“I’d like to wring your neck.” Her eyes were narrowed to stormy slits.
“Go ahead and try.” He squinted. “It’s pretty big, so I’m not sure you’ll be able to get your hands around it. But you never know.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and went for it. He had no idea what was really going through her mind, presumably not a public strangulation at his dad’s party. Maybe she couldn’t turn down the challenge that her hands wouldn’t fit around his neck.
Naturally, he took advantage of the opportunity to grab her around the waist. She wriggled and her silky dress slid under his fingers. Her high heels raised her hips to just below his, so her pelvis crushed delightfully against his thickening flesh.
“Let me go!”
“You let me go first.” His voice turned gruff, as blood rushed from his brain and vocal cords to more southern parts of his anatomy.
Her cool fingers pressed into the back of his neck. “See, they do fit!”
“Not enough to get a good squeeze going.”
Her face was about two inches from his and the sweet scent of her skin drove him crazy.
Her lip curled. “You’re right. Neanderthal!”
“Tell me about it. I have to get my shirts specially made.”
Her lips now hovered about a half inch from his. She still didn’t have a lick of makeup on, which was downright arrogant, given her job.
No wonder he couldn’t resist her.
Her hands still rested on his neck, her fingers warming against his skin. They stared each other down, eyes glittering in the semidarkness.
He stared down and she stared up, since he still had several inches on her. Which made it somewhat imperative that he make the first move.
Happy to oblige.
He dusted her lips with a kiss so light their skin barely touched.
Her lips parted. She released her fingers from around his neck, and he braced for her to push back, but instead she surprised him by sliding her hand down over his shoulder, and along his bicep. She gave it a squeeze.
“You are solid, aren’t you?”
Her slim fingers pressed against his skin through the cotton of his T-shirt and made his hairs stand on end. Her straining breasts bumped against his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs.
“You’re driving me out of my mind,” he muttered with the last shreds of coherent thought in his brain.
“Good.” Bella flashed a smoky-gray gaze at him, then stood on tiptoe, closed her eyes, and planted her lips firmly on his.
He held her tight in his arms as they kissed, pressing her sumptuous body to his, as shock waves of sensation rippled through his muscles.
He hugged her closer, enjoying the warm, soft feel of her as their tongues tangled. He reveled in the cool satin of her cheek against his, the silky fall of her unbound hair.
He loved the way she didn’t try to fight him off because she felt she should, out of misplaced propriety or feminine cunning. She didn’t “play nice.”
And now he knew the reason for the shadows in those big gray eyes. He understood that her furtive quest to sue his father was driven by deep love for and loyalty to her family.
That touched him in a way he couldn’t put into words.
Dominic dragged in a deep breath as Bella’s hands roamed over the muscles of his back. His own fingers crept around to the front to enjoy the fullness of her beautiful breasts, unbound inside their shimmering dress.
Oh, Bella.
He wasn’t sure if he said it out loud, or just thought it. That stopped him in his tracks. He needed to keep his head.
He pulled back, blinking in the reflected strobing of the lights from the dance floor. She frowned at him, her eyes dark with passion and her lips moist. The halter strings of her dress had gotten twisted, and the front revealed rather more cleavage than the designer had intended.
Dominic sucked in a breath, trying to send blood and oxygen back to his brain, which apparently only had enough to fuel the one track that was working right now.
Bella’s cheeks were flushed pink, which gave her far more radiance than any slap-on preparation sold at Hardcastle Enterprises. He fumbled with her golden strings, trying to make her decent. Which was a challenge, when all he wanted to do was loosen their knot and enjoy the simple pleasures of making her entirely indecent.
A prickling sensation on the back of his neck made him look past the glowing skin of her cheek. In the shadows about thirty feet away, he could make out the slim, white-clad form of Samantha, his father’s wife.
Watching.
Nine
D ominic frowned. He couldn’t figure out Samantha’s angle. The press mocked her as a gold digger for marrying an older man with a terminal illness. But from what he’d heard, she was behind the whole push to find Tarrant’s lost children, who would then presumably be rivals for the gold she was digging.
She might look like a pampered society princess, but he’d already seen she was fierce as a tiger when it came to protecting her sick husband. Did she suspect him of toying with his father’s affections?
Samantha couldn’t be too happy to see him fooling around with Bella, since she’d been at the breakfast when Tarrant had demanded that Bella be fired, and Dominic had insisted that she stay.
“Dominic.” She started toward him, high white heels silent on the carpet. She managed a tight smile at Bella. “They’re setting out the buffet. Do come down and eat. Your sister, Fiona, chose all the entrées and she’d love to know what you think about them. It’s new for us having a food expert in the family.”
In the family. Her words echoed in his lust-addled brain.
His familiar self-defensive recoil mingled with a rush of new emotion. This small and complicated group of people was starting to feel like his family, despite all the strings and baggage attached.
He turned to Bella. “Shall we go down?”
Alarm filled her eyes and she tugged at the waist of her dress, which was slightly askew. “You go. I’ll just freshen up first.”
“Great idea.” Samantha’s eyes brightened. “I’ll come with you.”
Bella blinked. Samantha smiled.
Dominic’s muscles tightened as he wondered what the heck Samantha was up to.
In the ladies’ room, Samantha disappeared into a stall. Bella splashed cold water on her cheeks and patted them with a towel. Which didn’t do a thing to cool her overheated skin. Her heart raced and her stomach kept turning backflips. What was Dominic playing at?
She’d come to the party intending to be cool, polite and professional. But around Dominic her circuits overloaded, and she couldn’t do anything but melt in his arms. You’d think that with her scientific background she’d be able to figure out what was going on at the cellular level and put a stop to it. Or at least come up with a hypothesis to test.
Preferably under controlled, laboratory conditions.
She blew out a breath and tossed a strand of hair off her forehead. Tried not to picture all those nanoparticles jumping between them, penetrating tissue and causing subtle molecular changes that threatened to alter the underlying structures.
Turning her into putty in his broad, confident hands.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, sure.” Bella swallowed hard when she saw Samantha in the mirror behind her. “Just a little hot from dancing.”
Samantha moved in closer. “I love that new powder you created. It goes on so smoothly.”
“Are you wearing it too?” The scientist in Bella couldn’t help turning to peer at Samantha’s flawless skin.
“Yes. Tarrant wanted me to try it. He likes to think of me as his canvas for new ideas.” She smiled, as if that was quite okay with her.
Bella blinked and turned back to the mirror. Her own bare skin still bore an undignified flush. She wouldn’t do too well as anyone’s canvas. “Your skin looks great, but I doubt you need it.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Sam caught her eye in the mirror as she washed h
er hands. “When someone you love is sick, it takes a big toll on you.”
Bella’s gut tightened. “I know.”
“Do you?” Sam turned to stare directly at her.
Bella groped for an appropriate response, but it was all too much, her dad’s illness, her mom’s horrifying descent into a twilight world—from which Dominic of all people had unexpectedly snatched her back.
Her lips parted but no words came out.
Sam turned back to the mirror and applied some lipstick. “It’s tough pretending everything’s great when you know it really isn’t. Maybe that’s the hardest part.”
Again, Bella didn’t know what to say. She cursed herself for being a stereotypical geek who didn’t know how to handle awkward human situations. “Tarrant looks very healthy,” she managed. Then kicked herself for sounding so insincere.
“Looks can be deceiving.” Samantha pressed her lips together, blending her lipstick. Bella shrank under her bright blue gaze. “He’s losing strength every day. Sometimes I think the only thing keeping him going is the need to find an heir to pass his beloved company on to.”
Bella swallowed. They both knew who that heir was.
Her brain started to tick. Would Samantha try to warn her away from Dominic? Was she considered “not our sort” by the Hardcastles of the world because she wasn’t rich and fabulous and a six-foot-tall supermodel?
Her neck heated and her dander started to rise.
Samantha tucked her lipstick into a white clutch purse and laid a hand on Bella’s arm. Her fingers were ice cold. Bella struggled not to flinch away.
“Bella, can I talk with you honestly, woman to woman?”
“Um, sure.” Bella could feel her chest starting to heave. It took every ounce of self-control not to rip her arm out of Samantha’s slim but steely grasp.
“Dominic means everything to Tarrant.” Samantha stared into her eyes. “He represents the future that Tarrant won’t be here to share, all his dreams for the company.”
Bella nodded, hoping no response was required.
“Dominic is a very impressive man. He’s a successful retail entrepreneur in his own right, and he did it with no help from his famous father. That alone makes him ideal. But on top of that he’s proven to be thoughtful and generous and honorable.”
Bella’s stomach clenched. She couldn’t argue with that. If he’d done anything dishonorable, it would be to keep the dirty little secret of her own treachery.
“And of course…” She paused and emitted a tight laugh. “He’s terribly handsome and charming.” Her grip tightened to the point where Bella was almost ready to cry out.
“What does this have to do with me?” The words flew out. If Samantha was going to tell her to keep her hands off Dominic, she’d just as soon cut to the chase while Bella still had circulation in both hands.
“It’s obvious to all of us that Dominic has feelings for you.”
Bella frowned. Samantha must have been noticing Dominic’s amorous behavior here tonight. Surely she didn’t know that they’d been…intimate? Bella couldn’t stop her arm from flinching.
Samantha let go. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you like that. I get carried away sometimes. It’s just that it means so much to me, and to Tarrant, that Dominic join the family and take over from his father. If anything were to happen to destroy that, I know I couldn’t forgive myself if I hadn’t done anything possible to prevent it.” Her cornflower-blue eyes seemed to plead with Bella.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with me.” She wanted to get out of here. Her nerves stung and burned like her recently liberated arm.
Samantha drew in a breath, and shoved her blonde hair back with a bony arm. “There’s no delicate way to put this. My husband knows that you are here to try to win your father’s patents back from the company.”
Bella froze.
“He wants to have you fired.”
Her blood flow seemed to stop, like a river frozen in motion. The bright lights of the bathroom threatened to blind her.
Samantha blinked rapidly. “He’d like to sue you too.” She pursed her carefully made-up lips. “But Dominic has persuaded him not to.”
The fried circuits of Bella’s brain attempted to process the information. She couldn’t formulate any response at all, even a protest that it wasn’t true.
Which of course would have been a lie.
Samantha continued. “I don’t want to see that. You’ve done wonderful things for the company, regardless of the original reason you came here. I’d like to broker a truce between you and Tarrant. I know that Tarrant won’t be able to tolerate someone he believes is a traitor in his beloved company. He’s trying to accommodate Dominic but sooner or later he’s going to blow up and fire you, and then I’m worried that Dominic will leave too and everything will be ruined.”
How would Tarrant have suddenly found out?
“The only reason you’re still at the company is because Dominic promised to watch you, to make sure you didn’t cause any damage.”
Which explained why Dominic followed her everywhere.
The strangely reassuring idea that he’d begged Tarrant to keep her on was crushed out of existence by the ice-cold realization that Dominic must have warned Tarrant about her plans.
Bella’s frozen heart seemed to lose the ability to beat.
Dominic had told him.
“Will you agree to give up your plans for a lawsuit?” Sam reached out to grab her again, then apparently caught herself just in time.
Bella realized she hadn’t said a single word.
She couldn’t think of a single word to say.
Dominic had betrayed her.
Their “deal” and everything it led to was a sham, a mockery, a joke on her. She’d offered her lips, her breasts and every other part of her to him. She’d given herself in exchange for his silence….
And he’d taken her and sold her out anyway.
Honorable?
She stared at Samantha, wanting to cry or scream or even hit something, and becoming increasingly aware that she was getting dangerously close to doing all three.
“I think if you’d be willing to sign an assurance that you will not seek legal redress…” Samantha’s soft voice penetrated only the very outer edges of Bella’s consciousness.
“Excuse me.” She pushed past Samantha using every bit of restraint she could muster to not shove her. She ran for the door, her head pounding and her heart hammering painfully.
They knew!
And they’d invited her here, knowing.
What kind of sick game was this?
Her hideously gaudy dress flashed like a beacon under the strobing lights as she hurried down the stairs, glancing around for the exit. Faces and bodies whirred like a thousand demons hovering in the multicolored shadows.
They all knew.
What was the finale? A public execution?
Dominic’s surprising display of affection took on a new and very sinister tone. It was a challenge. A gauntlet thrown at his father’s feet.
And she’d been ashamed of making him lie to his father?
She should be ashamed of being a gullible idiot.
Tears stung her eyes as she pressed through the sweating, writhing bodies on the dance floor. The bass beat thundered even louder than the blood pulsing in her head as she pushed onward, almost blind with rage and hurt.
And fear.
Now that they knew, what would happen to her?
“Bella.” Big hands grabbed her forearms and a familiar masculine smell filled her senses. A smell she would have found wonderfully arousing and reassuring, until just a few moments ago.
“Let me go!”
“Where are you rushing off to?”
She could barely see Dominic through the mist of tears that sparkled with colored lights. “Away from you!”
Her childish shout embarrassed her, but she struggled to get free. She didn’t want to start bawling like a
baby in front of him.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“You know exactly what happened. Samantha told me. She said Tarrant knows I came here to get my father’s work back and that he wants to fire me.”
“What?”
He looked stunned.
Did he really not know?
Hope surged inside her like a tidal wave. Had Tarrant somehow found out without his involvement?
She swallowed and stopped fighting him. Blinked the tears from her eyes.
Maybe he truly was her protector. Guilt washed over her for assuming the worst.
For a second she allowed herself to imagine sinking into those strong arms and resting her head on his powerful chest. Letting his warm musky smell soothe her.
But Dominic’s arms weren’t pulling her toward him. If anything they seemed to be holding her at a safe distance.
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” Her voice shook as she asked her tentative question, wanting a very specific answer.
He frowned and his eyes narrowed. Her heart started to sink, and her hands started to shake, before he even spoke.
“I did tell him.”
“Let go of me.”
“Listen…”
“Listen to you? I did that before and look where it got me. You betrayed my trust.”
Her words appeared to hit home for a moment, then his eyes darkened. “You’ve got no right to be angry with me. You took a job at Hardcastle and as such promised your loyalty to the company. You’ve been taking a paycheck, and you had access to all kinds of proprietary information—secret information—that no company owner would want an enemy to get their hands on. And all this time you’ve been operating under your own hidden agenda. I’ve been trying to defend you. I’ve explained to Tarrant that you’re under stress, that you just need time, that we can work things out. I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me? Why would you tell him? After everything that we…I just don’t understand!” Her words came out on a humiliating sob.
Dominic stared at her. His lips settled into a line for a moment, then he frowned. “He’s my father.”
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