1925 - Millionaire's Secret Seduction (8 page)

Without a word, she continued down the brick path,
crouched and reached among the distinctive huge leaves of a zucchini plant. He heard her snap off the vegetables.

“Here, let me carry some stuff for you.” He squatted beside her and held out his hands to take some produce. They continued the routine as she gathered peppers, eggplant and spring onions until his arms were loaded with them. The single outdoor bulb gave barely enough illumination to find the path, but Bella seemed to know the location of each ripe fruit and vegetable.

“Do you maintain this garden all by yourself?” He couldn’t keep the wonder out of his voice.

“I have to. It’s my mom’s pride and joy.”

“I’ll bet she’s proud.” He sniffed a fresh, ripe pepper. “I guess she hasn’t been hospitalized long if she had time to plant all this in the spring.”

“Let’s go inside.” Bella moved past him with an armful of food. He ignored the stirring in his belly as her hips brushed his thigh.

“How long has she been there?”

She didn’t look back at him. “Fifteen months.”

“Holy…” He stifled the curse on his lips. “So you planted this whole garden yourself?”

“Come on in before the moths do.”

He stepped into the house after her and followed Bella into the kitchen, where he set the food down on the tiled counter.

“Black Krim.” He held up the distinctive brownish-skinned heirloom tomato. “And Brandywine.” The bulbous shape of his favorite bulged from the pile on the kitchen counter.

“She likes the old-fashioned varieties.”

“A woman after my own heart.”

Bella tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and put her hands on her hips. “I usually sauté a bunch of this stuff into a ratatouille.”

“Sounds sensational.”

Now he really couldn’t take his eyes off her. Bella Soros was
something else. That damn dress still clung to her beautiful feminine curves as she heated olive oil in a pot and chopped garlic into it.

“You’d better be careful. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and you’re almost all the way there.”

She chuckled and he felt relief to see her relax and smile.

It almost made him forget what he’d done earlier.

Dominic blew out a breath. He shouldn’t be flirting with her, encouraging her to let down her guard. He wanted to take a look at those letters and see how to play this. There must be some way to work out a compromise that would suit everyone.

It almost killed him to have to stand around waiting.

But it was a sweet way to die.

He sat, open mouthed, as Bella lifted a cooked morsel of striped heirloom eggplant to her luscious lips. Her smile of satisfaction replicated itself on his face, then traveled all the way to his groin on a wave of warm arousal.

Bella could feel Dominic’s appreciative gaze on her as she stirred the sauce. The steam from the cooking pot mingled with the heady scent of the attraction that snapped back and forth between them.

She tried to focus on the food and act as though she was just cooking a regular Friday night meal for herself.

But it wasn’t a regular Friday night. Her skin was still hot and sticky from their afternoon lovemaking. Her insides still trembled with the aftershocks of her orgasm. As she cooked, Dominic’s dark eyes seemed to burn right through her clothes.

And the letters throbbed inside her briefcase, their wrinkled pages threatening to bring her carefully wrought plans crashing down around her.

She tried to keep a blank expression as she sprinkled salt and
pepper onto the bubbling stew. She tested a strand of rotelle. “You like it al dente?”

“Of course.” Dominic’s face glowed with quiet pleasure that gave her a secret thrill. There was something strangely comforting about his large, solid presence in her mother’s neglected kitchen.

Which was ridiculous. If he saw what was in those letters…

She had to make sure he didn’t see them. At least until she’d figured out what to do.

The horrible vision of her mom, restrained to her hospital bed with a tube in her arm, made her catch her breath. She knew her mom was living to get her father’s work back. To see Bella breathe fresh life into his legacy and bring him back to life, even in a limited way.

“You okay?”

Dominic’s soft voice warned her she must be showing emotion. Maybe in her breathing. “Sure, I’m fine.”

She drained the pasta, then spooned the ragout over it onto two pretty hand-painted plates. She carried them to the table where she’d laid cutlery and hand-blown blue glasses her family had brought back from a long-ago vacation in Mexico.

Dominic poured wine he’d retrieved from her father’s dusty wine cellar into the glasses. Their eyes met for a second as she sat and a fierce jolt of—something—made her catch her breath and look away. She picked up her fork.

Dominic raised his glass. “To everything working out for the best.”

“What does that mean?” Her hand, halfway to her glass, froze. Was the “best” her failing in her quest to get her dad’s work?

Dominic frowned slightly. “I mean I hope your mom gets better soon and comes home from the hospital.”

Oh. She lifted her glass, flushed with sudden guilt. Working
for the enemy had made her so fearful and suspicious. It embarrassed her that she’d been so quick to assume the worst of a man who’d done nothing but try to help her.

And make breathless, passionate love to her.

No. It wasn’t love. It was
sex
. And she’d better not forget that.

She sipped her wine. “She’ll come home soon.” She tried to inject confidence into her voice, though, in truth, her confidence was slipping away every week. The bad news in her father’s letters was the latest blow.

“Good wine. Did your dad collect it? He has a lot of interesting bottles down there.”

“I guess he did. Funny, really, I never asked. I guess I’ll never know, now.” She sipped her wine and tried to brush away the pain of loss that always hung around, like the cobwebs in the corners of the room.

A frisson of fear snuck through her. Should she have let him go downstairs by himself? “Did you see anything else interesting down in the basement?”

His eyebrow lifted. “Should I have? I didn’t look around. I figured you wouldn’t want me to. But if there’s some junk that needs moving, or anything else you need help with, say the word.”

His pleasant expression and kind words made her stomach clench. Why was he being so
nice?
Because they’d had sex?

Or because he was up to something?

“There’s just a bunch of my dad’s stuff down there. Old equipment, computers. Probably none of it works, but I don’t know what to do with it. I’m sure it’s worthless, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away.”

“If it’s not hurting anyone, why not let it stay there?”

Because I don’t know how long we’ll own the house.

She didn’t want to say it out loud though. Her financial worries were not his business.

He lifted a fork full of food to his mouth and ate it. Nodded in appreciation as he chewed.

She inhaled and attempted to click back into hostess mode. “Edible? I’m rather intimidated by your food expertise.”

“Best kind of food there is. Straight from garden to table, and bursting with the flavor of sunlight.”

“Don’t you mean moonlight?”

He paused, fork in midair. “You’re right. Maybe that’s why this is the very best food I’ve ever eaten.”

His gruff voice and steady black gaze made her insides simmer.

“Stop teasing.” She speared rotelle with her fork. “I know I’m no chef, but I wasn’t expecting a guest.”

“And I’m glad of that. If you were I might have had to fight him.” His dimples made an appearance. He forked some more food into his mouth.

She should laugh. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a date. For one thing, she worked most of the hours she was awake—probably out of guilt over the reason she was really at Hardcastle. When she left, they’d be angry, but they’d miss her too.

She drew in a breath and tried to keep a straight face. “Lunch was delicious. Shame I got distracted and forgot to eat it.”

“I think we both got a little carried away.” His dimples disappeared. “As you know, I’m only in town temporarily.”

His serious gaze made her stomach wobble. A sharp laugh escaped her mouth. “Don’t panic. I wasn’t expecting a proposal just because we…well, you know.”

Dominic looked relieved.

Why did that hurt so much? She should be relieved too.

“Did you follow me home to let me down easy?” She took a bracing sip of wine.

He shook his head, eyes fixed on hers. “Nope, I just followed
you. Couldn’t help myself. I was worried you might get into trouble in that dress.”

The fitted fabric of the dress chafed her tight nipples. “It got me into trouble already. I’ll have to burn it.”

“Now, that would be a crime. And you’ll be fine as long as I’m here to protect you.” His white teeth gleamed in a feral grin.

“Gee. I feel so…
safe
.”

This was not a situation any sensible woman would find herself in. Did he expect to sleep with her again tonight? Heat shimmered across her thighs and belly.

She really shouldn’t. Earlier, it had been unexpected. A surprise. An accident.

If she did it again it would be premeditated and she’d be walking into his dynamite-laced embrace with her eyes wide open.

Sleeping with the enemy.

Or was this all part of his “deal”? Secrecy in exchange for sex.

Tiny hairs stood up on her bare arms.

Dominic leaned back in his chair. Sipped his wine. His big body filled the chair, hiding it completely. “I didn’t come here to make love with you again, or even to sleep with you. I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to do those things….” His low voice made her belly quiver. “But I can show some restraint.”

Did she want him to show restraint? Her skin hummed at the memory of his mouth moving over it.

Around Dominic she seemed to lose all sense of proportion.

And it was happening again because she needed to tell someone about those damn letters and he was here.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “I did read the letters on the train.” He frowned and leaned forward. “And?”

She shoved a hand through her hair. Dominic’s eyes wan
dered to her lifted chest, then blinked innocently back to her face. Her skin heated.

“Tarrant paid my father a hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s not peanuts.” Dominic sipped his wine.

“And it wasn’t Tarrant’s idea.” She paused and inhaled. “It was my dad’s.” Butterflies tickled her stomach. “He did it for me.”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “To get you the job?”

“No! I was still in grad school at that point. Had no idea what I’d end up doing. He did it to pay off my college loans. In one of the letters he tells Tarrant it would mean a lot to him for me to start out life without debt to worry about. To be able to follow my dreams without owing anyone anything.”

“Damn.” Dominic sat back in his chair. “And here you are, turning your life upside down to get back the work he sold to buy your freedom.”

She blinked. Bit her lip. “Yes.”

“So now you’ll agree with me that he’d want you to drop the whole suit idea. Right?”

“It’s obnoxious to ask a question that assumes a particular answer.”

He put his elbows on the table. “You already know I’m rude. It’s part of my charm. And I do want you to agree with me.”

“It’s not that simple.”

He stared at her, his eyes almost black in shadows from the overhead light. “Your mother.”

She nodded. “The only time she brightens up and shows any interest in life is when I talk about reclaiming dad’s work. If I give up on that, she’ll give up on life.”

“What’s wrong with her? How did it start?”

Bella hugged herself. Her skin felt cold. “After my dad died early last year, she just seemed to disconnect from everything. From everyone.” She inhaled slowly. “I had a job at a nanotech
nology lab in Northern California. I was totally immersed in my work, at the lab almost eighteen hours a day. Then I got a phone call from our neighbor that she hadn’t been eating. That she didn’t answer the phone. She was acting strange.”

She shivered. “So I flew back here and found she was dehydrated and almost starving. She hadn’t been out of the house for three weeks.” Her voice started to crack. “I called a doctor. I didn’t know what else to do. And they had her committed right away.”

Hot tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have called. I shouldn’t have let them take her. She went into the hospital and never came out.” Her words emerged on a shaky sob. “What if she never leaves?”

She covered her eyes. She was so ashamed of what she’d done. Handing her own mother over to an authority figure as if she were a stray dog she’d found in the yard. She was anxious to get back to the experiment she’d left behind. She’d figured a week or two later, her mom would be better.

Dominic’s big, warm arm closed around her back. “Hey, you did what you thought was best. She’ll be fine.”

She tried not to lean into his reassuring strength. “Don’t say that when you don’t know if it’s true.”

She tried to get her breathing under control. “A month later she was still in the hospital and showing no signs of improvement. I quit my job and moved back here. I told her I was at the house, waiting for her to come home. I was sure that would bring her back.” She let out a shuddering breath. “But it didn’t. She kept murmuring about how my dad would be alive if it wasn’t for Tarrant Hardcastle.”

His hard cheek was only inches from hers, his expression impossible to read. She stared at the scarred pine surface of the table. “One day I said something aloud about suing to get Dad’s work back—I wasn’t even serious, just talking, filling the air
with sound—and she sat up and grabbed my wrist, with more passion in her eyes than I’d seen in months. How could I not at least try?”

She realized her fists were clenched so tight her nails dug into her palm. “She wants so badly to get his work back from the man she blamed for his death.” She glanced up at him, expecting to see censure in his dark eyes, but she couldn’t gauge his reaction in the dim light. “And so did I.”