Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(30)

My hand settles on his chest, and I don’t even care that we are naked on the floor of his office. I snuggle against him, unwilling to give up this moment in time with him, but as the silence ticks by, I can almost hear him thinking.

“What do you want to know?” I ask, but I don’t look at him, certain I’m not going to like his reply.

“What happened between you and Kent?”

Still I don’t look at him. I can’t look at him. “I told you I don’t want to—”

“Did you love him?”

I prop myself up on an elbow to face him. “No. No, I did not love Kent. That was the problem. I met him because he works for my father; we started dating, which evolved into moving in together. Then I was just with him, and for a while it was comfortable.”

“If all you were was comfortable, he wouldn’t have elicited the kind of emotion I saw in you today. I saw the hurt in your eyes. I feel that hurt in you now just talking about him.”

My chest tightens painfully. “He proposed and I declined. He was angry. He lashed out.”

Damion sits up and drags me against him. “Did he touch you? Did he physically hurt you? Because if he did—”

I press my lips to his, tracing his jaw with my fingers. “No, he didn’t touch me, but I think that would have hurt less.” I look down, staring at our legs pressed together. We are both stripped of our clothes, but I am naked clear to my soul.

His finger slides under my chin, gently forcing my gaze to his. “If you don’t want to tell me—”

My hand goes to his. “It’s not that. I do. I want to tell you.” After what he did for me today, after how he jeopardized his job, I owe him the truth. “But it’s hard to talk about.” I lean away from him and curl my knees to my chest. “When my mother died, my father started drinking and never stopped. He also married an attorney he’d hired in the office, a thirty-year-old Pamela Anderson lookalike, who was after his successful business and his money.”

“How soon after your mother died?”

“A year, but I lost my father the day my mother died. It was like the bottle tipped. He became a complete prick, and my stepmother doesn’t help. She hates me, of course, because I inherit the money she wants. Or I did. I’m disinherited. She and Kent made sure of that.”

Damion wraps an arm under my legs and pulls me closer. “How? What did they do?”

“He set me up. They set me up. He says they didn’t, but I know better. We had dinner planned and I was meeting him at work. It was after hours, so, as I normally would, I headed straight to his office, which is where I found him buried inside my stepmother.”

Damion jerks back, his expression as shocked as mine must have been when I found them together. “What? I knew I should have beaten that little prick’s ass. Tell me your stepmother is now your ex-stepmother.”

“She’s not. I was sure she would be, though. I went to my father, worried about this hurting him, thinking we’d both share in the horror—but, no, that’s not what happened. He blamed me, not her or Kent. No protective papa for me. I was furious and hurt by his reaction, and I lashed out. In short, I told him she was white trash and he was a drunk. He disinherited me and now we don’t speak. And that’s how Kent shredded me. Kent knew how much I craved my father’s love and so he took it from me, the way he felt I had taken mine from him.”

“How the hell could your father blame you for what happened?”

His reaction reminds me of how he protected me with Kent. How good it felt to have him there at just the right moment, and it gives me courage to share the most painful truth with him. “I didn’t think he would, but I guess, working with my father, Kent knew him in a way I didn’t allow myself to know him. The quote from my father went something like: ‘You aren’t as pretty as her, so try spending less time chasing worthless stories and more time on your knees. Then maybe you can keep a man.’ ”

Damion tightens his hold under my knees and drags me closer. “You know you aren’t to blame, right? And you’re gorgeous. Absolutely f*cking beautiful.”

I reach out and trace the handsome lines of his face. My Tony Stark. “Thank you,” I say. “I had a rough six months of questioning myself. I’d lost my mother and my father. My job was going nowhere. And even though I wasn’t in love with Kent, he was gone, and life had changed. It all fell apart at once and so did I. I’m not proud of it, but I did.”

His thumb strokes my cheek. “You didn’t fall apart. You’re strong and you’re a fighter, or you wouldn’t have come to Vegas on your own, with barely a resource in your pocket. You’re right. You didn’t run, and I’m a prick for saying so without knowing the truth.”

“It’s done and I’m okay. Or I’m getting there. It’s been a long process.”

He draws my hand to his lips. “I’m going to make you better than okay,” he vows.

I don’t question that he means what he says. I don’t question us. I question what happens when we leave this room. “I can’t believe we let the world know we’re …”

“Together?” he finishes for me.

“How can we be? You are my boss.”

“A technicality.”