CHAPTER 2

Undoing the knot of his tie, Damien got out of his black car. It was 8 in the morning and he hadn’t slept very well after the fun he had with Nancy, just a simple secretary who ended up tangling in her finger.

Everyone was waiting for him. The bodyguards at the entrance of the house were ready to be alerted by the presence of any of the two most important figures in that house.

Yes, it seemed lie the house had been all alone since last night.

“Good morning, Mr. Slimth.” One of the men greeted.

“Where did you park the car Amber brought last night?” He asked, without looking at them.

No one knew how to answer him. Amber hadn’t arrived home.

“I asked you something!” He raised his crisp voice.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Slimth but Miss. Amber hadn’t arrived home since yesterday.”

Damien stooped and turned around to see them. “What did you say?”

Walking back and forth in his office, Damien couldn’t help but worry about Amber.

How come she hadn’t arrived home? How come she hadn’t slept there? Where the hell could she be? Who the hell she could be with? Even if Amber had to be seen as his sister, the first question that rose in his mind was with who?

His cellphone rang between his hands.

“Did you find her?” He asked.

“What? Damien, it’s me, Antonio. The meeting is about to start. Where are you, man?”

“Call off the meeting. I’m not arriving.”

“What?”

“I told you!” And then, Damien hung up just to hear the sound of his car arriving.

A man obsessed with cars like Damien would say all his cars had a different sound. The roars of their machines would always change and the car that had arrived was the same Amber was supposed to bring last night.

At a fast pace, Damien arrived at the entrance where his dark brown eyes could see the perfect figure of Amber getting off the car. She smiled even when she looked haggard.

“Amber!” He called out, walking down the three stairs that separated the big house from the water source where the cars stopped until a person in charge take them to the parking lot. “Where the fuck did you spend the night?”

Needless to say, Amber was speechless. She’d never had Damien’s eyes fixed on her with such a different feeling on those.

THREE DAYS LATER

PARIS, FRANCE

Different wind caressing her face, different images her eyes were able to see. Even the aroma of that place was away from the one breathed in the United States. Amber didn’t resist the happiness she felt in her heart that made her raise her voice a little.

“Hey, it’s amazing!” She cried out.

The man walking in front of her, dressing in his black coat while in one hand had his passport and the documents he had to show to stay in that luxury place and with the other hand pulling his suitcase, never stopped to even see the things that made her so happy.

Finally, after having thought so much about going with him to that business trip, she ended up being forced to go by the same man whose words had to be obeyed as the same law of the entire universe.

After all, Damien didn’t have anyone as trustful as his sister.

“Can you walk faster?” He asked in an obnoxious way.

“Oh! Yes, I’m coming!”

“Hotel France welcomes you. It’s a pleasure to have you here. With who do I have the pleasure?” A smiley woman dressed in a black suit asked.

“I have a reservation here. My name is Damien Slithm.” He replied, taking out the documents she was going to need to confirm his words.

And behind him the woman who always looked up to him, ‘cause the world could disappear at that moment, but what no one was going to snatch from her heart was the happiness he always provoked. Amber didn’t know what she had done well to be there with him, in a romantic place where she was going to walk by his side, even if it was just a business trip.

“Yes, a room for two, that’s what I say.” He ordered.

“A room for you,” she repeated. “A room for two!” Amber’s eyes went wide. “What?

Damien? Damien, what did you say?” Amber took his arm to make him look at her.

“Wait!”

“Damien!”

“I said wait!”

It couldn’t be possible for her. She just couldn’t share the room with the man she looked up to and not exactly as a sister would do.

“Have a good experience with us, Mr. Slimth! Thank you for choosing us.” The receptionist gave him his documents.

“Thank you.” And then, he walked ahead, making Amber follow him.

“Why did you do that, Damien? Damien! I’m talking to you! Damien, why don’t you listen to me?”

Smiling like a man who enjoyed getting her on the nerve, Damien stopped and turn around, all in one second just to make her stop abruptly. She was never going to know how much he enjoyed making her nervous.

The right corner of his lip raised when he saw she went speechless. Enjoying a little more Damien walked up to her step by step while Amber stepped back until her delicate body crashed into the wall. To end with that, Damien relayed his left arm on the wall.

His vivid fragance had cornered Amber.

“No matter where, the United States, Mexico, France… My orders had to be followed carefully by you.” Damien caressed her face.

Abruptly, he let her go, making her feel like he had taken her breath away, her pulse raised. She shouldn’t have grown up with him when he was pure temptation.

 Not even an inch she had moved from the corner of the bed she had chosen to sleep and to seat while Damien was out. Her beautiful eyes looked around the room. Surely the best in that hotel. More than twenty minutes had gone by since the moment Damien left, when she decided to stand up and go to her suitcase.

Her lungs exhaled a sigh of relief.

“What’s wrong with me?!” she whined, hitting her suitcase. “What should I do? Dad, why did you have to leave me with him?”

 Hotel France, described as one of the most expensive hotels in that country not only

for their well accommodated rooms, offering the best services but also for their exquisite dishes, offering a variety of options for all people, cooks running here and there, the sound of the plates and glasses banging against each other.

“Let’s go, move your asses!” The man yelled in a perfect France accent.

Tired of the orders they had to deliver, one of the cooks approached another, taking a rest in a discreet manner.

“What?”

“I can’t. I don’t know how long until we have our rest.”

The other cook laughed. “Don’t even think about that. I heard there’s an important festival and important people are coming from the entire world.”

“Talking about that, you’re not going to believe what happened.”

“What? What important figure you met now?”

“Look!” He said, letting him see the object in his hand. It was no more than a small

bottle with a yellow liquid in it.

“What’s that?”

“I’m telling you this because you have to help. A woman out there told me to put this liquid in the bottle of wine of one of the men here.”

“Don’t do that! She wants to kill him and they’re going to send us to jail.”

“No! It’s not like that. The woman told me this drug is going to force him to… you know what I’m talking about. She said this is her opportunity to marry him and of course the method of all women is by getting pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure!”

“Is she paying you well?”

“You’re not going to believe it!”

“Let’s do this. Oh! By the way, the order of the room 342 is a bottle of the same wine.”

“Okay, when you’re done, let me know. No one else but me, okay?”

It seemed like they were about to make the biggest mistake ever.

 Ten minutes later Damien arrived at the room where Amber didn’t look like as uncomfortable as when they just came in.

“Damien, where were you? I thought you were here to talk about the meeting tomorrow.” Amber wanted to know.

“If we want to take our business to the next level, I have to know how they prepare their food.”

Exactly, Damien wanted to start his franchises with Italian food.

“I bring this to celebrate and bear the night.” Finally, he let her see around five or even seven different dishes with a bottle of white wine to discover the secrets of the Italians.

Amber couldn’t believe his quick way of acting. “What? Come and let’s eat, sister!”

Sister, sister, she was no more than his sister.

 Looking into that uncertain startup, forgetting about the good and bad times, they wanted to stick to the idea they were going to succeed. That business trip hadn’t been in vain and no matter how long it would take, they were sure they’d find the right recipe to start over.

One, two, three… three hours had gone since Damien and Amber started sharing their breaths involved by alcohol.

Laughing at the foot of the bed, with the plates covering their space and in their hands a glass of wine, Amber and Damien had never shared a moment like that one, even when they had shared the same roof for years.

Relying on his shoulder, she laughed as she had lost her senses. “Hahaha, I can’t… I can’t forget that day you whined as a little baby.”

Damien smiled, looking at her. He knew she was beautiful, but not as stunning as he was seeing her at that moment.

“Wasn’t it funny, Damien? We ended up alone, without siblings, parents, no one who can take care of us but ourselves.” Little by little, her voice faded away. “Our parents died in that shipwreck and left us alone. At least you have money. I have nothing.”

Damien’s smile erased off his face. “Wait, Amber you don’t-“

“Don’t what? Let’s go, we have to sle-” She said, trying to get up but being cut off by the grab of Damien who made her seat but now, too close to him, where their eyes could be read for the other pair of eyes.

What to say about the feelings burning up inside of them? What to say about the desire they felt without the other knowing about that? What to say about their breaths that had increased the demand of air? Finally, too close to each other, Damien and Amber seemed to have the right to exchange all those feelings through their gazes.

Alcohol running through their systems, the drug in the wine making that desire stronger and Amber being the only woman right there.

“I wish you weren’t my sister,” and then, Damien took her by the back of her neck and kissed her passionately.

“I wish you weren’t my brother,” Amber expressed between the kiss.

Their chest going up and down, Damien had managed to separate from her at the moment he heard her saying those words.

“What did you say?” He asked.

“Damien, I… I… I… We shouldn’t.”

Once again the desire burnt out, the pink lips of Amber were the perfect invitation to enter in her. Maybe she was right, they shouldn’t. They were siblings not by blood, of course, but what about that passion he felt now he was touching her?

It was time to consolidate that desire and… love. The love he didn’t know he felt for her all along.