Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(16)

Feeling renewed, I ditch my work clothes for sweats and will myself to stop thinking about my cell phone, which isn’t ringing. “Proof you were nothing but an easy diversion for Mr. Damion Ward,” I murmur, settling onto the bed with my computer. The man seemed eager to confirm I’d quit, as if he wanted me to remember it was my decision and not his. Now I wonder if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted. But anger is good. Anger got me here. Anger will get me beyond here.

Well, that and my old-faithful feel-good drug: Chinese food, which I ate a lot of after Kent and I broke up, and not because I missed Kent. Because I’d lost myself. My dignity. My confidence. It took me six months after what I think of as “the incident” to look objectively at what happened. To see it and myself clearly. Kent tried to hurt me. And he did. But it was my father who cut me open and bled me dry. It was my father who made me feel that I wasn’t a real woman. That I was inadequate. And I believed him.

After an Internet search, I order enough food to feed an army and start my online job search. An hour later, I still have no food and I’m about to dial and check on it when a knock sounds on the door. “Thank goodness,” I mutter, heading to answer it and deciding this will not be a pity-party dinner. This is a celebration. I almost had sex with Damion Ward, who, despite being a jerk, is one hell of a man. And not once had I thought that I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough or whatever else I spent six months beating myself up with after “the incident.”

“Who is it?” I ask, being safe before flipping the lock.

“Damion.”

My heart thunders in my chest at the deep, deliciously male sound of his voice, and my emotions are immediately bouncing all over the place. This man gets to me. Really, really gets down deep inside me and stirs something raw and untouched, which I doubt is about him as much as about my past. Still, he is the one who has triggered this emotion in me, which means he can cut me in a way that only losing my mother and being crushed by my father have up to this point. I’m not sure I would survive that right now. Not this soon after … everything.

“Go away,” I call out.

“Not a chance.”

My elation and my fear over his reply collide, and I am weak in the knees. “How did you find me?”

“Your employment file.”

After what he put me through today, that hits a raw nerve. I unlock the door and yank it open. “You can’t do that. I have a right to privacy.”

“I can and I did,” he says, advancing on me. His hands come down on my shoulders, branding me, burning me alive as he walks us in to the room and once again kicks the door shut. “You were supposed to wait for me.”

“I never agreed to wait for you,” I counter, stepping backward and darting away from him, moving behind the kitchen counter, putting space and structure between us. “And I’m not your employee. You have no right to come here.”

“Why wouldn’t you wait for me?”

“We had our moment,” I say, trying to sound flippant. “It passed.”

“A moment?” he asks drily. “Is that what we had? Because I’m pretty sure it was a lot more than a moment.”

My brow crinkles. “I wasn’t being literal.”

“Neither was I.” He glances around the room and his jaw flexes. “Why are you staying in this place?”

“Why are you here?”

A knock sounds on the door. He arches his brow. “Expecting someone that’s not me?”

“Dinner.”

He turns to the door and opens it. I bury my face in my hand as he pays for my food. What is happening? What the heck is happening? I try to think, to process, but my heart is beating as wildly as a ten-year-old with a new drum set.

The door shuts, and my gaze jerks up to find Damion approaching the cubbyhole of a kitchen area where I’m standing. “Dinner is served,” he announces, claiming a bar stool and opening the delivery bag. “You got anything to drink in that fridge over there?”

I flatten both hands on the counter, lean on the surface; the goal this time, instead of being flippant, is to look more stable than I feel. “What are you doing, Damion?”

His hand stills on one of the two containers, eyes narrowing on mine. “Damion?”

I swallow the cotton in my throat. “What do you want me to call you? Mr. Ward? I don’t work for you anymore.”

“Damion. I want you to call me Damion.” And the way he says it, all deep and sandpaper-rough, sends my temperature soaring. I do not want my temperature to soar.

“What are we doing?” I ask. “What are we doing?”

“Eating dinner.” He balls the plastic bag and tosses it at my trash, as nonchalant as an afternoon at the ballpark. “And since you ordered enough for an army, I won’t feel guilty for joining you. I haven’t eaten since early this morning.”

“I tend to get carried away with Chinese food,” I explain, as if I need a reason for ordering what I ordered. I don’t.

“Works for me,” he approves, loosening his tie. “I’m famished.”

There is no missing the sensual undertone, and I quickly turn away to open the fridge, trying to hide the rush of blood to my cheeks. I grab two sodas to calm my nerves. What is happening? I inhale a discreet breath and turn and set the cans on the counter. “All I have is diet.”