“I just mean—it’s our honeymoon. I want us to go somewhere that we both like. …” I trail off, now as confused as Damien looks.
His expression fades quickly enough, though, and he laughs out loud, all trace of the earlier shadows erased. “Sweetheart, I love Paris.”
“Oh.”
“I would say I’m sorry that we didn’t spend time there on our last trip, but I’m not,” he adds, making me even more confused. He knows it, too. And he’s enjoying himself, the bastard.
I narrow my eyes and cross my arms over my chest, trying to look stern but probably not managing too well. “You love it? Then why on earth didn’t we sightsee or go to restaurants or take a stroll along the Seine when we were there? I mean, we traipsed all over Europe. We couldn’t squeeze in an extra day or two after my dress fitting?”
“One, I don’t traipse,” he says, making me laugh out loud. “And two, I wanted to save it.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
I am truly baffled now. Smiling, Damien lifts my hand and kisses each of my fingertips. “Paris is light and love and romance,” he whispers. “And so are you. I knew from the first time I touched you that I would explore Paris with you. But only as my wife.”
His words squeeze tight around me, constricting my chest with the force of our shared emotion. I open my mouth to say his name, but my throat is too thick, and even that one simple word cannot escape.
Slowly, a tear trickles down my cheek. I think of everything that fills his world, from high-level, high-stress business deals to the employees who rely on him for their livelihood, and yet there is never a time when he doesn’t put me first. When he doesn’t make me feel treasured and special.
He gently brushes the tears from my face. “That’s not the reaction I was hoping for,” he says, his smile as soft as his voice.
“You fill my heart, Damien.” The words come in a whisper, but on their heels a laugh bubbles out of me. “Don’t mind the tears,” I say. “I’m just overflowing.”
He takes me in his arms and I hug him tight, my face pressed against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart like a coded message, promising me that nothing can ever, ever come between us.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that—possibly a few minutes, possibly an eternity—but we move only in response to a sharp knock at the door and Katie’s crisp voice saying from the hall, “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but there’s a satellite call from Ms. Brooks,” she says, referring to Damien’s assistant, Sylvia.
Damien sighs as he stands and runs his hands through his hair. “I thought I was clear, Katie. Unless there’s an emergency, I’m not to be disturbed.”
“I know, Mr. Stark. But the call isn’t for you. It’s for Nikki—I mean, for Mrs. Stark. And Ms. Brooks is convinced that it’s urgent.”
Chapter 7
“A lawsuit,” I say numbly for what has to be the billionth time. I turn to Damien, not certain if I’m angry or scared or just plain gobsmacked. “How the hell can this be happening?”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he says, and his voice is so precise that I know he is even angrier than I am. “It’s either a mistake, or someone is fucking with you.”
We’re back in the main cabin where I had gone to take the satellite call, and now I shift even more on the leather love seat so that I am facing him directly. “Fucking with me?” I manage a mirthless laugh. “I’d say that sums it up nicely.”
When Sylvia had first told me that a company named WiseApps Development was threatening litigation, my mind couldn’t process it. I spend months and months developing all my smart phone apps, and the idea that I had blatantly stolen the coding for my most popular app was not only absurd but insulting.