"Here you go." A clean dish was given to him with two more perfectly done boiled eggs. Beside it, was a flourish, she set a plate of toast fingers-cut like toy soldiers.
Damon giggled at them, then at her.
Lucia smiled sheepishly at him.
"You used the word please for the first time," she said, before darting out of his reach.
Damn, but he wanted to kiss her.
….
"Is he a nice little boy, darling?" Aunt Freya asked.
'And how am I supposed to answer that?' Lucia wondered. She bent her bare toes over the rung of the kitchen stool and glanced over her shoulder toward the bedroom where she'd left Damon with his toast and eggs minutes before.
Fine as long as he stayed right where he was, she thought. But she glanced over her shoulder every few seconds, it seemed, just to make sure he did. She'd had the definite impression that if he'd been able to, he would have grabbed her when she'd brought him that toast and eggs. 'And then what would he have done?' she wondered.
'Kissed her?'
There was that possibility. And that's bad?
Of course, it was. There was Lisa, after all.
Whoa! Wait just a minute, Lucia. You aren't falling for him, you only want to kiss him, to discover the extent of your own passion. Well, in that case...
But even so, she thought she needed a little more time, a little more space, a little more preparation. She didn't want to be caught off-guard the way she had been the
first time,
"Lucia? Are you there? Do we have a bad connection?
"I asked you about Damon"
"He's, um...fine," she fumbled. "Most of the time."
"Not as badly behaved as you'd feared?"
"Different than I'd feared." That was certainly the truth!
"But you can handle him." Aunt Freya said with her perennial confidence. "Did you say his father was a widower and the owner of Walter's international?"
Aunt Freya was always on the lookout for Ward's replacement. She'd never thought he was good enough for her niece. After Wilfred, Lucia had no trouble agreeing
with her.
"His father is remarried," she explained.
"And the little boy's name is Alex."
"Alex?" Aunt Freya asked.
"Thought you said his name was Damon."
"I thought it was. I... was mistaken." But she wasn't about to make the mistake of telling her aunts anything about the true nature of her job!
They fussed about her enough. If word about the real Damon Walter and
the fussing would climb a whole new level altogether.
"I get Thursday off." She changed the subject. "I'll be around to see you then." Their house on Orient Point was about an hour's drive from Walter's place.
"Will you be bringing Alex?" Aunt Em asked eagerly.
"No," Lucia said. "Days off imply just that, I don't have to bring him."
"Bring whom? Where?" a masculine voice said right behind her.
Lucia jumped a foot. She jerked around to see Damon leaning on his crutches and regarding her with amusement from the hallway.
Damn it! How could he walk so soundlessly when he was using a cast and crutches, for
heaven's sake?
She put her hand over the receiver. This is a private conversation!" She whispered harshly.
"It's a pack of lies," he said boringly "Who are you talking to?"
"It is not!" Lucia defended herself.
"Is that the little boy's father?" Aunt Freya asked,
"What a nice strong voice he has."
Lucia removed her hand since it wasn't doing any good anyways.
"Isn't it?" Lucia said. Then to Damon, she
hissed, "None of your business. Go away."
"If I'm your business, you're mine, sweetheart. Give me the phone. I'll tell the truth."
"No!" She had no intention of giving him the phone and letting him talk to her aunt! She should have waited to call them. But she'd promised them that she would call once she got settled in.
They had known she wouldn't call the first night, but they did worry, so she wanted to let them know all was well-even if it wasn't!
Damon cocked his head and grinned coaxingly.
"Please?" He said the word mockingly, and she wished she'd never given him those damned toy soldiers' toast fingers!
"I have to go now," she said quickly to her aunts. "He's misbehaving."
"Alright dear," Aunt Freya said.
"Spare the rod, spoil the child," Aunt Freya intoned, making Lucia laugh at the silly joke.
"Oh, yes," Lucia agreed. "I'll call you later." She hung up and stood to face Damon. He wasn't more than four inches taller than she was, yet he seemed so much bigger.
And so very... masculine. She ran her tongue over her teeth.
Damon didn't stop grinning. "Misbehaving, am I?"
"Badly," Lucia affirmed. "My aunt thinks I should take a switch to you.,"
He lifted a brow. "Kinky, is she?"
Lucia felt her cheeks flame. "She's a very proper eighty-one-year-old lady with strict ideas on how children should and shouldn't be raised."
Damon still grinned. "I'd like to meet her."
"Not in your life! Have you finished with your breakfast?"
"Yes. But I couldn't manage the tray and the crutches."
"You don't need to bring it in. I'll come and get it.
"You should stay in bed."
"I'm not that much of an invalid."
"Perhaps not. But you didn't get much sleep, did you?"
He frowned. "How did you know that?"
"I heard the phone. I picked it up and-" She stopped, not wanting to admit hearing the lilting English voice of the woman who'd called him.
X
"Oh, Lisa" A sort of wry smile touched his face. "She thinks I've got insomnia so she never cares when she calls."
So Lisa was his girlfriend. It must be a pretty intense relationship if she felt free enough to call him at any hour of the day or night.
"And Claudia is...?" she ventured, hoping that he would expand on that too.
"Important," he said firmly. "Whenever she calls, you get me, understand?"
Lucia blinked at the firmness of his tone. She swallowed, then nodded her head. "Of course."
"Even if I'm in the shower. Especially if I'm in the shower." A grin flashed across his face, and Lucia felt her cheeks turning red. How dare he come on to her when he was talking about another woman!
The phone rang just then and she said frostily, "In this case, I won't need to get you at all." With that, She sashayed past him.
Chapter 12.
"Walter" Damon growled into the receiver.
There was a second’s pause, then, ‘‘Go to hell,’’ he said to whoever was on the other end and slammed the receiver down.
‘‘Not Lisa?’’ Lucia asked over her shoulder...
"Your esteemed employer,” he said through his teeth.
The phone rang again.
Damon ignored it. It rang again. And again.
"I'm not answering it."
He fitted his crutches beneath his arms and hobbled away from the phone. ‘‘He’s your boss, not mine.”
Lucia stared at him, then at the phone. She didn't want to answer it, either. She didn’t want to hear any more lectures from Mr. Walter on respect.
And she didn’t need him looking over her shoulder every second. She didn’t particularly want to answer the phone in front of Damon, either.
But she knew Mr. Walter well enough to know that he’d keep right on ringing until someone answered it.
She stalked over and snatched it up.
"Yes?”
“Ah, Miss Lucia,’’ Mr. Walter's unmistakable Greek-accented English rasped in her ear.
''And how are things today?’’
Lucia’s teeth came together.
‘‘Everything is okay."
She saw Damon stiffen and stop at her tone. He turned to look at her.
'‘He is behaving badly already?’’ Mr. Walter's voice became angry. ‘‘I did not think…! He has always been good to women! Despite everything else, he has shown them respect! But to you he is...”
‘‘He’s fine, Mr. Walter.’’ Lucia cut in.
‘‘But I can't focus on him if you’re calling me all the time. I need time with him, alone. Without your interference."
There was stunned silence on the other end of the line.
Damon broke into a grin. Lucia glared at him.
“Respect is...”
'‘Respect is something that takes time to develop, Mr. Walter,’’ she said as evenly as she could. ‘‘Especially when you’ve wasted opportunities to develop it over the years.”
“You..."
“I appreciate your concern, but please, let me do my job.”
“Yes, yes. Do your job."
“I need you to give us space. Time.’’
‘‘Privacy,’’ Damon murmured with a wicked grin on his face.
Lucia turned her back on him. "You reward his worst behavior, Mr. Walter If you constantly check up on us and fuss about every little thing..."
"Fuss? I Fuss?’’ Mr. Walter sounded pretty angry.
"Get upset," Lucia corrected herself. Clearly, the self-concept of a sixty-year-old Greek patriarch did not include ‘‘fussing.’’
‘‘I appreciate your concern, Mr. Walter, but I really must handle Young Master Walter on my own.”
Over her shoulder, she could hear the soft sound of Damon applauding. She stiffened her back, and her resolve not to turn around and look at him was broken.
“I'm only trying to help,’’ Mr. Walter said, wounded...
“Then give me the space I need. And silent support.”
"Silent?’’
"Silent,” Lucia repeated firmly.
She got silent. She wasn’t sure about the support. But finally, about the time she thought she was listening.
“He is treating you…"
“He is treating me fine." That was if she ignored his jests and taunts.
“You're sure?”
“Positive!" She wanted to hang up. She wanted to say, Oh, for heaven’s sake, leave me alone.
She didn’t, because she knew if she did, he would be over here in five minutes, sticking his nose in, making things fifty times worse.
She had no idea if she could do what he wanted or not. But she knew quite well he couldn’t do it with his methods. If he had been able to, he’d have managed it years ago.
"You will call if you need me?’’
"Certainly.”
“Thank you, Mr. Walter" She started to hang up.
‘'We will see you at lunchtime.’’
“We won’t be here at lunchtime.’’
"Not here? But—’’
"Damon and I need time together. Alone." Lucia said as quietly as she could, all the while moving as far away from the man standing in the hall behind her as she could.
Damon grinned unrepentantly.
"I have to go, Mr. Walter. There are matters here that need my attention.”
"Damon, Is he—?’’
‘‘Goodbye, Mr. Walter. I'll call you in a few days.”
"Days?” she heard him begin to sputter, but she didn’t stop to listen anymore. She hung up. She faced Damon and dared him to tease her now.
He regarded her solemnly. The grin he’d been wearing had vanished when she put the receiver down, and his brows hiked up beneath the fringe of disheveled dark hair that straggled across his forehead.
‘‘Whoa,” he said, and he didn't sound sarcastic or teasing, but almost respectful. "Guess you told him.’’
"I said what had to be said.”
"And what no one else has ever dared say before,” Damon said dryly.
"You appear to have told him a few less-than-palatable things over the years,’’ Lucia pointed out. ‘‘I can’t believe I’m the first person to thwart him.’’
‘‘Maybe not. But you might be the first one he’s listened to.”
‘‘We don’t know if he’s listened yet, do we?’’ Lucia said, a little apprehensive that Mr. Walter might at this very moment be striding across the grass that separated the big house from Damon's small apartment.
As if he’d read her mind, Damon crutched his way over to the window and tipped the blind aside so he could look up at his father’s house.
‘‘Nobody's coming,” he said. “And no cannons being aimed in our direction.”
Lucia managed a smile. ‘‘That’s good news, I suppose.’’ She felt a little weak in the knees now that the conversation was over.
“So, where are we going?" Damon asked.
“What?’’
"You told him we weren’t going to be here at lunchtime,’’ he reminded her. ‘‘I wondered where we were going to be.”
“Oh! Right.” She smiled a little guiltily. “I don’t know. I just knew that putting the two of you together right now wasn’t going to accomplish anything.”
“It would make him mad.’’ Damon didn’t look as if he cared at all.
‘‘Which is not what I want to do, even if you do," Lucia said sharply. "But I suppose you’re right. We should go somewhere. Would you like to go for a drive?’’
Damon smiled and shifted on his crutches, stretching slightly. It ought to have looked as if he was adjusting something that annoyed him, instead, it seemed to her a decidedly sexy stretch.
He was still bare-chested, which gave her quite a lot of uncovered masculine flesh to study. But when he stretched, his shorts dropped another inch and she got even more!
“I'd like that very much.’’ And it sounded less as if he’d said the words and more as if he’d actually purred them!
****
She’d stuck up for him!
He couldn’t believe it. In his entire life, only one person had ever stuck up for Damon with his father—his mother.
Like a lioness protecting her cub, Cassandra Walter had fought with her husband again and again, rejecting his father’s seemingly endless demands that he change schools, move to Greece, study at a particular university, take certain courses, work in the family business, and marry the right woman.
"He is not you!" Cassandra said over and over. ‘‘Let him alone!’°
"He needs to know! To learn!" Walter countered.
And his mother always replied heavily, ‘‘He’ll know. He'll learn all he needs to soon enough.”
By that time in the conversation, there was always such a wealth of pain in her voice that Damon wanted to slam in and break it up, to throw his father out, to comfort his mother’s anguish.
Always he waited, impotently and furiously, until his father nodded his head and said in a cold remote voice, "Just as you wish, Cassandra’’ and disappeared out of their lives once again.
And then she would turn to Damon, and say, ‘‘He is your father. You must respect that.”
"I don’t respect him,’’ he told his mother every time.
"Damon.’’ She put her hand on his arm and he allowed her to drag him into a gentle embrace. At first, he had been small enough to press his face into her breasts. But at the last, he could rest his chin on the top of her head. He would feel her shake her head gently and say words he never understood.
As far as Damon could see, the old man didn’t try at all. Except to cause hurt and pain to his wife—a woman who had given him everything she had in terms of both worldly wealth and womanly devotion for her whole life.
It had been an arranged marriage, Damon knew that. He supposed that was why his father didn’t care. Mr. Walter had married her, Damon was sure, for the money that her family had. He’d never really cared about the woman who'd come with it. They hadn’t lived together since Damon was eight years old.
It had really been a painful experience for him.