, accolades, or success. Never receiving love from the one who was supposed to give it unconditionally.

She clenched her fingers into a fist, battling the urge to reach out and brush the backs of her fingers down his cheek. Or stroke her thumb over one of those damn eyebrows. But years of rejection seemed like a manacle around her wrist, chaining her arm to her side.

Touch him. Comfort him,
a small voice whispered inside her head.
Give him what you’ve yearned for.

With a force of will that set her heart pounding in a frantic beat, Rowyn lifted her arm, extended her hand toward him, and cupped his jaw. Displays of affection were as foreign to her as the Bible was to an atheist. Sex with Darius had been a risk; she had shared and submitted her body to him in a way she’d never done with another man. Yet this small gesture left her more exposed and vulnerable than hours naked in his bed had. It bared her heart—staked it to her chest, an easy target for rejection.

When Darius covered her hand with his, then turned his head to place a kiss in the center of her palm, she sighed. And the band around her chest loosened.

“My mother resents me,” she said softly. “Every time she looks at me, she’s reminded of my father, who she believes chose his family over her.” The confession stumbled past her lips. For the first time, she admitted aloud the truth she’d known for more than half her life. Wanda realized that the Harrisons weren’t the happy-go-lucky unit they represented in pictures, but even she didn’t know the extent of the antipathy.

Darius pressed his lips to her skin once more before lowering her hand to his thighs and cradling both. He waited, silent, his steady gaze centered on her face. In the blue depths of his eyes she didn’t detect judgment or ridicule. Just compassion. Tenderness. And acceptance.

Those attributes gave her the strength to continue.

“My parents were young when they secretly married against his family’s wishes. I’m sure Dad assumed they would accept her—and eventually me. But that never happened. They blamed Mom for leading their son astray, for trapping him, for not being Korean…” Rowyn choked out a humorless chuckle. “That he continued to work for the family business further complicated the situation and deepened the bitterness and anger that ultimately led to Mom leaving him.”

“Your mother told you this?”

Rowyn shook her head. “No. Dad did a couple of years before he died.” From her mother, Rowyn had heard curses, insults, and rants about her selfish, worthless father who hadn’t wanted either of them. Even to this day, eight years after his death, she couldn’t discuss her first husband rationally. “My parents divorced when I was eight, and Mom did her best to keep me from him—changing the visitation dates, scheduling events on his weekends. A couple of times she forced me to call him and tell him I didn’t want to see him. She needed to hurt him, and replacing him in his daughter’s life with another father accomplished that.”

In an abrupt motion, Rowyn lunged to her feet, unable to sit still any longer. It seemed as if a live wire vibrated under her skin. She needed to move, to do…something.

“Would you mind if we kept walking?”

“Not at all,” Darius murmured. But instead of stepping out onto the path, he shifted in front of Rowyn, cupped her face between his palms, and lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. Slowly—so damn slowly—he brushed his lips over her mouth. Once. Twice. Then he dived deep, his tongue parting her lips and tasting what lay beyond.

He lit a match to the stick of her emotional dynamite, and her control detonated into pieces around her feet. All the emotional tension of the past minutes cracked under his caressing mouth, and she arched into him, perching on her toes. She met him stroke for stroke. Sucked his tongue back into her mouth when he would’ve withdrawn. The hungry growl that rumbled in her throat should have embarrassed her.
Should
have. But it didn’t. She needed him. Ached for him.

Craved the port he represented in the middle of her mental storm.

Darius lifted his head, ignoring her sound of protest. And when she would have followed him, demanded he return to her, he pressed a thumb over her lips, denying her what she wanted most. The small, soft kiss he pressed to the corner of her mouth softened the blow of refusal.

“Finish it,” he whispered, and the quiet command was like a lance to a wound. The pain, anger, and grief swelled and rush out in a torrential outpour.

“I hurt him so badly. I hurt him,” she blurted, speaking so fast, the words tumbled over one another. She lifted her hands between them and placed them on his chest. She pushed, needing air, space…but he dropped his arms from her face and wrapped them around her to hold her tight. “I just wanted her to love me, to be nice to me. I couldn’t make Daniel like me. All I had was her, and she blamed me because Daniel wouldn’t give me his last name or pay me the attention he poured on Cindy. The only way I could make her happy was to reject Dad. She seemed to care then, to show me kindness. And I hurt one of the few people who loved me unconditionally.” She wept, fisting the front of his shirt. “I never told him how sorry I was. He died not knowing I didn’t mean those things I’d said. He never knew…”

Harsh sobs racked her body, and she couldn’t halt the tremors that attacked her. One moment she stood in Darius’s arms, and the next her feet had left the ground and she was cradled to a hard chest. Soothing murmurs she couldn’t decipher barely penetrated the emotional tempest that swept her away.

How much time passed, Rowyn couldn’t say. But when the jagged weeping quieted into shallow, rough breaths that scratched her burning throat, she was once again on the bench they’d vacated. A solid shoulder supported her head, and strong arms cuddled her close.

She remained in Darius’s embrace, content. It felt as if a huge boulder that she’d carried for years had been suddenly hoisted from her chest. She felt…free.

And probably looked like a hot mess with swollen eyes, puffy face, and slinging snot. As if hearing her internal list, Darius handed her a white handkerchief. Rowyn murmured a thank-you, then tried to clean up all vestiges of her breakdown.

He didn’t speak, allowing her to gather her composure and thoughts, and she was grateful. God, she hadn’t realized all that guilt, grief, and anger had been caged in her like prisoners of war. Memories of her father and their short time together rose, and for the first time, she didn’t suppress them. Their first stilted lunch at one of the riverside cafés. She›d been so nervous, and so had he. But after an hour the walls had lowered, and they had tentatively reached out to each other, planning another lunch date.

The images passed in a blurred succession. Lunch, dinner, shopping. Her twenty-second birthday. She touched her fingertips to the base of her throat. He›d given her the beautiful necklace with his native Korean engraved on the back.
To my princess.
Because she would never stop being his princess, he’d told her. He’d died three months later of a freak brain aneurysm.

Another sob, less intense than its predecessors, surged in her chest. Damn, she missed that necklace. Her last link to her father, gone. Unless… Shit, she was an idiot! Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

She jerked her head up and met Darius’s concerned, soft gaze. “Did you find a necklace at your place after I, uh, left?”

He arched his eyebrow, and for once she didn’t experience the urge to rip it off. Now it seemed kind of adorable. “What?” he asked.