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  Startled, she whirled around. Darius stood just inside the open door. He looked formidable in a black jacket, shirt, and pants, with his brown curls brushed away from his striking face—his presence seemed to shrink the large study to the size of a closet.

  He flicked his gaze to her face. And that’s when she noticed the fury that burned behind his impassive demeanor. There was nothing calm about the emotion that seethed in his blue eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he murmured.

  For a moment, an intense swell of I-am-so-falling-in-love-with-you struck her speechless. An avenging dark angel.

  He arched that damn—wonderful—eyebrow.

  The smile that curved her lips originated in her heart, the eddy of warmth spreading to every part of her body. She was better than okay. So much better.

  She nodded, and, appearing satisfied, Darius returned his attention to her mother, Daniel, and Cindy. Rowyn faced her family again. This time she didn’t feel as if she stood before the firing squad—not with Darius at her back.

  “Darius.” Daniel’s joviality couldn’t conceal the strain that tightened his smile or the nervous leap of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed convulsively. “We apologize for this.” He loosed a false hearty laugh. “Just a little family issue, but I assure you it does not affect our professional relationship at all.”

  “But it does,” Darius stated, and Rowyn wondered if she imagined her stepfather flinch under the lash of the hard voice. “A businessman who cannot recognize the contribution of his employee or the caliber of her performance she brings to his company is shortsighted at best and grossly incompetent at worst. And I refuse to do business with him.” The lapel of his jacket brushed her skin, bared by the backless dress as he shifted closer. “But she is more than your employee or the head of a department. Rowyn is your daughter. And that alone requires your loyalty. If you have none for your daughter, why should I believe you would have any for me?”

  He didn’t give Daniel an opportunity to reply. Heat from his touch penetrated her dress to the flesh beneath as he settled his hands on her hips.

  “I pity you. All of you.” As he pressed against her, the timbre of his voice vibrated from his chest through her back. Rowyn leaned into him, trusting him to support her physically as he did emotionally. “For years you had a daughter and sister ready and willing to love you, and each of you rejected her time and again.”

  “You have been in our home a handful of hours and have the audacity to judge us? You know nothing,” Pamela sneered. Rage mottled her features, and Rowyn realized she could count on one hand the number of times she’d witnessed a true smile on her mother’s face. Not the bogus social caricature, but a genuine smile full of joy and laughter.

  God. She inhaled, breathed deep past the fist that seemed to squeeze her heart. What pain Pamela must have endured every day to exude such anger and misery. She drank to escape the ache of living as the “other woman” to a dead wife. The tragedy was Pamela had had Rowyn to love and accept her all along.

  “It’s sad, isn’t it?” Darius asked softly. “In the short amount of time I’ve known your daughter, I value her more than you do.”

  Without another word, Darius slipped his hand over hers and, with a small tug, turned her around. He grasped the doorknob, twisted it, and opened the study door. The tinkle of laughter and hum of conversation poured into the room. They stepped through the entrance, and Darius pulled the door closed behind them, leaving her family—and her past—behind.

  “Come with me,” he said and guided her through the crowd. They received curious and smug glances, but Rowyn didn’t allow it to upset her. Not when Darius’s hand was wrapped tightly around hers.

  A couple of minutes later, she stood with him at the bottom of the steps outside her parents’ home. A lovely, cool breeze wafted through the hot June night, caressing her bare shoulders like a lover’s kiss. Like Darius’s kiss.

  She shivered and lifted her gaze to his. He stood in front of her, silent.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His grin matched hers as their words jumbled over the each other. Darius inclined his head.

  “You first,” he offered.

  “Thank you,” she repeated. “For coming to my defense. No one has done that for me before. And I want to…thank you.”

  Darius snorted. “I was apologizing for interfering in what may not have been my business.” He lifted his arm and palmed her cheek, his fingertips stroking her temple. “You are very welcome.”

  Without giving thought to rejection or doubt, Rowyn turned her face into his palm and pressed her lips to the center. It still wasn’t easy, this PDA thing. But Darius made trying worth the effort.

  “I don’t want to say good-bye to you again.” He lifted his other hand, and then her face was cradled between both palms, her head tilted back for the kiss he swept across her mouth. “I came here tonight with the intention of convincing you not to drop out of my life again. But after that”—he jerked his chin in the direction of the house behind her—”I want more. Come to Seattle, Rowyn.”

  Her breath caught in her lungs, then escaped on a rush of wind. The drumbeat of blood rushing through her veins resounded in her head. She lifted her hands to his arms and clasped the hard muscles. “Darius…”

  “I’m not a fool like Daniel. I recognize a gifted businesswoman when I see one. I want to offer you the same position with my company that you have with Harrisons’. I won’t lie, Rowyn. The job is only a bribe to convince you to move. To be with me.”

  A quick flash of fear flared in her stomach. Fear of taking this huge, impulsive step. Fear of leaving behind all she’d known. Fear of how much she hungered to say yes.

  “Don’t think, sweetheart,” he whispered. His blue eyes burned down into hers, entrapping her with their fire so she couldn’t look away. “Don’t use that beautiful, brilliant mind of yours. Speak from your heart. What does your heart say?”

  Her heart. Her heart said… “Yes.”

  Joy lit his face, and in that moment, all doubt and insecurities were carried away with the evening breeze. As his mouth covered hers and his tongue dipped inside to tangle, dance, and discover, she was fine with not being able to map out and analyze the next step of her future. As long as it included this man, she was willing to take the chance.

  And hey, she had a job waiting for her. She grinned under his kiss, and Darius drew back to return the smile.

  “I have something for you.”

  “Gifts already?” She perched on her toes and nipped the sensual curve of his bottom lip. “You’ve given me a job. What’s next? The corner office?”

  “No,” he drawled with a shake of his head. “That belongs to me. I will let you seduce me in it, though.”

  Rowyn snickered and waited as he slipped his hand into his front pocket. “You are all”—her eyes widened—”heart,” she finished hoarsely as her gaze fastened on the delicate gold chain and pendant that dangled between his fingers.

  Tears clogged her throat. Trembling, she touched a fingertip to the tiny crown etched into the jewelry’s smooth surface. Memories flooded her, and suddenly she stood with her father eight years ago as he smiled and watched her open his gift.

  I love you, Daddy. And I miss you.

  Darius fastened the chain around her neck, and the pendant felt familiar against her collarbone. Like a homecoming.

  “It’s a perfect fit,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Rowyn agreed and lifted her gaze to meet the quiet joy in his. “We are.”

  Epilogue

  “Cinderella returned to the palace, where she married the prince, and they lived happily ever after.”—Cinderella

  “Okay, so fairy tales aren’t for suckers.”—Rowyn Joeng

  “No, open your eyes,” he murmured. “I want to see.”

  Rowyn obeyed the low command and lifted her lashes even as her pussy pulsed with the echoes of the orgasm that had just ripped through her body.
The soft glow of the lamp on the desk cast its golden glow over Darius’s face and chest as he leaned over, and she remembered another time when he had issued the same demand. And he was just as beautiful now as he’d been that first night they’d spent together. His lips gleamed with her cream, and the stark white of his gaping shirt was a sharp contrast against his golden skin. God, he was beautiful.

  She uncurled her fingers from the edge of the desk and flexed the stiff digits.

  “See what?” she asked and lowered her arms. She fiddled with the top button of her silk shirt. He narrowed his gaze on the gesture. She smiled and pushed the first disc through the eyelet. In seconds the shirt gapped wide.

  “Go ahead,” he ordered softly. Rowyn complied. As he lowered his hands to the thin leather belt at his waist, she opened the bra snap between her breasts and peeled the cups to the side. A soft growl filled the room, and renewed desire flooded her pussy as she fixed her gaze on his movements, waiting for the first glimpse of his cock. Darius released the buckle and dragged the zipper down, then reached inside his slacks and pulled his dick free.

  She slicked her tongue over her lips, hungry. Again. The thick column of flesh capped with that smooth, bulbous head never failed to send a spear of lust straight to her pussy. He stroked his hand up the ridged length, and her groan joined his. She palmed her breasts and pinched the nipples. Oh God. She rolled her hips and arched her back. It was so good. It was always this good with him.

  “You know what I want to see?” he asked, his voice a husky caress over her sweat-dampened skin. Darius gripped the root of his cock and, with a jerk of his hips, impaled her pussy. She pressed her head into the hard wood of the desk, and a cry tore from her throat. “That,” he grunted, drew back, and thrust forward again. “That’s what I need.”

  He loomed over her, his palms flattening next to her head and his arms caging her in. In the warm lamplight, the wide gold band gleamed on the ring finger of his left hand. The sight of it pleasured her as much as the cock that parted her swollen pussy. She closed her eyes, and this time Darius didn’t demand that she reopen them. He rested his forehead against hers, and their breath mingled.

  “Open for me, sweetheart,” he whispered. Eager, she pulled her legs back and locked her ankles behind his back. She clutched his arms and held on to him as if he were a port in an erotic storm. The base of his cock ground against her clit and shoved her closer to the orgasm that hovered just out of her reach.

  “Darius,” she pleaded, straining toward him.

  “I have you.” He took her mouth in a burning, hard kiss. “I have you, sweetheart.”

  She gave herself over to him. He rode her hard, fast. He plunged his cock over and over into her pussy, stoking a fire that roared into a conflagration and consumed her in its flames. Her scream echoed in the shadowed office as Darius urged her to take more, go for more. He continued to fuck her, and before her heart slowed after the first orgasm, another rocketed through her. This time Darius followed her. He dropped his head back, and his dick jerked and pulsed inside her sex, hot spurts of semen flooding her rippling flesh.

  Rowyn held him as he bucked and shivered above her. When he settled his weight over her, skimmed soft lips over her jaw, and murmured words that were lost against her skin, she smiled.

  “Do you think everyone knows what goes on in your office when we ‘work late’?” she asked, rubbing her palm over his dark waves.

  She felt his smile as he swept his lips over her cheekbone.

  “What a man and wife do together is their own business…even if it is in the office.”

  “Right.” Rowyn chuckled, and the pleasure that shivered through her had more to do with the man pressed to her than the naughty words he’d whispered in her ear. Sometimes it was hard to believe Darius had reentered her life only eighteen months ago. So much had changed, the least of the adjustments being her relocation from Boston to Seattle. The biggest transformation had been her.

  No longer under the influence of her dysfunctional family, she’d become that woman she’d dreamed of for so long. Open. Carefree. Confident. Beautiful. Darius had not only offered her a top position in his company; he’d given her something more valuable. Laughter. Trust. Faith. Joy.

  Finally, she had her happily-ever-after.

  “I have to go pick up Wanda at the airport in an hour,” she reminded him even as she tightened her arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

  After a couple of visits to Seattle, her best friend had decided to leave Harrisons’, accept Darius’s job offer, and move to the west coast. These days Rowyn couldn’t stop smiling. And she owed it to this man, who had swept into her life and made her a princess in her personal fairy tale.

  Her smile widened. Her father had been the first man to call her a princess and had engraved the words on her necklace. Last month, Darius had become the second when he’d added mia principessa—my princess—underneath the Korean endearment. If she hadn’t been in love with him already, she would have fallen that day.

  “I love you, Darius.”

  He lifted his head and stared down at her, the corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy quirk.

  “I love you more, Mrs. Fiore.”

  Biography

  I was born the daughter of a sharecropper… Okay, maybe not. But I am the daughter of a pastor from whom I inherited my love of romance. The man can preach a mean Song of Solomon! (There’s that plug, Daddy! You can pay me later!)

  Although my first book starred a cucumber named Fred, my first romance came several years later in the seventh grade, when I wrote myself as a heroine opposite Ralph Tresvant from New Edition. Through the power of my pen and imagination, Ralph took one look across a crowded stadium, met my dark, mysterious gaze, fell passionately in love, and serenaded me in front of millions of fans. Out of all the girls in the world, he chose me! And of course, we lived happily ever after—once we had the inevitable fight, aka black moment, and made up with a passionate declaration of love and fidelity. This same story reincarnated itself many times over the years: with Donnie Wahlberg from New Kids on the Block, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, and as recently as last night, Vin Diesel.

  Though the characters have changed, my love of love has endured. Shaping the lives of the unique men and women who experience the first hungry bites of lust, the dizzying heights of passion, and the tender, healing heat of love—nothing compares to it. Except maybe discovering new material for love scenes with my husband, the head of Research & Development!