Millionaire's Secret Seduction(20)

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?"