LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TEN

      HIS LOST TIME with Thea had lodged in his heart, where it was lashing around, demanding an explanation. Lizzie thought that because he was acting so contained he felt nothing, when for the first time in his life he didn’t know if he could trust himself to handle this meeting as well as he must. He only knew that for Thea’s sake he had to.

      In order to bring himself to talk to Lizzie at all, he had listed the good things she had done. Thea had turned out well. Raising her as a single mother with no family couldn’t have been easy for Lizzie. Eleven years ago she had been just eighteen and pregnant, with no home, no money, no family—no one at all to rely on but herself. She hadn’t just cared for Thea, she loved Thea without boundaries, in the same way that he’d been loved as a child, and Lizzie had raised Thea without the good fortune his parents had enjoyed.

      He couldn’t claim any credit for Thea beyond her existence. She was all Lizzie’s work. That was why he’d found Lizzie washing pots in London. It all made sense now. She’d kept nothing for herself and had put all her dreams on indefinite hold for Thea.

      But Thea was his daughter too, and he had been denied every moment of her existence—even the knowledge of it—up to now. So, although he could rationalise the situation and give Lizzie some credit, things could not go on as they were.

      ‘I won’t let you take her, Damon.’

      He stared at Lizzie. He’d seen flashes of her vulnerability, but it would be a mistake to think her vulnerable now. His mother had always told him that there was no stronger opponent a man could face than a mother fighting for her child.

      ‘No court would allow any man to walk into a child’s life and take her from the mother who has loved her from the instant she first felt her stir in the womb—who has loved her unreservedly ever since—unless that man could prove both that he was the father of the child and that the mother was unfit to care for her. And no one—not even you—can prove a lie, Damon.’

      ‘I’m not just any man,’ he argued tensely. ‘I’m a father. Thea’s father.’

      ‘I will fight you every step of the way,’ she warned him. ‘I’ll fight your money, your power, and your legal team too. Do you really think you can defeat a mother in defence of her child? Even you don’t have the weapons for that, Damon.’

      His feelings were rising. He felt fury that she would deny him Thea even now—and yet he knew acceptance, however reluctant, that his own mother would have said the same.

      He wasn’t as callous as Lizzie thought him. She had been in his thoughts too. She’d never left them, really. In the desert, when he’d been working with his team, she had intruded on his thoughts at night, and in the day he’d kept her in mind to ease some of the horrors he’d seen. But she’d kept the most important thing on earth from him, and he could never forgive her for that.

      She had cheated him out of Thea, as her father had cheated his father. How could he ever trust her again after that?

      ‘You’ll have to—’ He’d been about to say, consult a lawyer, when Lizzie leapt ahead of him—but in the wrong direction.

      ‘I don’t have to do anything you tell me to,’ she assured him. ‘It’s up to you to launch your case—try to destroy me as you destroyed my father.’

      ‘Lizzie…’ he modulated his tone. ‘We’ve been over this ground several times. We both know that what happened in court that day was for the best.’

      ‘What I know is that my father was weak and you were strong. Is that what you plan to do now? Crush me?’

      Grinding his jaw, he refused to be drawn, but Lizzie had the bit between her teeth.

      ‘Get this straight,’ she blazed at him. ‘Thea stays with me. We choose a time to tell her that you’re her father, and we do that together. Above all we try to be civilised about this.’

      ‘And then Thea makes her choice,’ he said mildly, employing all the reason he used in business. ‘Thea isn’t a baby. She’s a highly intelligent girl with a mind of her own. There isn’t a judge alive who wouldn’t want to hear what she has to say.’

      Lizzie’s heart lurched. Closing her eyes briefly, she reeled through a new scene in court. Penniless mother. Billionaire father. What would the judge make of that?

      It was a matter of trust, she concluded. It boiled down to her belief in the strength of the love that she and Thea shared. It was just the thought of that love being put to the test in front of strangers that made her feel terrible for Thea. Why should a ten-year-old child have to go through that? This was never what she’d wanted.

      ‘We’ll see,’ was all she could reply.

      When it came down to it, love was all about trust, Lizzie reflected. Yes, love could be hurt and doubt, but it was also hope. She’d lost all hope of love with Damon, but Thea’s future was still untarnished—and it would remain that way if Lizzie had anything to do with it.

      ‘Tell me one thing,’ she said. ‘Did you never once feel guilty for walking away after casually destroying my life?’

      ‘You left with your friends, as I remember it.’

      And her life had badly needed shaking up. She accepted that.

      ‘What happened to those friends?’ Damon probed.

      ‘When the money ran out, so did they,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Fair-weather friends, as you yourself called them. I made a clean start. I was lucky enough to make more friends—real friends—who couldn’t have cared less if I could afford to wear this label or that, or if my father gave the most lavish parties. Though in fairness to those old friends,’ she admitted, ‘their parents wouldn’t allow them to see me. First there was the shame of my father’s imprisonment, and then the fear that I might want a loan to see me through, and finally, to cap it all, I was pregnant, with no sign of a husband or partner.’

      ‘So, not really your friends at all, then?’ Damon said.

      ‘No,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘I know the difference now. Being pregnant with Thea gave me a very clear focus on life. Motherhood changed me for good. I grew up overnight. I had to, to make a go of things for Thea. I even found that I wasn’t so stupid after all.’ She shrugged wryly. ‘Being a mother was actually something I was good at.’

      He couldn’t deny that. ‘But you should have contacted me.’

      ‘I

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