* * *
‘Can I get you a drink, sir?’ the waiter behind the bar at Stavros’s restaurant asked him the next evening, when he returned to the restaurant.
‘I’m not staying,’ he explained. ‘Could you please tell Ms Montgomery that there’s somebody waiting to see her at the bar?’
‘Of course, sir.’
As the waiter hurried away he cast his mind back to that other night. He couldn’t remember talking to anyone as he’d talked to Lizzie that night. She’d trusted him, he remembered with a stab of guilt. He had never expected to find the happiness his parents had enjoyed for forty years, but that night he’d thought he could find some temporary distraction with Lizzie—until the shock of discovering who she was at the trial.
No one had ever stood up to him as she had. He admired her for that.
He glanced towards the kitchen, wondering what was keeping her. His body tightened on the thought that she was only yards away. Pushing back from the bar, he stood up. He couldn’t wait any longer for her to come to him.
‘No.’ Lizzie held up her hand as soon as she caught sight of him. ‘You can’t just walk in. You’ve got to warn me first.’
‘With a fanfare?’ he suggested with a look.
‘You can’t walk into my place of work, looking like a...a Hell’s Angel,’ she exclaimed with frustration as her glance roved slowly over him, ‘and demand that I leave with you right away.’
He lips pressed down and he shrugged. ‘You won’t need your overall.’
She huffed and gazed skywards. ‘Thanks for the charming invitation—but, no.’
Undaunted, he pressed on dryly. ‘It’s a great night for a bike ride.’
‘Then go and enjoy it,’ she suggested.
‘You don’t mean that.’
She raised a brow.
‘If Lizzie wants time off she can have it,’ Stavros announced, appearing like a genie out of a bottle from the pantry. ‘No one works harder than Lizzie-itsa. I keep telling her she should get out more—treat herself to some new clothes, and a hairdo while she’s at it—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Lizzie,’ he said, maintaining eye contact with her.
‘Of course not,’ Stavros placated. ‘It’s just that she puts everyone else first.’
‘As do you, my old friend,’ he said, feeling guilty that he’d shut Stavros out. ‘Shall we go?’ he added to Lizzie, who was still staring at him mutinously.
She had never looked more beautiful. Her shapeless apron and clumpy overshoes tried to strip away her femininity but failed utterly in his eyes. Even with those bright red curls, made frizzy by the heat in the kitchen, peeping out from under the ugly cap, she was beautiful.
The loose ends from eleven years ago had never been in more need of tying up.
‘So you couldn’t stay away?’ she challenged.
The way she stared him directly in the eyes made his senses roar. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed.
‘You’re do know you’re in the way? This is a busy professional kitchen—’
‘Then leave with me and the congestion will clear.’ He angled his chin to smile into her eyes.
‘You’re impossible!’ she complained.
‘I’ll see you outside,’ he told her.
‘In your dreams,’ she flashed.
He had great dreams.
He caught a glimpse of Lizzie’s eyes darkening as he left the kitchen. If she only knew how he wanted to drag her away from that sink and lower her, naked, into a warm, foaming bath, where he would wash her, pleasure her and make love to her until she couldn’t stand up, she might not be reaching for her coat now.
How had he stayed away for eleven years? Yes, he’d been working tirelessly to rebuild the damage done to his father’s business, so his parents could retire in comfort, but he’d taken himself away to the furthest reaches of the world in an attempt to lose himself to everything familiar. And there, in the seemingly endless miles of the desert, he had found himself, and a purpose, which was to help those who had not been as lucky as he had. Why had he needed to get away, and to do this? Was it penance for the shame felt at the way he’d treated Lizzie—the way he’d turned his back on her after the trial?
‘Don’t keep me waiting,’ he warned her. He was eager to pick up the threads he’d left loose for the past eleven years and weave them into a pattern he could understand.
* * *
Damon was waiting for her outside on a bike. Whatever next? It was a monster of a thing—big and black, purring rhythmically beneath him. In the deep dark shadows of the night, sitting astride the throbbing motorbike, Damon Gavros was quite simply the hottest thing on two hard-muscled legs.
He handed her a helmet and helped her put it on. She tried not to react when his fingertips brushed her skin, sending tidal waves of sensation streaking through her.
‘Just a short ride,’ she warned—a warning for herself more than him. ‘Is there an approved way of mounting this thing?’
Damon laughed as he secured his helmet, lowering the black visor so she could no longer see his eyes. ‘You have to climb on behind me and put your arms around my waist.’
There was every reason not to do so.
‘You’ll have to relax,’ he said when she tried to keep her distance. ‘And hold on.’
She might have yelped when the bike surged forward. She wasn’t sure. She was too distracted by Damon...by holding Damon. The power of the bike throbbing between her legs didn’t help.
Damon judged the traffic expertly, and soon they were moving smoothly through the night. Of all places, he took her to a funfair. She supposed it was neutral ground, where there wasn’t much option but to relax. There was certainly plenty of noise and colour, and dazzling flashing lights.
Dismounting from the bike, she removed the helmet, then glanced at Damon’s outstretched hand. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,’ she said, pulling back.
‘This is an excellent idea,’ he insisted.
She remembered, then, that Damon’s easy charm was as much a part of his nature as the steely side that had played its part in condemning her father to a lifetime in jail—a punishment that had almost certainly led to his early death.
Maybe it seemed odd that she was mourning her father’s passing, but however he had treated Lizzie she still thought him weak rather than bad. He certainly hadn’t stood a chance against the Gavros team.
‘Lizzie?’
Damon’s voice brought her plummeting back from an uncomfortable past to an incredible present.
And the future...?
She preferred not to think about that. Not yet. She would. Of course she would. But not while Damon’s shrewd eyes were searching hers. She would choose the time, and she would choose the place, and it wasn’t now.
He bought tickets for the big wheel. As she climbed into the small cabin and the door closed on the two of them, trapping Lizzie inside with her memories and with Damon, it was hardly reassuring to discover that her body instantly responded to his heat and his strength, reminding her with painful attention to detail of how it had felt to be naked in his arms.
‘You’ve turned pale. It’s not too high for you, is it?’
‘I’m certainly out of my comfort zone,’ she admitted, thinking about Thea, and how Damon