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 was likely to respond when he found out they had a daughter together. ‘It’s a long way down...’ she mused quietly.
‘You look exhausted,’ he observed.
‘It’s hard work in a professional kitchen, and I’ve got more than one job.’ He could easily find that out. Better she tell him than that he started sleuthing. She needed the money to pay the rent, and to cover all the extras at Thea’s school.
‘Don’t you ever take time off?’ he pressed.
‘Hardly ever,’ she admitted. And what time she had, she spent with Thea.
‘And you live alone?’
The big wheel was a mistake. She couldn’t get away from Damon’s questions. To answer him meant telling him that she lived on her own most of the time—even in the school holidays—and Thea was often away, playing with the orchestra. Lizzie tried to go with her when she could, which meant finding a job in a bar, or as waiting staff to pay her way.
Their next trip was to Greece.
‘Lizzie?’
‘Yes. I live alone,’ she said, quickly pulling herself together.
‘It must have been a long road back for you?’
It was hard to concentrate. All she could think about now was Thea’s upcoming trip to Greece.
“Lizzie?’ I said it must have been a long road back for you?’
‘I like my work,’ she said distractedly.
‘But it’s repetitive,’ Damon pointed out, ‘and with no personal reward—’
‘Apart from earning my living and keeping my pride intact, do you mean?’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just curious.’
And now she was all heated up. How dared Damon stride back into her life and start judging her?
Wouldn’t Thea be happier with a father who could give her so much more than she could?
No. She would not, Lizzie thought fiercely. ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she said on the wave of that thought. ‘I don’t need your pity.’
‘And you won’t get it,’ Damon assured her with matching force.
BUT IT WASN’T long before Damon was questioning her again. ‘So what happened to your dream of attending that art college in Switzerland?’ he pressed as their cabin sank steadily towards the ground
‘I had lots of dreams when I was eighteen.’
Unfortunately they hadn’t tallied with her stepmother’s plans for Lizzie, and as those dreams would have been paid for by her father, using other people’s money—mostly Damon’s family’s—Lizzie realised now they had been meaningless.
‘I owe you an apology.’
‘For showing loyalty to your father?’
Damon read her so easily, Lizzie thought as his powerful shoulders lifted in a shrug.
‘You don’t owe me a thing,’ he insisted.
Their stares met and held for a potent few seconds, but all that did was allow Lizzie time to consider the big truth she wasn’t telling Damon. She couldn’t tell him yet. Not until she was sure of him—or as sure as she could be.
‘We were discussing your dreams?’ he prompted.
‘You were,’ she argued, with a spark of her old dry humour. ‘Life’s a series of compromises, don’t you think? If you can’t adjust, you flounder.’
‘And you’ve had to do a lot of adjusting?’ Damon guessed.
She remained silent.
‘I can’t imagine you floundering,’ he admitted. ‘Even at eighteen you had a good head on your—’
‘Reckless shoulders?’ Lizzie supplied. ‘I had too much emotion in play back then.’
‘And not enough now?’
His suggestion silenced her. Damon’s searching glance was disturbing in all sorts of ways. She couldn’t regret her rebellion eleven years ago, or her search for one night of love—which was probably the best way to describe the most memorable night of her life. How could she regret anything, when making love with Damon had created Thea?
‘Penny for them?’
The smile that could heat her from the inside out was back, tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘You wouldn’t want to know.’
‘Try me,’ he pressed.
Confide her concerns in him? Tell him how much of a struggle it was to keep the boat afloat, or that when Thea needed something for school Lizzie couldn’t always guarantee she’d come through? This was the man who had walked out of her life without a backward glance—as her father had. This was the man she had been unable to reach again and again. She had to remember that—always. She couldn’t face that coldness again. She had more pride than to do so. And more love for Thea than to allow her precious daughter to live through something similar.
And there was another way of looking at it. Damon might not want to know. What respectable billionaire would want to hear that he had a child with the daughter of a convicted felon? Would Damon believe Thea was his child? The shame of her father’s crime had tainted Lizzie. Sometimes she believed she would never throw it off. That same shame taunted her now, with the thought that even if Damon were prepared to accept that Thea was his daughter he might not entrust her to Lizzie’s care?
Whatever the consequences, her course was clear. She must first tell Thea, and then Damon.
‘We’re down,’ he said, startling her.
‘Yes...right...’ she said, glancing around to see the cabin had settled on its stand. ‘What a relief.’
‘Vertigo can be devastating, can’t it?’ Damon commented, but his look was shrewd and it stripped her lie bare.
They didn’t stay at the funfair. By mutual silent consent, they headed back to the bike.
‘Where did you live when you left home after the court case?’ Damon asked as the noise of the fair began to fade into the background.
‘On a park bench,’ Lizzie said bluntly, thinking back.
‘I’m being serious,’ Damon insisted.
‘And so am I,’ she admitted. ‘I spent the first night on a park bench—well, most of it...until it started raining.’
‘And then?’ His face had tightened into a grim mask.
Lizzie thought back to her first and thankfully her only terrifying, freezing night as a homeless person. She had quickly figured out that she must find a place to