It Hurts When It's True (Affaire de Coeur, #1)

Chapter 26: Shy away

"She's not exactly your type, Damian." Catherine commented immediately when she crossed Damian's path.

Catherine had blocked his path and grabbed him to a corner where they could talk privately. Damian leaned a side of his body against the wall and his friend did the same. He might have had his attention directed at the brunette, but he could also get a full view of the lonesome woman he had left sitting on one of the couches in Catherine's living room.

"I've heard that so many times already, Cath. It's getting quite old." Damian replied, sounding bored at Catherine's choice conversation topic.

The blue-grey eyed lady gasped at his response and gaped at him like he had just said the dumbest thing in the world, "You actually allowed yourself to be seen in public with her?"

It was not that she was talking about Margaret as someone who Damian should be ashamed to be seen with. No, it was more of Catherine's show of concern about his rash actions. It was a common knowledge that being seen in public with someone who was neither a celebrity nor a personality would become the subject of scrutiny by the media and the critics.

"Does Terry know?" Cath added, still ogling him with disbelief.

"Of course Terry doesn't know. You know how she is?" Damian's eyebrows knitted at his friend's question.

"Yes, I know how she is. She's not my manager yet she watches me so closely that just being within five fee radius with her gives me the chills." Cath shivered for the effect.

"I believe your guests still have regard for discretion?" Damian inquired.

"You know how I choose my people. They have to be discreet or they'll have to answer to me." Cath crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes darting towards the crowd in her apartment.

"So why are you with her?" She asked, studying him from the corner of her eyes.

"Do you really have to ask?"

"I don't know. Do I have to?" Catherine was not the type to let something or someone off that easily, and Damian was not an exception.

"Maybe, I want to be with her?"

Catherine chortled at his answer, appearing quite doubtful about the words that he had just said. She knew him well enough, and she knew almost everything about him from when he started in the industry. Speaking like that must have sounded absurd to her especially that she knew of his track record as well as she was familiar with the back of her hand.

"I don't know about you, but that's the craziest I heard from you so far." She said with all seriousness in the tone of her voice. "But remember your position and mine. And never let your guard down around Terry. We both know that she would not want you to be seen in public with anyone but me."

"I know, Cath. I know." Damian sighed at that before his gaze involuntarily slid back to Margaret, who was sitting so stiffly on the sofa.

"I had better go back to her." He said without even waiting for Cath's reply.

Damian stood in front of Maggie, but it seemed like she was lost in her thoughts. Her eyes were directed at him yet it seemed like her gaze went right through him. He had to touch her cheek gently just to get her attention, and she just looked up at him with blank, expressionless eyes.

He carefully sat down beside Maggie and handed her one of the glasses that he was holding. Though she looked as if she was being absent-minded, she took hold of the glass that he had offered to her. He then had let his arm clandestinely slide on the backrest right behind her head. As much as he wanted to let his arms creep over her shoulders and show everyone to whom she belonged to, he just could not do so since he did not have the right to. At the moment, that is.