Damon finished cutting up the onion and tossed the pieces into the food processor. He added the pitted olives, three different kinds in all, to the onion. Then he dumped the rinsed capers and some freshly squeezed lemon juice into the bowl. After he had snapped the lid onto the food processor, he switched on the food processor. He thought about Elena while the machine turned the mixture inside the bowl into tapenade. A gut-deep sense of pleasurable anticipation rippled through him.

She should be here any minute, he thought, glancing at his watch.

He heard the sound of a car's engine in the driveway just as the winter twilight descended. He turned off the food processor and left the kitchen.

It was almost six o'clock. Perfect timing.

He crossed the threadbare carpet, opened the front door and went out onto the porch. The little rush of excitement faded at the sight of the man coming toward him. It was Zach Salvatore. Not Elena Gilbert.

Zach Salvatore hadn't changed much, Damon thought. He used a cane, but he still looked strong and fit. He could have passed for a man fifteen years younger. There was a sharp glint in his slightly faded blue eyes. The hard lines of his face had softened little with age. There was a slight stoop to his shoulders these days, and he had lost some muscle with the years, but the physical changes were well concealed by his undiminished will and determination to control his world and everyone in it.

This confrontation was coming far quicker than he had expected, Damon thought.

"Damon, I heard you were in town for a while," Zach said easily. "It has been a long time."

"It is good to see you again, Zach," Damon said, never losing his cool.

"You look wonderful," Zach said.

"You are looking great yourself."

"Happy to tell you that everything is in pretty fair working order, considering the mileage I have put on this body." Zach had already headed for the front door of the house. "Come on, let's go inside. It is cold out here."

He checked his watch. "I have got company scheduled to arrive at any minute. There she is," he said, looking at the SUV that was slowly lurching its way toward them.

As the SUV came to a halt at the driveway, Zach stared with widened eyes at the face of the driver. "Elena Gilbert?"

Elena frowned when she saw Damon and Zach standing at the front door. Everyone in town was aware that Zach Salvatore took over Salvatore Industries from Giuseppe Salvatore. What was Zach doing here? She thought.

"Hello, gentlemen," Elena said as she slid out of her SUV. She flashed a warm smile at Damon. "Lovely night, isn't it?"

Damon smiled back at her. "Dinner is almost ready."

Zach stood transfixed. He gazed at Elena as if she were a mermaid who had just appeared at the edge of the bay.

"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked politely as she watched Zach's expression.

"Nothing important," Damon said dryly.

"It is a little chilly out here," she said. "Why don't we come inside?"

"Elena, why don't you make the drinks?" Damon suggested. Tipping his head toward the right, he said, "There is a liquor cabinet in the island in the kitchen. Bourbon on rocks for me, please. You can pick between plain coke and lemonade if you want a non-alcoholic drink." He turned his attention back to Zach. "Zach and I have something to discuss."

Zach followed him into the small office down at the hallway. He surveyed the interior closely. "Things look exactly the same as before."

"I want everything to look the same." Damon allowed the door to close slowly behind him.

"Going to be here for a while?" Zach asked.

"You are the last people on earth I would tell."

"Okay, I get the point. You have got a hot date with Elena Gilbert and I'm in the way." Zach smiled at him. "I won't stay long, I promise."

Damon did not sit down. Instead, he propped one shoulder against the wall and folded his arms. "What is this all about, Zach?"

"Do I have to have a special reason? You are my niece. You and I go back a long way. We are family."

Damon was losing some of his calm. He narrowed his eyes on the man who had changed his life. He knew Zach was trying to get a reaction from him but he refused to bite. "You are here because of that land in Mystic Falls, aren't you?"

Zach's smile stayed in place but he thought he saw it tighten a notch or two.

"You make it sound as though the only thing that might bring me here is business."

"Your tricks won't work on me, Zach. You want that land."

"It will be biggest project for Salvatore Industries…"

"If you want it so badly, just buy it."

"You are asking for thirty million!" Zach's voice roughened with tightly controlled rage. "The property is worth twelve million, tops, in today's economy and you only paid ten!"

With icy calm Damon said, "Take it or leave it."

Zach looked like he wanted to jump across the room and strangle him. Damon looked over the man, who had seemed so much larger than life when he was still a teenager. The man now looked shrunken and old. It was satisfying.

Zach waited a moment longer for his temper to cool, then he drew a long, calming breath. "Damon, you are a logical and intelligent man. You are a businessman who wants to make money. Can't we please try to work out a deal which will benefit both of us?"

"How do you think we can work this deal out?"

"Twelve million," Zach said, smiling at him in relief. "I'm willing to pay you twelve million for that land."

Damon looked at Zach. The man who had ruined his father. He had asked for this meeting because he wanted the land. Damon was glad he wanted the property so badly, because he wasn't going to get them. What Zach was going to get was a war, a war he was going to lose to him ... along with everything he had.

"That's gracious of you, Zach," Damon jeered.

Zach stiffened. "I wish things could have ended differently between your father and me…so that at least we are still family now."

"Family?" Damon repeated with biting irony. "The last time my father treated you as a family, it cost him his company, and a hell of a lot else."

"Damon, listen to me," Zach said, suddenly desperate to make things right between them. "I'm willing to forget the past and…"

"You are willing to forget the past?"

"I said I was willing to forget the past, and I am. If you will agree to sell that land to me, I will do everything I can to smooth things over for you."

"Just how do you think you can smooth things over for me, my dear uncle Zach?" he asked, his voice reeking with sarcastic amusement.

"For a start, I can give you up to fifth-teen million for that land."

Damon was revolted by his wheedling and hypocrisy. Zach needed something from him now, and Damon was glad it was desperately important to him. Because he wasn't going to get it. "You are willing to pay me fifth-teen million for that land in Mystic Falls, right?" When Zach nodded, Damon continued. "And the land is very, very important to you?"

"I want it more than I have ever wanted anything," Zach averred eagerly. "You—you will cooperate, won't you?" he said, searching Damon's unreadable face.

"No." He said it with such polite finality that for a moment Zach's mind went blank.

"No?" Zach repeated in angry disbelief. "I'm giving you twelve…"

"Forget it!" he snapped,

"Forget it? Everything I want hinges on it!"

"That's too damned bad."

"You piece of crap!" Zach yelled at him

"Thirty million. Take it or leave it. It's your choice."

"I ran Salvatore Industries successfully, for over twenty years, you pompous piece of trash. You may have the rest of the world fooled but I know who you really are," Zach spat at him.

"I wasn't the boy who couldn't do anything when you took everything from my father. I have made choices to change my life and now you are the one who will have nothing," he said, with a mocking smile.

Zach's fist slammed forward with surprising force. Damon dodged the blow, grabbed Zach's arm in mid swing, then he yanked him forward, spun him around, and jerked his arm up high behind his back. In a soft snarl, he said, "Listen to me very carefully, Zach. Now I have enough money to buy and sell you. You have no power over me. Cross me one more time, I will bury you! Do we understand each other?"

"Let go of my arm, you son of a bitch."

Damon shoved him forward and stalked toward the door. When he opened the door, Elena was standing at the doorway, holding a glass of bourbon in her hand.

Damon shoved his hand through his hair. Just what he needed.

"Do you want something to drink, Mr Salvatore?" she asked nervously.

"He won't be staying long," Damon said bluntly. "I didn't prepare enough food for three."

"This isn't the last you will hear from me, Damon," Zach said as he stalked to the door. "I will get you back for this, just you wait."

x x x

The tension in the living room was charged with remnants of the quarrel she had interrupted.

When Elena had heard the sound of the heated argument coming from the office, her first instinct had been to stay away. She was fairly certain that was the course of action Damon would have preferred.

She might have done just that, sparing everyone, including herself, this awkward scene. But halfway down the hall she had overheard Damon. Now I have enough money to buy and sell you. You have no power over me. Cross me one more time, I will bury you!

The ruthless in his words had stopped her in her tracks, cancelling all thought of staying away from the office.

Given the incredible injustices done to him and his family, Elena could understand why he was retaliating in ways that had seemed so extraordinarily vicious. She understood the reason for the underlying enmity she had sensed in him. She understood it all, including his furious parting remark to Zach.

Nonchalantly she watched Damon where he stood at the window, his glass gripped in his hand. They had eaten dinner in silence. And he was still as silent as he had been since dinner just now.

Finally, to get it over with, she spoke to him. And being Elena, she went straight to the heart of the problem.

"What's wrong, Damon?"

"Nothing." Damon stared out the window, pretending to be engrossed in something beyond the glass.

"What nothing?"

Damon shook his head.

"Damon…" With an effort, she stood up. "This is about your uncle, isn't it?"

"It's late. You better leave," Damon said tonelessly.

He was shutting her out as completely as if she weren't there. Elena got mad.

"What does it take to show you that you can trust me?" Elena was behind Damon now. "I'm your friend."

"I'm well aware of it."

Elena sighed. She reached out, very carefully, to put her fingertips on the elbow of his leather jacket. She spoke as precisely and unemotionally as she could. "And a friend usually knows when their friend is hurting."

His jaw tightened. "You are wrong, Elena. I'm not hurting. I don't care about Zach."

"I know what Zach has done to your family," she said gently. "You despise him and you are willing to go to any lengths to get your revenge."

As if indifferent to her answer, he said coolly, "I'm ruthless and cold. You don't like me, do you, Elena?"

"I do like you, Damon," she answered with an affectionate smile to take the sting out of her words, "but I don't like you hurt people without regret, just as Zach does."

"I do what I think needs to be done," he replied, tossing down the bourbon in his glass. "Zach Salvatore deserves no mercy."

The change in his voice - the force in it - hit Elena like a whiplash. It hurt...and it frightened her. Damon was serious.

"Damon…"

"Leave me alone!"

"At least turn around and talk with me face-to-face."

"Elena." It was a whisper. "Just go home."

"You are so good at that, aren't you?" Elena's own voice was cold now. Recklessly, angrily, she moved in even closer. "At pushing people away. If you keep pushing people away, you will end up alone. Why are you doing this to yourself? You can…"

Damon whirled, caught her precisely, held her locked in an unbreakable grip. Then, with a swoop of his head like a falcon on a mouse, he kissed her. He was more than strong enough to hold her still without hurting her.

The kiss was hard and long and for quite a while Elena resisted out of sheer instinct. Damon's body was warm against hers. The way he was holding her - if she put enough pressure on those particular points, it would hurt her possibly seriously. And then - she knew - he would release her. But did she really know what she knew? Was she prepared to break a bone to test it?

He was stroking her hair, which was so unfair, curling the ends and crushing them in his fingers…He knew her weak spots. Not just every woman's weak spots. He knew hers; he knew how to make her want to cry out in pleasure and how to soothe her.

Suddenly, not only were his hands withdrawn, but his warmth as well. Elena struggled to open her eyes and pull him into focus. He was standing several feet away from her. His hands were now planted firmly in the hip pockets of his pants, as though he didn't trust them. He was gnawing his lips and cursing beneath his breath.

She and Damon were left staring at each other, both breathing hard. Damon's sleek hair was mussed, making him look rakish as a buccaneer. His face was flushed. His eyes dropped to watch Elena automatically massaging her wrists. She could feel pins and needles now: she was getting back some circulation. Once he had looked away, he couldn't seem to look her in the eye again.

But she kept her eyes on Damon's face. His mouth was swollen. And that was...unfair. Damon's pout was a part of his most basic artillery. He had always had the most beautiful mouth she had ever seen on anyone, man or woman. The mouth, the hair, the half-drooping lids, the heavy lashes, the delicacy of his jawline...unfair, even to someone like Elena, who had long ago gotten past interest in a person because of some accident of beauty.

But she had never seen that mouth swollen, the perfect hair disordered, the eyelashes trembling because he was looking everywhere except at her and trying not to show it.

"Why have you been refusing to talk to me?" she asked, and her voice was almost steady.

Damon's sudden stillness was perfection like all his other perfections. He stared at a spot in the carpet that by rights ought to have broken into flames.

Then, finally, he lifted those huge eyes to hers. It was so hard to tell anything about Damon's eyes because he had always been able to hide his emotions well.

Damon said, softly, "I'm bad, Elena. I'm bad for you. No matter how much money I have made, or how many beautiful, famous women I have slept with, I would still be the ruthless, arrogant, and vicious person everyone talks about. I'm greedy, unscrupulous and…"

She smiled. "You mean this is just you being a bastard?"

"You are not going to leave, are you?" he whispered.

Elena shook her head.

"You are really not afraid of me?"

"Oh, I'm afraid." Again Elena felt that inward shiver. But she knew how she felt about Damon. She was certain she had fallen for him and there was no way that she could stop. Especially not when he looked at her like that.

Damon watched her moving toward him. When she closed the distance between them, her voice was low and shaky. "I don't know why, but I'm more scared this time than I was the last."

Damon smiled sombrely as his hand lifted to her cheek, then curved around her nape. "So am I."

In the lengthening silence, they remained perfectly still, the only movement the slow stroking of Damon's thumb against her neck, as both of them sensed that they were about to take the first step down a new uncharted path. Elena sensed it subconsciously; Damon recognized it with complete clarity and, even so, there was something infinitely right about what they were going to do.

"I think it is only fair to warn you," he whispered as his hand tightened on her nape, beginning to exert pressure to draw her mouth to his, "that this could turn out to be an even bigger risk than the one you took on Christmas Eve." Elena looked into his smouldering eyes and knew that he was warning her about some sort of deep emotional involvement. "Make up your mind," he whispered huskily.

Without volition, her lips moved closer to his, and her heart began to race with excitement.

Decide.

Her eyes drifted closed, and her breath came out in a sigh. She kissed him softly and felt his lips answer, moving on hers, moving with them, while his hands slid down to her arms and tightened. She broke the kiss, and he let her.

"Damon, I…"

He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her scented hair. "I want you."

"I know. I want you, too. You must know that."

He lifted his head and looked down into her brilliant eyes. He was lost in the vision he saw there. "I need you."

She turned her head and kissed his throat. "Yes. I need you, too."

He swept her up into his arms, and carried her upstairs to the bedroom, before they tumbled onto the bed. Elena landed on top of him, her forehead at his chin, his left hand on her upper arm. Bracing her palms beside his shoulders, she levered her chest off of his and smiled at him. His right hand lifted, and his knuckles stroked softly up her bare arm in a patient caress while his gaze held hers. Then he laid his palm against her cheek, slowing running it back, curving it around her nape, urging her closer. Again.

Her arms went weak, and her breasts flattened against his hard chest as his mouth opened on hers in a deep, hungry kiss. His fingers shoved into her hair, holding her mouth imprisoned, while his arm slanted over her hips and he rolled her onto her side, leaning over her.

His tongue tasted and urged and slowly drove into her mouth while his thighs pressed into her.

Rigid thighs. Demanding.

Her hands pressed him closer; her body strained nearer. He tore his mouth from hers long enough to unbutton her shirt and spread it open, and what he saw nudged him another step closer to the edge. Her breasts were rising and falling rapidly, nearly tumbling out of the sheer, lacy cups of her low-cut brassiere. Her nipples, raised and pointed, strained against the web like lace.

"Damn, Elena," Damon hissed through his teeth. He tugged the shirt off her. Unfastened the bra. Excitement sent another flood of brilliant colours through her when he touched her breasts. She could hardly breathe. All of her senses sharpened and focused.

Then he stood up and removed his clothes. She heard foil tear in the darkness before he came back to her. His hands moved on her again. Her trousers disappeared. They were soon followed by her panties.

He touched the nipple and it tightened more. He bent his head and kissed it, and she moaned aloud and arched her back in a burst of pleasure that startled him with its intensity. Trying to slow himself down, he kissed the other nipple, drawing it into his mouth, and her fingers tightened reflexively in his hair, her back arching higher.

Stimulated by the expression of her pleasure, his body surged in an urgent desire to do more. With an effort, he made himself slow down and rolled her back on top of him. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples and his own nipples hardened. "Touch me," he whispered to her, half afraid of what would happen when she did.

The shaken sound of his voice made Elena's hands tremble as she bent low over him and covered his nipple with her lips, teasing it with her tongue. When he drew in his breath sharply, Elena felt the sudden jerk of his hips beneath her as if he were inside her, and suddenly she was yanked forward onto the chaise and immediately was pinned beneath him. Together they were caressing hands and eager mouths and urgent limbs shedding clothes to give more pleasure.

Her breasts were beautiful, his body a sculpture, he was master, he was enslaved. His groan was her music and her sigh his benediction. They clung together unmoving, while her body welcomed the slow thrusting heat of him, and what began as a gentle rocking became fierce, demanding thrusts. She strained toward him in trembling need and he drove into her again and again in a desperate desire to take her with him all the way. She cried out and held him when she found it, and he joined her there.

Triumph, satisfaction, a feeling of wholeness and a pounding sense of joy raced through him, a fabulous maelstrom of emotions that he could not begin to sort out. He didn't care. He only knew one thing for certain in that gloriously shattering moment, and that was enough for now.

He was alive.

x x x

Propped up against a mound of feather pillows in the master bedroom's huge bed, Elena gazed at the dishes on the low table in front of the fireplace across the room. They had eaten a late breakfast there, and then Damon had taken her back to bed and made love to her. He had kept her awake most of the night, making love to her with a mixture of demanding urgency and exquisite tenderness that Elena found wildly exciting and tormentingly sweet. Each time he finished, he pulled her into his arms and held her close while they dozed. Now it was past noon, and she was sitting beside him, curved against his body, his arm around her shoulders, his hand lazily caressing her arm. Unfortunately, in daylight, she was finding it far more difficult to cling to the illusion that this was a little cottage where she was safe and warm in bed beside a wonderfully ordinary man who also happened to be her devoted lover. In broad daylight, she was unhappily aware that the man who made love to her with such violent tenderness and need, who groaned with passion in her arms and made her cry out and feel as if she were the only woman who had ever done this with him, had also made love to countless beautiful women. That had been his world—a luxurious, frenetic world populated by rich, beautiful, and powerful people with the right connections.

She knew damned well Damon wanted her.

They were attracted to each other. Wildly attracted.

She was certain she was in love with Damon.

But Damon had his own agenda. He wasn't going to fall in love with her and make undying declarations of love. He simply needed her now, and for some reason God had meant for her to be here for him. All she could do was live each moment as it came, savour it, and memorize it. That meant never asking him for more than he could give, never burdening him with her feelings, and keeping as much of her heart intact as she possibly could. That meant finding a way to keep things as light and frivolous as possible.

"What are you thinking about?" Damon asked.

She turned her head and found him studying her with a concerned frown. "Nothing too profound," she hedged with a bright, artificial smile. "Life in general."

"Tell me about it."

Trying to avoid both his searching gaze and the entire discussion, Elena moved out from under his arm and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. "It really wasn't worth discussing."

"Why don't you let me decide that."

She shot him a dark look. "Have you always been so persistent?"

"It's one of my most unattractive qualities," he replied smoothly and impenitently. "What were you thinking about—specifically?"

She rolled her eyes at him in laughing exasperation, but when he continued to regard her in waiting silence, she gave in and told him a part of the truth. Perching her chin on her knees to avoid his gaze, she said, "I was thinking how strange life is. Everything can seem completely predictable, and then in one short minute—everything can change."

Damon leaned his head back against the pillows, closed his eyes, and swallowed with relief. He had thought she had regretted going to bed with him. He gave a deep sigh and without opening his eyes, he asked in a flat voice, "Do you want carry on with what we have started, Elena?"

"Are you giving me a choice?" she teased, adhering to her decision to keep things light. As soon as she said it, she saw the imperceptible tightening of his jaw, and she had the strange feeling that she hadn't given him the sort of answer he wanted this time either.

"Yes…" he said after a long pause. "No…I don't know."

There was a short silence.

"After my big screw-up with my engagement," she conceded softly as she leaned back on the pillow, "I tried to figure out what actually went wrong."

"Liam Davis doesn't deserve you."

She nodded. "I know. Looking back, I wasn't heartbroken over losing him. I was furious and I felt humiliated instead. The breakup was an inevitability. He was not right for me."

Damon gave her an arch look. "Where are you going with this?"

Frustration threatened to overwhelm her. "Where the hell do you think I'm going with it? I'm trying to say that the reason my relationship didn't work out because of this tiny glimmer of a feeling inside that I just can't shake."

"What feeling?"

"A feeling telling me that you are not here yet."

"You were looking for me?" he asked.

"Not you." She groped for the words. "Not consciously. I was looking for someone like you. Sort of."

"Are you trying to say that I'm not the man of your dreams? If so, I got to tell you that kind of thing can be awfully rough on a man's ego."

Now she was getting mad. "What I'm saying is that I haven't been looking for a dream man. I have been looking for the real thing. Only I didn't realize it until I saw you again at the charity ball."

The grooves beside his mouth deepened into a full smile that was lazy, complacent, and smug. "Well, why didn't you say so back at the start of this conversation? Now you have found me."

"Yes. And it's perfect, at least for now."

"You are thinking short-term?" he asked, his voice going hard and flat.

"Yes. Nothing lasts forever. I want you to know that I'm not asking for a lifelong commitment. I'm going to live mindfully and in the moment. I want the two of us to be happy."

"Let me get this straight. You are suggesting that we carry on with what we have started, which is, when you get right down to it, an affair."

"Yes. Right. Exactly. An affair."

"Well, damn," Damon said. "You just ruined my whole day."

Shock reverberated through her. "I did?"

"See, I suggested two of us spending time together so that I could ask you to be my girlfriend, or at least think about it." He shook his head. "No, I don't want you to be my girlfriend. I want you to be my wife."

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She stared at him, stunned. She could not seem to catch her breath.

"I know it's too soon," Damon said. "I know you want to live in the moment. And I'm okay with that. For now. I will give you time. But you should know that I have got my own agenda. I love you, and that's not going to change. That means I will take you any way I can get you, but what I really want is to marry you. I want to have a life together. I want to have kids with you."

"Damn it, why didn't you say so?" she yelped.

"Let's see. Maybe because you were doing all the talking?"

She smiled. "I'm through talking. For now."

He touched his fingertip to her lips. "You can't stop, not just yet."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a logical businessman who like to have things spelled out."

"Okay," she said. "I will spell it out. I love you and I am making a commitment to you. To us. Not just for now but for a lifetime."

"That spells marriage to me."

"Yes," she said. "It spells marriage to me, too."

"You said your relationship didn't work out because of this tiny glimmer of a feeling inside that you just can't shake. I have spent the time searching for something as well. I just didn't know what I was looking for until I saw you again at the charity ball."

"What were you looking for, Damon Salvatore?"

He traced her cheekbones. "My own personal guardian angel. I met her twenty years ago. I have been looking for her ever since. Now I have found her again, and I'm not going to let her go. I love you, Elena. That being-in-the-moment thing is all well and good as far as it goes, but when it comes to us I want now and forever."

"Now and forever," Elena said.

Their smiling lips came together in a chaste, soft kiss before she nestled her face in his neck.

"Elena?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"For everything."

"My pleasure."

He smiled against her forehead. "Elena?"

"Hmm?"

"Nothing. I was just saying your name out loud."