Taming Damian
TAMING DAMIAN
The Heartbreaker Series - Book Two
The man, the legend, the heartbreaker
by
J
ESSICA
W
OOD
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Jessica Wood
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
ERH Press
ISBN-13 978-1-940285-04-7
First Edition: April 2014
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T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other Books
About the Author
“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
CHAPTER ONE
Damian
I had told her that I loved her, and I had meant every single word of it. I never would have said those words if I hadn’t been serious. In fact, I had never spoken those vile words before to any other woman. And yet, tonight, I had to her.
Well, that had been a big fucking mistake—the biggest fucking mistake of my life.
I took one last glance at the text on her phone from a guy called Chris.
Hey hun. Did you get the results yet? You know I’ll support you no matter what.
As I watched the text message disappear from the screen, I felt my jaw tighten as a wrath of emotions whirled around inside me: rage, pain, betrayal.
Could this Chris be the ex-boyfriend she’s mentioned to me before—the one who broke her heart and caused her to move from Iowa to California?
If it was the same Chris, then something must have happened between them the month Alexis and I were apart. They must have reconnected again.
My eyes landed on the glass of water in front of Alexis’s chair. It wasn’t until then that I realized that she hadn’t had a glass of alcohol throughout the entire wedding ceremony, not even a Sex on the Beach, her favorite.
Could she be pregnant with his child?
That was the only logical explanation I could think of as to why Alexis hadn’t mentioned anything about any “results” to me and why she was secretly communicating with another guy she’d never mentioned to me before. In fact, the only guy she’d ever even mentioned to me in passing was her ex-boyfriend, a guy named Chris.
A storm of fury ignited inside me as I imagined this Chris fucking the woman I loved—no, the woman I had loved. I felt something inside me shift, as if I were systematically closing off my feelings for her, and in its place was a growing hatred for her.
I thought she was different, someone who was making me into a better person—a version of myself I’d never thought I could be. I thought she was my game changer, the one who would actually tame the infamous Damian Castillo every women pined after.
But I was wrong.
She had crept her way into my life, seeped through the walls I’d put up against women, and consumed my every thought like a stain that wouldn’t come off. I had given everything I had to her. I’d even given her things I never thought I had in me to give. I had unequivocally and completely lost myself to her. But the minute she had me within her grasp, she destroyed me.
I wasn’t sure how I’d let myself become so blinded by her, and I wasn’t sure how I’d allowed myself to so easily develop feelings for this girl. But I was sure of one thing: Alexis was nothing like who I had thought she was and she was everything like who my mother was—the cold-hearted whore who’d left me to forever wonder who my real father was. My mother had ruined the memories of my adolescence, and now, I had allowed Alexis to ruin my present.
I felt the molten lava of rage consume every inch of my body and take over my every thought. Gripped by this fury, I reached for her phone and pulled the text back up again. I wanted to delete it—to get rid of the existence of the words that had just ruined my night. But as my thumb hovered over the delete button, I hesitated. This text wasn’t what had ruined my night. Alexis was. How could the first woman I had allowed myself to love since my bitch of a mother have betrayed me like this? She hadn’t just ruined my night—she’d ruined me.
She’d ruined me.
I decided not to delete the text and dropped her phone back into her bag. I wanted to see Alexis’s reaction when she read it later. I wanted to catch her in her lies. I stood up quickly, the fire inside fueling a new sense of determination. I grabbed my glass of scotch, gulped it down, and slammed the empty glass back on the table.
I was Damian Castillo, and I had vowed a long time ago that I would never again let a woman destroy my life. No, I wouldn’t bow out and give Alexis the satisfaction of knowing that she had gotten to me. No, I wouldn’t let her get away with it. I would make her pay for her betrayal, and I would enjoy it.
CHAPTER TWO
Alexis
I studied the stunning brunette staring back at me in a royal blue lace gown. My hands gently moved down the dress as I stared at myself in the reflection. It had been a whirlwind of a day, and I still couldn’t believe it was less than twenty-four hours ago that I’d been in San Francisco with no idea that I’d be all the way on the other side of the world hours later.
It was just yesterday that I’d thought we were going to spend the weekend camping somewhere close to San Francisco. When I’d arrived home from work to pack for our camping trip, Damian had surprised me with the gorgeous gown I was now wearing and told me that he had a special date planned for us. The next thing I knew, we were on a private jet a few hours later, heading to a secret location for this special date. It wasn’t until we arrived at our location that he told me we were in Italy for his friend’s wedding and that he had planned a weeklong trip in Italy for us after the wedding.
I’d known then that something special had happened in our relationship. He knew that traveling to every continent was on my bucket list of things I wanted to do before I turned thirty, and he’d seen a future between us enough to plan out this trip down to every detail. For a guy like Damian, it was uncharacteristic of him and yet so very much who I saw him to be—the sweet man he was inside. It was the part of him that he’d tried so hard to hide from people. And now he was opening that part of himself up to me.
So here I was, a small-town girl from the Midwest who’d, up until a few months ago, never left the state of Iowa, across the world in the romantic city of Florence, Italy. I was dressed in this one-of-a-kind gown, at this beautiful fairytale wedding, in the arms of the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on. And the cherry on top of this unbelievably romantic surprise, he had just told me he loved me. My lips curled into a wide grin as I thought of him.
“I love you, Alex. You feel inevitable to me.”
His words had made me so deliriously happy—more happy than I’d ever thought was possible, more happy than I’d thought I deserved.
My smile instantly vanished as my eyes landed on the reflection of my stomach. I felt my lungs constrict as the air in the bathroom seemed to leave the room, leaving me breathless and gasping for breath. My heart pounded nervously against my chest as a surge of panic rushed through me.
If the doctor is right and the test results come out the way he has predicted, what am I going to do?
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the anguish in my eyes—a look I’d thought I’d never have with Damian by my side.
More importantly, how am I going to tell him? He will never look at me the same way again, and I will lose him forever.
A stream of fresh tears rolled down my face at the thought of losing him. It was already an unimaginable feat that we had found each other, that he had given up his playboy ways to give our relationship a chance. I wasn’t sure our relationship was strong enough for this.
I looked down and watched as my hands moved to my stomach. “He needs to know. Even if it means that I’d lose him forever, he needs to know that I might be pregnant”—I looked back up at the reflection of the terrified girl peering back at me—“or worse, I might be pregnant with…” My words came out in a whisper and I stopped mid-sentence as soon as I realized that I was speaking out loud. I looked around the bathroom and under the five stalls to see if anyone else was in here with me.
I let out a sigh of relief. I was alone.
My lips trembled as I thought about how much my life would change if the tests all came out positive. I imagined the many different reactions that were possible when I told him: shock, denial, anger, sadness, pain.
I’ll try to talk to him
after
we get back from Italy
, I convinced myself. I didn’t want to ruin this trip he had gone through so much trouble to plan for us. I couldn’t bear to ruin it for him. At the very least, I wanted this week in Italy to be about us, and only us. I didn’t want to ruin this week on top of losing him.
I brushed the tears from my face and reapplied some makeup. Even though I looked fine, I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of what night happen in the next few months, of what might happen when Damian found out the truth.
“Okay,
after
Italy then. After I see the doctor. After everything’s been confirmed.” My hands braced the cold marble counter as I tried to calm myself down. “Besides, I couldn’t possibly hide things from him forever.” I took a deep breath as I looked at myself in the mirror one last time. “I will. I’ll tell Damian soon.” I stood up and turned toward the bathroom door that led back out to the wedding reception.
“Tell me what?”
A jolt of panic crashed through me as I froze in place and found myself face to face with Damian.
For a few seconds, fear and panic paralyzed my body and I couldn’t manage to think, let alone speak.
How long has he been standing there? How much did he hear?
“Hey, you,” I finally managed to say breathlessly. I turned away from him, my eyes unable to withstand the intensity of his piercing gaze. “This is the girls’ bathroom, Damian. You shouldn’t be in here.” I was surprised at how casual I was able to sound at this moment when the pounding of my heart was the only thing I was able to hear.
“You know I’m not good with rules.” His voice was hoarse and low, almost threatening. “Especially when it comes to you.” He approached me from behind and I felt his hands slide around my waist.
“So everything’s okay out there? I was just coming back out.” I looked at him innocently. “Have they started with the toasts yet?”
“Yeah, they have. Your phone actually started going off during the groom’s father’s toast.” He handed me my purse and phone, his eyes never leaving me.
“Oh shit! I hope no one noticed.”
“You should probably check your phone in case it was an urgent call. I think you got a text too right after the call.” His expression was stone cold and distant, and he stared at me in a way I wasn’t used to, like I was a stranger he’d just met for the first time.
“Sure. Right,” I agreed softly. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I held my tongue. Something told me that it wasn’t a good idea. I looked down at my phone and cautiously took it from him. I could feel his eyes locked on me, scrutinizing my every move.
Don’t be so paranoid, Alex
.
“So who called?” He looked at me expectantly as I switched on my phone.
My heart stopped when I saw the missed call from Chris. “Uh. No one. Just a call from work.” I looked up from my phone and gave Damian a quick smile.
