Damon had the power to steal everything away from her.
She wouldn’t let him. It was as simple as that. Whatever it took, that wasn’t going to happen.
He started the engine and the Bentley purred obediently.
‘Your mother was Greek, wasn’t she?’ he asked conversationally as he pulled onto the road.
‘Yes, she was.’
‘I suppose that accounts for your unusual colouring. I never thought about it before, but with your Celtic red hair and those chocolate-brown eyes and long black lashes your colouring is quite unusual...’
‘I suppose it is,’ Lizzie agreed, realising that she had never thought about it either, beyond the fact that when things had been at their bleakest she had sought refuge in the warm, home-loving Greek community in London, where there was always someone who knew someone, she reflected wryly. But wasn’t life like that? Paths crossed, then separated, and then crossed again.
‘I think we should see each other again.’
She stared at Damon in amazement, feeling a little defensive. ‘Should we? Why?’ Her heart thundered as she waited for his reply.
He shrugged. ‘I promised you a proper meal?’
‘I won’t hold you to that.’ But they would have to see each other again, she accepted. That was inevitable now.
‘We’ll make a date before I leave tonight,’ he said, glancing across at her.
Would they? Could she risk spending an entire evening with Damon? Could she risk becoming relaxed with him and yet not telling him about anything of significance that had happened in her life over the past eleven years? Could she risk her feelings for him only to lose him again—and for good this time?
She had never shrunk from a challenge yet, Lizzie concluded as Damon slowed the Bentley outside the restaurant, whether that challenge had been battling the demand for clean plates when Stavros’s industrial-sized dishwashers decided to pack up in the middle of service—or having a second meeting with the man who didn’t know he was the father of her ten-year-old child.
NO ONE—NOT even the tall, imposing figure towering over her as he opened the car door and stood back—would ever come between Lizzie and her daughter.
Thea had never asked about her father. In fact Thea had shrugged off all mention of a father, which Lizzie had come to think was for the best when it had proved impossible to get in touch with Damon.
Lizzie’s experience with her own father was hardly encouraging. She had never got past the fact that he’d rejected her. Lizzie’s mother had been an heiress, and had had an obvious use, but once her mother was dead and the money was spent Lizzie’s father had lost interest in her.
Lizzie had been too young to understand at the time, but she still remembered her wonderful mother being sad and wanting Lizzie to have a better and more exciting life. Maybe that had fuelled Lizzie’s night of rebellion with Damon. It was very easy to mistake lust for love at eighteen—as it was to take a late, loving parent’s suggestion and bend it to suit her own, hormonal eighteen-year-old’s will.
‘Goodnight, Damon, and thank you—’
‘Not so fast,’ he said, catching hold of her arm. ‘We haven’t made that date yet.’
‘Do you really want to?’
‘Do you need to consult your diary?’ he countered.
‘I do have other things to do,’ she pointed out.
‘But nothing important, I’m sure...?’
Damon’s black stare bored into her. She had to think of something fast—and that something didn’t include blurting out that they had a child together, here on a busy London street.
‘Why don’t you come back to the restaurant some time?’ And give me time to think and plan how best to tell Thea about this. ‘I’m usually there each night, and we can fix something up.’
‘No kidding?’ he murmured.
Letting her go, he pulled back.
She watched Damon drive away in his Bentley until the limousine had turned the corner and was out of sight. The logic she’d used at eighteen for keeping her pregnancy to herself felt more like a selfish cop-out now. Yes, she’d been facing huge upheaval in her life—and, yes, it had been a fight to survive, with her character largely unformed and her reaction to crises untested—but maybe she could have done something differently, or better.
But when Thea had been born Lizzie had wanted to protect her from the hurt Lizzie had felt when her father had rejected her. She didn’t know that it wouldn’t happen to Thea. Why would Damon want a child?
As the years had passed and her conscience had pricked she’d tried to get in touch with him, but his people had kept her away. And then, in another unexpected turn, Thea had proved to be musically gifted—a talent Lizzie believed Thea had inherited from her mother. Lizzie’s mother had used to say she had music flowing through her veins instead of blood. And once Thea’s musical life had taken off, Lizzie had been completely wrapped up in that. Thea had recently won a music scholarship to a prestigious school in London, where she was a boarder.
Didn’t Damon deserve to know all this?
‘Back already?’ Stavros exclaimed with obvious disappointment. ‘You don’t look happy, Lizzie-itsa. What’s wrong?’
‘I had a lovely time,’ she insisted, determined to wipe the concern from Stavros’s face. ‘And I’ve come back to help you to clear up for the night.’
‘You shouldn’t have come back. You deserve a little happiness,’ Stavros complained with a theatrical gesture.
Did she? She was guilty of failing to contact Damon, because keeping him in the dark had allowed Lizzie to carry on her life with Thea without the interference of a very powerful and wealthy man. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel threatened now.
She would have to tell him about Thea, Lizzie realised as she set to and got to work, but she would choose the time.
Which would mean seeing him again!
Anxiety washed over her in hot and cold waves. There was a more important thing to do first—and that was to prepare Thea for the fact that her father was back.
* * *
Lizzie Montgomery! He couldn’t believe he’d found her again.
Was it a coincidence?
Opening the front door to his penthouse apartment, located on the top floor of one of the most iconic landmarks in London, he accepted that he’d just visited one of the most popular Greek restaurants in London, and with the way the grapevine worked, someone had always been bound to know Lizzie.
Coincidence or not, being close to the woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind for more than ten years had been the most extraordinary experience. Seeing Lizzie again had reminded him of a night that hadn’t been just about sex—though the sex had been more than memorable.
Pouring a Scotch, he strolled to the window and stared out across the London skyline. The shallow society beauties he normally wheeled out for public events bored him. Where sex was concerned, they couldn’t keep up. He was a hard, driven, solitary man, whose life revolved around his work.
And he hadn’t been back in London five minutes before the first thing he did was to search out all things Greek.
Maybe