“I don’t regret having you,” he repeats. “But I regret very much what that does to you. You’re suffering for it, or you will.” The sadness that fills his eyes is enough to melt me. “You are the one person in all the world I cannot bear to hurt, and yet I’m the one who put fear in your eyes.”
“No,” I lie. “I’m not scared. If you see fear, it’s only because I was afraid you were going to try to push me away. But about the trial? I’m not afraid at all.”
“Liar,” he says gently.
“You forget that I’ve seen you in action, Damien Stark. You’re a goddamn force of nature. They can’t possibly hold you. Maybe they don’t know it yet, but I do. You’re going to walk away from this. You’re going home a free man. There’s no other way that this can end.”
I don’t expect his reaction—Damien laughs. “I love you even more for pretending, but I know you’re scared. And you should be. This is the kind of case that has prosecutors salivating.”
“But you didn’t kill Merle Richter,” I remind him.
“No, I didn’t. But truth is a malleable thing, and once I walk into that courtroom, the truth is what a jury says it is.”
“Then you need to damn well make sure the jury has the information to do that. Dammit, Damien, you didn’t kill him. But even if you did, there were mitigating circumstances.” I force myself not to flinch as I say the words. Despite Maynard and all the rest of his attorneys pushing him to raise a defense, Damien has continued to refuse. I fully expect to be shut down now. Which is why I’m all the more surprised when he nods slowly.
“Yes,” he says, so softly I almost don’t hear him. “That’s one of the things I’ve been down here thinking about.”
I hold my breath and silently urge him to continue.
“I’ve wanted you for so long, and now that I have you, I’m risking everything there is between us.”
Yes, I want to scream. Yes! I realize that I’m digging my fingernails into my knee, and I force myself to relax as I try not to anticipate his next words. As I try not to get my hopes up.
“I’m not convinced that revealing what Richter did to me is the panacea you and Maynard and the rest of them think it is. But maybe I should try. If it means that the charges will go away, then maybe I should sacrifice the privacy that I’ve spent my whole life fighting to maintain.”
I hear the bitterness in his voice, and I want to reach for him and hold his hand tight in mine. I don’t, though. I stay absolutely, perfectly still.
“There is no shame in being a victim, right? So why should I care if the world knows the vile things he did to me? Why should it matter if the press writes about the dark nights in my dorm room. The things he made me do. Things I haven’t even told you. Things that I wish I could forget.”
He meets my eyes, but I see only the hard lines and angles of his face. “If it means that I can walk to you as a free man, shouldn’t I want to shout that story from the rooftops? Shouldn’t I want it plastered everywhere?”
Something cool brushes my cheek, and I realize that I am crying.
“No,” I whisper, hating the truth even as I say it. But this is the heart of the man I fell in love with. A man who lives by his own code, and it is that core of him that I fell in love with. “Not even for me,” I say. “Not even to stay out of prison.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, and fresh tears spill out over my lashes.
The pad of his thumb brushes my cheek.
“You understand?”
“No,” I say, but I mean yes, and I can see that he knows it.
“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulls me to him, his arm swooping around my waist and shifting me on his lap so quickly that I gasp. The sound, however, is cut off by the pressure of his mouth closing firmly over mine. The kiss is deep and raw and all-consuming, and immediately warm desire blooms within me. His hand slides up my back, and I curse the necessity of clothing in public. I feel his body tighten under mine, the bulge of his erection under his jeans teasing my rear as I shift my weight and lean closer, deepening this kiss.
After a moment, I pull back, breathless.