woman he’d been hunting for weeks. The woman who’d become so skilled in camouflage and subterfuge she’d eluded his security experts. And almost eluded him, too, save for a chance conversation with a drunken duke …
Damion’s gaze travelled over her as she moved through the small gathering. She was still a strikingly beautiful woman … if you preferred your women pocket-Venus-size and duplicitous to the core.
People changed. He knew that. Hell, the five years since he’d last seen Reiko had taught him fresh life lessons he would willingly unlearn. But he’d never thought she would end up this way …
The epitome of all he despised.
Tightening his fist, he reminded himself of why he was here—because of his grandfather, the last of his blood relatives. The only one he cared enough about to put himself through this …
Damion refused to let heartache linger at the thought of what lay ahead. He would do what needed to be done for his grandfather, regardless of the personal cost to himself. Five years had passed since he’d set eyes on Reiko—five years since he’d learned that the woman he’d thought he knew was just an aberration.
This time he had his eyes wide open. And once he had what he wanted, she could go back to being a minor blip in his past.
Rounding the old Manor, he marched up the front steps.
A shiver raced down Reiko’s spine a split second before the knock came. She tore her gaze from the window, where it had swung as if compelled by an unknown force.
For several moments her mind remained blank, a whisper of premonition shivering over her skin as she glanced back at the tall windows. There was nothing out there except overgrown bushes and the odd fox or two.
Yet …
The knock sounded again, followed almost immediately by the pull of the ancient doorbell no one used much any more.
Recalling that she’d sent Simpson, the day butler, home, Reiko put down the loaded tray she’d been carrying and headed towards the door. The party had been a bad idea. The financial strain alone didn’t bear thinking about. But Trevor had insisted.
To keep up appearances.
Her lips twisted. She knew all about keeping up appearances; she had a master’s degree in it, in fact. When she needed to, like tonight, she could smile, laugh, negotiate her way through tricky conversation, while desperately keeping a lid on the demons that strained at the leash just below the surface.
The façade was cracking. Nowadays even the little effort it took to smile drained her. And it had all started since she’d heard he was looking for her …
Her thoughts skated to a halt as the door flew open. The hundred-year-old oak, worn from lack of proper care, stood little chance of avoiding a collision with the stone wall.
Reiko gasped at the huge figure filling the doorway.
‘There you are.’ The deep, velvety voice oozed satisfaction and barely suppressed anger.
‘Do you always crash your way into people’s homes like some wannabe action hero?’ she fired back, despite her thundering heart.
She’d feared this moment would come ever since she’d heard on the grapevine he was looking for her. That was why she never stayed in the same place for more than a few days.
A thick wave of panic rolled over her as she stared at him.
The unmistakable French accent and the air of brutal self-assuredness hadn’t lessened since she’d last clapped eyes on Damion Fortier. If anything, time had added a maturity and depth to the sexy, charismatic man recently polled by French Vogue as the most eligible bachelor in the western hemisphere—possibly the whole frickin’ world.
The Sixth Baron of St Valoire, descended from a pure line of French aristocracy, was six-foot-four-inches of swoon-worthy masculine beauty—even when in the grip of bristling fury.
Wavy hair the colour of dark chocolate grew long enough to touch the collar of his bespoke grey suit without looking unkempt or unfashionable. Broad shoulders, honed to perfection during his rugby-playing late teens and early twenties, moved restlessly, drawing attention to their sheer width and power. But, as arresting as his body was, it was his face that captured her attention.
Reiko’s art-steeped heritage, cultivated since birth and sharpened by years of apprenticeship under her late grandfather’s keen tutelage, meant she could spot a true masterpiece from twenty feet—it was, after all, the reason she’d chosen her specialised profession.
Damion Fortier was the epitome of Michelangelo’s David, his face hauntingly beautiful and yet so uniquely mysterious it drew attention and held it, commanding eyes to worship it.
As for his eyes …
They always reminded her of furious storm clouds right before thunder boomed and lightning struck. Or right before—
‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Reiko?’
Reiko sucked in a long breath to calm her galloping heartbeat. And another in order to find the Zen she needed to deal with the situation.
Despite the colossal trepidation accelerating through her body, she forced herself to move towards him, hand outstretched. ‘Hello … Wait—shall I call you Monsieur Fortier, or do you prefer Baron?’
Without waiting, she took his hand in hers.
Face your demons—wasn’t that what her therapist had told her? If she hadn’t been so desperate to stay hidden, Reiko would have called her to demand her money back because so far her advice hadn’t worked. If anything, the demons had grown larger.
An explosion of heat shattered her thoughts as Damion’s firm fingers curled around hers. Stormy sensation fired up deeply suppressed memories, unnerving her much more than she’d expected. Desperately ignoring it, she covered their entwined hands with her other hand.
Surprise flared in his eyes at her action, as she’d known it would. Her recently learned trick always surprised when she made the bold move. Normally it disarmed long enough for her to read her opponent, to see behind the façade to the real person beneath the civilised gloss. Because, inevitably, there was always something else underneath.
‘I’d like to be sure of the correct way to address you, since Daniel Fortman is clearly no longer an option.’
Reiko was unprepared for the stab of pain that lanced through her. She’d thought she was over this—had thought five years was enough to get over Daniel … Damion’s betrayal.
But then how could she forget? She’d watched her grandfather wither away before her eyes, his devastation complete after Damion Fortier had been done with him.
She tried to free her fingers but he’d recovered quickly. ‘What the hell do you want?’ she said.
His eyes gave nothing away as he used his controlling grasp to push her back one step and nudge the door shut behind him.
‘You never gave me a chance to explain—’
‘When
