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“Wait. What?” I look to Damien. “Can we back up?”

  Damien turns to me. “I told you that Marianna and her attorney—”

  “Boyfriend,” Quincy interrupts. “He is an attorney, but he’s her latest man, too. The woman’s a gold digger, no doubt about it. You, my friend, were one of many. And frankly the top of the heap. She’s been sliding down ever since. The current one’s something of a git. And the bloke she was with six months ago had actor on his resume, but you’ll only find him on the porn sites.”

  “I won’t be looking,” Damien assures him, and under the circumstances, his cavalier comment makes me smile. Damien’s a man who needs action. And now that he’s told me the truth and things are happening with Quincy, maybe the shadows will fade.

  “At any rate,” Damien begins again, “I told you that Marianna and her boyfriend demanded that I make arrangements for the child, but refused my request for a paternity test. Marianna cried and Warren—the boyfriend—spewed some bullshit about how with my resources I could totally buy off the lab. That she hadn’t slept with anyone else in the relevant time, and that if I didn’t pony up, then they’d take her story public.”

  “And you didn’t want to file a lawsuit because the publicity from that would take you to the same place they were threatening.”

  “Exactly.” He glances at Quincy. “So I took matters into my own hands, and that’s how Quincy ended up here. He got his hands on a DNA sample of the kid. And he’s working to track down the real father.”

  “Not working,” Quincy says. “Done. I found him last night. Daniel Bryson. That’s the main reason I came here today,” he adds. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have interrupted your weekend.”

  “Hang on,” I say. “Let’s back up. Like, who are you? I thought you worked for Dallas.”

  I watch as Quincy shoots Damien a questioning look, and Damien shakes his head just slightly.

  I exhale. “Dallas doesn’t really run his family’s department store, does he?”

  “Actually, he does,” Quincy says. “But I don’t work there. Though I do work for Dallas.”

  I turn my attention to Damien, since Quincy is being cryptic.

  “Let’s just say that there’s a lot more to Dallas than meets the eye. And part of what’s under the surface is a very well-funded group of investigators and, well, agents.”

  “He means mercenaries,” Quincy says. “Some would say vigilantes. Though it’s as well that we don’t say so. I’m with MI6 officially. Unofficially, I moonlight at Deliverance.”

  My eyes widen. “Oh. I see.” Not the whole picture, I’m sure, but at least the high points. Because I’ve heard of Deliverance. Quincy’s right—it’s considered a vigilante group. And it’s responsible for finding, rescuing, and returning dozens of kidnapping and human trafficking victims.

  I meet Damien’s eyes. “There is more to Dallas than people know. But I can’t say I’m surprised, having met him a couple of times.” After a moment, I frown. “But what aren’t you telling me? Because this is just a paternity question, isn’t it? If you were only trying to track down the kid’s DNA, do you really need MI6? I mean, can’t Ryan’s staff handle it?”

  “If Ryan were available, he could have handled it personally,” Damien agrees. “But this isn’t something I want leaked within the company. I trust my people, but I don’t like shining a secret into someone’s face and then forcing them to keep it. Better to go out of house.”

  “So you called Dallas.”

  “And he called me,” Quincy said. “I did a bit of hustling and managed to get a clean DNA sample after a day of tailing the kid. Soda can. Third try and we got a specimen. And you, my friend, are in the clear. As far as you, me, and the Stark Medical Labs are concerned, Specimen-N and Specimen-D are in no way related.”

  “Thank you,” I say, even as Damien says the exact same thing. He glances at me and smiles, then takes my hand.

  “Too bad they went public already,” Quincy says. “I’m not sure why they did. Once the cat was out of the bag, they couldn’t hold the promise of silence over your head.”

  “To shame me, I assume. But I’ve been in more unpleasant positions with the media. I’ll have my PR team issue a press release with the private paternity test results and my sincere hope that Ms. Kingsley can find her son’s father.” He takes my hand. “And that will be the end of that.”

  “Except that the poor kid is living with that woman,” I say. “You’re not the father, which means that the line about you being the only possible guy was bullshit. The whole thing was a scam. Hell, she might have even slept with you as part of a long con. And that poor little boy has to grow up with that creature.”

  “Maybe not,” Quincy says. “I told you, I believe I may have found the real father.”

  “How the hell did you manage that?”

  Quincy shrugs. “Lots of footwork. And I may have inappropriately used government resources to check her cell phone records during the period about nine months before the kid’s birthday. It stood to reason that if she was shagging him, she was probably talking to him as well. One would hope, anyway.”

  “And the guy?” Damien asks.

  “He lives in Oakland. He’s a school teacher. Seems to be a solid chap. Apparently he was an investment broker when Marianna latched onto him. I assume she believed that he’d go far. Dumped him the day after he told her he wanted more out of life than sitting in an office chasing numbers.”

  “But what about the boy?” I ask.

  “He wants to be part of the boy’s life. Assuming he is the father. I submitted his lab work this morning.”

  I reach for Damien’s hand. “So Damien’s clear, and we’re just waiting to see if this guy really is the father? And how Nate fares?”

  “And for the Stark publicity machine to begin churning to clear his name. Nasty ambush of you two last night, I’d say.”

  “I’d agree,” Damien said. He extends his right hand, holding tight to me with his left. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure. I’m sure we’ll work together again someday. But for now, I’m heading to South Hampton before popping back over to London.”

  “And do you have a wife or children, Mr. Radcliffe?”

  “Quincy. Or Quince if you prefer. And no,” he says with a hard edge to his voice, “there is no Mrs. Radcliffe.”

  “I’ll walk you down,” Damien says. “Do you want to order breakfast?” he asks me.

  “Of course,” I say. “Goodbye, Quincy. And thank you.”

  He takes my hand, kissing it instead of shaking. I watch them go, and I can’t help but think that this man has at least as many secrets as Damien does. And if that’s the case, then God help him.

  Damien’s back in less than the time it takes me to order breakfast, and he steps behind me as I’m finishing the call, hooking his arms around my waist and pulling me in close to him, then nibbling on my ear as I try to finalize our order.

  “Stop,” I say once I’m off the call.

  “Why stop now? You’re finished.”

  I spin in his arms. “You’re better. I’m glad.”

  I watch the play of emotion over his face. Then he takes a step back, his fingers twined with mine. He leads me to the chairs that overlook the city, and when he sits in one, he pulls me into his lap along with him.

  “I don’t know if this is going to make sense or not,” he begins, “but until all this started, I thought that I knew fear.”

  I shift, my brow furrowing as I try to understand.

  “Before, I mean. The times when I thought I would lose you. Sofia. My trial. I thought it would all come apart. That you’d be ripped from me.”

  He shifts to look me straight in the eyes. “But that wasn’t fear. Fear is knowing that there are two tiny, precious people in the world that I’m responsible for. It’s looking at them and wondering if they’re going to be screwed up because I’m screwed up. It’s knowing that they depend on me. And I’m so goddamn afraid that I won’t be the man
for them—for you—that you want and need me to be.”

  I blinked away tears and nod. “I know. Damien, of course I know. Did you think I couldn’t understand that? If not me, then who?”

  He just shakes his head. “I thought it was going to be me. That boy’s father. The hair. The blue eyes. Hell, even the shape of his chin. And I thought about going to you. Telling you that I had a son—”

  “You don’t,” I say, sliding my fingers into his hair. “But if you did, it would be okay. We’d figure out a way to have him in our life.”

  He’s still for a moment, then he pulls me close and buries his face in my breasts before pushing me back and claiming my mouth, hard and fast, with so much passion it melts me.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” I say when he breaks the kiss.

  “Christ, I love you. And I—ever since we brought Lara home, I’ve been—oh, hell. I didn’t think I could love you more. But I did. And we have a family. A family. And it feels perfect. And you know how much of a miracle that is to me. To both of us.”

  I nod. I definitely understand that.

  “I was afraid I’d fucked it up for good.”

  “Never,” I say, moved by his vulnerability and by the force of his love. “You couldn’t possibly.”

  This time when he kisses me, it’s slow and sweet. I sigh deeply and pull back, wanting to see the face of the man who is my whole life.

  “Make love to me, Damien,” I say. “I want to get lost in your arms. I want to fly.”

  “As you wish, Mrs. Stark,” he says, then proceeds to take me to the stars.

  Chapter Ten

  I watch as Damien paces in front of the patio railing, all of San Francisco spread out beyond him, the Golden Gate Bridge gleaming in the morning light. His hands are in his pockets, and his expression is unreadable.

  I wish I could hear the full conversation, but the only pieces I get come when Damien says something into the headset hooked over his right ear. And so far, Charles Maynard, his attorney on the other end of the line, has been doing most of the talking.

  “All right, then, I think we’re good to go. Call me if you have any trouble with McGregor, and email me if it all goes smooth. But I don’t expect trouble.” He laughs. “Exactly. That’s why I hired you after all. You’re the most bad ass shark in all the water.”

  He chuckles again, says goodbye, then tugs off his earpiece and tosses it onto the chair. “And that’s the end of that. Or, I hope it is.”

  “The most bad ass shark?”

  “He’s a lawyer. And he’ll get the job done.”

  “You’re really not worried?” I ask, and Damien shakes his head.

  “It should be smooth sailing. With the results of the paternity test, they’d be fools to move forward or to slander me publicly. Marianna may not have resources, but with a well-placed lawsuit, I could bury her attorney.”

  “That’s McGregor, right?”

  He nods. “And if they don’t call off their hounds and retract the statement by noon, Charles is going to be all over them like a shark on chum.”

  “Because he’s the baddest of them all.”

  “In the legal world, being bad is being good,” he says with a grin.

  “So I guess it’s really over. For us, anyway. I still feel bad for that poor kid.”

  “That’s not over,” Damien reminds me. “Not until we know for sure that Bryson’s the father. And then not until he decides what to do.”

  “What if he’s not the father? Or what if he decides to just walk away? That boy. With that mother.” The thought makes me shudder.

  “From what I know of Marianna, and from what Quincy’s said, she was along for the ride, and this whole scheme was manufactured by McGregor. It’s not the first time he’s primed the pump for a bullshit settlement. There’ve been a lot of ethical violations filed. Some slaps on the wrist, but he’s never been disbarred.”

  “So Marianna is just out for a rich husband? She’s not a manipulative bitch?” I make a face. “It’s better for the kid. But not better.”

  “I know, baby. But there’s only so much we can do. And we shouldn’t do anything until we hear about Bryson.”

  I nod, then inspect my cuticles, uncertain how Damien’s going to take my next off-beat comment. “Fair enough. But either way, maybe the Stark Education Foundation could keep an eye on him. And if it looks like he needs it, maybe an anonymous grant could get floated the kid’s way?”

  Gently, Damien tilts my chin up. “And that’s why we are what we are to each other,” he says softly. “Because we think alike.”

  * * * *

  The call from Quincy comes through when we’re out on the bay. Damien’s not an expert sailor, but he’s an advanced amateur, and since we wanted privacy, we rented our own boat instead of taking a chartered tour of the bay.

  We’ve been on the water for about an hour, and now we’re anchored so that we can sit down to the picnic lunch we brought with us, the basket put together by the Stark Century Hotel kitchen.

  “So tell me good news,” Damien says in lieu of a greeting when he answers the phone. This time it’s on speaker, so I can hear both sides.

  “I have plenty to tell.” Quincy’s cultured voice is sharp and crisp. “Mr. Bryson is the father. I had the lab expedite the tests, and there’s no legitimate question.”

  “That’s great news,” I say. “At least, it’s great if Bryson wants to be involved in the boy’s life.”

  “He does indeed. So much that he’s started the ball rolling. He’s already preparing a petition asking the court to establish custody, and his attorney assures him his chances are great. He said to thank you for recommending Charles Maynard’s firm. He was surprised at how low the hourly fee is.”

  I look at Damien, who shrugs as I rise up onto my knees, lean over, and kiss him.

  “You’re a good man, Damien Stark,” I say once the call has ended. “I’m so lucky that you’re mine.” And I’m so happy that the world has shifted back to normal.

  With a sigh, I scoot closer, settling in between Damien’s legs as he puts his arms around me. Our plan was to spend the entire day on the boat, have champagne at sunset and make love in the fading light, then fly home tonight so that we’re there tomorrow to have breakfast with the girls.

  But now…

  “Damien?” I twist in his arms so that I can see his face. “Would you do something for me?”

  “You know I would, baby. Anything you want. Anything you need.”

  “Could we go home now? I know we haven’t really gotten to enjoy San Francisco, but it’s not going anywhere. And honestly, I really want to see the girls.”

  “Yeah,” he says with a tender smile. “I think that’s a great idea.” He bends and kisses my forehead. “Anything else?”

  I consider the question, but then shake my head as I smile back at him. “You’ve already given me everything, Damien. Right now, all I want is for you to kiss me.”

  And as the boat bobs on the waves, I melt into my husband’s embrace and lose myself in the sweet sensuality of his touch, his kiss, his everything, enjoying these last moments together before we’re on our way back to our house, our girls, our home.

  * * * *

  Also from 1001 Dark Nights and J. Kenner, discover Damien, Indulge Me, Hold Me, Tame Me, Tempt Me, Justify Me, Please Me, Caress of Darkness, and Caress of Pleasure.

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