Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Robyn
“ W elcome back, Damon.” The thick Irish accent belonged to Damon’s bodyguard, the man too large and boasting too many scars to be anything but security. His practical attire—plain black tee, black pants, and combat boots—ironically mirrored my own, though his stoic expression seemed marginally more pleased to be here than I was.
“Patrick.” The warmth in Damon’s reply was a litmus for how long this man had been with him. “I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Robyn.”
I gritted my teeth. The smoothness of his voice, the unnecessarily possessive endearment, poked at my ire.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Remington.” Even the genial warmth of his burr couldn’t soften the blow of his address.
“Just Robyn,” I corrected with just a hair too much desperation. The Irishman looked at Damon, something unspoken passing between them before he nodded and stepped to the side, allowing the two of us to enter the house first.
“Welcome home, Robber,” Damon murmured as he held the door open as though the house were some kind of gift—something I should be excited for.
It was nothing more than bait. Everything with Damon was bait. A lure to get a rise out of me, to draw me right where he wanted me—which was back to the past.
Ask me what you really want to know.
Why did you leave? Why did you betray me? Were you always lying when you said you loved me?
“This isn’t my home,” I clipped as I strode by him into the sprawling foyer.
The massive modern house was layered into the forested hills. I’d expected a ride in a private jet or, at the very least, a helicopter trip to reach Damon’s lair. Instead, I had to bury my surprise when his directions led to a gated lot in the hills near Tiburon, just outside of San Francisco.
“I wonder what the FBI will think to learn you’ve moved right into their backyard,” I remarked, striding from the entry through the large open living room to the very far side where floor-to-ceiling windows lined the wall with expansive panoramas of the city skyline and the bay.
“I’m sure that will be the least of their qualms,” he remarked, not bothering to deny or even sounding like he had any doubt of what I’d implied. That he would be caught. “Especially when they learn I’ve had this house for over a decade.”
The glass looked to ripple with my sharp inhale. Over a decade. No. That couldn’t…he couldn’t. Disbelief scratched at the skin on my arms, the hairs standing on end. This whole time, he’d lived not even an hour away from me…in a country that wanted him captured…a country he’d betrayed.
“Why?” Shit. The word slipped out before I could stop it. A syllable of weakness. Of want. Curiosity killed the Robyn. “Seems unnecessarily reckless to live where you’re a wanted man.”
I kept my gaze focused on the blue swath of the bay that stretched in front of me as his footsteps clicked across the hardwood. His reflection appeared, the silver slips of his eyes finding mine, and then he set his hand on the glass, careless of the stain he’d leave behind. His reflection sharpened as he dipped closer to me, his breath caressing the shell of my ear.
My heart raced, the rest of me frozen in place. I breathed out slowly, reminding myself that the hunter stays hidden in plain sight. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of retreat. He had no right to know it pained me to be close to him. No right to know the pain stemmed as equally from the roots of wanting him as it did from the ashes of his betrayal.
It was hard to be this close and not remember. Hard to not think about how things had been before. The way we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Or mouths. Private. Public. There was not a moment he didn’t want to mark me. Claim me. And there was not a moment that I didn’t want to be his.
I didn’t think it was possible to feel anything stronger than the hate I held for the men who destroyed my parents and their legacy. And then I’d met Damon, wanted him with a kind of instinct that was hardcoded into my DNA. Instinct that had me believing his kiss was a suitable replacement for oxygen.
“Well, the alternative was unnecessarily painful to be far away from you, Robber. In case you needed me.”
I was strong. Determined. Angry. But I wasn’t bulletproof. And there were only so many hits of his feigned chivalry I could take before survival became more important than stoicism.
I didn’t know if I gasped or laughed or choked or all three, but I stepped away from him then, shoving distance between us with a shake of my head and denial on my tongue.
“Bullshit.”
“You said it yourself,” he drawled casually, flicking open the buttons of his jacket and shrugging it off his shoulders. “It would be foolish for a traitor to live in the backyard of the country he’d betrayed.”
“I meant the part where you thought I would ever need you,” I said, gripping the back of a chair and digging my fingers into the fabric even as I smiled. “That, you’d have to be certifiably insane to believe.”
Damon stilled. I knew better than to think my words affected him; he was simply preparing for the next best way to strike.
Lowering the fine silk jacket, he ran his hand across it like he could rub out the wrinkles of being beat up in my brother’s garage. I noticed then that his hat was gone. My gaze flicked back to the front door, widening slightly at the sight of the massive hat rack built into the wall to resemble a piece of modern art. At least two dozen of Damon’s fedoras in various fabrics and colors dotted the functional masterpiece.
“You went after a lot of dangerous men, Robber. Men who wouldn’t hesitate to harm you and make you disappear.” Damon’s voice drew my attention back to him.
“How do you—” I snapped my jaw shut, earning me a sly grin from his perfect mouth. One that kindled heat between my thighs.
“You don’t think I kept an eye on you? Especially when I realized what you were doing? How risky it was.” His full mouth fell into a serious line, the tenor of his voice dropping even lower. “It was genius though, I have to admit. Rescuing abused women. Taking in those who wanted their own taste for revenge. Creating your little network of spies. Maids. Bellman. Cooks. Cleaners. Uber drivers. The homeless. You always said no one ever saw those people. That the access they had to information was unparalleled.”
Somehow, without me asking, he managed to fill in pieces of the giant pit of time that spanned between when I’d loved him and when I’d loathed him. First, revealing he’d had a home here for almost that entire time. And now, telling me he did it to be close to me because he knew about my vigilante crusade for justice.
While I would’ve loved nothing more than to spend the last decade and a half solely on my mission to destroy the half dozen men from Sinclair all the way up the chain to Belmont, it wasn’t feasible or possible. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was revenge. There were too many pieces—too many players and layers that had to be systematically dismantled. Men—criminals—that had gone into hiding. Changed their names. Surgically altered their appearances. Moved to foreign countries. It was a marathon to make them pay, not a sprint.
While pursuing them, I came across a lot of strong women who’d been abused or taken advantage of like I had. Women who wanted to be trained to help me—to ensnare other powerful, evil men so they couldn’t hurt anyone again. So, I trained them. My very own band of merry mercenaries. Between them and my brothers and the men from their unit, I had two sharpened sides of a secret sword of justice.
“Of course, I’ve kept an eye on you, Robyn. You’re my wife.”
Once more, I ignored the gravel that possessiveness brought to his voice. I wouldn’t let him see how it rattled me. How my chest tightened to know he’d been so close and my stomach fluttered to hear he’d been protecting me in his own twisted way.
That didn’t matter.
It couldn’t matter— wouldn’t matter .
No one admired the hunter who protected the carcass of his kill. And that was what I was. A trophy wife. A bust to hang on his bedpost. One more woman who’d fallen for the greatest criminal of all time.
“That makes you a stalker, not a spouse,” I deadpanned, fixing him with a bored expression.
“We’ll see.” His confidence was one more crime to add to his list of transgressions, but I wouldn’t take the bait.
Damon could think whatever he wanted, but my need for him went only as far as getting to Belmont. Beyond that, I wanted nothing more than my dear husband arrested. For better, for worse, and forever.
“Why are we here?” I demanded, welcoming the change of topic like a shock to my system. “What’s your plan? What’s our next step to getting to Belmont?”
He folded his arms, his muscles stretching the fine fabric of his shirt. Muscle memory took on a different meaning around him; it wasn’t my muscles remembering a sequence of actions but my memory recalling the feel of his muscles around me. Holding me. Pining me. Urging me.
The pull of my body to his was like a magnet working in its own field, impervious to the reality of just how terribly Damon had betrayed me.
“I’ll tell you the next step when it’s time for you to know it, and that time isn’t today,” he said and then reminded me in a harder voice, “You agreed.”
My shoulders tensed. Rule number two. “Fine. Then when will this great reveal occur? Approximately?”
His jaw flexed. “A few days.”
A few— “There’s no reason for me to stay here for days doing…nothing.”
“I can think of a few things we can do to pass the time. ”
Red spotted my vision. The more time I spent here, the greater the risk I took being around him.
“I’m leaving,” I said, fuming.
I rushed to exit the room, but he was faster. His legs were longer. It didn’t help that the space was completely open, giving him a straight shot to blockade the path in front of me.
My choices then were poor. Stop. Run into the wall of his chest. Or try to outmaneuver him, which risked putting me in an even closer, more compromising position against his body.
“If you leave, you’ll jeopardize my plan, and our deal is off,” he warned, frustration shadowing his expression.
I hated that I recognized this look. Hated that because I’d seen it before—even over a dozen years ago—I knew it was out of a concern for my safety that he wanted me here.
“Plus, why would you want to stay in your apartment over this?” He extended his arms like a god who’d welcomed me onto Mount Olympus, his confidence bordering on narcissism. “It didn’t seem all that comfortable… or guarded.”
I bristled, about to defend the need for guards when even he— who’d been watching me— hadn’t found where I was living. Probably because I had several safe houses in the city that I rotated through every other day. But then a better idea struck.
“Who said I stayed there alone?” I batted my eyelashes.
He stepped closer to me, his arms lower to his sides. “Who lives with you?”
“A friend.” I shrugged. “Boyfriend.”
“Robyn…” A sharp growl tore from deep in his chest, the word like a strike against the flint in his gaze, sparking fury. Good. Better he be the one unnerved than me.
“What? You think I went fifteen years without finding someone?” I lightly scoffed. “Especially when I know you didn’t.”
“You have no idea what I did or didn’t do,” he snarled, prowling toward me. “But you’re welcome to ask.”
I backpedaled, sauntering through the meticulously arranged furniture and thoroughly enjoying the sudden break in his charming calm.
“Why would I ask when I don’t care how many women you fucked?” The sweetness of my voice tasted terrible on my tongue. Almost as terrible as the thought of what his answer would be.
The rumors of Damon Remington’s romantic conquests were almost as infamous as his criminal ones.
“Then don’t,” he said, his measured steps tracing the path of mine. “But I do care, and I want to know.”
“You have no right.”
“I’m your husband.”
“Who lied and cheated and left me.”
Pain crippled his fury, stealing the breath from my lungs with how deeply it wounded him. And then in a blink, it was gone. Swallowed whole by the jealous monster I’d released inside him.
“Who is he?” Damon demanded, his voice deadly in its softness. The temptation to protest died with his next words. “You can either tell me his name, and I’ll make it quick. Or I can find his name, and I will make him pay twice for the effort.”
Saliva pooled in my mouth, drawn to the bitterness of my self-loathing. I couldn’t keep up the lie. Not to this extent. While I hadn’t had a front-row seat to my husband’s rise to criminal infamy, I’d read enough of the reviews to think twice before inciting his lethalness.
“No one, all right? No boyfriend. I live alone. I lost the taste for living with a man a long time ago.”
My fists were balled, my back ramrod straight. I was prepared for his response—for his gloat. Instead, he stood there, drawing in slow, deep breaths as though he needed a minute to defuse the bomb inside him. How dare he care? After everything he’d done…
And then, with an expression wiped clean of the sudden excess of emotion, he picked up his jacket, laid it over his arm like a butler rather than an obvious billionaire, and said, “I’ll show you to your room.”
I should be glad the subject was dropped with such severity, but instead, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been left hanging by the unmasked anger and then anguish on his face. How could it be possible for him to be hurt when he was the one who left?
When he was the one who left me for someone else?
From the main floor, an open stairwell descended to the lower level. It wasn’t underground; there were just as many windows framing the back wall as there were on the first floor. Instead of one main room comprising the living space, kitchen, and dining area, the lower floor was broken into smaller rooms, one of which was mine.
“I had Nonna set up this room for you. It has its own deck and the best views of the sunset,” he said, and then, collecting his thoughtfulness, added, “But you’re welcome to stay in any bedroom on this floor.”
“Where’s yours? In the west wing?” I wanted to make sure it was far, far away.
Damon’s eyes darkened. “On the main floor off the living room, and you’re more than welcome to stay in that one, too. ”
My jaw clamped down, trying to subdue the goose bumps that revolted against my skin at his husky tone.
“I’ll stay in whichever room is as far away from you as possible.”
He widened his stance, and my eyes instantly drew down to his waist. There was no part of that that could be hidden, nor did he apparently want to. “I have to say, Robber, your impertinence makes me so damn hard.”
My head snapped up. “And your proximity makes me so damn nauseous.” I spun and barreled into the bedroom.
Keeping my back to him to hide the clamor of my heart against my chest, I took a truncated scan around the room. Three serene blue walls circled the neutral bed, which faced the three window panes along the back of the house. One of them, on second look, was a sliding door that led to a small balcony. There was a tidy desk tucked into the corner, a stack of books on top, and two other doors that I assumed led to the closet and bath.
From the corner of my eye, I noted Damon hadn’t moved from his post in the doorway, but that didn’t stop his gaze from following me like a spark along a fuse. It chewed at my skin in small shivers of hot, white heat.
Fifteen years was a long goddamn time not to see someone. Long enough that my attraction to him should’ve been legally declared dead. But all it took was that one look. A single moment close to him, and not even hatred or hurt or the cocktail of the two was enough to stop my lust for him from rising from the grave.
“Well then, I think I’m going to take a shower,” I clipped, steeling myself as I faced him once more.
Maybe a few days in limbo wasn’t the end of the world. It would be time I could spend getting a better handle on the way I reacted to him .
“Of course,” he murmured, the silver in his eyes tarnishing with torment. Surprisingly, he was the first to look away, his head nodding in the direction of the last door. “The closet is full of clothes. All in your size.”
He smiled at the drop of my jaw, and I realized he took a kind of twisted pleasure in perverting the idea of a thoughtful, chivalrous gentleman.
Dammit, Damon.
This wasn’t some kind of twist on Beauty and the Beast . I didn’t need a wardrobe or a singing teapot, and if anything, I’d happily take a beast over my husband disguised as a too-handsome prince.
“How do you know what size I wear—wait, never mind. I know the answer. You stalked me,” I snapped. “Does this”—I swirled my finger in the air—“work with all the women you want to fuck?”
His smile evaporated along with the space between us. In an instant, he loomed over me. I must’ve turned as he approached because my back ended up against the bathroom door, his hands gripping either side of the frame.
I glared, tempted to knee him and shove him away, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wouldn’t let him think that his closeness made me hot or his stare made me shiver. I wouldn’t let him think that there was any root of desire left in the way I felt about him.
“I only want you, Robber,” he said, his voice so deep and drawn it cut like a commandment into stone. “As ever, I’ve only wanted you.”
Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit.
I breathed slowly, like an animal caught in a trap. There was no fighting my way out of this. No ignoring or stonewalling him into keeping his distance. The only way to escape him was to play his game .
It wasn’t going to be pretty. In fact, I knew it was going to be brutal. The things I’d have to confess. The feelings I’d have to endure. The temptation I’d have to toy with. But I had to meet fire with fire even if it meant coming away with burns. In my opinion, burns were better than a broken heart.
Tipping my head back against the door, I lifted my hand, bringing it slowly up between us and placing it on his chest. His pec muscle pulsed under my fingertips, firm and strong. The corner of my mouth lifted as I flattened my palm there, feeling the charge of his heart against it.
“I’ve been watching you, too, Damon,” I admitted, letting my voice lose some of its strength. “All these years, watching what you’ve done. How you’ve risen. How you’ve stayed out of reach.”
As I spoke, I skated my hand higher, feeling the heat of him start to seep into my skin. The buttons of his shirt bumped under my thumb all the way to the starched edge of his collar.
“I know how you did it,” I murmured, allowing the catch in my voice as I dove off the edge of his shirt and onto the bare heat of his skin.
“Robyn…” he growled, the beat of his jaw pulsing as my fingers skated over it.
“I know why you did it.”
My gaze lowered to his mouth. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop myself from tracing his lips, feeling their softness, remembering how they felt on mine—how they felt on me. Wondering what those lips would do now if given the chance.
This was the dangerous part. Getting close enough to hurt him meant getting close enough to get hurt.
But he’d already broken my heart, I reminded myself, and still being married to him meant it had remained broken.
“You know why?” he rasped, his entire body vibrating with tension. “Tell me.” And then his lips opened, and his teeth caught on the pad of my thumb, hard enough to cause pain but not so much that it hurt.
No sooner did I gasp than he released me. Dragging my eyes to his, I met his gunmetal orbs, desire turning them bright the way fire turns a brand red-hot.
I pressed my thumb to his lips, sliding it along them as I tipped closer. Our breaths created a raucous tangle as my mouth drew closer to his. Almost close enough for one taste of everything I hated myself for missing.
The twinge of pain in my chest was enough to set me straight. I sacrificed my stare and kept control of my tongue, gliding it along my lips until I heard the deep groan of want thunder in his chest.
“You lied, Damon. You became the best liar of them all. And that’s how I know you don’t want me, because all you’ve ever wanted is what doesn’t belong to you,” I said, packing every ounce of strength and bitter coldness into my voice.
I dropped my hand to my side and braced back against the door, preparing for whatever wrath was coming my way.
Damon’s jaw fired like a machine gun of frustration, and then as suddenly as the clip running out of ammunition, he straightened and let his arms fall to his sides.
“The clothes in the closet are only for you.” There was no roughness. No strain. No sign of anything unstable underneath his calm composure.
His lack of pushback deflated the wind from my sails. Maybe my plan hadn’t worked. Maybe toying with his lust wasn’t enough to stop all his false shows of thoughtfulness.
“I’d rather wear?—”
“Nothing?” he finished with a perfectly arched brow and a wink. Gone was the man in turmoil, his flirtatious charade returning in full force. “I’d rather that, too, Robber, so you’ll get no complaints from me. ”
Do not murder him. Do not murder him.
I stared at the perfect spot on his back to plant a knife as he walked to the door.
Pausing there, he turned back. “If you need anything, Nonna is my housekeeper and cook. She’s in the kitchen if you want to meet her or want to be force-fed the thousand-calorie dinner she wanted to make to welcome you.”
“Let me guess, you told her to starve me instead, thinking hunger would make me more compliant?”
His low laugh dissolved into a shake of his head. “I told her your favorite is pasta carbonara. The real version without the cream and with extra cheese.”
All these years, and he remembered…
He remembered, and he used that sharp memory of his as effectively as a knife through my chest.
“Fuck you, Damon.”
“One day, Robber, your opinion of me is going to change.”
“I agree,” I shot back, my throat tight. “One day soon, it will change from knowing you’re my lying, cheating, criminal husband to knowing that you’re not.”
His stare lingered for a second more, the smallest figment of that former anguish flaring, before he left and closed the door behind him.
Still fuming, I went into the bathroom, turned the shower on scalding, and set about burning the feel of him…the ache for him from my weak, traitorous skin.
Damon Remington was exactly the man I thought he was—the man he’d proven himself to be. A callous bastard who’d broken my heart. And when this was all over, I would undo the ties that bound us. I would finally free myself of the heartbreak personified as my husband.