Page 3 of Cherish Me

“Happy to aid and abet. But just so you know, I’m telling Dallas. You may be able to keep this quiet, but I can’t.”

“Fine. Just tell him not to say anything until I’ve texted you that Damien knows.”

“Deal.” She tilts her head. “I’m still shocked he hasn’t figured it out.”

I shrug. “Me, too. But you know what they say, a wife has to have some secrets. At least for one more day, this little one is mine.”

Chapter Two

“Do you miss it?” Damien asked as he and Dallas stepped into the cavernous basement room. All it needed was a few Bunsen burners and some bubbling test tubes to transform it into a mad scientist’s lair. It already had the banks of equipment with monitors, dials, and well-lit panels.

“Miss running Deliverance, you mean?” Dallas turned slowly, clearly surveying his domain. “Sometimes.” His gaze came to rest on Damien. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t. You took all my men.”

“Funny,” Damien said, certain his friend was jesting.

“But true.”

Damien nodded slowly. He was confident that Dallas had made peace with his decision to step back from Deliverance, a vigilante-style organization that Dallas had founded years ago in order to track down the son-of-a-bitch who had kidnapped and tortured him and Jane as teenagers. Even so, he’d always suspected that there was a hint of regret there, too. And now that he was standing in the basement, he was sure of it.

“The equipment’s all here,” Damien said. “For that matter, it’s all still running. But you’re not on the front lines anymore.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Why?”

Dallas tilted his head, his eyes probing, as if he were searching for the deeper question. “We’re a lot alike, Stark. I think you know why.”

Damien moved to one of the equipment banks, pausing in front of a set of monitors with labels in multiple languages. He put his hand on the metal and felt the thrum of information flowing under his palm and through the electronic veins of the deceptively plain-looking metal boxes. The equipment like something he’d imagined as a child while curled up reading science fiction.

“I do,” he said slowly, his attention still on the equipment. “You chased your demons for years. Not because they were yours, but because they were Jane’s, too. You both needed that closure. And now—well, now you’re done.”

Dallas nodded. “Instead, I’m wallowing in the joys of marriage and fatherhood. Sound familiar? Plus, I get the occasional thrill by helping out the Feds or WORR,” he added, referring to the World Organization for Rescue and Rehabilitation, an above-board non-governmental agency with a close relationship with worldwide law enforcement. “Sometimes, I even help out a few less visible organizations. But my role is very behind the scenes,” Dallas added. “And I’m okay with that.”

Once again, he focused on Damien. “Like I said. I’m a lot like you.” His eyes narrowed. “Or maybe I’m wrong about that…?”

Damien frowned. Over the years he’d become skilled at keeping his feelings hidden, but he’d lost some of that ability recently. The fallout of opening up his world the way he had when he found Nikki. He’d let people get closer—not simply as colleagues, but as friends.

And that gave them power.

A few years ago, that would have bothered him. Now he studied it out of intellectual curiosity, not fear.

Slowly, he nodded. “You’re not wrong. I spent my life chasing the dream of making myself into more than what my father would have made of me. Of not letting anyone harness me the way he and my coach had tried to.”

“Chased the dream and caught it, I’d say.” Dallas shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I inherited my seed capital. You earned every penny you ever had.”

“Earned? Yes. But I also paid. In blood. In pain. The life I built was an escape pod, jettisoning me out of a past I hated and into a future that I’d created.” He waved a dismissive hand, as if signaling that it had all been easy. Maybe in some ways it had. But mostly he’d worked his ass off to get to the top of the mountain. Which begged the question of where one went after reaching the pinnacle.

He looked at his friend, somewhat amazed that he was having this conversation with anyone other than Nikki or Ryan Hunter, his closest friend and chief operative for all Stark International and Stark Security ventures. Or Jackson Steele, for that matter, the half-brother he hadn’t even known existed until a few years ago but now trusted completely.

He trusted Dallas just as much. And with that realization came the knowledge that Damien had loosened the once-tight grip he’d always kept on himself. He had Nikki to thank for that.

Hell, he had Nikki to thank for everything.

“What?” Dallas asked as the silence between them lingered.

“Just thinking about my path,” Damien admitted. “I’ve made the kind of empire from which I could step back from if I wanted. I have good people running things on a day-to-day basis. Brilliant scientists, skilled managers. A stellar team on all fronts.”

“You’re still pretty hands-on at Stark International,” Dallas said, referring to the umbrella of all Damien’s companies, which were massive and covered the globe. “Unlike my role in Deliverance.”