"You'd better be careful. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and you're almost all the way there."
She chuckled and he felt relief to see her relax and smile.
It almost made him forget what he'd done earlier.
Dominic blew out a breath. He shouldn't be flirting with her, encouraging her to let down her guard. He wanted to take a look at those letters and see how to play this. There must be some way to work out a compromise that would suit everyone.
It almost killed him to have to stand around waiting.
But it was a sweet way to die.
He sat, open mouthed, as Bella lifted a cooked morsel of striped heirloom eggplant to her luscious lips. Her smile of satisfaction replicated itself on his face, then traveled all the way to his groin on a wave of warm arousal.
Bella could feel Dominic's appreciative gaze on her as she stirred the sauce. The steam from the cooking pot mingled with the heady scent of the attraction that snapped back and forth between them.
She tried to focus on the food and act as though she was just cooking a regular Friday night meal for herself.
But it wasn't a regular Friday night. Her skin was still hot and sticky from their afternoon lovemaking. Her insides still trembled with the aftershocks of her orgasm. As she cooked, Dominic's dark eyes seemed to burn right through her clothes.
And the letters throbbed inside her briefcase, their wrinkled pages threatening to bring her carefully wrought plans crashing down around her.
She tried to keep a blank expression as she sprinkled salt and pepper onto the bubbling stew. She tested a strand of rotelle. "You like it al dente?"
"Of course." Dominic's face glowed with quiet pleasure that gave her a secret thrill. There was something strangely comforting about his large, solid presence in her mother's neglected kitchen.
Which was ridiculous. If he saw what was in those letters …
She had to make sure he didn't see them. At least until she'd figured out what to do.
The horrible vision of her mom, restrained to her hospital bed with a tube in her arm, made her catch her breath. She knew her mom was living to get her father's work back. To see Bella breathe fresh life into his legacy and bring him back to life, even in a limited way.
"You okay?"
Dominic's soft voice warned her she must be showing emotion. Maybe in her breathing. "Sure, I'm fine."
She drained the pasta, then spooned the ragout over it onto two pretty hand-painted plates. She carried them to the table where she'd laid cutlery and hand-blown blue glasses her family had brought back from a long-ago vacation in Mexico.
Dominic poured wine he'd retrieved from her father's dusty wine cellar into the glasses. Their eyes met for a second as she sat and a fierce jolt of-something-made her catch her breath and look away. She picked up her fork.
Dominic raised his glass. "To everything working out for the best."
"What does that mean?" Her hand, halfway to her glass, froze. Was the "best" her failing in her quest to get her dad's work?
Dominic frowned slightly. "I mean I hope your mom gets better soon and comes home from the hospital."
Oh. She lifted her glass, flushed with sudden guilt. Working for the enemy had made her so fearful and suspicious. It embarrassed her that she'd been so quick to assume the worst of a man who'd done nothing but try to help her.
And make breathless, passionate love to her.
No. It wasn't love. It was sex. And she'd better not forget that.
She sipped her wine. "She'll come home soon." She tried to inject confidence into her voice, though, in truth, her confidence was slipping away every week. The bad news in her father's letters was the latest blow.
"Good wine. Did your dad collect it? He has a lot of interesting bottles down there."
"I guess he did. Funny, really, I never asked. I guess I'll never know, now." She sipped her wine and tried to brush away the pain of loss that always hung around, like the cobwebs in the corners of the room.
A frisson of fear snuck through her. Should she have let him go downstairs by himself? "Did you see anything else interesting down in the basement?"
His eyebrow lifted. "Should I have? I didn't look around. I figured you wouldn't want me to. But if there's some junk that needs moving, or anything else you need help with, say the word."
His pleasant expression and kind words made her stomach clench. Why was he being so nice? Because they'd had sex?
Or because he was up to something?
"There's just a bunch of my dad's stuff down there. Old equipment, computers. Probably none of it works, but I don't know what to do with it. I'm sure it's worthless, but I can't bring myself to throw it away."
"If it's not hurting anyone, why not let it stay there?"
Because I don't know how long we'll own the house.
She didn't want to say it out loud though. Her financial worries were not his business.
He lifted a fork full of food to his mouth and ate it. Nodded in appreciation as he chewed.
She inhaled and attempted to click back into hostess mode. "Edible? I'm rather intimidated by your food expertise."
"Best kind of food there is. Straight from garden to table, and bursting with the flavor of sunlight."
"Don't you mean moonlight?"
He paused, fork in midair. "You're right. Maybe that's why this is the very best food I've ever eaten."
His gruff voice and steady black gaze made her insides simmer.
"Stop teasing." She speared rotelle with her fork. "I know I'm no chef, but I wasn't expecting a guest."
"And I'm glad of that. If you were I might have had to fight him." His dimples made an appearance. He forked some more food into his mouth.
She should laugh. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had a date. For one thing, she worked most of the hours she was awake-probably out of guilt over the reason she was really at Hardcastle. When she left, they'd be angry, but they'd miss her too.
She drew in a breath and tried to keep a straight face. "Lunch was delicious. Shame I got distracted and forgot to eat it."
"I think we both got a little carried away." His dimples disappeared. "As you know, I'm only in town temporarily."
His serious gaze made her stomach wobble. A sharp laugh escaped her mouth. "Don't panic. I wasn't expecting a proposal just because we … well, you know."
Dominic looked relieved.
Why did that hurt so much? She should be relieved too.
"Did you follow me home to let me down easy?" She took a bracing sip of wine.
He shook his head, eyes fixed on hers. "Nope, I just followed you. Couldn't help myself. I was worried you might get into trouble in that dress."
The fitted fabric of the dress chafed her tight nipples. "It got me into trouble already. I'll have to burn it."
"Now, that would be a crime. And you'll be fine as long as I'm here to protect you." His white teeth gleamed in a feral grin.
"Gee. I feel so … safe."
This was not a situation any sensible woman would find herself in. Did he expect to sleep with her again tonight? Heat shimmered across her thighs and belly.
She really shouldn't. Earlier, it had been unexpected. A surprise. An accident.
If she did it again it would be premeditated and she'd be walking into his dynamite-laced embrace with her eyes wide open.
Sleeping with the enemy.
Or was this all part of his "deal"? Secrecy in exchange for sex.
Tiny hairs stood up on her bare arms.
Dominic leaned back in his chair. Sipped his wine. His big body filled the chair, hiding it completely. "I didn't come here to make love with you again, or even to sleep with you. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to do those things … ." His low voice made her belly quiver. "But I can show some restraint."
Did she want him to show restraint? Her skin hummed at the memory of his mouth moving over it.
Around Dominic she seemed to lose all sense of proportion.
And it was happening again because she needed to tell someone about those damn letters and he was here.
She sucked in a shaky breath. "I did read the letters on the train." He frowned and leaned forward. "And?"
She shoved a hand through her hair. Dominic's eyes wandered to her lifted chest, then blinked innocently back to her face. Her skin heated.
"Tarrant paid my father a hundred thousand dollars."
"That's not peanuts." Dominic sipped his wine.
"And it wasn't Tarrant's idea." She paused and inhaled. "It was my dad's." Butterflies tickled her stomach. "He did it for me."
Dominic's eyes narrowed. "To get you the job?"
"No! I was still in grad school at that point. Had no idea what I'd end up doing. He did it to pay off my college loans. In one of the letters he tells Tarrant it would mean a lot to him for me to start out life without debt to worry about. To be able to follow my dreams without owing anyone anything."