She was sitting on the pier over the pond with a glass of wine in her hand, letting the gentle sounds of lapping water and the music of nature lull her, when she heard him drive up. The sky was a brilliant orange mirrored in the smooth water, and she hoped that he would come find her. It didn’t take him five minutes.

He walked out from the back door, dressed in his usual somber black—so unlike what she’d seen him wearing when he’d left her this morning. Of course, he was equally as devastating either way.

“Hey,” she greeted him as his steps rang across the wooden planks, lifting her half-empty glass. “I found your wine stash. I helped myself. I hope that’s okay.”

He grinned and showed her what he was holding—the rest of the bottle and another glass. “But you forgot this.”

“Oh, well, I was only planning on one glass.”

“Pity. How was your day?”

“Wonderful. I went and had lunch with my friend.”

“That’s good.” He took the other Adirondack chair next to her and poured his glass full. Emma became a little enamored of the way the fading sunlight caught in his dark hair.

The wine had already done its job; she felt the apology filling her mouth even before he could take the first sip of his own, and it came easily. She leaned forward and set her glass down, then folded her hands in her lap, staring at a knothole in the wood beside her feet as she said, “I want to apologize.”

“For what?” he asked, putting the bottle down between them so she could have access to it.

“I feel like I’m fighting you every step of the way, and . . . maybe it’s not right. Maybe what we’re doing isn’t right either, but it is what it is, and from now on I’m going to make the best of it.”

He only watched her pensively, sprawled so seductively casual in his chair that she wanted to crawl on top of him right then. As usual, the silence from him prompted her to fill it with words.

“You’ve been nothing but . . . kind,” she finished lamely. That only made him laugh.

“I’ve been called a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘kind’ has ever been in there.”

“I just mean you’ve done everything you could to make this situation tolerable.”

“Tolerable,” he echoed.

“I mean—Oh my God, nothing is coming out right. You always get me so flustered!”

“It’s okay, Emma. I understand what you’re saying.”

“You do?”

“I think.” He took a healthy swallow of his wine, and she tried not to notice the way his throat muscles worked, tried not to notice every little thing about him. The gold watch he wore on his left wrist glinted in the evening light. The sudden, vivid image of that watch still hugging his wrist while he held her down by the neck and fucked her from behind was so startling she was still staring at it in bewilderment when he looked at her. She snapped her eyes up to meet his.

“So . . . I’ll try to do better,” she finished. “I’m in unchartered territory here. I don’t know how to act.”

“I know.”

“Can you talk to me?” Frustration was welling up now. What was he thinking? For God’s sake, she didn’t know whether to keep blathering on or to shut up, if there was still something he wanted to hear from her, or if he even fucking cared. When he’d first walked out here, he hadn’t seemed too burdened with any cares, but the second she’d started talking, the slightest change had come over him. As usual, she couldn’t read it. The wind sifted through his hair like invisible fingers, giving him an almost boyish look. “Damien?”

He swirled the wine in his glass. “You haven’t said anything I haven’t heard a million times before.”

Who else besides her was crazy enough to push him like that? She chuckled. “I doubt that somehow.”

“Oh no. You haven’t met Michael yet.”

“And none of it has ever gotten through, has it? That’s okay. I’m going to be more accepting.”

“I love the practical way you’re going about this.”

“That’s me. A practical kinda girl.”

“Hardly,” he said. “You talk a good game, though.”

“Excuse me?”

The corners of his sinful lips curled upward. “Emma, you have the most expressive eyes I think I’ve ever seen—except for maybe your brother’s. I don’t have to hear the words coming out of your mouth. Tell me the exact opposite of what you’re thinking, and I’ll still know what’s going on in your head.”

He made her fume. “That’s not something anyone wants to hear.”

“Be that as it may, it’s the truth. You can say yes to me a million times and I’ll still hear the no. And vice versa.” His voice darkened when he added the last.

“If I say no to you, you’d better damn well hear it,” she snapped back.

“There’s really only one thing you can say to me that I’ll hear.”

“What’s that?”

He stood up, grabbing the wine bottle they hadn’t touched since he’d set it down, and drained the rest of his glass. “It’s getting dark. Are you hungry?”

She fought it, she hated it, but tears stung her eyes. “I’m trying to start over. I’m trying, period, and you keep throwing it back in my face. I don’t understand. You asked for this. Yes, I accepted it, but I don’t understand why you’re trying to make me feel like shit.”

“Because I see through you. It’s like looking through glass.”

“Well, I’m sorry!” she roared back at him, shooting to her feet. “I’m sorry that my brother is a stupid asshole and my parents are doormats and I’m the only one fucking dumb enough to try to help any of them out by selling myself to you!”

“Now that,” he said, “I believe.”

Chest heaving, she sucked in a sobbing breath and raised her hand to her eyes, wiping furiously at her streaming tears. Before she could fight him, Damien had put everything down and stepped to her, and that touch . . . that gentle way he took her in hand and stroked the wetness from her cheeks while she tried to get a grip on her galloping heart . . . it rooted her to the spot, shut down her mind to everything else but him and what he was about to say or do.

“Emma.” His voice was firm, and he made her look up at him. “Everything you just said is absolute and utter bullshit, with the exception of your brother being a stupid asshole. But it’s everything you believe to be true. Get rid of it.” His grip firmed ever so slightly, only a minute tightening of his fingers, but it made her bottom lip tremble as she gazed into the dark abyss of his eyes. “Get rid of it.”

“I don’t know how,” she whimpered. “I want to.”

“Give it all to me.”

It made little sense. But standing here looking at him, she could imagine him absorbing her entire life and everything in it. “I don’t know what that means,” she whispered.

“I’m the mean, selfish bastard who has you here. I’m the one taking advantage of the situation. Maybe if I had a kind bone in my body, I would send you back home and consider the deal done. But I’m not going to do that. It isn’t how I operate. So absolve yourself, and blame me. I promise you, I can take it.”

“At this point, I’m not sure I’d go,” she told him softly. “It isn’t how I operate either, I guess. I gave you my word, and here I am.”

“Well, look at us, reaching an accord at last.” His eyes softened and he smiled. “Maybe now we can get somewhere.”

“Um . . . where exactly are we getting?”

“I’m going to take you out to dinner.”

“Okay?” That sounded harmless enough.

But this was Damien Larson she was dealing with. She should have known better.

* * *

“You look beautiful,” he told her when she came downstairs to meet him in the living room. She’d put on the nude Louboutins and a sapphire-blue dress, a color she normally avoided. But something about this shade agreed with her, at least she hoped. She didn’t have her best friend here to advise her.

Damien took her breath away as always, blending in with his black-and-white movie decor like a suave antihero from some old noir film. He made her mouth water.

“I have a confession to make,” she told him, and he lifted his eyebrows in interest. “My friend Liz was my personal hairstylist and makeup artist, but now I don’t have her. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with looking at my pathetic attempts to recreate her masterpieces all night.”

“If you hadn’t said anything, I never would have noticed.”

“I’m going to break my neck in these shoes.”

“I’m going to put those shoes in the air later.” He said it so conversationally that it almost didn’t register at first. When it did, Emma nearly stumbled on the carpet, barely stopping herself from breathing life into her prophecy.

“Careful,” he cautioned, after catching her elbow and steadying her. Talk about ruining a sexy moment.

“What’s wrong with now?” she asked.

“I’d hate to demolish your efforts to recreate your friend’s masterpieces.”

Emma didn’t much give a damn. She’d been a walking live nerve all day.

They took the Bentley tonight, and she wondered if it might be because he wanted to make sure everything was in order after she spent the day driving it. “I took care of your baby,” she assured him, leaving out the part about Liz riffling through his stuff. God, he probably knew everything’s place, too. It wouldn’t escape him if something was a mere inch out of its normal spot. Crap.

“I’m sure you did.”

“Thanks for letting me drive it. What did you do all day?”

“After the gym and basketball, I went to the club for a few hours.”

“How’s my temp doing?” She felt bad for the poor girl who had to adjust to him anew. Emma’s first few weeks at that job had been spent cleaning drool off her chin and trying not to show it.

“So far so good, from what Stacia says. I haven’t even met her yet.”

“Don’t, if you can help it.”

“Why?”

You’ll short-circuit her brain. And she might want my job permanently. She chuckled. “Just trust me.”

They opted for seafood tonight. But as soon as he exited the interstate and began navigating the streets, his hand slipped under the skirt of her dress, his fingertips skimming her inner thigh, leaving electric trails in their wake. He didn’t say a word. Emma’s breathing deepened, everything below her waist tightening. She licked her lips as the edge of his little finger rubbed along the dampening fabric of her panties. She didn’t tell her legs to open for him; they did that all on their own. But they would be there soon . . .

“Do you want to come?” he asked, and what kind of fucking question was that? Of course she did.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Then you’d better hurry. I won’t stop until you do. You wouldn’t want the valet to find my hand under your dress, would you?”

Oh, Jesus Christ. Pushing her hips into him to increase the pressure, she rode his teasing fingers as he kept his eyes on the street ahead. People were walking on the sidewalks, and she could only hope none of them looked too closely into the car, or they would see her head thrown back, her heaving shoulders. Close enough, and they might even see the angle of his arm, his hand disappearing under the edge of her dress. She grabbed his wrist with her left hand and, desperate, reached down to wrench her panties to the side with her right, needing those electric sensations directly on her clit, needing him to hurry.

He made a sound in his throat, twisting his wrist to touch her more firmly, fingers working her slick bud in expert circles. Frantic ecstasy built low in her belly and the heels of her shoes dug into the floor as she pushed against him.

“There it is,” he said darkly. She opened her eyes to see they were in the line. “Hurry, Emma.”

“Someone’s going to see—” Her voice cracked.

“Someone will see if you don’t come in the next thirty seconds.”

Fuck! A sob ripped from her, and he increased his motions, quicker, quicker, and she thrust against him until—“Oh God!” Release ripped through her with teeth and claws, tearing her apart, her hips undulating, everything clenching and pulsing and needing, and if anyone saw, fuck ’em, they should be jealous. She barely got her last cry out before Damien pulled his hand from her and maneuvered the car to the curb so the valets could open their doors.

This man was going to kill her.

She climbed out mechanically, listening to Damien’s smooth voice as he talked casually to the valet as if he hadn’t just shot her to the moon fifteen seconds before. Trying not to wobble on her feet, she took the strong, steady arm he offered and managed to walk shakily alongside him into the restaurant.

Emma’s coconut Gulf shrimp was divine, but after that orgasm, anything would have been. She learned that candlelight did amazing things with the depths of Damien’s eyes, as if they weren’t already hypnotic enough. But the magic of the evening cracked and shattered when he leaned closer to her and said, “Your brother came by the club last night, looking for you.”

Emma sighed, inwardly saying farewell to her pleasant post-orgasmic glow. Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, but she’d blocked Ben’s number in her phone. She had absolutely nothing to say to him, and figured it would be a long, long time before she did. “Really.”

“Yes. Stacia managed to get rid of him.”

“He’s my brother and I know I’m supposed to love him. But he’s such a damn moron. I’m sorry, Damien. I know part of the bet was for him to never come back.”

“Oh, he won’t,” he said with a coldness that made icy fingertips walk down her spine. “He’s banned from the premises. I don’t want him back there. Ever. Are you avoiding him?”

“Yes. I’ve blocked him.”

“He said he’s been trying to call you.”

“I have nothing to say to him.”

“I completely understand that, but I might need for you to talk to him, at least occasionally. If he’s a ticking time bomb then I need to know.”

“Keep your enemies closer?” She sighed, then took a sip of her water. So much for wanting to forget. “All right, I’ll unblock him and see what the hell he needs. As if I’m not doing enough already.”

“Maybe he only wants to check on you. I’m sure his ego is bruised.”

“I wish more than that was bruised. He needs a good ass-kicking.”

“That can always be arranged. And might be, if he tries to come back. Jake is on alert.”

“Damien . . . I’m blowing off steam. I can’t have him physically hurt. God, that would put my poor mother in her grave.” She dropped her head into her hand. “Why can’t he just go away and leave us alone? Or be normal?”

He was silent for a long time. Rarely—practically never—did she get any glimpse into what he might be thinking, but she knew something was roiling inside him. He straightened his napkin and fiddled with the silverware, then said, “Nothing will ever be normal. I know you don’t want to hear that.”

Surprised, she lifted her head. “No, I don’t, even though I know it’s probably the truth.”

“I have some experience myself dealing with an addict. My mother. Nothing ever changed in our lives until she shot up with too much heroine and died in her bedroom while we were at school.”

His expression was shuttered. If he said she was like looking through glass, he was opaque, a blank wall. “I had no idea,” she breathed, desperately searching for some clue as to what he might feel about that.

“Don’t say you’re sorry for my loss or anything banal like that. It was no great loss.”

“Damien . . .” Speechless for a moment, she dropped her gaze and drew a breath before meeting his eyes again. No wonder. No fucking wonder. This explained so much it was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes, but she didn’t feel equipped to deal with something of this magnitude. “I wasn’t going to say that. But I am sorry for whatever you went through. How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

She couldn’t imagine. So she didn’t even try. No wonder he’d damn near bitten her head off that day she’d asked him about his parents. “Your dad?” she ventured, hoping she didn’t get a similar response.

“Not in the picture. None of our dads were. Mike and Zane and I all have different fathers, but don’t ever call us half-brothers. What we lack in blood we make up for in shared experiences.”

That was so amazing it almost brought tears to her eyes, that these three boys had bonded together so closely, that one of them had taken the initiative to raise the other two when they lost their mother. “Mike probably took care of you for a long, long time,” she said.

“Zane and I both. He took beatings meant for us. I watched him get in the faces of men twice his size. That didn’t last long, because he was bigger than most of them by the time he was fourteen. After she died, he worked and fought in the streets and damn near killed himself to keep us together and out of the system.”

“And that’s why you’d rather adopt than have your own kids,” she said.

“If it ever comes to that.”

“Waiting for the right woman?” It was out of her mouth before she knew it, and she couldn’t possibly begin to unpack the meanings behind all the emotions it brought to the surface, so she shut them out, every single one.

“I wouldn’t say I’m waiting.” An odd smile clung to his lips. Then he lifted his glass to his mouth, and it was gone.

“I think you’re one of the most complex people I’ve ever met.”

“Really? I think I’m rather simple.”

“Please. I feel like a rat running through a maze looking for the cheese when I’m dealing with you.”

That made him laugh, and a genuine laugh from him was like angels singing. His perfect, straight white teeth framed by those sinfully shaped lips, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.

Not only was he going to kill her, he was going to own her immortal soul afterward.