“Hell,” Lucas said softly.

“They were on Long Island. A narrow, twisting road on the Sound along the North Shore. He was driving, both of them high on booze and cocaine. The car went over a guardrail. Neither of them survived.” Damian looked up from his glass, his eyes bleak. “You talked about grief before, Lucas. Well, I did grieve then, not for her but for my unborn child…until I was going through Kay’s papers, tying up loose ends, and found an article she’d clipped from some magazine, all about the symptoms of pregnancy.”

“That still doesn’t mean—”

“I went to see her doctor. He confirmed it. She had never been pregnant. Not the first time. Not the second. It was all a fraud.”

The two friends sat in silence while the sun dipped below the horizon. Finally Lucas cleared his throat.

“I wish I could think of something clever to say.”

Damian smiled. “You got me to talk. You can’t imagine how much good that’s done. I’d been keeping everything bottled inside.”

“I have an idea. That club of mine. Remember? I’m meeting there with someone interested in buying me out.”

“So soon?”

“You know how it is in New York. Today’s hotspot is tomorrow’s trash.” Lucas glanced at his watch. “Come downtown with me, have a drink while I talk a little business and then we’ll go out.” He grinned. “Dinner at that place on Spring Street. A pair of bachelors on the town, like the old days.”

“Thank you, my friend, but I wouldn’t be very good company tonight.”

“Of course you would. And we won’t be alone for long.” Another quick grin. “Before you know it, there’ll be a couple of beautiful women hovering over us.”

“I’ve sworn off women for a while.”

“I can understand that but—”

“It’s what I need to do right now.”

“You sure?”

Inexplicably an image of the woman with green eyes and sun-streaked hair flashed before Damian’s eyes. He hadn’t wanted to notice her, certainly didn’t want to remember her…

“Yes,” he said briskly, “I’m positive.”

“You know what they say about getting back on the horse that threw you,” Lucas said with a little smile.

“I told Nicolo almost the same thing a year ago, the night he met Aimee.”

“And?”

“And,” Damian said, “it was good advice for him, but not for me. This is different.”

Lucas’s smile faded. “You’re right. Well, let me just call this guy I’m supposed to meet—”

“No, don’t do that. I’d like to be alone tonight. Just do a little thinking, start putting this thing behind me.”

Lucas cocked his head. “It’s no big deal, Damian. I can meet him tomorrow.”

“I appreciate it but, honestly, I feel a lot better now that we talked.” Damian held out his hand. “Go have your meeting. And, Lucas—Thank you.”

“Para nada,” Lucas said, smiling. “I’ll call you tomorrow, yes? Maybe we can have dinner together.”

“I wish I could but I’m flying back to Minos in the morning.” Damian gripped Lucas’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, filos mou.”

“You do the same.” Lucas frowned. Damian looked better than he had a few hours ago but there was still a haunted look in his eyes. “I wish you’d change your mind about tonight. Forget what I said about women. We could go to the gym. Lift some weights. Run the track.”

“You really think it would make me feel better to beat you again?”

“You beat me once, a thousand years ago at Yale.”

“A triviality.”

The men chuckled. Damian slung his arm around Lucas’s neck as they walked slowly to the door. “Don’t worry about me, Reyes. I’m going to take a long shower, pour myself another brandy and then, thanks to you, I’m going to have the first real night’s sleep I’ve had in months.”

The friends shook hands. Then Damian closed the door after Lucas, leaned back against it and let his smile slip away.

He’d told Lucas the truth. He did feel better. For three months, ever since Kay’s death, he’d avoided his friends, his acquaintances; he’d dedicated every waking minute to business in hopes he could rid himself of his anger.

What was the point in being angry at a dead woman?

Or in being angry at himself, for having let her scam him?

“No point,” Damian muttered as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. “No point at all.”

Kay had made a fool of him. So what? Men survived worse. And if, in the deepest recesses of his soul he somehow mourned the loss of a child that had never existed, a child he’d never known he even wanted, well, that could be dealt with, too.

He was thirty-one years old. Maybe it was time to settle down. Marry. Have a family.

Thee mou, was he insane?

You couldn’t marry, have kids without a wife. And there wasn’t a way in hell he was going to take a wife anytime soon. What he needed was just the opposite of settling down.

Lucas had it right.

The best cure for what ailed him would be losing himself in a woman. A soft, willing body. An eager mouth. A woman without a hidden agenda, without any plans beyond pleasure…

There it was. That same image again. The green-eyed woman with the sun-streaked hair. Hell, what a chance he’d missed! She’d looked right at him and even then, trapped in a black mood, he’d known what that look meant.

The lady had been interested.

The flat truth was, women generally were.

He’d been interested, too—or he would have been, if he hadn’t been so damned busy wallowing in self-pity. Because, hell, that’s what this was. Anger, sure, but with a healthy dollop of Poor Me mixed in.

He’d had enough of it to last a lifetime.

He’d call Lucas. Tell him his plans for the night sounded good after all. Dinner, drinks, a couple of beautiful women and so what if they didn’t have green eyes, sun-streaked hair…

The doorbell rang.

Damian’s brows lifted. A private elevator was the sole access to his apartment. Nobody could enter it without the doorman’s approval and that approval had to come straight from Damian himself.

Unless…

He grinned. “Lucas,” he said, as he went quickly down the stairs. His friend had reached the lobby, turned around and come right back.

Damian reached the double doors. “Reyes,” he said happily as he flung them open, “when did you take up mind-reading? I was just going to call you—”

But it wasn’t Lucas in the marble foyer.

It was the woman. The one he’d seen outside Portofino’s.

The green-eyed beauty he hadn’t been able to get out of his head.

OH, WHAT a joy to see!

Damian Aristedes’s handsome jaw dropped halfway to the ground. Seeing that was the first really good thing that had happened to Ivy in a while.

Obviously his highness wasn’t accustomed to having his life disrupted by unwanted surprises.

Damian’s unflappable, Kay had said.

Well, okay. She hadn’t said it exactly that way. Nobody can get to him, was probably more accurate.

Not true, Ivy thought. Just look at the man now.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

She didn’t answer. The pleasure of catching him off guard was wearing off. She’d prepared for this moment but the reality was terrifying. Her heart was hammering so hard she was half afraid he could hear it.

“You were outside Portofino’s today.”

He was gaining control of himself. His voice had taken on authority; his pale gray eyes had narrowed.

“Are you a reporter for one of those damned tabloids? I don’t give interviews.”

He really didn’t know who she was. She’d wondered about that, whether Kay had ever shown him a photo or pointed out her picture in a magazine, but she’d pretty much squelched that possibility at the restaurant, where she’d followed him from his Fifty-Seventh Street office.

He’d looked at her, but only the way most men looked at her. With interest, avarice—the kind of hunger she despised, the kind that said she was a plaything and they wanted a new toy.