Bella saw his lips wobbling, and somehow that seemed to enrage her even more. She sneered, “Your parents don’t love each other! Get that through your thick head! She was in love with her driver but her parents caught them fucking and forced her to marry your father. Oh, and he was forced, too. I bet nobody told you that your father’s gambling debts were the reason that made him propose marriage—”
“STOP IT!” he had shouted, knowing he was close to throwing up if Bella kept talking and saying bad things about his parents.
“You don’t believe me? Go to your father’s room. The code to his room is 1213. Go on, open it and you’ll see it for yourself.”
“Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to make you hate me?”
The words had made Bella whiten, as if she was only realizing the magnitude of what she had done. “Damen—”
But it was too late.
He had gone.
He had seen.
And he no longer believed in anything except himself.
When he came back to the present, he realized he was at the helipad, the engine of his copter already running and the pilot waiting for instructions.
“To Diana’s school.”
As the copter took off, he called Diana on her mobile and when she answered in a wary voice, he said in the same tone, “I need you to find a way to have Mairi meet me privately.”
“No! I don’t know what you’ve done to her, but she hasn’t been herself—”
His voice was unstable but determined as he interrupted Diana, saying, “I fucked up.”
Everything else Diana had to say became useless at those words.
“She told me…” The words felt like a lie. The past made the words seem like a lie, but Damen refused to listen to the sly voice inside his head. This time he chose to believe.
“Diana, she told me she…loved me…and I want to believe she does.”
Tears struck her eyes when the full impact of her brother’s words sank in. Why had she ever thought she would be the only one messed up by their parents’ dysfunctional marriage?
How could she have never realized that their parents had made Damen stop believing in love and happy endings? That he only believed in happy endings he had to pay for, either with his fame, fortune, or even sex?
“Damen…”
Desperation, pure and simple, made Damen speak again, insistently, without any pride left. If Diana refused, if Ioniko Vlahos made his move before Damen did – he did not know what he would do.
“I need to see her, Diana, so please help me.”
****
I don’t know who else to turn to, Ms. Yay. I don’t want to be expelled. My mother will never forgive me.
“How could she be so stupid?” Mairi muttered to herself even as she hurriedly tied her robe together, slid her feet into her bedroom slippers, and made her way out of the school. It was completely dark outside, which in this case was a good thing since even teachers had to abide by the curfew.
Mairi was careful to avoid being seen in the light, walking in the shadows as she quickly made her way to the back gates of the school. The walls at the back were about eight feet tall – fairly easy to climb over but understandably scary to climb down from. It was the latter Diana Leventis needed help with, having snuck outside school to meet her secret boyfriend.
She shook her head at the thought. Who could that secret boyfriend be? The younger girl must love him so much to risk the wrath of her terrifying mother – or even him.
When she reached her designated meeting place with Diana, she sent Diana a text message. I’m here.
A few seconds later, crackling sounds broke the silence in the air and she whirled around, wondering if Diana had been able to jump down on her own after all.
But it wasn’t Diana.
She started to run, but this time Damen was prepared and in seconds he had pushed her down, trapping Mairi between his hard body and the ground. When he saw her preparing to scream, he immediately covered her mouth with his palm.
“Scream and you’ll get kicked out of this school.”
Realizing that he had a point, she bit him instead.
Damen hissed in pain above her, but he still didn’t let go, didn’t even move an inch to give her a fighting chance of escaping.
It felt surreal to be this close to him again, surreal and painfully nostalgic to have his hard body touch hers in this kind of position. She was tempted to cry, but she strove not to. She would rather poke her eyes out than waste her tears on a lying, cheating bastard like Damen Leventis again.
The softness of Mairi’s ripe figure made him remember X-rated versions of the past, and he gritted his teeth in an effort to clamp down on his arousal. It was not the right time to feel like this – yet.