No Gentle Possession

  Chapter 1

  "Are you tired, Aunt Zeno?" Seven-year-old David clasped Zen Driscoll's arm as she leaned back in the cushioned seat and closed her eyes. The thought flashed through her mind that it was typical of the Aristides family to demand first-class air travel even for someone they didn't really want to see—herself.

  "No, love, I'm not tired," she told David. "Just glad to be through the hassle of customs and on our way." Silently she added, I'm also nervous about leaving my job, which I love, to return for three months to a situation that I ran from three years ago.

  She stared at David beside her. Large-boned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, he had become her world. Seamus Dare, her friend and occasional escort, often told her she was too wrapped up in the boy, but even Seamus was not immune to David's charm.

  "Will we ever come back to Dublin?" David asked, a faint quaver in his soft Irish brogue. Zen regarded him tenderly. Ireland had been his home for three years, ever since she had taken him there at the age of four. As soon as she had been officially declared his guardian, she had leaped at the chance to take a job in Dublin with Deirdre Cable, the world-renowned designer of woolen fashions for women... and to leave the United States and Damon Aristides behind.

  "Will Daniel remember me, Aunt Zeno?" David tugged on her arm and scooted to a kneeling position on the seat next to her.

  "Yes, of course he will." Zen tried to sound more confident than she felt.

  "Will Nonna Sophie remember me, too? And Uncle Damon?" David questioned with stubborn persistence.

  "Of course they will. I've sent pictures of you to them, just as they sent pictures of Daniel to us."

  "Oh." David nodded, but his brow was still creased. "Robbie says that if I have a twin, he's s'posed to live with me."

  Zen felt a wrench in her chest. Robbie was right, she thought, pushing back a strand of David's black hair. "That's why we're going to America, so you can be with your twin brother Daniel." Zen tried to swallow the lump in her throat as David screwed up his face in thoughtful concentration. Finally his brow smoothed, and he nodded.

  "Then we can bring Daniel back to Ireland with us, and he can play with Robbie, too," he concluded brightly.

  David's words conjured up in Zen a vision of Damon Aristides as he'd looked that day three years ago, standing outside the courtroom just after she had won the right to take David to Ireland with her. Thrown into shadow, Damon's dark good looks had taken on a satanic cast.

  "This isn't the end of it," he'd warned her angrily. "And don't think you'll ever have Daniel."

  "Don't you dare threaten me! You're the one who forced this court fight, not I," Zen shot back. "As David's guardian, I was within my rights to petition to take him with me to Ireland."

  Sophie, Damon's mother, came up to them and pleaded for them to be calmer, more understanding. But Zen shook her head and walked away, knowing her emotions would spill over if she said one more word to anyone.

  She and Damon had parted bitterly, leaving so many thoughts and feelings unsaid, refusing to acknowledge all that they had meant to each other.

  Now, three years later, a much-changed Zen was flying back to Long Island and the Aristides estate in response to Damon's request that she come home. Sophie, he claimed, wanted to see David.

  Zen wondered if Sophie would find her much changed. Through her association with the world of fashion Zen had acquired an aura of sophistication, a confidence and grace that made her feel like an entirely different woman from the Zen Driscoll Sophie had known. Zen knew she was good at what she did, and that she was getting better all the time, just as her name was becoming better known. Designing fabrics fulfilled an artistic need in her, just as caring for David fulfilled a need to love. She was content with her life in Dublin.

  "We can bring Daniel to Ireland, can't we, Aunt Zeno?" David persisted, pulling on her sleeve and rousing her from her reverie.

  "Ah, no, love, I doubt we can bring Daniel back to Ireland," she said.

  "Just for a visit?" David thrust out his jaw and scowled at his aunt. "He'll want to see Dublin and Robbie and play football... I mean soccer."

  Zen smiled at the boy. "We'll ask," she said, but her heart contracted painfully at the thought of making such a request of Damon. She pushed him out of her mind and concentrated on the boy at her side. She was proud of his healthy good looks and vibrant personality. David was already involved in a soccer club for boys. His close friend, Robbie Parnell, often visited their apartment in Dublin, which Zen rented from the design company she worked for.

  "Did my daddy and mommy like you and Uncle Damon?" David asked, his eyes fixed on hers.

  "Your mother, Eleni, was my older sister," Zen explained, "and your daddy, Davos, was Uncle Damon's younger brother."

  "And that's why you take care of me and Uncle Damon and Nonna take care of Daniel," David recited proudly. "That's what I told Robbie, but he said twins should be together."

  Zen saw that David's eyes were questioning her now, but would they accuse her someday? She tried to smother the guilt that assailed her. She was responsible for having separated the boys...

  "Do you like Uncle Damon, Aunt Zeno?" David quizzed, playing with the buckle of his seat belt, then looking out the window.

  Like him? Zen's brain reeled. Like could never describe the tumultuous, overwhelming relationship she had had with Damon Aristides. She tried to dispel the memory of a twenty-year-old Zen meeting him for the first time when they'd both been honor attendants at Eleni and Davos's wedding. In that one instant her life had changed forever.

  "I admire Uncle Damon's business acumen," Zen stated truthfully.

  "What's an ak-a-min?" David asked.

  "It means your uncle is an intelligent man and a well-known shipping industrialist. He also owns an airline. His company is called Olympus Limited," Zen explained, half wishing David would stop asking questions.

  "Is this his airplane, Aunt Zeno?" David was looking out the window, watching the swirl of fluffy clouds that formed a blanket beneath the plane.

  "Not this plane, but others like it." Zen masked a sigh. She was tired of speaking of the great Damon Aristides, an American born of Greek parents, a man who, in her opinion, still held an archaic view of women.

  She tried not to think of him, but her mind betrayed her and carried her back to that day at Eleni and Davos's wedding when Damon had taken her arm as they followed the bride and groom back up the aisle. The way she remembered it, he had not released her hand for the rest of the day.

  The next day she had returned to college in upstate New York, sure she would never see him again. But she hadn't been able to get him out of her mind.

  At her sister's insistence Zen had stayed with Eleni and Davos on her holiday break. Since the young women had no other relatives, they were very close.

  Each time Zen stayed at Eleni's, Damon arrived and took her to a show or dancing. But, although Zen wanted desperately for him to be more than courteous, more than friendly, he never kissed her, hardly ever touched her. Then, one day soon after she turned twenty-one, and just before she graduated, she went sailing with Damon. They dropped anchor and swam off the side of the boat, then went down to the cabin to change.

  Their relationship had always been stormy, full of emotional highs and lows, but this time something seemed to snap in Damon. Like a dam bursting, he lost control and swept her into his arms, both cursing and muttering endearments to her. The moments had run together in a pleasure-filled blur as he initiated her into the tender joys of physical love. His touch had left her breathless and totally committed to him. He became the center of her existence.

  Zen moved restlessly in her seat as she remembered. Oh, the arguments they had had! How often she had run away fro
m him... then back to mend the rift. How wild and passionate their reunions had been.

  How he had comforted her that day when the twins were three-and-a-half years old—the day Davos and Eleni had died in a sailing accident. She and Damon had stood close together when the will was read, and they'd learned that they were to share custody of the boys. She was named David's guardian; Damon was named Daniel's guardian. If they married, they would become the boys' legal parents.

  They had supported each other in their grief until the day Damon's Aunt Dalia had informed Zen that Damon had another woman in New York, a woman he kept in an apartment. Zen would have laughed in her face if Damon's mother, who had been standing nearby and overheard, had not flushed a deep red.

  "Is it true, Mrs. Aristides?" Zen had begged. "You were my mother's friend. As her daughter, I ask you to tell me the truth."

  Sophie had remained silent.

  "Why should she tell you anything?" Dalia had interjected. "As for your mother, young lady, she married beneath her... an artist from Greenwich Village, a man who was not even Greek."

  A shaken Zen had lashed out at her. "My father was a successful painter. My parents were happy. They made our lives wonderful..." Zen swallowed painfully. "When the plane crashed they were on their way to Paris for a showing of my father's works. The money from the sales paid for Eleni's and my education."

  She could see in her mind's eye a younger Zen storming out of the room, confronting Damon that very night with the charges his aunt had made. "And do you keep a woman?" she shouted.

  "You're often angry with me, Xenobia," he said. "Should I be without a woman's company at those times?" Damon regarded her haughtily. "When we are not together, it's none of your business what I do." His body was taut with anger.

  "Damn you, Damon Aristides!" Zen whirled away from him. She didn't answer his phone calls, and she refused to see him when he came to her apartment. When Deirdre Cable offered her a job, she sought a court order to retain custody of David and left for Ireland.

  "What is Seamus doing now, Aunt Zeno?" David asked, interrupting her painful thoughts. He yawned and blinked, the long trip beginning to take its toll.

  Zen glanced at her watch. "I suppose he'll be sitting down to his dinner soon."

  "I like Uncle Seamus. He knows how to play football ... I mean soccer... and he said he would like a boy like me," David pronounced proudly.

  "So he did, and I don't blame him." Zen hugged her nephew, who hugged her back. Zen welcomed the obvious affection he had for her.

  "Would Seamus like Daniel?" David waited expectantly for her answer.

  "I'm sure he would," she assured him.

  "Then if you marry Seamus, Daniel can come live with us, can't he?" The idea had taken firm root in his mind.

  "Honey, Seamus and I have not been talking about getting married." Zen noted the stubborn thrust of David' s chin, which was so like his father's... and his uncle's.

  "But if you did, he could, couldn't he?" David persisted, worrying the question like a dog with a bone.

  "Yes, of course he could."

  "Good. I'd like having my own playmate living with me."

  "I know you would." Zen kissed David's cheek, loving him, pleased with the grin he gave her.

  The trip was long and tiring and, despite the many distractions offered by the flight attendants, David grew restless and cranky. By the time they had landed and gone through customs, he was complaining frequently and loudly.

  "I don't like it here." He pushed out his lower lip and scowled at his aunt as they reached the baggage claim area.

  "We'll be there soon. You'll feel better after a nap," Zen said absently, searching for their luggage on the moving conveyor belt.

  David stopped in his tracks and twisted out of her grip-

  "I don't want to take a nap. I want to go home and play with Robbie."

  "Listen here, young man..." Zen bent to grab his arm, but he moved swiftly out of her reach just as she spotted her suitcase. "David, come back here or—"

  "Can't you control him better than that?" a deep, masculine voice interrupted, sending a frisson of panic up Zen's spine just as she swung her overnight case off the conveyor belt. She caught Damon Aristides in the midsection with a resounding thwack. He doubled up, all the breath knocked out of him.

  Zen stared in dismay, then all her long-repressed anger at Damon Aristides boiled to the surface. "Well, it serves you right for startling me that way," she said stiffly, thrusting out her jaw. "Anyway, it was an accident."

  Damon straightened, grimacing with pain and irritation. "It always is... an accident, I mean. You are the most dangerous person to be around."

  Zen inhaled sharply at the full sight of him and swooped to retrieve David's suitcase as it moved past her. "I only have accidents with you," she retorted somewhat breathlessly. "David, please mind your suitcase while I get the others."

  "For God's sake, let me take those," Damon interrupted. "Yanos, get the other cases," he told the liveried chauffeur at his shoulder.

  "Is he Uncle Damon?" David asked in an awed stage whisper. "Is he the one you don't like?"

  Zen flushed with embarrassment. She had never discussed her personal feelings for the members of the Aristides family. It occurred to her that children were far more perceptive than adults gave them credit for being. She stared in wonder up at Damon as his face grew taut with anger and his eyes glinted darkly.

  He seemed bigger, more threatening than she remembered, all black like the Brian Boru of Irish folklore— hair, eyes, brows, even the curling hair that could be seen at the cuffs of his shirt. He was tall and broad chested with high cheekbones and steely muscles. His body was conditioned to fighting form, Zen thought, her heart plummeting. She struggled to keep her courage high. She damn well wouldn't let him intimidate her.

  Her heart squeezed into a knot when she saw the gray hair at his temples, but the rest of it was still black and thick and straight as it had always been. His huge body dwarfed her tiny frame, and his dark coloring contrasted sharply with her curly blond-red hair, brown eyes, and white skin.

  God, he looked angry! She'd better try to explain. "David meant—"

  "I'm sure I know what he meant." Damon's harsh words stunned her into silence. "Shall we go? Yanos will bring the luggage to the car."

  "He might not find my soccer ball." David stood with his legs apart, looking belligerently up at the man who had yet to speak to him.

  Damon studied him for a long moment, then squatted down in front of him, showing a careless unconcern for his pearl gray cashmere suit, which molded itself to his body as though it had been sewn on him. "You're a soccer player, are you?" he said softly. "I used to play soccer."

  "You did?" David's expression lightened.

  "Yes. Perhaps between the two of us we can convince your brother to play, too." He paused, touching the boy's cheek with one finger. "You look like Daniel, but I think you may be just a little bigger. You're older, you know. By three minutes."

  "I know. Aunt Zeno told me." David pushed out his chest. "I'm as big as Robbie... almost... and he's the biggest boy on our team."

  "That's great." Damon rose to his feet, holding David's hand in his. "Don't worry about your ball. Yanos is very thorough."

  They headed for the exit, but David stopped and looked anxiously back at Zen. "You come too, Aunt Zeno." There was a quaver in his voice.

  "I'm right behind you, love." Zen deliberately avoided Damon's intense gaze.

  "That's good." The boy looked up at Damon. He did not free his hand, but a stubborn expression came over his face again. "I live with my Aunt Zeno. She takes care of me."

  "I see," Damon said, looking from the boy to Zen, who stood several feet away. "Come along... Aunt Zeno."

  David looked relieved. Avoiding Damon's eyes, Zen stepped to the other side of David and took his other hand.

  In the limousine, David chattered with excitement, asking endless questions and supplying random bits of info
rmation about himself. He exclaimed repeatedly over the vehicle's special features and kept Yanos busy explaining how they worked. Zen was soon lost in her own thoughts. Just seeing Damon had stirred memories she'd thought long dead...

  "How are you?" Damon's terse question startled her. She stared blankly at him. "There's no need to be frightened," he snarled, his voice low.

  "I'm not frightened of you or your family," Zen snapped, alert now. "I was just thinking of someone... something." Her voice trailed off. She wasn't sure what she had been thinking.

  "Ah, yes, the boyfriend..." His soft voice was under laid with steel.

  "Why don't we agree not to talk about personal matters?" she suggested frostily, struggling to keep her anger from her voice.

  "How can we not discuss personal matters when you have custody of my nephew," he retorted.

  "And you have custody of my nephew," Zen riposted.

  "True. And since I will be marrying in the near future, my mother feels I could provide a better home for—"

  "Not on your life!" Fury curled through Zen like smoke from a forest fire. "If that's what it takes, then I'll marry Seamus." She said his name without thinking. "Then I'll be able to provide a home for Daniel as well as for David."

  "Seamus? He's the man you're involved with?" Damon's words dropped like bombs.

  "Seamus and I are not involved, as you put it, but David likes him, and so do I."

  "Don't you dare subject David to your series of lovers." Damon said the words as if he were throwing spears.

  "Then I'll marry Seamus," Zen said with measured sweetness, wishing Damon would leave her alone.

  David turned to face her, a pleased smile on his face. "You are going to marry Seamus? Goodo! Then I can live in Dublin again, and Daniel can come live with us... maybe. I like Seamus," he added wistfully before leaning forward again to ask Yanos how fast the car could

  go-Zen didn't look at Damon, but the goose bumps on her skin warned her of his anger. "You shouldn't listen to David."

  "Don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do," Damon said stiffly.

  Zen glared at him, then shifted away and stared sightlessly out the window.