Slowly, a tear trickles down my cheek. I think of everything that fills his world, from high-level, high-stress business deals to the employees who rely on him for their livelihood, and yet there is never a time when he doesn’t put me first. When he doesn’t make me feel treasured and special.
He gently brushes the tears from my face. “That’s not the reaction I was hoping for,” he says, his smile as soft as his voice.
“You fill my heart, Damien.” The words come in a whisper, but on their heels a laugh bubbles out of me. “Don’t mind the tears,” I say. “I’m just overflowing.”
He takes me in his arms and I hug him tight, my face pressed against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart like a coded message, promising me that nothing can ever, ever come between us.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that—possibly a few minutes, possibly an eternity—but we move only in response to a sharp knock at the door and Katie’s crisp voice saying from the hall, “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but there’s a satellite call from Ms. Brooks,” she says, referring to Damien’s assistant, Sylvia.
Damien sighs as he stands and runs his hands through his hair. “I thought I was clear, Katie. Unless there’s an emergency, I’m not to be disturbed.”
“I know, Mr. Stark. But the call isn’t for you. It’s for Nikki—I mean, for Mrs. Stark. And Ms. Brooks is convinced that it’s urgent.”
Chapter 7
“A lawsuit,” I say numbly for what has to be the billionth time. I turn to Damien, not certain if I’m angry or scared or just plain gobsmacked. “How the hell can this be happening?”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he says, and his voice is so precise that I know he is even angrier than I am. “It’s either a mistake, or someone is fucking with you.”
We’re back in the main cabin where I had gone to take the satellite call, and now I shift even more on the leather love seat so that I am facing him directly. “Fucking with me?” I manage a mirthless laugh. “I’d say that sums it up nicely.”
When Sylvia had first told me that a company named WiseApps Development was threatening litigation, my mind couldn’t process it. I spend months and months developing all my smart phone apps, and the idea that I had blatantly stolen the coding for my most popular app was not only absurd but insulting.
It had to be a joke. My best friend, Jamie, being a goof. Or Ollie stretching his lawyer wings to give me grief on my honeymoon.
Except that is bullshit because neither of my friends would pull such a mean joke. This is real. And it’s serious. And the thought of getting embroiled in litigation—of being accused of doing something so incredibly heinous—is more than I can process. I’m lost in the mist of unreality, and if it weren’t for Damien’s hand in mine, I fear I would never find my way back to reality.
“Nikki.” His voice is gentle but firm. I take a deep breath, certain that my eyes are glassy, my skin pale. “It will be okay.”
I want to believe him, but I can’t wrap my head around it, and so I just stare at him, hating the attorney who has been calling Sylvia, terrified of the foundation of lies that must exist in order for WiseApps to have convinced an attorney to get involved.
“Nikki,” Damien repeats, and this time his voice is sharp. He releases my left hand, then reaches across my body to take my right.
I glance down. I’m wearing nothing but a robe, and it has fallen open, leaving both of my thighs exposed along with the angry scars that mar them, souvenirs from another life, when it was pain and a blade that kept me centered.
Now, I’m surprised to see that I’ve been digging my nails into my thigh, so viciously that I’ve come close to drawing blood. I try to relax my hand so that Damien can pull it away, but I can’t seem to manage it. I’m untethered, and I need the pain to anchor me.
“No,” Damien says, and though I know that he is referring to the way I am hurting myself, I hear the word as if in contradiction to my thoughts. No, I do not need the pain. And he is right, I think. It’s not the pain that is my anchor. Not anymore.
It’s Damien.
I turn to him suddenly. Urgently. “Tell me it will be all right.”
My hand is tight in his, and I see the flash of relief on his face. The recognition that I have returned to him from a dark and lonely place. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” he says. “Of course it will be okay.”
“It makes me feel dirty,” I say. “And no matter what happens, if it gets out, that’s what people will remember. That there was a scandal, and that I was involved.”
“I know.” I appreciate that he doesn’t offer platitudes or tell me that it is ridiculous to feel that way. He gets it, in part because he has been there himself, but also because he understands me. How I think. How I feel.
I straighten my shoulders. The truth is, I’ve survived scandal before, and a pretty damn juicy scandal at that. I can weather this, too. With Damien beside me, I can survive anything.
I draw a calming breath. No matter how horrible this is, at least I am not alone.
“What do you mean that someone might be fucking with me?” I ask after I’ve drawn enough breaths to feel capable of carrying on a reasonably coherent conversation.
“Just that it’s interesting timing, isn’t it? You’ve just gotten married. You want to enjoy your honeymoon. And you have access to more than enough money to easily pay off a nuisance lawsuit.”
“Access,” I say with a mirthless laugh. “If by access you mean that I can cozy up to my mega-bazillionaire husband and ask him to pay the son of a bitch off, then yeah. I guess I have access.”
Damien knows damn well that I have no intention of using his money to take care of my business. But that doesn’t change the fact that his expression is entirely serious when he nods and says, “If you ask, you know I’ll give you whatever you need. But I hope you don’t ask.”
I’m not surprised. Damien isn’t any more inclined than I am to kowtow to blackmail.
I pinch the bridge of my nose as exhaustion starts to settle on me. The travel, the stress. It is all beginning to wear me down. “Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding,” I say.
“I sure as hell hope so. Because if it turns out that someone is fucking with you—” His voice is as sharp as a blade.
“Damien.” My voice rises with warning. I know what he is capable of—the lengths he has gone to in the past to protect me from those who would hurt me. And while I don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to somebody who is trying to use my company and my reputation to scam a settlement from me, I don’t want to see Damien thrust back into the mire.