Page 20 of Obsessive Stalker

“I will,” I say. “Over dinner. Come now, darling, I know you must be starving. I want you to eat before I share this. You may not feel like it afterwards.”

Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t protest when I take her by her good hand and beckon her to come with me.

10

Kristen

I wait impatientlyfor Damien’s housekeeper to serve us before I open my mouth again.

“What’s going on with my father?”

“Eat,” he orders, pouring wine into each of our glasses.

The table in his dining room is vast, so impossibly large that I wonder if he’s ever managed to fill it, if he ever even hosts people in his home. I’ve only seen a few areas of his house – the bedroom and bathroom, the hall, the stairs, and now the dining room – and what I’ve learned is that while the house is large and expensively furnished, it also carries with it an air of loneliness, of stagnation and inactivity. I get a sense that Damien doesn’t spend much time here, that maybe he’s only in his own house right now for the purpose of watching over me.

But though the dining room table is large, we sit side by side, our elbows close enough to touch, close enough for me to inhale that woodsy scent with every breath that I take, close enough for our proximity to have the effect that it always has over me.

I take an obedient bite of the mashed potatoes on my plate and then put my fork down, watching him expectantly.

The corner of his mouth quirks up.

“Please don’t make me force you to eat,” he says to me. His voice is low, but his easy smile counteracts the threat in his words.

“You wouldn’t -”

“I would,” he interjects, his voice growing cold. “I would do that, and more. Please don’t mistake my gentleness this afternoon for weakened bounds, pet. I’m going easy on you because you’ve been through a lot and now you’re wounded. You escaped punishment this evening as planned, but only narrowly. Eat well, and I’ll answer your questions as promised.”

I hesitate for just a moment more. He picks my fork up, scooping up a bite of potatoes and thrusting it towards my mouth.

“Okay!” I gasp out. “Stop. I can feed myself. For god’s sake.”

I take the fork from him and our fingers brush together, electricity between us as usual. I look at him and can see in his eyes that he felt it too, his eyes going warm again, a hungry look on his face.

“Finish,” he says, pulling his hand away from me. “If you want answers, you’ll finish your meal. You haven’t eaten since yesterday, thanks to your refusal to leave the room while I was gone.”

I bite back the retort on my tongue and begin to eat. Damien watches me for a moment before picking up his own fork and doing the same. We eat in relative silence, with Damien taking his time and me scarfing down the food as quickly as I can.

I finish my food before he’s even halfway done with his, and then look at him pointedly. He sighs, putting his fork down.

“Impatient girl,” he comments. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why you told me my father is a bad man.”

He sighs.

“Right into the worst of it,” he says.

“Stop stalling,” I press. “I ate my food. You said you’d tell me everything. So tell me.”

Damien sighs again and I wait for the reprimand, but it doesn’t come. His green eyes look at me, fiery and intense, but the fire doesn’t seem directed at me. It’s like a storm from within, something troubling him that he can’t get out.

“Your father,” he begins. “Is in a lot of debt. We don’t know how much, but we know it’s approaching three hundred million. That’s what we’ve been able to discover but we assume there could be double that.”

I take this information in. Even though I grew up in a wealthy family, it’s still hard for me to comprehend an amount of money that high. Three hundred million dollars might as well be half of that or ten times as much - once you get past a few million dollars, the quantity of wealth becomes too much for me to wrap my head around.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “So he’s in a lot of debt. He’s done this before. He can’t help himself, it starts at the casinos playing the slot machines and then it escalates to-”

“It’s not just gambling debt,” he says quietly.

---