The Paper Swan(95)

“I’ve been taking care of Sierra without your help all this time. If you think you can use her to get to me, you—”

“I don’t need to use Sierra. I get to you just fine.”

We both knew he was talking about my fevered response to his kisses.

“Last night changes nothing,” I said.

“Last night changes everything.”

Our eyes clashed, gray on black.

“Fine,” I said. “Make your deposits. See if I touch a single penny.”

Damian got up and walked around to my side of the desk.

“It’s very simple. You want the deposits to stop. I want you and Sierra,” he said. “Marry me, Skye.”

“Marry you?” I blinked. It was the last thing I’d been expecting. Proposals were supposed to be epic—grand moments that swept you off your feet, not negotiated like some business transaction. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Am I?” He swept one arm around the small of my back and pulled me in. “Tell me you haven’t missed me. Tell me you haven’t stayed up nights thinking of how good we are together. Because right at this moment, all I want to do is push you up against the wall and take you so hard that I can’t tell where I end and where you begin. I ache where you’re supposed to be, Skye, and I’m not going to stop until you’re mine. So we can draw this out or we can quit wasting more time. Either way, we’re going to end up right here. Me about to f*ck you.”

“Is that what this is about? You want to f*ck? Let’s do it, Damian. Let’s do it right here on my father’s desk. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nailing his daughter on his desk. You’ve taken everything else—his company, his home, his life—so why not his daughter? He’s gone, Damian, but you’re still trying to prove a point.”

“This is not about that,” Damian growled. “You and I have never been about that, so let it go.” He clamped down on my wrists as if trying to make me drop it.

“Really? Let it go? You couldn’t let it go with MaMaLu, but you expect me to just move on when it comes to my father?”

“I did let it go.” He spoke slowly, each word punctuated with razor sharp control. “I let you go. Back to your father. I left you in that supermarket, but you tracked me down. That’s something that you conveniently omitted from your statement. I knew they were working on you, and you let them coerce you. You picked a side, Skye, and it sure as hell wasn’t mine.”

“I was protecting you.”

“You couldn’t even look at me in court.”

“Because I was pregnant! Because you can read me like a book.”

His hold softened on my wrists and he tugged me towards him. “Precisely. So I know you still want me. I can tell by the way your breathing changes. The curve of your spine changes. Everything in you is screaming for me, Skye. So why are we fighting?”

“Just because we have mind-blowing sex doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Need I remind you? You said you would always, always love me.”

“I do. I always will. But it’s not enough.”

“Mind-blowing sex and love? That’s enough for a damn good start in my book.” He bent his head and said it in my ear, sending icy shivers down my skin. “And I’m not even throwing in the fact that we have a daughter. Say yes, Skye. Tell me you’ll marry me.”

“I don’t trust you, Damian. That’s the problem. There was a time when I would have followed you to the ends of the earth. I fought for you, but you know what you fought for? Vengeance. Retribution. Revenge. Even when you were in prison, you couldn’t let it go. You didn’t just bring down my father’s company, Damian. You ruined the lives of all the people who worked there, who depended on it for their livelihood. They were real people with real lives—kids, dreams, mortgages. Some of them were just weeks from retiring. Some depended on the health benefits. Do you ever think about that? Does it ever keep you up at night? Or are you still caught up with your own needs and your own pain? Open your eyes, Damian. There’s a bigger world out there and it’s not all about you. I’ve finally got my life together and you waltz in, expecting me to rearrange it because it suits you? Well, guess what? It’s not going to happen. You want to see Sierra? Fine. I won’t stand in your way. But stop trying to strong-arm your way into my life. That’s a right you have to earn.”