His eyes drifted down the length of her legs, to her slender ankles and her pretty bare feet with their unpainted nails.
Monopoly would be good. He'd like to monopolize her naked body for the whole weekend.
Or Chess. He'd like to bury his face in her chest and …
"I'd better hit the sack," he muttered, stretching. His arousal jutted ungracefully against his pants. Lucky thing she was too much of a lady to look.
"Sure, follow me."
He couldn't keep his eyes off the swish of her hips as she climbed the stairs.
He tried-unsuccessfully-to avoid gazing down her cleavage as they leaned in from opposite sides to stretch a clean fitted sheet over the mattress.
Their eyes met and the strange expression on her face caught him off guard.
"It seems kind of silly to sleep in separate rooms when we've already … " She licked her lip, nervous.
Temptation tugged at Dominic like a thick rope. It was hard to believe their two sweaty bodies had been entwined only a few hours earlier.
But since then everything had changed. He'd gone from being her ally to being her betrayer.
"I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off you. Neither of us would get any sleep."
No lie there.
The disappointment in her face shoved that rusty dagger of guilt deeper into his belly. His arms burned to hold her, to soothe her worries. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right.
But as she'd pointed out, he shouldn't make promises he couldn't keep. And it was unlikely things would work out "all right" for Bella, now that he'd told Tarrant about her.
Bella lay still dressed on top of the covers. Her heart raced and her head pounded with an insistent ache.
Dominic didn't want to touch her.
Didn't want to see her.
Couldn't even stand to be in the same room with her.
And could she blame him?
Although the cosmetics lab at Hardcastle was not the place she'd dreamed of working when she got her degrees, the company had given her the opportunity to bring together cutting-edge equipment and highly trained staff to perform experiments that were groundbreaking.
And she repaid Tarrant's trust by duping him and sneaking around with her own agenda. And by seducing his newfound son into keeping her secrets.
Adrenaline stung her fingers and toes and drove her off the bed. No way would she get any sleep with Dominic in the house. His presence on the other side of the wall was a painful reminder that she didn't deserve intimacy, or the trust it implied.
She pushed the door open, praying the hinge wouldn't creak, then tiptoed down the stairs, making sure to avoid the noisy spot on the third step from the bottom.
She heard rustling, as if Dominic was turning in bed. Was he asleep? Or wakeful and restless like her?
She couldn't help but wonder if he'd undressed down to the dark jersey boxers she'd torn off that afternoon, then cursed herself for the superficial thought.
Of course he didn't want to touch her again. She'd thrown herself at him during lunch, so strung out on desire and arousal and painful loneliness that he didn't even need to make the first move.
He'd accommodated her desperation, too much a gentleman to embarrass her with a refusal.
She turned the smooth-operating latch on the front door. The cool night air tickled her skin and a breeze flicked through her hair. She closed the door and sat on the steps between the two cascading fountains of white angel's trumpets.
Their sweet, rich scent filled her senses, intoxicating, arousing-its source a potent hallucinogen and deadly poison. Sometimes the loveliest and most alluring things were the most dangerous of all.
The door swished open behind her and she leaped off the steps, heart pounding. "What are you-?"
They spoke the words at the same time.
"I just needed some air." She tucked her hair behind her ear, self-conscious in the long T-shirt she wore as a nightie.
Moonlight illuminated the strained expression on his handsome face. "I have to go. I remembered some business I need to take care of."
"After midnight?" She couldn't keep a hint of wry sarcasm out of her voice.
Dominic shoved a hand through his rumpled dark hair. "First thing in the morning. I took off up here without any of my stuff. My phone needs charging."
So. He was done with her. He'd followed her because he'd guessed she found the letters. Now he knew what they said-that they confirmed what he'd assumed all along-he had no further need to be here.
"Were you planning to walk to the station?" She held herself steady. Tried to act calm. Cool. "It's nearly ten miles."
"I didn't want to wake you." He rubbed at the front of his rumpled white shirt as if scratching an itch. She saw glint of metal in his other hand.
Her keys.
"So you thought you'd just take my car?" Her voice emerged on a rush of breath.
"I left you money to get a cab to the station in the morning."
She stood, speechless for a moment, until raw indignation took over. "I don't need your money. I earn a good salary, as you've pointed out. And since I'm up, I can drive you if you need to get away from here that urgently."
"You're not dressed." His dark eyes drifted over her baggy T-shirt. She couldn't see his expression in the dark, but her skin stirred. She cursed her instant reaction to him.
"I'll put some jeans on," she turned for the door.
"No." He grabbed her arm.
She ignored the rush of heat as his fingers closed around it. No doubt he felt her instant and humiliating reaction, for he dropped her arm as if it burned him.
His eyes narrowed. "I'd rather drive myself."
"I understand." She forced the words between her lips.
She understood completely. He didn't want to be anywhere near her.
"Get some sleep." He stared at her for a moment, his expression hidden in the darkness, then turned and strode for the car, where it stood on the driveway.
Goose bumps rose over Bella's skin and her breath came in unsteady gulps. She turned and rushed back inside the house. What was she thinking, asking him to stay? What happened between them at lunch was an aberration, an accident. He didn't want to spend time with her, he just wanted to stop her from hurting his father.
What kind of person was she to launch a scheme to sue a dying man?
Of course she didn't know he was dying a year ago, when she started her quest to regain her father's life's work. But she did now. She'd been so focused on putting her plan into action she hadn't stopped to take changing circumstances into account.
And now she'd found out that her father willingly offered his research to Tarrant-to pay for her schooling? She leaned against the closed door as her car engine roared off into the night. Pain soaked through her as she pressed herself against the hard wood and dug her nails into her palms.
She deserved Dominic's scorn.
Worst of all, she couldn't even gather up the remaining shreds of her dignity and abandon her traitorous role at Hardcastle. The project her team had put countless hours of overtime and dedication into was coming to fruition right now. If she quit she'd leave her department in the lurch and delay production and marketing of ReNew, souring their efforts as well as her own, and compounding her crimes against the company.
No, she'd made her bed and now she had to lie in it.
Alone.
Tarrant let his spoon clatter to the plate as Dominic left the room. His breakfast lox tasted like old shoe leather. "How can someone so smart be so … bullheaded?"
"Because he's just like his father." Fiona didn't look up from her magazine.
"Your own brother wants to let a Mata Hari in a lab coat sniff around in our midst, all because her old mother is moldering away in some mental ward? Call me cold-hearted-"
"You're coldhearted." Fiona winked and took a sip of her coffee. "If you weren't, you'd be letting me take over the company and not searching for all the other fruit of your fertile loins."
"Fiona!" Samantha put down her glass.
"Ah, but she's right." Tarrant smiled indulgently at his only daughter. Well, the only one so far. Who knew what the researchers he'd hired would turn up next? They'd traced one of his affairs to a son in Argentina of all places.
But Dominic was the one born to take over the business.
Shame his intended heir had developed a soft spot for a woman who was an agent of destruction inside his beloved empire. Tarrant's arms itched with a desire to raise a legal guillotine high over her treacherous head and …
"I think he's in love with her." Fiona licked her cappuccino spoon.
"With Bella Andrews, or Soros or whatever her name is?" Tarrant snorted. "She's not bad for a bluestocking-wouldn't have hired her if she was-but with all the other lovelies around here he could choose from?"