"Are you always this stubborn?"
"Absolutely."
Eight
T he bright, humming lights of the copy room made Bella blink.
Dominic must have put a lot of thought into the situation and gone to a lot of trouble for a woman he'd never even met. That filled her with sharp and unfamiliar feelings that underscored her guilt over her duplicity. "I know you hate what I've been doing. As soon as ReNew launches, I'm going to leave."
"Why should you leave? I bet your mom will be proud to see your dad's work carried on in the products you developed."
Bella shrugged. "Cosmetic preparations are not the end result my dad dreamed of for his experiments, but I'm pretty proud of them."
"You should be."
She drew in a deep breath. "ReNew launches on Tuesday with a big media blitz. The consumer line will be carried in Nordstroms all over the country, and several large metro hospitals have already ordered the medical line. I can leave as early as next week without feeling I cheated Tarrant out of anything." She was trying to convince herself as well as him.
"You can't leave." The words shot out of his mouth.
She held her head high. "I'd have thought you'd be happy to see the bad apple roll out of the barrel." He couldn't stand to even sleep in the same house as her, let alone the same room. He'd made not the slightest hint that he'd ever like to kiss her again.
Or even touch her.
He watched her like a security camera, his expression guarded and intense, as if waiting to catch her doing something wrong.
And paying for her mom to have private care was both a gesture of shocking generosity and a sharp tightening in the noose he already held around her neck, keeping her in his debt.
Maybe he wanted to keep her here where he could watch her.
Control her.
Her skin quivered at the nearness of him. Close enough to feel his body heat through the wool of his expensive suit.
He edged toward her again, crowding her, almost crushing her against the machine. She steadied herself with a palm on the open, glass surface.
"Now is not a good time for you to go. Trust me."
"Why?" A curl of fear unfurled in her gut.
"Tarrant won't take kindly to a defection when he's sick."
"It's hardly a defection. Scientists move around all the time. The only way he'd be angry was if he knew … " She stared at his face. "But he doesn't know about me."
Dominic watched her, eyes narrowed, expression unreadable. His lips parted as if he was about to say something, for a split second the air hummed with painful anticipation that drowned out the hum of the Xerox machine and the florescent lights.
Bella's heart started to beat faster. "He doesn't know, does he?"
Dominic didn't say anything.
Her breath stuck at the bottom of her lungs and her heart threatened to explode from her chest.
His brow furrowed and he stared at her until her skin tingled, then he grabbed her and kissed the last gasps of breath right out of her body.
Bella shuddered with terrible relief as she wound her arms around his neck, unable to think of anything but falling into his embrace. His lips and arms were warm and so very, very welcome.
His kiss answered her question. He'd kept her secret.
His mouth wandered over her cheek and throat, kissing and biting until she wanted to cry out with passion. Her skin hummed under his fingers as he moved them roughly over her lab coat, then reached under it to grab her skirt.
Desire filled her like an ache as she pushed against him, trapped between the big copy machine and his hard body. With trembling fingers, she reached under his suit jacket, and slid her fingers into the waistband of his pants. He grew hard against her as their tongues wound around each other and they tore at each other's clothes.
She felt the smooth plastic of the machine against the back of her thighs as he hiked her dress higher and rubbed her bare skin with his hands. She tilted her hips into his hard erection and enjoyed the deep guttural groan that escaped his mouth.
He slid his hands inside her panties and squeezed her backside. She was already wet, craving him inside her. Thwarted, wounded desire had built inside her since he'd turned down a night in her bed. Now it overflowed, soaking her senses with hot and urgent need.
His strong leg parted hers. He lifted her and settled her on the edge of the machine, then leaned in and kissed her hard on the mouth.
She'd managed to undo the front of his pants and reach inside. He shuddered as she touched his erection, and he pushed against her, shoving her further back onto the glassy surface. She tugged at his shirt, struggling with the buttons, trying to remove the annoying obstacle between her hot skin and his.
She shivered with agonizing arousal as he leaned into her, almost close enough to enter her.
Then she heard it.
Whhhhrrrrrrr. Ka-thunk.
She opened her eyes to see a blinding flash of white light as a streak of heat ran under her exposed buttocks. She gasped, shifting off the machine as if it had stung her, as the picture spit out the side.
"Oh my God, what are we doing?" Bella tugged at her lab coat as she leaped away from the copy machine. Her panties were halfway down her thighs and she struggled to pull them up. "The door's not even locked!"
She reached for the piece of paper but Dominic beat her to it, snatching it out of the dispenser and holding it out of reach above her head.
He had a wicked smile on his face. "I'm framing this one."
Bella's body still stung with arousal, but she tried to think sensibly. "Give it to me, I'll shred it."
"No way." His eyes glittered. "I'll lock the door."
"We can't, my staff is outside! They'll hear … "
"I don't think I can go through the rest of the afternoon like this." He winced.
"No, you need to tuck your shirt in. You look a mess."
"I'm not sure I can. I'm kind of sensitive down there right now. What are you doing to me, Bella?"
She'd managed to wriggle her panties back up. Thank goodness she hadn't worn pantyhose because of the summer heat. They'd be in shreds.
"I'm trying to bring you back to your senses. Give me that!" She lunged at the paper, but he yanked it out of reach. Easy, since he was so much taller. He held it up to the light and examined it.
A crisp, clean, grayscale image of her generous buttocks-grasped firmly in Dominic's strong hands-pressed against the shiny glass of the machine.
"Now that's what I call art." His voice sounded gruff.
"Some people would call it a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. I think it would be in everyone's best interests to shred it immediately."
"I agree. Tarrant might not take it kindly that you've cruelly seduced his firstborn and left him in such a painful predicament."
"Me? I'm not the one who suggested we come in here. I have work to do. I don't have time to xerox my ass for fun."
"It is fun though, isn't it? Can you think of any other parts we should capture?" One dark eyebrow lifted. He still held the offending image about a foot out of her reach.
"I can think of some parts that deserve a good swift kick."
"Promises, promises. Hey, I saw the silver envelope. Are you going to the party?"
"Of course. It says 'You will attend.' Doesn't leave me much choice."
A smile crept across Dominic's mouth. "Good."
She crossed her arms over her chest, squashing her suddenly alert nipples. "Why was I invited?"
"Only Tarrant and his secret inner circle know the answer to that question."
"I'd have thought you were firmly inside the inner circle by now."
"Tarrant just wants me to take over the company. I haven't been entrusted with anything as important as one of his parties."
She tried hard not to catch his infectious grin. His slightly crooked lower teeth were the only imperfection in his otherwise magazine-cover-perfect image. They added a naturalness to his smile that made it all the more irresistible.
Apparently she had no powers of resistance at all where Dominic was concerned.
A knock on the door made them freeze. With a jolt of terror, she glanced at the picture of her bare backside held between his long fingers "Just a minute!" She leaned toward him and hissed. "Give me that!"
"Nope." He winked.
"The door has no lock!" she whispered. "At least put it away."
Who would knock? Someone who suspected she was doing more than copying paper in here. Did her employees know she was carrying on a torrid affair with the boss's son? She'd be the hot topic around every watercooler in the company.