TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

          Damien Kennedy suppressed a shiver that had nothing to do with the afternoon thunderstorm raging all around him. For a moment, he remained as if rooted to the spot, staring at the elaborate scrolls carved into the heavy oak door before him. A door he’d promised himself he’d never pass through again… At least, not while his grandfather was alive.          ‘I should have come back here only for you, Mother… Only to see you…’           But he’d sworn never to let himself be locked inside the walls of Kennedy Mansion again. Damien had thought he had all the time he would need to make his absence up to his mother. But fate slapped him hard…          In his youthful ignorance, he hadn’t realized everything

          Regina listened to the men spar with one another as if from a distance. Shock cocooned her inside her own bubble of fear. As he spoke, Damien’s gaze tracked the lawyer’s movements, but Regina remained focused on Damien.          The impenetrable mask of rebellion and pride that shielded any softer emotions. The breadth of his shoulders. The ripple of muscles in his chest and forearms, reminding her of his strength, his dominance. Could a man that strong prevail over someone with Theodore’s history of cunning maneuvers, both business and personal?“Well, old man… Why don’t you just lay it out for me,” Damien said, his voice curt, commanding the immense space of the master suite.          A shiver worked its way down Regina’s spine.“The condensed version, pl

          There were flutters of panic in Regina’s chest as she remembered that last face-to-face meeting with a seventeen-year-old Damien. She’d mooned over him from afar every time she came to visit Kennedy Mansion.          Sometimes the hope of seeing him had drawn her just as much as Iris’s company, but that day had taught her well how little he felt for her. Whenever she’d come near Damien, he’d demonstrated the same unpleasant endurance as her parents, who also looked at her as a pest that they wished would disappear.          He’d called her ‘Invader’ many times over the years she’d hung around, aching for a bit of Iris’s attention. Yes, that was definitely how he’d seen her time here at Kennedy Mansion. After that final rejection, Regina had stayed as

          Arguments? He had a few, but none that were effective. Excuses? A whole hay wagon full, but none he dared utter in the face of the threat to his mother’s well-being. Other women? Damien could think of many a delectable armful over the last ten years, but none interested in anything as dull as marriage. He’d stayed far away from the home-and-hearth type.“No,” Damien conceded, then stepped aside to let her pass. “I don’t think I could pay my assistant enough to move to the middle of nowhere and put up with me 24/7.”“It’s hardly the middle of nowhere,” Regina said with a light tone as she scooted past, brushing the far wall in an attempt not to touch him again.          Which was just as well.“We might not have the culture of New York City,” she continued, “but there’s stil

          Almost a week after making his pledge to his mother, the marriage license arrived and Damien was royally screwed. Oh, he would go through with it, that was for sure. In his gut, he knew this was the last thing he could do for his mother, one thing she could be proud of him for.          She’d made her home here, been highly involved in the community, and she’d want him to care for it, too. He couldn’t promise her he’d stay. But he could get her safely settled and make sure the town remained secure.          Still, his confrontation with Regina on the stairs taunted him. And the fire with which she’d argued with him in her bedroom, soon to be their bedroom, tempted him to enjoy everything she might have to offer.          Which made it imperati