1925 - Millionaire's Secret Seduction (7 page)

“Oh…” Tarrant paused for a deep puff on his cigar. Blew out a long stream of smoke. “You mean aside from becoming hooked on these babies? Yes. I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Didn’t do too much of that when I was younger. Thought it was a waste of time.” He contemplated the ash on the end of his cigar. “I was a man of action, and sometimes reaction. I’m ashamed to admit the amount of times I’ve done something out of simple revenge.” He took a slug of his whiskey.

“I like to win. If someone wants something, then I want it more, and damn it,
I’ll
get it. I thought it was the natural way to do things. Now it seems rather petty and shallow. If I’d grown this business without paying any attention to who I wanted to outsell or outclass, who knows where I’d be today? Don’t ever let malice drive your bottom line.”

Dominic swallowed. His whiskey glass sweated in his hand. Full. He didn’t want to start drinking and maybe get emotional. Too much at stake.

Tarrant leaned forward. “But I can see you’d never act out of something so petty as revenge.” He patted Dominic’s knee. “Or the first thing you’d have done was tell me where to get off. Either that or agree to take over my stores and laugh all the way to the bank.” Tarrant let out a laugh.

His blue-green eyes twinkled. “Nope. You’re a class act all the way, Dominic. You’re polite to the old man, kind even, but you don’t want a single thing I have to offer.” He shook his head, a smile lifting his thin mouth. “If you weren’t my son I’d wish you were.”

Dominic took a hasty swig of his whiskey. How could he let this line of bullshit choke him up? He knew better than anyone
Tarrant Hardcastle was a master manipulator who always had an agenda. Was he still kidding himself that he planned to get revenge on the man? He needed to stop beating around the bush and get out of here before Tarrant suckered him into running the show.

“You do have something I want.” Dominic heard his own voice, cool as steel.

“Oh?” A silver eyebrow lifted.

Dominic leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You remember the Lester chain of pharmacies?”

“Oh yes. Out in the Midwest somewhere.” He waved his cigar dismissively. “Did we buy those? I can’t recall.”

“Yes.” Dominic kept a straight face. “You did. Though I can’t figure out how, since I bid twelve million for them and you bought them for eleven.”

Tarrant stared at him for a moment, his tanned brow furrowed. Then a smile snuck over his face and lit up his eyes. He burst into a loud guffaw. “That was you?”

“That was me.” Dominic had a hard time not joining Tarrant in a smile. That damned infectious enthusiasm again.

“It’s all about contacts. Who you know, dear boy, who you know.” He held up his whiskey glass. “They’re yours.”

Dominic held his glass still. “I don’t want them as a gift.”

“Then give me fifty bucks for ’em.” Tarrant narrowed his sharp eyes. “Not worth much more if you ask me. Who the hell wants real estate in Trisket Falls, Iowa?” He broke into the laugh again. “Only bought ’em so Stan Richards over at Federal couldn’t get his damn hands on them for more of those dreadful discount stores. Revenge again! I’m not proud of myself, honestly I’m not. There’re a lot of people out there who think I deserve to die.” Tarrant sat back in his leather chair, suddenly small against the broad leather back and plush arms.

“You’re not going to die.” Dominic spoke with conviction. How could someone this full of spit and vinegar be on the brink of death?

“If wishes were horses…” Tarrant waved his cigar in the air. “I’d have a billion-dollar stud farm. But as it is, I’ve been given three months to live and even I can’t laugh off a deadline like that.”

He gestured to a waiter hovering a few feet away, and the man refilled their glasses. “So, what’re you going to do with ’em?”

“I want to bring my food stores to the Midwest. I’ve already expanded into the Southeast and the Northwest.”

Tarrant frowned. “They don’t want gourmet pesto in the Midwest.”

“Sure they do, if it’s two-fifty a jar.”

“And you can do it for that?”

Dominic nodded. “Organic too.”

“Well, hell.” Tarrant raised his glass, and this time Dominic did join him. Couldn’t help himself. His dad’s delighted grin swelled in the air and fixed itself on his own face.

“I guess people are eating differently these days. Pesto on Main Street, huh? Never thought I’d live to see it.” He shook his head. “I guess you have to grow up on Main Street to know the people. Your mother told me you moved around quite a bit.”

Anger pricked Dominic that Tarrant could speak so casually of the woman he’d screwed, then screwed over. But he was glad to prove they’d made it just fine without him. “She became an accountant for a trucking firm. We moved where her work took her.”

“Good for her. It’s a good thing you didn’t grow up with me, as you’d have led a dissipated, sheltered existence hobnobbing with other young twits in the Northeast’s most expensive boarding schools. Much better to be streetwise. Your mother told me you were selling things on an upturned crate almost before you could read.”

“That’s a slight exaggeration.”

“I think she was trying to make me feel guilty. All it did was make me proud.” Tarrant leaned forward and patted Dominic on the knee. Moisture glittered in his eyes.

Dominic sucked in a breath and took another chug of whiskey.

“Dominic.” Tarrant leaned even closer. “Will you promise me something?”

His stomach tightened. “It depends.”

Tarrant smiled. “Good. Good. I like that you’re not just buttering me up. Because I want you to promise to be different from me.”

Dominic frowned. Tarrant’s cologne stung his nostrils.

“I devoted my life to having a damn good time and making a damn lot of money. Nothing wrong with those things, mind you, but in the end, they’re not enough.”

Tarrant’s chest lifted as he drew in a long breath. He adjusted his colorful tie. “Honor, my boy. Honor is what I’ve never had. Be the kind of person people respect. Someone they can trust. That’s what a real leader is.”

Dominic’s tie seemed to be cutting off his circulation. He loosened it with a finger. “That’s what my mom taught me.”

“Well, you listen to her. She’s a good woman. Better than I deserved.” He laughed.

Thoughts rushed Dominic’s mind. Tarrant would be furious if he knew that his own son stood by and watched Bella Andrews damage the company from inside. But his mom?

She’d be devastated.

He wasn’t raised this way. To keep secrets from his own flesh and blood to protect a woman with a scheme so crazy it was doomed to failure before she even started?

He took another gulp of whiskey.

The lure of Bella’s sensual lips and shapely hips had turned him into someone he didn’t even recognize.

He’d told her she was nuts. Warned her off.

Did she listen? No.

So why was he protecting her?

His brain started to swim and he put his glass of whiskey on the table.

“Dad…” the word almost took his breath away as it stumbled from his mouth. Tarrant looked up from his cigar, his focus intense. “There’s a problem in the lab.”

“What kind of problem?”

“It’s Bella Andrews. She thinks you cheated her father out of some research. She wants it back.”

Tarrant held his gaze. “How do you know this?”

“She told me.” He tried not to feel the sharp knife of guilt in his gut.

His father’s eyebrow raised slightly. “Who the hell was her father and what does he have to do with me?”

“A scientist named Bela Soros. A lot of the work they’re doing now is based on his research. Something to do with nanotechnology and altering surface texture.”

Tarrant waved his cigar. “I don’t understand a word of that stuff. If Kreskey told me to buy some research, I bought it. He left a year ago and Bella’s his replacement.”

“She seems to think you underpaid.”

“Entirely possible.” Tarrant’s eyes narrowed and he took a long drag on his cigar. Blew out the smoke. “I am in business, as you know.”

“So her dad died and her mom is short of money. She wants the research back.”

Tarrant blinked. “I’m crying. And how exactly does she propose to do that?”

Dominic inhaled a measured breath. “She’s looking for proof that you underpaid, then she plans to sue to get her father’s work back.”

He could almost swear he saw a twinkle in those sharp, aqua eyes. “I do enjoy a good lawsuit. Shame we won’t get to have one, because she’s
fired
.” His expression grew fierce and he pulled a phone from his pocket.

Adrenaline shot through Dominic. “Wait. She’s doing it because she’s worried her mom is going to lose their family home.”

“What the hell do I care about that? If her father sold me his damn research, it’s mine. And I thought I was lucky to get her.” He blew out a snort. “What the heck is that new HR number?”

“Dad.” The word rolled off his tongue more smoothly this time, perhaps because he said it deliberately. He needed to appeal to Tarrant’s emotions. He was beginning to suspect Tarrant did have actual emotions rather than simple reptilian reflexes. “The work she’s been doing is at a crucial phase. If you let her go now—especially if she’s angry—the project could fall apart and she’s a loose cannon out there just when you least need to deal with one.”

Tarrant exhaled a stream of acrid smoke. “Something tells me you have a plan.”

“Keep her here. Watch her. Clean out the files so there’s no way she can find what she’s searching for. Lock her in somehow until the project is finished. I’ve talked to her already and I think she’ll come to her senses once she sees that the future of her father’s research is here, not off somewhere in her imagination.”

Tarrant’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “You seem awfully concerned about Miss Andrews. Or whatever her name really is.” The corners of his mouth tilted up. “She is a beauty, isn’t she? For a scientist, at least.”

The last caveat raised Dominic’s hackles and gave him a fierce urge to defend her beauty in any arena. He managed to get ahold of himself. “She’s a smart woman who can take Hardcastle to the next level of product development. Scientists are like artists, they can be difficult to work with because they don’t see the world the way others do.”

He leaned toward his dad and held his gaze. “But we entrepreneurs need them. Their vision and creativity drive the world right alongside our energy and hard cash. One can’t thrive without the other.”

“Hmm.” Tarrant pressed a finger to his lips. “I always did like the advice to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Never followed it myself because I never can resist running an enemy through if he gets close enough, but it’s the beginning of a new era.”

Tarrant held his glass out for a refill and a waiter rushed to top it off. “Here’s to the future, and my son’s vision.”

Dominic didn’t want to drink to a toast that insinuated he’d be implementing that vision in his father’s place, but he did.

Bella was safe.

The whiskey tasted sharp, almost sweet, and the woodsy thickness in his throat soothed him.

“I’ll brief security and tell them to keep an eye on her.” Tarrant’s eyes glittered and one eyebrow lifted slightly. “Unless you want to keep this hush-hush and watch her yourself.”

“I’ll watch her.” Dominic put down his glass. “I’ll head over there and have the files moved before I go back downtown.”

Tarrant nodded slowly. “You’re different from me, all right. I like it, I really like it.”

Before Dominic left they embraced. He held his father’s frail body and a fist of emotion tightened in his chest. Maybe blood really was thicker than water? He felt relief that he’d
come clean about Bella, yet managed to protect her interests, at least for now.

He’d be able to look himself in the mirror while he shaved tomorrow morning.

Or would he?

He stepped out into the streetlights of Fifth Avenue and started walking back to the Hardcastle building.

Bella had thought they had a “deal.” She’d traded a kiss for it. Maybe even given him her body to keep him quiet.

And memories of that lush, willing body stirred his groin.

She’d been as turned on as he was. Hot, slick and ready.

He pulled his tie off and shoved it in his pocket. The night air felt sticky and oppressive.

Every time they touched, a surge of rough, unregulated voltage shot through him. He could picture her right now, lips wet and parted, eyes glazed with passion, her body writhing against his.

He shrugged off his jacket and threw it over his arm. Apparently he’d drunk more than he thought. If he didn’t know better he’d imagine that was her walking along the sidewalk right toward him, curvy hips swaying to an internal rhythm that stirred his blood.

Wait a second.

He squinted. That damned dress. It
was
her.

She looked entranced, her lovely face angled skywards to the streetlamps and the stars. Instead of holding her briefcase in her hand, she clutched it to her chest like a newborn babe. Her springy pace suggested that she was almost ready to break into a dance of joy.

He inhaled to call her name—then froze.

Her joyful expression. Her bouncy stride.

She’d found what she was searching for.

He turned so his back was to her, bent his head and examined his watch until she went past him, heels beating rhythmically on the sidewalk.

Then he started after her, his stride silent in the shadows.

B
ella pushed through the doors leading down into Grand Central Station. If anyone was watching, Dominic would have looked pretty suspicious pacing after her like a hungry panther, sweat dampening his white shirt.

She scanned the train schedules up on the big board, then hurried off to a track. He stayed far enough behind that she didn’t spot him. Climbed on the train two coaches back from her.

He bought a ticket from the conductor on the Metro North train and since he didn’t know where she was getting off, he paid all the way to the end of the line. At the 125th Street Station he leaned out the door and scanned the platform to make sure she didn’t get out, then he settled in for a long ride because the first stop wasn’t for over half an hour.

When the train chugged over a bridge into the Bronx, his mind cleared enough to wonder what he was doing.

I’m watching her.

Just like he’d promised his father.

Funny how he was thinking of the old man as his father all of a sudden, instead of the infamous Tarrant Hardcastle. He was still an arrogant jerk who’d been a deadbeat dad, but now for some reason Tarrant was
his
deadbeat dad.

Dominic shoved a hand through his hair. He wanted to call his mom and ask her about Tarrant’s visit. But how would he explain the rattle of the train?
Yeah, Mom, I’m trailing this girl.

She’d love it. Always after him to find someone nice. Dropping hints about grandchildren, and lamenting over his lack of interest in a meaningful relationship.

The man in the seat in front turned around and he realized he’d laughed out loud.

Bella wasn’t so nice by most people’s standards. Holding a job with a hidden agenda to undermine the company. Kissing the boss’s son to win his silence.

Both strategies doomed to failure.

When she got off the train, he stepped out after her. He skulked in the shadows as she walked up to a light-colored car and unlocked it. The taxi driver he approached didn’t even blink when he asked him to follow her.

This was crazy. He should just confront her and ask her if she’d found the papers she needed. Make her hand them over because they were Hardcastle property.

But he didn’t want to.

He rolled up his shirtsleeves and leaned forward, watching the taillights of her car through the windshield of the cab.

This was fun.

Instead of the picturesque house he’d expected, her car swung into the long driveway of something called Compass Points. She parked in the lot, then ran to the main entrance
of a hulking building that he couldn’t see well in the dimly lit darkness.

“Want me to wait?”

“No thanks.” Dominic paid the cabbie and watched him drive away.

The cool night breeze tickled his skin. He inhaled a lungful of fresh country air and looked up at the spill of stars in the black sky. What the heck was this place?

He strained to read a sign in the dark. O
UTPATIENT
A
DMIT-TING
. Some kind of hospital?

After about five minutes the door opened again, and Bella came out. She still clutched her leather briefcase to her chest, but even in the darkness he could see her cheer had evaporated. Her steps were short and stilted, unlike the swinging strides of earlier.

She looked like she could use a hug.

Dominic’s strode out of the darkness. “Hey, Bella.”

She froze under a parking lot floodlight, straining to see in the darkness. Panic tightened her features.

“It’s me. Dominic.”

She clutched her briefcase tighter. Sharp angles and shadows of light distorted her scared expression. “What are you doing here?”

“I followed you. What is this place?”

She stood like a statue.

He walked toward her, an uncomfortable feeling in his chest. “Hey, you okay? I’m not going to arrest you for anything, you know.” His attempt at levity fell as flat as the asphalt.

She swallowed. “I don’t know why you’re here.” Her voice was high and thin.

Dominic scrubbed a hand over his face.
Because I’m surveilling you.
The knife in his gut twisted.

Still rigid, she stared at him. “Why did you follow me? You’re scaring the heck out of me.”

Truth be told, he was scaring the heck out of himself too. He wanted to do “the right thing,” but the map kept shifting and his internal compass kept spinning.

Right now he mostly wanted to kiss her, which was not “the right thing” by any stretch of the imagination.

He repeated his question. “Where are we?”

“It’s a hospital.” Her throat sounded tight. “My mom is here.”

“She’s sick?” He could see her worried expression in the harsh fluorescent glare. His guilt ratcheted up another notch.

“They’re not sure what’s wrong. Can’t figure it out. She won’t respond to drugs.” Her fingers gripped the leather of her bag as she held it clutched against her chest like a shield. “Things have been so stressful for her since my dad died last year.”

Something clicked into place in Dominic’s mind. “It’s a psychiatric hospital?”

“Yes.”

Dominic frowned as a strange and uncomfortable feeling crept over him. “And you’re hoping that by reclaiming your dad’s work, you can get her out of here.”

“Don’t laugh at me right now, okay? Because I don’t think I can take it. Not right now.” Her voice was shaking.

“I’m not laughing. What happened?” He moved closer in the semidarkness, the urge to take her in his arms almost uncontrollable.

“I figured they wouldn’t let me see her, but I wanted to leave word that I…” Her lips slammed shut.

He knew what she meant. That she’d found what she was looking for. “The nurse told me that my mom has been refusing food.”

He stood right in front of her and fought to keep his arms by his side. He didn’t want to scare her.

“She hasn’t eaten in three days.” Her voice sounded dangerously high. “They’ve tried to put a drip in her arm, but she kept pulling it out…” Her voice cracked she pressed a hand to her face.

Unable to stop himself, Dominic reached out his hand.

She flinched back.

Their eyes locked, hers gray and wary in the floodlit darkness.

Maybe she thought he’d followed her because after that afternoon’s sensual encounter he couldn’t keep away from her.

Maybe she was right.

He placed his hand on her arm and this time she didn’t jerk away. Her skin was cold, rough with goose bumps.

Bella whispered. “They’ve had to put her in restraints.”

“Jesus.” He took her briefcase from her arms and placed it on the ground, then wrapped his arms around her. She was shaking too hard to protest and her breath came in hard gasps. His chest hurt with the strange mix of emotions she stirred in him.

Would he have told Tarrant about her deception if he’d known her mother was hospitalized?

No. He wouldn’t.

The situation gave her crazy plan an undercurrent of sheer desperation that churned his gut.

He rubbed her back, trying to warm and soothe her. Gradually she calmed a little, but he could tell her hands were still shaking.

“Let me drive you home. You tell me which way to go, okay?”

She nodded. He picked up her briefcase and handed it to her. The throbbing screech of tree frogs hurt his ears as they walked to her car.

He groped in the dark to move her seat far enough back so he could get in, then he started it up and she directed him
down winding, wooded roads, then into a driveway flanked by stone pillars.

Tension hung in the air along with the muggy humidity left over from the summer day.

“I guess you’d better come in.” Her voice sounded flat.

He gave her keys back on the front doorstep and a rich, sweet aroma filled his nostrils. “What’s that smell?”

“Angel’s trumpet. There’s one on either side of the door. The flowers open at night.”

“I wouldn’t think those would be hardy up here.”

“They’re not. We take them inside in the winter.”

“Wow.” The blooms wrapped them in a blanket of seductive fragrance. He could make out the large white flowers in the moonlight. “The plants are huge. That’s a labor of love.”

“They’re worth it.” The conviction in her voice suggested she meant more than the plants.

She turned on the lights and led him down a hallway and into a kitchen. Despite the collection of copper pots hanging on the wall and the racks of spices, the place had an uninhabited, desolate feeling. Empty fruit bowls, the stove and countertops too uncluttered, the wooden table bare.

“Do you live here?”

“No, the commute is too long for the hours I work. I have a small apartment in the city. I come up here on weekends to keep the place going.”

He pulled open the fridge, out of hunger more than curiosity. He’d had nothing but a couple of hors d’oeuvres all night. The lit interior contained a box of baking soda, two garlic bulbs and some ketchup. His stomach growled.

Her eyebrow lifted when he looked up. He shrugged and closed the door.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting company,” she said dryly.

“No sweat.”

She moved into another room and snapped on a light. A cozy living room with patterned rugs and sofas. Silver-framed photos lined the fireplace mantel. He peered into one and saw three smiling people in a summer garden: a tall, professorial-looking man in tweeds, a slender, pretty woman blowing bubbles, and a little girl with chubby cheeks and glasses.

He heard Bella’s breath catch as he stared into the lost world of what was obviously an idyllic childhood.

“I should take those pictures down. They make me crazy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with remembering the good times.”

“It hurts too much. We were so close. They were my best friends. Now my mom doesn’t even seem to want to come home.”

“Did she ever have problems before your dad died?”

“She struggled with depression now and then, but nothing she couldn’t work through. My dad’s death just pulled the rug out from under her. She can’t seem to imagine being happy again.” She tugged her gaze from the picture and glanced up at him. Her wide gray eyes glittered with tears. “Honestly, I feel the same way a lot of the time.”

“But you haven’t given up on life.”

“No. I guess I’m not the giving up type.”

The determination in the set of her jaw gave him a warm flush of relief. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Of course that only made her less likely to give up on her ill-fated quest to attack Tarrant Hardcastle.

Her penetrating stare made him lift his chin. “Nice house.”

“Yes. It’s filled with things my mom and dad collected over a lifetime. They brought these cat figurines back from Egypt. And my mom painted that watercolor on a trip to Tuscany. She used to paint all the time when I was little. That one over there is a picture of the house when it’s covered in snow.” Bella
rubbed her arms. “This is her sanctuary. They bought this house when they were first married and she’s never lived anywhere else.”

He moved toward her, again bedeviled by a raw urge to take her in his arms. Their intimacy of earlier hummed in his blood.

But she stepped back, raising a wall between them.

He searched his mind for words to set her at ease. “It must be nice to stay in the same place a long time and put down roots. We moved all the time. I don’t think we stayed anywhere more than two years.”

When her eyelashes glittered with fresh tears he realized he’d said the exact wrong thing. Her roots were about to be ripped right out of the ground.

He shoved a hand through his hair. “Isn’t the mortgage paid off by now?”

“I think it was at one point, but when the real estate market went up they borrowed against it for living expenses. The market went down and right now we actually owe more than the house is worth.” She gulped a breath. “This is an expensive area, and we always lived just like everyone else; but now I can see they never had anything left over to put away. I guess they must have been in debt almost the whole time, just trying to keep up.”

Dominic stayed silent.

“I earn a good salary, but the mortgage, the taxes, the hospital bills, living expenses…I’ve been borrowing from Peter to pay Paul for a year now.”

“And you can’t pay Peter or Paul back unless you win the patents back from Tarrant and exploit them yourself.”

She nodded.

Except that he’d already foiled her plan and it was time to move forward.

“You found the papers you were searching for.” It wasn’t
a question. Why else would she rush to a hospital after visiting hours?

“I did.” Her face looked tight.

“What did they say?” He fought an impulse to step closer, so he could sniff for truth or lies in the scent of her skin.

“I haven’t read them.” He noticed she still clutched her leather briefcase in her arms. “I didn’t want to take them out on the train.”

There was something guarded about her expression, something prickly about her posture, that made him not believe her. Had she read them and not liked what they said?

“Let’s take a look at them.” He spoke softly.

Her eyes widened. “Why should I show them to you?”

“Because I want to help you, not hurt you.”

Now that I’ve betrayed you.

His muscles tightened as recrimination crept through his veins like acid. Bella was combing through his father’s files in a desperate attempt to get her mother out of a mental hospital.

Pity squeezed his heart.

In a situation like that, he could see how someone would be desperate enough to try
anything
.

But that didn’t mean it was the right thing to do.

Bella opened a sliding door, letting in the rhythmic hum of the summer night. “I’m going to get something to eat.”

“Outside?” Curiosity propelled him after her.

She flicked on an outdoor light. It illuminated a jungle of leaves and vines. He followed her down a brick path, and saw that the jungle was actually a large and very organized garden.

Tomatoes. The vines climbed sturdy lengths of wooden trellis. He could smell the ripe fruits as she plucked them. He reached out and took a plump beefsteak tomato, its flesh cool and reassuring in his palm.