Believing Daimon could come to love her would only destroy her.
Happiness was far beyond her reach.
Fate had other plans for her.
Chapter 15
Daimon stepped back to the Tokyo mansion, landing near the porch. Sunlight bathed the building and the grounds, the air still and silent. Just as he had hoped. Everyone would be asleep and he could avoid them all, at least for a few more hours.
He toed his boots off, taking his time about it, his thoughts slowing him down. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to Cass when he saw her again. His guard had been down in that moment by the bridge, and things had slipped out, things he had always wanted to keep secret.
Or at least he had thought he wanted to keep them secret.
He would never admit it to her, but talking to her about Penelope, even for that brief moment, had lifted some of the weight from his shoulders. He had been in a foul mood when he had left, had returned to Hong Kong and cursed her a thousand times over, but once he had realised he wasn’t really angry, that he was only acting out because he felt he should be furious, he had felt… good.
He had never realised that Penelope was a sword hanging over him, a weight that constantly pressed down on him. He had loved her, or at least he had grown to love her, and he truly believed that if she hadn’t been killed, he could have been happy with her.
Guilt stirred but he pushed it away, unwilling to let it take hold. He had been loyal to Penelope from the moment she had announced she was pregnant, had made the decision to stand by her, and he had stood by her for decades after her death, believing doing so would make him happy.
But it hadn’t.
And when he had been sent to this world and his power had manifested, he had driven deep into that desire to remain faithful to her, using it to shield himself from the pain of being unable to touch another without potentially killing them.
He had fooled himself.
Cass had opened his eyes.
Cass who had looked so wounded last night, as if her heart had been bleeding for him.
He wasn’t the only one who had revealed something about themselves last night. Cass had too. Beneath her often cold exterior, she cared. She cared deeply. She only affected the air of someone who didn’t form attachments, who expected everyone to do their bidding without question and who didn’t care what others thought of her.
He set his boots on the rack, still mulling over how he was going to approach her once evening rolled around and everyone in the mansion woke up.
Daimon pushed the door open and a sweet, tempting aroma hit him.
He tracked it to the kitchen, paused when a muttered curse broke the silence, and then edged forwards.
He peered into the kitchen. It was a mess. Bowls and tools were scattered all over the surfaces, bags and tubs of ingredients filled the spaces between them, and there was flour on almost everything.
He froze again.
Cass hummed as she bent over and removed something from the oven, the cute cat paw gloves out of place with an outfit he could only describe as a real heart-stopper.
Black leather moulded to her long legs, the trousers riding low enough that it exposed a strip of creamy toned stomach between them and the fitted ribbed black corset she wore.
Heat rushed through Daimon, his blood raging at the sight of her, his mouth going dry as he drank his fill of her curves and kept on picturing her as she had been in the bath, clad in only revealing underwear.
“What are you doing?” He squeezed the words out, struggling to think let alone speak as he attempted to banish underwear-Cass from his mind.
She whirled to face him, straightening at the same time and almost dropping the black deep metal tray she clutched. “Are you in the habit of sneaking up on people?”
He shrugged that off. “You should have been able to sense I was back.”
She averted her gaze, lowering it to the pan she held. “My powers are a bit… low… right now.”
He frowned at that. How much of her powers had she had to put into that barrier to make it that effective? He took a good look at her, shutting out her tempting curves and wicked outfit, keeping his gaze trained on her face. She looked tired, dark circles around her eyes, her skin still a shade paler than before.
“You should be resting,” he bit out, harder than he had meant, earning a frown from her.
He braced himself, waiting for her to mention again that she didn’t like people ordering her around.
Instead of lashing out at him, she muttered, “I can’t. There’s too much going on in my head, so here I am… baking.”
Baking. It seemed like such a homely thing to do, so domestic and old-world feminine, words he had never thought he would apply to her. There was a side to her she kept hidden from the world, a side that she evidently hadn’t wanted anyone to witness judging by how awkward she looked as she glanced at him.
“Do you like to bake?” He leaned his hip and shoulder against the doorframe, gunning for casual to cover how eager he was to know more about her, about this side of her in particular.
She set the rectangular pan down on a rack on the counter to his left and wafted the dark brown contents with a baking sheet. “Only when I’m stressed.”
He couldn’t imagine her being stressed that often back home on the island. If he lived there, he would never be stressed. All that sunshine, sea and endless blue sky. He always had found the quiet life appealing.
Cass took a plate from the cupboard, picked up a slice of
