Chapter Four
Damien adjusted his car vents so that the air hit him directly in the face.
The brief rainstorm that had popped up out of nowhere had passed, but the heat and humidity it left behind made him feel as if he would suffocate.
He had no one to blame but himself. He’d been back in south Louisiana long enough to have realized that wearing a suit jacket—even a linen one—this time of the year was akin to torture.
There was no way in hell he would spend the night in this thing. It was going in his trunk.
He found a parking spot across the street from April’s home in Bywater.
Its wooden clapboards were painted lilac.
Not a surprise. He remembered it was her favorite color.
What was a surprise was the playful feel of the place.
It was accented with white shutters and gingerbread trim.
The small, neatly kept front yard had several colorful bird feeders, and a metal wind chime hung from the eaves above the front porch.
He wouldn’t have pegged April as one for whimsy, but what did he know?
He hadn’t pegged her as someone who would be willing to lie on a grant application, either.
That she had even suggested it had shocked the hell out of him yesterday.
The April he knew would never even consider doing something like that.
Then again, the April he knew had always been willing to do whatever she could to help those in need.
Like him.
A small smile tickled the corners of Damien’s lips as he recalled the way she’d approached him all those years ago, back when they were in high school.
Because they lived on opposite sides of the Lower Ninth Ward, they had attended different elementary and middle schools.
At the time, the only thing Damien knew about her was her name.
To him, April was simply the quiet girl who never really said anything in class unless it was to answer a question from the teacher—something she did on a regular basis.
She didn’t socialize much with the other students.
Except for that day when she’d stopped him on his way out of Mrs. Blanchard’s English class and offered to tutor him.
Damien had responded by being a defensive little shit, because, well, that’s just the kind of kid he’d been back then.
The fact that she’d approached him in front of several of their classmates, who snickered at her offer, only made things worse.
Damien was sure all he had to do was growl in her direction to send her running, but he soon learned that when April Knight decided to champion a cause, she didn’t scare easily.
She’d persisted, standing next to his table in the lunchroom while his friends looked on in curiosity, catching him in the halls.
She would slip bits of paper with study suggestions scrawled on them through the slits in his locker, along with her email address in case he wanted to talk it over.
After several weeks of Damien applying those study methods she’d suggested, April accosted him in the hallway, and told him that she believed he could do so much better if he stopped being such a stubborn fathead and allowed her to help him.
That the quiet slip of a girl called him a fathead to his face had shocked him, but not nearly as much as hearing her say that she believed in him.
That moment in the crowded hallway of Carver High School had been a turning point.
Damien would forever be grateful for her tenacity.
She’d turned his life around by extending that helping hand.
She’d changed his perspective. Once he started working with April, he wanted to do better—be better. For her.
He’d discovered that it was still the case today. He wanted April to be proud of the kind of man he’d become. He hadn’t realized just how much her approval still influenced him.
Damien walked up to her small porch, which, in addition to the wind chime, had several potted ivy plants in hanging baskets.
Their long vines cascaded down, creating a curtain that shaded portions of the porch.
He approached the door and rang the doorbell, and heard April’s muffled voice just on the other side.
The door opened and Damien felt as if he’d been struck in the chest.
She was stunning. She wore an airy sundress with thin straps and a hem that looked as if it was ripped apart in strips. The material had swirls of dark blue over a lighter blue backdrop, with tiny dots of silver sprinkled throughout.
“You look amazing,” Damien said.
“Thank you,” she replied. Was that a blush he saw climbing up her cheeks, or had she been out in the heat, too? Later, when he had time to process the thoughts and feelings swirling in his brain, he would figure out why the thought of putting a blush on her face made him feel so damn good.
April moved aside so he could enter.
“Can you give me a couple of minutes? You’re early. I haven’t finished getting ready.”
Damien would beg to differ. He didn’t see a single thing on her that looked as if it needed fixing in any way.
“There’s juice and soda in the fridge if you want any,” she said. “There may be a beer in there, too.”
Parched from his sweltering ride over, Damien helped himself to a bottled water from her refrigerator, then said in a voice loud enough to carry to the back of the house where she’d gone off to, “If you were considering bringing a light sweater or something, forget it. It’s brutal out there.”
A couple of moments passed before April entered the kitchen, fixing an earring to her ear. “Oh, I know better than to worry with a cover-up,” April said. “We’re not getting under eighty degrees for the next few months. All my sweaters are put away until October.”
“How long did it take you to readjust to this south Louisiana heat?” Damien asked.
She twisted up a corner of her mouth. “Not as long as I thought. I did that stint in Brazil, remember? That was even hotter than New Orleans for a huge portion of the time. But you were in Houston. It’s not that different.”
Setting his backside against the edge of the counter, Damien peered at her as he tipped his head back to take a sip of water.
“It isn’t always as humid there.” He paused for a beat before continuing.
“I know we came back to New Orleans around the same time, but I have to admit that it still surprises me that you chose to settle down here.”
Her forehead dipped in a confused crease. “Why’s that?”
“With all the places you’ve visited and lived over the years, I would have thought you’d end up in New York, or San Francisco, or even Paris.”
April shrugged. “I love all those cities, but they all have one thing that’s missing,” she said. “They’re not home. This is home. I think I made the right decision.”
“So do I,” Damien said. He gestured around the kitchen. “Although, I must say that I was a bit thrown by this particular house.”
“You don’t like my house?” Her frown was as adorable as the rest of her.
“I love your house. It’s just...not what I expected,” Damien said. He pushed away from the counter and walked over to where she stood, just next to the stove. “I’ve discovered several unexpected things about you over the last couple of days.”
“Such as?” she asked in a voice that hovered just above a whisper. It felt as if the oxygen in the kitchen had all but evaporated.
“Such as this little bargain you forced me to agree to,” Damien said.
“Forced?”
“Made damn near impossible to reject,” Damien amended. He took another step closer. “The April Knight I used to know wouldn’t have had the guts to make the kind of demand you made yesterday.”
“I’m not the quiet girl you used to know,” she said.
Electricity sizzled between them. Damien experienced the same jolt he’d felt when she visited his office. It made his skin feel tight, caused the air in his lungs to evaporate.
He took another step toward her, but then she broke eye contact, slipping away from the counter and walking over to the opposite side of the kitchen. She moved a paper towel holder a few inches to the right and brushed invisible dirt from the counter.
“So, this thing that we’re going to tonight, what exactly am I supposed to do?”
Damien didn’t answer right away. He continued to stare at her, debating whether to give voice to the moment that had just passed between them, or ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen.
As he considered the hours ahead of them, and how he needed April to be as comfortable as possible so that she could help him woo New Orleans’s elite, he decided to go with ignoring it.
There was too much riding on the outcome of the various events he had lined up to risk spooking April.
Damien braced his feet apart and crossed his arms over his chest.
“A week ago I would have said that I wanted you there just so I wouldn’t look like the guy who couldn’t get a date,” he answered. “But after this thing with that magazine, I need you to run interference for me. I’ve been approached by a few...how do I say it? Overeager females.”
“So I’m the designated cock blocker?”
A sharp laugh shot out of his mouth.
“April Knight,” Damien said in an admonishing tone. “Where’d you learn such language?”
The grin that pulled at the edges of her lips was so damn cute Damien wanted to snap her picture so that he could revisit it whenever he needed a pick-me-up.
“Don’t tell my brothers,” she said.
“Oh, I would love to see the looks on the Knight brothers’ faces if they heard what their innocent little sister just said.”
The grin that slid across her mouth this time was decidedly wicked. “You know, I’m not as innocent as I look.”
The words, spoken in that hushed, seductive tone, drizzled down Damien’s spine like warm nectar. They were tiptoeing into dangerous territory here. This was April, for goodness’ sake. He needed to bring them back to a safer playing field.
“So, about tonight,” Damien said.
April cleared her throat and moved the paper towel holder back to where it had originally sat. “Yes. Tonight,” she said.