Doukakis's Apprentice (18 page)

Neither man was aware of her presence, both trapped in their boiling cauldron of mutual animosity.

Feeling the warm threads of her newfound happiness unravel, Polly finally managed to croak out a few words.

‘Dad?’ Her voice cracked. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I
COULD
ask you the same question. So the rumours are true.’ Her father faced Damon, his expression twisted and ugly. ‘Do you have no boundaries? No conscience? It should have been enough for you to take over my company, but no—you had to seal your revenge by seducing my daughter.’ His breathing was alarmingly rapid, his hands locked in two white-knuckled fists by his sides.

Revenge?

Polly wanted to move towards her father but her body felt as if it had been encased in cement. She couldn’t move. Not once, even for a moment, had it occurred to her that Damon might have seduced her because of her father’s relationship with Arianna.

And in that single agonising moment she was finally able to put a name to those alien feelings.

Love.

She’d fallen in love with Damon. Her brain told her it wasn’t possible in such a short time but her heart wasn’t listening. And maybe it wasn’t such a short time, really. He’d always been there, hadn’t he? On the fringes of her life. Her friend’s big brother.

Terror scraped her skin, sharp as the talons of an eagle, and she stood without speaking, aware of Damon’s dangerous mood as he confronted her father.

‘You
dare
to come into my home and pretend you care about your daughter? This after several weeks when you
haven’t bothered to get in touch with anyone?’ A look of contempt on his face, Damon took a step towards the older man. ‘You are a disgrace. And a coward. You hid rather than face me, but you’re here now so stand up and behave like a man. Take responsibilities for your decisions instead of shifting focus onto someone else.’

Still locked in frozen silence, Polly saw her father’s face redden.

‘Now, you listen to me—’ Clearly intimidated by Damon’s cold, controlled fury, he momentarily lost some of his bluster. ‘I’m no coward. I’m not afraid of you.’

‘Well, you should be.’ Damon’s voice was silky-smooth, his soft tone a thousand times more dangerous than the older man’s empty bluster. ‘You abandoned your business without thought or care for the future job security of your employees and you did the same with your daughter.’

‘I did not abandon her. Polly’s not a kid. She’s capable of looking after herself.’

‘This wasn’t a question of cooking herself a meal and getting on with life. You left her to the mercy of those greedy animals you laughingly call a board, all of whom could have been dismissed for misuse of company funds, not to mention sexual harassment, but even worse than that—’ the control finally snapped and Damon’s voice thickened with anger ‘—you left her to deal with
me
. By herself. No support from anyone.’ Each word thumped into her father like a rock and Polly saw him shrivel.

Torn between her love for two men, she stepped forward, forcing the words through stiff lips. ‘Damon, that’s enough.’

Damon ignored her. ‘Was that your plan? Instead of standing up to me like a man, you left your daughter alone and unprotected in the hope that the lion wouldn’t attack? Or have you just completely abdicated your responsibilities as a father?’

‘Polly’s good at her job. And she’s good with people.’ But her father’s bluster was fading and he glanced warily at Polly. ‘You handled him, didn’t you?’

Damon exploded, first in Greek and then in English. ‘She is twenty-four years old and doesn’t have a ruthless bone in her body and yet you abandoned her to be eaten alive by someone of my reputation.’

‘I didn’t think you’d hurt her.’

Damon’s laugh was layered with contempt and disgust. ‘You were relying on that. You ran. And you let your defenceless daughter deal with the fall-out. You disgust me. Now, get the hell out of my home.’

‘Now, wait a minute—’ Her father stumbled over his words. ‘Pol isn’t defenceless. She’s a tough thing.’

‘She’s had to be! When have you ever stood up for her or helped her? When, in the whole of her life, have you ever been there for her?!’

‘I gave her a home when her mother walked out.’

Damon lifted a hand, clenched it into a fist and then lowered it again. ‘
Don’t
say another word,’ he warned in a thickened tone. ‘Not a word if you want to walk out of here in the same condition you walked in.’

‘Stop it!’ Finally dragged from her own trauma, Polly stepped between the two men. ‘Stop it, both of you! That’s enough.’ She felt sick inside. So sick that she wanted to crawl into a corner and hide there. Although she knew that everything Damon said was the truth, it didn’t stop her loving her father. Life wasn’t that simple, was it? ‘Dad, where’s Arianna?’

‘She’s back at the house. It’s her home now. We’re married. We did in secret because we both knew
he
—’ he stabbed an accusing finger towards Damon ‘—would go off the deep end.’

‘Married?’
Polly couldn’t hide her dismay and a flash of
real fear chilled her all the way through as she anticipated how Damon would react to that less than welcome news. ‘Oh, Dad.’

Her father bristled. ‘If I care for a woman, I don’t want to just make some sort of sex trophy of her—like him.’ He glared at Damon. ‘He has plenty of women. He just doesn’t marry any of them. What does that say about him?’

‘It says that I can tell the difference between lust and love.’ Damon spoke through his teeth, his effort to maintain control visible in the pumped muscle of his bare chest and shoulders. ‘It says that my decision-making is ruled by my brain and not my testosterone levels.’

Sensing the extreme volatility of his mood, Polly was terrified he was going to lose it. ‘I think you’d better leave, Dad,’ she said hastily, urging him towards the door.

‘Not without you.’ Her father dug his heels in and Damon breathed deeply.

‘She’s staying here. With me. She’s mine now.’ It was a statement of pure male possession and Polly stilled, hot tears scalding the back of her eyes, knowing that those words were spoken to aggravate her father.

What other explanation was there? Damon had already told her he didn’t want a relationship—didn’t want commitment or more responsibility. And she knew, as no doubt he did, that nothing would upset her father more than watching her choose Damon over him.

Damon saw their relationship as another weapon to use in the defence of his sister.

‘Wait there,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

Damon turned slowly, an expression of raw incredulity stamped on his spectacularly handsome face as he looked at her. ‘You’re going with him?’

Polly couldn’t breathe. Her mind was a mess and the pain
in her chest felt as though someone had ripped her apart with burning knives. ‘I don’t have a choice. He’s my dad.’

‘Of course you have a choice.’ Damon’s face was unusually pale. ‘
Theé mou
, tell me that you don’t believe any of that garbage he just spouted.’

She hadn’t even questioned it.

His animosity towards her father was a living force in the room and the effort not to cry was a physical burning in the back of her throat.

She told herself that even if she were wrong it didn’t make a difference to the outcome. The two men she loved were at war with each other and there was no way to make peace. Especially not now that her father had married Arianna. Damon would never forgive him.

Polly felt sick and dizzy and a sense of crawling misery spread through her trembling frame. ‘I think it’s best if I leave. I—I’ll be back at work on Monday, Damon.’

There was a long, agonising silence.

Damon stared at her without speaking. His eyes smouldered dark and his mouth tightened. ‘You don’t have to give me your work schedule,’ he said coldly. ‘When you’re naked in my bed I’m your lover, not your boss.’

His icy response hurt more than all the words that had been flung around the room and Polly had to physically stop herself from throwing herself at him and trying to undo what had been done.

‘He’s upsetting you, Pol,’ her father said firmly. ‘We should just leave.’

It was like separating two stags, she thought numbly. There was never going to be any way of making them get along.

Devastated, she turned her back on both of them and hurried to the bedroom, trying not to remember the incredible happiness she’d felt only moments earlier. Trying to hold it
together, she retrieved her shoes and bag and coat and walked back to the living room.

Bracing herself for another desperately upsetting encounter with Damon, she saw only her father.

‘Where’s Damon?’

‘He’s gone. Gave me a look and walked out.’ Her father cast a nervous look around the apartment. ‘The guy’s unstable. You’re well rid of him, Pol. Let’s get out of here.’

Arriving back at her own home, Polly felt numb with misery. She just wanted to retreat to her room but she knew there was no hope of that.

Oblivious to her agony, her father was chatting excitedly, telling her about his wedding in the Caribbean.

She felt as though she were trapped in a recurring cycle.

Another woman. Another relationship.

She should have been used to it by now, but this time it felt different and not just because Arianna was her friend.

‘Are you mad with me, Pol?’ Arianna hovered anxiously as Polly walked into the house with her father. ‘It’s going to be seriously weird being your stepmother, but once we get over that is everything going to be cool between us? I mean, I know you must be mad with Damon, but that’s just the way he is. You know that, right? And we don’t have to see that much of him.’

That statement depressed her more than anything else that had been said so far. ‘I’m working for him,’ Polly said flatly. ‘I have to see him.’

‘You can get another job,’ her father said cheerfully, sliding his arm around Arianna and kissing her on the cheek. ‘I’m thinking of setting up again. I’ll employ you.’

‘No, thanks.’ Polly found that she couldn’t look at Arianna without thinking of Damon. ‘I like the job I have now. Damon is an inspirational boss.’

Her father looked affronted. ‘Well, he’s good with numbers, that’s true, and he’s certainly—’

‘Dad, just—’ Teetering on the edge of an emotional explosion, Polly held up her hand. ‘Just don’t say anything else, OK? This whole thing could have gone a completely different way. Everyone could have been made redundant and—’ She broke off, too exhausted to fight with anyone. ‘Never mind.’

Arianna walked over and gave her a hug. ‘You’ve had a terrible few weeks. Believe me, no one knows better than me what it’s like having Damon breathing down your neck, checking on everything you’re doing. He does it because he’s a complete and utter control freak.’

Polly snapped. ‘Actually, he does it because he cares. He cares about
you
—’ The fury shook her and she pushed her astonished friend away. ‘He thinks about your welfare and he cares whether you’re happy. He sees it as his role to protect you and he’s made enormous personal sacrifices to care for you and make sure that you grew up with family and not a bunch of strangers. So maybe you could start seeing things from his point of view for a change. Why the hell didn’t you phone him?! The guy has been worried sick!’

‘Why are you defending him?’ Astonished, Arianna exchanged uncertain looks with her new husband. ‘Polly—’

‘I’m going upstairs to do some work.’ Polly turned away, seriously shaken by the intensity of her desire to defend Damon from attack. She would have thrown herself in front of a moving vehicle to protect him from harm. ‘I have a job to do and I intend to keep it, no matter what shambles my personal life is in.’ She knew that no matter what had happened between them there was no way that Damon would allow the personal to overtake the professional. She knew that her job was safe.

In the privacy of her bedroom, she locked the door and then
flung herself on her bed, feeling something close to desperate. The emptiness inside her was a big dark hole.

It was hard to believe that it was only yesterday she’d been celebrating a promotion and the achievement of a lifetime ambition—to do a business degree—and now—

Now she felt nothing but a sense of profound loss.

All the happiness had been sucked out of her.

Polly turned her head and looked at the prospectus that lay by her bed but somehow today it didn’t have the power to lift her spirits as it had the day before.

Frightened by how bad she felt, she tried to reason with herself.

She’d done everything she’d set out to do.

No one was going to be fired. Thanks to Gérard, money and business was flowing into the company. Damon was finally aware of her true role in the company.

She should feel proud. Relieved.

But suddenly none of that seemed important.

Instead of feeling as if she’d won, she felt as if she’d lost.

Everything.

The temptation to go off sick on Monday was huge.

‘Don’t go in,’ her father urged as Polly grabbed her BlackBerry and slipped it in her bag. ‘Just stay at home. Switch your phone off.’

‘I have a job, Dad. Responsibilities.’ She gave him a pointed look and he had the grace to colour. ‘We’ve just won a massive account and I’m in charge of it. Excuse me. I’m going to be late.’

She travelled to work by her usual route, feeling as though she had lead weights attached to her feet.

Maybe Damon would be in meetings all day. Or perhaps he
would have found a reason to travel to New York or Athens. She didn’t know which would be worse—seeing him or not seeing him.

The moment she walked onto her floor she sensed something different in the atmosphere.

‘Morning, Polly,’ Debbie said cheerfully. ‘Coffee and muffin on your desk.’

Polly decided that to confess that she wasn’t hungry would simply invite questions, so she just smiled. ‘Thanks. I’m going to have a team meeting at eleven to discuss the High Kick Hosiery account. Can you summon the troops?’

‘Sure, but I just took a call for you—could you pop down to the tenth floor. Accounts.’

Polly put her bag down on her desk. ‘Why?’

‘No idea. I just follow orders. And there are enough of them flying around here.’ With that enigmatic statement Debbie strolled off, leaving Polly with the distinct feeling that something was going on.