Damien locked his gaze on her, ignoring whatever the hosts were saying next to him. He watched as Katherine slightly bowed at him, turned her heel and started walking away.
"d.a.m.n it, woman!" he cursed in his head as he turned around and alighted the stage, quickly following her out of the hall using the fire exit.
"President Park…" he heard them call but he ignored them and took long strides towards where the woman disappeared.
He thought that she was escaping again until he pushed the door open and saw her leaning against the wall near the stairs, waiting for him. The corner of his mouth curled up upon seeing her beautiful face again as she took off her mask.
Damien retrieved his mobile phone from his pocket and waved it. "Should I time or do you want to do the honors?"
Katherine looked up at him, meeting his stare that was so intense she could feel her knees weaken — she was thankful that she was leaning against the wall.
"You sure are a man of your words." Katherine pushed herself off the wall and inched closer to him so that they were only several inches apart. The man in front of her was taller by less than a foot and being able to see him up close like this, she got to appreciate the perfectly chiseled jawline of his that she had wanted to feel with her fingers.
"I always have been." He inched even closer and his delicious scent invaded her nose, making her inhale deeply as though she wanted to devour him right then and there.
"Still wearing that perfume I see…" She tilted her head to the side, their eyes never leaving each other.
"Are you stalling?" Damien"s gaze s.h.i.+fted a little lower and settled on her naturally plump lips. He heard her soft chuckle which was music to his ears. "G.o.d, this woman makes me want to lose control." He clenched his jaw.
"Actually, I have to go… It was nice meeting you, President Park." She smiled and turned to her left.
Damien stepped in her way to stop her, gently holding her wrist. "You owe me my five minutes. Are you just going to leave again?"
"With the way that we keep meeting each other like this, I"m sure we"ll see each other again soon. Until then, you can plan out how you want to spend that five minutes, make sure to make it worthwhile."
Chuckling, Damien could not believe this woman. "You just spent $2,000,000 of mine tonight and I still don"t know anything about you."
"Are you regretting it?" Katherine asked with a smile on her face. Subtly, she brushed her fingers on the back of his hand before she said, "2 1 8… that"s one thing that you get to know about me."
Feeling her soft touch, Damien"s reflex was to grab her hand but she was already walking away. "What does that even mean?"
Katherine waved her hand without turning back, "I"ll tell you the next time I see you."
Damien watched as she walked away and disappeared into a corner. Regretting? He scoffed before a smile slowly formed on his lips.
"It"s definitely worth it." He muttered as he lowered his eyes to his right palm to look at the rose gold bracelet that he secretly took from her wrist earlier.
Chuckling, Damien kept the bracelet in his inner coat pocket and went back to the hall.
"That"s all I can remember," Katherine said after telling Damien about the memory she recalled in her point of view.
She felt him tighten his hold on her, making her turn her head towards him and she met his smiling eyes. "What?"
Damien stifled a chuckle and shook his head. "Nothing… it"s just… it feels different hearing it from your perspective."
"Did I say everything right? Did I miss something?"
Katherine narrated what she saw in her memory. However, she only told him about what transpired during their conversation and the auction. She didn"t say anything beyond that.
"Why were you there that night? What were you doing there? Why did you leave right away?" he asked and saw that Katherine had s.h.i.+fted her gaze to the side as if she was trying to concentrate.
She sighed and shook her head, "I"m sorry… I don"t know… I don"t remember anything else." She saw him nod and did not say anything which made her worry. "Are you disappointed that I couldn"t remember anything else?"
"No, of course not. Why would I be disappointed?" Damien quickly responded. "No matter how much I want you to remember your past, all I could think about now is the present. You, with me, in my arms like this, Katherine… this is all I want. Your past does not matter to me as much as your present."
s.h.i.+fting her position in his lap, Katherine hooked an arm around his neck and cupped one side of his face with her other hand. "Why are you so good to me?"
Damien placed his hand over her hand that was cupping his face and stroked it. He slightly turned his head towards her palm and placed a warm and gentle kiss on it before he said, "It"s because it"s you."
There was nothing else that he could say. It was really just because it was her — because she was Katherine.
Her heart throbbed in her chest when she felt his lips. She bravely leaned in and with gentle strokes, she brushed her lips on his.
What started slow and sweet gradually picked up the pace. Damien"s hand which rested on her waist slid down to her thigh. Katherine"s sultry evening dress had a long slit that stopped over a foot from her knee and his hand dangerously grazed her skin on that area — he felt her tense up a little.
"Damien…" She breathed in his mouth and swallowed.
"Katherine…"
"Something is…. Something is poking my thigh."
He felt her hands grip his shoulder and it made him lower his gaze. He chuckled and trailed kisses on her jawline. "Well, that"s you," he told her, referring to the hard-on that he was sporting inside his pants and stabbing her thigh.
Refusing to meet his eyes, Katherine hid against the side of his face. "Make that thing stop…"
Her words made Damien chuckle even more. "It"s not exactly that simple, Kitten, you"re sitting on me."
She swallowed and s.h.i.+fted a little as she was getting bothered by that feeling on her thigh. "Shouldn"t I get off?" she wondered.
"Don"t move," he warned, his arms locking her in place. "The more you move… the more it gets dangerous, Kitten."
Katherine froze on the spot, unsure of what to do next. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Damien"s thoughts went wild. "My sweet innocent Kitten, I have a thousand ideas in mind that you could do."
His voice was nothing more than a whisper but dampness was already starting to form in between her legs — it fl.u.s.tered her.
Noticing her getting tensed, Damien couldn"t help but raise the corners of his lips upward before he pressed them to the side of her neck. "Come on, we better go back," he said and helped her to her feet.
In a flash, Katherine was at the door.
"Don"t run, Katherine," he teased. Damien caught up to her and the two of them headed back to the event hall.
Just as they entered, they b.u.mped into Nana"s private nurse.
"Where"s Nana?" he asked.
"Young Master, I"m just going to the loo for a bit." She tilted her head in the direction where Nana was, in the middle of the hall. "There she is."
Damien and Katherine followed the direction of her stare and saw Nana who was slow dancing with an old man to the tune "Unchained Melody".