One Night: Sizzling Attraction: Married for Amari's Heir / Damaso Claims His Heir / Her Secret, His Duty. Annie West
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on a shelf in his home for safekeeping, so that no one and nothing could touch her.
He had recognized her value. And now that he had put her on display like this, so would everyone else. So would every other man here. And that made him feel... It made him feel as though something that was his was under threat of being stolen. And there was nothing on earth that filled him with greater anxiety than that. Even as they walked deeper into the room, it grabbed him by the throat like the jaws of a hungry wolf and shook him hard. Because it took him back. To helplessness and empty rooms. And the loss he could never quite recover from.
No, that won’t happen. That’s the whole point of gaining power.
The ballroom came back into focus, and it was only then that he’d realized darkness had been crowding around the edges of his vision. He tightened his hold on Charity’s waist, moving his hands down around her hip, drawing her closer to him. She turned her head to look at him, her expression questioning.
She was so sensitive. Always looking for things in him that weren’t there. Though, in this instance, he supposed they were. But, he was hardly going to confide in her. He was barely going to allow the thoughts to take hold in his own mind, let alone speak them out loud.
“Are you all right?” he asked, because turning it around her was infinitely preferable to examining himself.
“I’m fine,” she said, her dark eyes moving to search the room. She was exquisitely made up tonight, compliments of the hair and makeup person he had brought in to help style her for the evening. She had been shocked, and slightly offended, but ultimately she had agreed, and the results were beyond anything he had imagined they might be.
Charity was always beautiful. Whether dressed in clothing sent by him to humiliate, or in her waitress uniform, with her face bare. But tonight, she was somewhere beyond beautiful. He had told her yesterday that she was expensive. Had added priceless in order to make her understand. But that had been closer to the truth than he’d realized. She was beyond price. Something a man could sell all of his possessions for and never hope to buy.
The makeup artist had used shades of gold and orange around her eyes, the color enhancing their deep brown. Her cheeks seemed to glow, her lips looked slick, the color of juicy citrus in the sun. Begging him to take a bite. Begging him to allow them to satisfy his thirst.
Her black hair had been tamed into sleek waves, left loose around her shoulders, one diamond pin keeping back a few curls, sparkling beneath the lights.
And that was to say nothing of the golden dress. It looked like solid metal that had been melted down and poured over her curves, conforming to her skin, moving with her, the skirt billowing around her legs, the slit baring a tempting amount of tanned, toned thigh. All he wanted to do was grab her and pull her into a darkened corridor so he could take the gown off her and undo all the expert hair and makeup.
But, he supposed that ran counter to coming here in the first place.
Damn it all.
But he did need to stop her before they went out into the center of the room. Because he had one more thing for her. He almost didn’t want to give it to her now, because she was perfect as she was, and he was afraid that adding to it might ruin the effect. Or worse, steal what was left of his control.
All the more reason he had to give it to her. To prove that he had not, by any stretch of the imagination, ceded any of his control to her.
“I have something for you,” he said, bringing them both to a halt.
She looked up at him, surprise and something unreadable moving through her dark eyes. An answering emotion echoed in his stomach, and even while he felt it, he found he couldn’t put a name to it. “You have something for me?” She looked down. “Don’t I have enough from you? You’ve bought me all these clothes. You’re paying for the medical care...”
“I’m not keeping a tally,” he said, his voice harder than he would’ve liked. “At least, not beyond the million dollars your father stole from me.”
“So, you are keeping a tally?”
“Only that one. This is not on it. Neither is the dress. And certainly the health care that you’re receiving for the pregnancy, for our child, is not. Stop making me out to be more of a monster than I am.”
She looked up at him again. “More of a monster? That seems to imply that you are a bit of one.”
“You know as well as anyone that I am. A bit of one, anyway. And I have a gift for you.” He reached into the interior pocket of his jacket and took out a slim, long velvet box. Charity’s expression morphed from surprise to concern. “It is not a venomous serpent of any kind,” he said.
“I didn’t think it was.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“No one has ever given me a gift before. And no, the lingerie you had sent to my house back in New York does not count.”
“I would never have suggested it did.” He frowned. “Surely someone has given you a gift before.”
“Who would have?”
He had nothing to say to that. He had spent much of his childhood lonely. Without a mother. But he had had one for a while. And she had certainly given him presents. Yes, a great many of them had ended up being taken from him. But the act of her giving them to him... That could never be taken. Long after the things were gone, the gesture remained.
Charity had never even had the gesture. And so she was forced to receive it from him. A man who was not qualified in any way to be responsible for the emotional well-being of another person.
His stomach twisted, and he opened the box quickly. “It’s just a necklace,” he said. He wanted to minimize the gesture now, so she would stop looking at him that way. Expectantly. As though she expected him to know what to do now. As though she expected him to know what to say, as though she expected him to have some sort of remedy for the things that hurt her.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice a whisper, her eyes soft.
He wanted to tell her to stop doing that. And yet, at the same time he wanted her to look at him like that forever.
None of it made any sense. And he didn’t have the time to sort through it now, in a crowded ballroom.
“You should wear it,” he said, taking it out of the box and undoing the clasp.
“Okay. If you think it goes with my dress,” she said, wringing her hands in front of her as though she were nervous.
“I chose it to go with the dress,” he said. “Of course it goes with the dress.”
He turned to face her, holding the necklace out and placing it gently around her neck. He kept his eyes locked with hers as he worked on the clasp until he was certain it was secured.
He had chosen a heavy, teardrop-shaped emerald, one he had known would settle perfectly between her breasts once the dress was removed. He had lied about it being chosen to go with the dress. He had chosen it to go with her body. With her skin.
He had chosen it because of how she would look later, wearing only that.
But he had a feeling if he said that, the look of wonder and gratitude would slide right off her beautiful face, and he didn’t want to see that happen. If he mentioned it, he would wait until it was dark. Until he couldn’t see. Or, he would wait until he had her mindless with pleasure.
He reached out and slipped his fingers beneath the gem, testing its weight in his palm, before placing it gently back against her skin.
“Perfect,” he said, taking a step back.
She was. Indescribably so. Of course, now he had ensured that he would not be able to think of anything else but her, bare and wearing only that necklace. But then, the odds were high that all he would have been thinking about was her naked whether or not he had