Son of Sin (Book 3 of the Forbidden Series)

7

Rolland opened the door to the penthouse and let himself in as he so often did. He walked into the kitchen and placed the brown paper bag of groceries he had brought on the counter. He had been doing the shopping for the family for decades since they were all likely to be mauled should they dare set foot in the store. He did not mind. It kept him busy, and he liked Eve. He had been instructed to invite the girl to dinner again tonight by his employers while he was here this morning.

Rolland walked through the apartment looking for the girl. It was late morning, and she should have been awake. However, he could not find her anywhere. Moving upstairs Rolland called out to the girl to wake her from her sleep should she still be in bed. He knocked on her door and waited for a reply. When none came, he cracked the door open and peeked inside calling her name again. To his, surprise Eve was not in her bed. Where could she be?

Rolland turned and looked down the hall. He noticed that Damien’s door was open. Oh no, she would not have decided to trespass in Damien’s bedroom, would she? Rolland walked over to the bedroom door ready to scold the girl for being where she should not. He stopped on the threshold when he saw Eve lying beneath the covers beside Damien. When had the boy gotten into town? More to the fact Rolland should not be here.

He moved to leave when Damien opened his eyes and spotted Rolland fleeing the room. He tossed back the covers and pulled on his shorts. Rolland could hear the boy chasing him down the stairs. “Rolland, wait,” Damien called to him.

Rolland waved his hands dismissively; he wanted no part of what was going on. “No-no, I am leaving.”

“Damn it Rolland wait a minute,” Damien said catching up to the old man in the kitchen and forcing him to turn around and face him. “Let me explain.”

“I don’t care it is none of my business what you do. I just brought provisions and an invitation to dinner at your sister’s house for the evening. Now I am done and leaving.”

Damien reached out to stop the old man from fleeing. “Rolland please don’t tell Dane.” He requested.

Rolland’s face twisted with annoyance and he stomped his foot in a tantrum. He just knew that was coming. Secrets, he positively hated keeping secrets. “Damn it, Damien; the boy likes that girl.” He scolded. “You don’t have enough women of your own you had to take the one he showed interest in too.”

“Don’t tell him; he never has to know. He can still have her. It’s all good.” Damien promised.

His nonchalant attitude infuriated to the old man. “It is not all good. She is not one of your little tarts, she is a nice girl, and you can’t just mess around with nice girls and expect no consequences.”

“The girl is not an i***t. I never said it was anything more than s*x and I’m sure my reputation precedes me. So, I doubt she expects too much from me. So just let me deal with my s*x life my way and promise me you won’t tell Dane. I don’t want to upset him. There is no need to.” Damien said waiting for Rolland’s reply. “Well?”

“Of course, I’m not going to tell the boy.” Rolland snapped angrily that he had been yet again put in this position. David had done the same thing to him with Kat. “I’ve kept this family’s secrets for decades and will continue to do so; but please no more, I am an old man and secrets are stressful.”

Damien chuckled and pat Rolland on the back. “We’ll be at dinner.” Rolland only grumbled and left complaining all the way to the elevator.

***

Eve rolled over and felt the empty bed beside her. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was alone. She sat up in bed holding the blanket to her chest. Damien’s room was very male. With dark woods and dark bedding. There were a few black and white pictures framed on the wall. It seemed very nice but void of personality. Almost hotel like, but then she supposed he never stayed in any one place for too long, so there was never any reason to personalize a place. The only thing that stood out in this room was the drum set, and guitar set up in the far corner. She had not seen them in the darkness the night before.

She heard footsteps outside the room and Damien appeared in the door. Standing relaxed in his shorts his bronzed body bathed in sunlight from the window. He had a devilishly charming smile. His arms crossed over his chest, and his legs crossed at the ankle as he relaxed against the door watching her. “Good morning.”

“It can be.” She smiled wickedly.

His smile widened, and Damien came to the bed crawling in beside her. “Have I mentioned yet how much I love the way your mind works?” He said laying a path of kisses down her neck.

“I feel rather like an addict at the moment,” Eve confessed turning her face to look into his lusty eyes. “In need of the next fix to get me through.” She teased.

“Who am I to deny a lady what she needs.” Damien grinned rolling her beneath him. “But I warn you we have a dinner engagement this evening. We’ll have to get out of bed at some point.”

They spent the better part of the day in bed and then Damien insisted on a shower. Since there was more than enough room, he joined Eve to save time. Which in turn took twice as long because Damien could not keep his hands off her perfect body. He had pushed Eve up against the tile wall and taken her from behind. The hot water poured down their bodies. One hand on her breast and the other pinning her wrist above her head. When they were done, she had been forced to kick him out to shower properly.

Damien showered while she dressed for the night in a sleeveless little black dress that stopped at her knees and hugged her thin frame. Eve spent some time carefully tying up her heavy wayward locks. The dress was not her own but another of his mother’s. Rolland had assured Eve that she would not mind if Eve borrowed her clothes, and the woman had such wonderfully beautiful clothes.

When Damien was dressed, he met Eve at the door in black dress slacks and a dark blue fitted shirt with a matching dinner jacket. The man was extraordinarily well-dressed. “You look sensational.” He said offering her his arm as they walked out the door.

“Thank you. It is your mother’s. I found it in the wardrobe.” She admitted. “It is a little big in the bust, but it fits pretty well otherwise.”

“Have you no proper attire of your own since you arrived?” Damien asked as they got on the elevator.

“No, I simply can’t afford the shopping here,” Eve admitted. She had looked around a bit, but the prices were fantastic.

“Well, then tomorrow we are going shopping you can’t go about New York in another woman’s clothes forever.”

“I can’t afford that.” She protested.

“Perhaps, but I can. I have a lot of money, and I love to spend it. So, we will shop. We can even turn it into a game.” He suggested as the doors closed.

“How so?”

“You can attempt to max out my credit card, and I can laugh at the futile effort.” He winked at her.

***

They took Damien’s yellow Lamborghini Murcielago to the Thompson’s country estate in Westchester. As they pulled in Damien cringed as he recognized the silver Corvette parked out front. His parents were in New York. Damien turned off the car and he and Eve got out. She wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable. Eve walked right in as if she had been a member of the family for years and much to his surprise she was warmly received as one.

There were hugs and friendly pecks on the cheek hello from most everyone. Damien’s eyes widened when he saw his niece, Layla. It had been a few months, and he had heard the news of her pregnancy, but he had not thought she was so far along. She had a little round belly bumped under her dress, and she radiated a happy glow with her new husband Alexander’s arm around her. The expecting father seemed to be doing as well as the mother to be. Damien offered his congratulations and said hello to his sister then teased his brother-in-law about becoming a grandparent.

Dane and Rolland’s two daughters Jill and Kim came inside from the pool when they heard that Damien and Eve had arrived. Rolland’s girls cooed and batted their eyes at Damien when they said hello, and Dane was instantly by Eve’s side dominating her attention. He had ushered her off to the back of the house with him. Damien felt another stab of irrational jealousy. Why should he care if Dane wanted the girl? He had his fun; he could share. However, there was something insanely erotic in knowing no other man, but he had ever touched Eve the way he had. No man had been with her. Strangely he felt a powerful urge to keep it that way. Damien had never been possessive of a woman before. It was a unique and rather annoying feeling.

“So that was Eve?” Damien heard his mother’s voice come from behind him. Damien turned around and hugged her hello and then shook his father’s hand. “Dane has not stopped talking about that girl.”

“Yes, he seems taken with her,” Mike observed.

“And why not,” David added. “The boy has taste. She is beautiful, charming, witty, outgoing-”

“Sexy as hell,” Alexander added only to be hit in the belly by his wife. “Well, she is.”

“I have a good feeling about this one.” Mike smiled. “I bet you fifty dollars she becomes a part of the family at some point.”

David looked out the window at his son laughing with their pretty new guest. “You think so?”

“Oh, yea. She’ll be family. Who wouldn’t want that? What do you think Damien?” Mike asked everyone’s attention suddenly redirected to him.

Damien shrugged. “Why not she’s hot, I’d do her.” He grinned, and everyone chuckled. If only they knew.

Kat led everyone into the gaming room and offered them all a drink which Damien accepted happily. “You know Damien when I heard you were caring for this girl I must say I was surprised. It was nice of you to open your home to her. Even if it was to get in her sister’s pants; but we will pretend like your motives were noble because you did a nice thing.” His sister said passing him a glass of straight dark rum.

“Yeah well, what can I say? I’m a bloody saint.” He said drinking it back in one shot and holding his glass out for another which Kat refilled without question. It wasn’t unlike him to drink heavily, so no one suspected he was out of sorts.

“How is that going anyway?” David asked. “The pursuit of the sister?”

“Slow but steady,” Damien admitted. “She is a nice girl, and her parents never go away.”

Everyone laughed. “So, what you are saying is it is harder to win her over with your pants on.” David teased.

“I’m saying behaving this much is out of my nature, and if I didn’t get away for a bit to misbehave, I would have killed them all.” Damien grinned lifting his glass to toast his restraint.

“I must say, honey, I am very happy to have not seen you in any form of media lately. It is refreshing to see misbehaving people, and for once it is not my child.” His mother smiled. “So, when do we get to meet this girl.”

“Dear god never if I have it my way.” He admitted without thinking.

“Don’t you like her?” Chase asked.

“Not enough to bring her to meet the family.”

“But her sister has met the family.” Mike pointed out.

“Not by my design. I just told Rolland to drop the girl off, not to invite her over and start a great big thing. This whole thing is all your doing not mine.” Damien said pointing to David and Kat.

“So, you are saying there is no future with this girl you are chasing after?” His father asked.

“None at all,” Damien promised.

“And why not? You said she was nice.”

“She is, so is a carnival, but I ain’t going to buy one,” Damien said flatly.

“Why pursue her if you have no intention of keeping her?” His mother asked.

“Why buy a magazine if you’re just going to throw it out because it’s entertaining for a time.” His parents frowned and looked at each other and Damien knew what was going to come next. In the interest of time, he moved along the conversation without them. “Then you’re going to say ‘Son when are you going to settle down?’ …and I’m going to say ‘I have no interest in settling down. I like being a bachelor.’ …and then you’re going to say ‘This is no life; don’t you want a good girl to miss you when you aren’t around?’ …and I’ll say ‘On a slow day I can have three girls missing me.’ …then you’ll have a huff and call me cocky. I’ll say something snippy we’ll both get drunk and play some poker. So, let’s skip to the poker and save everyone the headache.”

They played a few hands of poker before dinner was served and at dinner, they were seated in the main dining room to accommodate a large number of guests. Damien had taken a seat next to his mother at the table and Eve had come and sat down beside him. Dane had moved from his usual seat to sit beside her, and the rest of the table had filled up quickly. Rolland’s wife Beth had placed a fabulous spread of food on the table, and everyone was digging in and talking about the upcoming trip to Vegas. David and Kat were going to renew their vows and then they were going to live it up. Shows and casinos it had something for everyone. Booze, women, and gambling, Damien would have gone for any reason.

“You are still coming with me right Eve?” Dane asked.

“Um, I don’t know.” She said a lot had changed since the night before. Could she still in good conscience go with Dane after what had happened with Damien?

“Oh, come along.” Kat insisted on her son’s behalf.

Damien could see the conflict in Eve’s face before she got any funny ideas he would politely set her straight. “Yes, Eve go, why wouldn’t you? You’ll have fun.”

Eve stared at him for a moment digested by what he was suggesting, and then she frowned and turned her eyes to her plate in silence. “Is something wrong?” Dane asked, confused by Eve’s sudden change of mind. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” She answered. “I would love to go with you.”

“Great.”

Damien looked across the table at the cold, stern look his father was giving him. Neither said a word, but they both knew that Mike had figured out what his son had been up to and he disapproved. Damien cast his eyes down to his plate and refused to look up in his father’s direction again for the duration of the meal. He hated those disapproving stares. They were so often the only interaction he and his father had between them.

After dinner, Eve had cornered Damien in the hall on his way back from the washroom. He had seen her coming, but there was no way to sidestep her, and she had placed her hand on his chest and shoved him back inside the washroom. Locking the door behind them, she glared at Damien and demanded. “What was that?”

“What?” He asked pretending not to know what she was referring too.

“Go with Dane? That. It’s like what happened between us didn’t even happen.”

Damien sighed exasperatedly. She was going to be difficult. “Look, Eve, you were fun, really fun but that’s it. If you know anything at all about me, it’s that I don’t do commitment and monogamy. I don’t offer it, and I don’t expect it. I see no reason why you and I can’t pursue our respective choices while having some discreet fun. Nobody gets hurt, and I can always bow out gracefully if things start getting heavy between you a Dane.”

Eve paced the floor appalled by the suggestion. “So, you don’t care if I am seeing someone else?”

“I never have before. It doesn’t bother me.” Damien confessed

“And you’re just going to keep dating Mary and act like nothing at all happened?”

“I’m surprisingly good at it.” He admitted he had done it a million times before he was twenty-five.

“Do you have no shame?”

Damien thought about it and shook his head. He was quite jaded. “No, not really. I’ve done a lot, seen a lot, more than enough to be disillusioned about the benefits of relationships. Nobody is above straying. Given the right incentive, everybody can be tempted to lie and cheat. Believe me, I’ve tempted enough women, and sooner or later every one of them concedes.”

“So, you have never wanted a real relationship with anyone?”

“Never. I’m content with affairs; and what is wrong with them? Great s*x, fun times, you get to go shopping, get to go to all the hottest parties, and red-carpet events. It’s positively a blast while it lasts. The life of a mistress doesn’t have to be daunting.” He promised backing Eve up against the door and kissing her softly. “Could be fun.” He kissed her again.

Eve pushed Damien off her. “No. I don’t want to do things that way.” She scolded him. “I don’t want to run around behind everyone’s backs stealing kisses. Maybe you can cheat and lie to people who trust you but I can’t. Stealing you away from Mary is one thing, but I won’t share you, and I won’t be shared.” Eve snapped opening the door and leaving.

She had not taken this as well as Damien had hoped. Eve avoided him the rest of the night and even had Dane drive her home after she refused to ride with Damien. When Damien was leaving his father had taken him aside and said “Son you better not be doing what I think you are doing. She is a very nice girl don’t mess with this one.” Damien resented his father’s interference.

“It’s none of your business if I am or not. It’s my life I’ll do what and who I want.”

“That’s Dane’s girl.” Mike barked.

“She is not!” Damien snapped back a little more hateful than he had meant too.

“If you do this Dane is never going to forgive you.”

“He never needs to know so long as you keep your mouth shut.” Damien snarled and stormed off. It was his life, and he didn’t need his father’s permission to live it.

When he got home, Eve had already locked herself away in her room and refused to come out. Damien knocked on the door attempting to coax her out. “Eve open the door and let’s talk.” He said staring at the closed door. No sound came back, so he knocked again. “Eve come on don’t be this way. Let me in.”

“Go to hell!” She finally snapped back.

“I can always go get the key to this door and let myself in.” Damien threatened.

“Do it, and I’ll tell Dane what we did.”

Damien’s back straightened at the threat. She wouldn’t dare. “He’ll hate you just as much.”

“You seduced me.”

“I did not!” He barked. “You came to my bed.” Damien reminded her.

“Who do you think he’s going to believe?”

Eve had a point. “Fine stay in there. What do I care!” He yelled back and hit the door. “I already got what I wanted out of you.”

Suddenly the door flew open and Eve slapped him hard across the face. It had happened so unexpectedly Damien was stunned. “You are a horrible human being, and I wish I’d never met you.” Then the door slammed in his face once more.

Damien opened his mouth to call her a nasty name and then shut it without a word. She could rot in there for all he cared. Damien stormed off and retired to his bedroom.