skin and his world came back into focus. If he could have shouted his relief he would have. With a finger, he brushed a lock of blond hair from her forehead and traced the insignificant line in her brow, one that had probably deepened in the last few days with worry.
God, he’d missed her. There was no point denying it. Yes, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Their marriage was supposed to have been an arrangement. A sensible, logical business transaction. But from the first glance at her picture, the first e-mail, the first time he heard her voice and the first time he sank his body deep into hers, he knew.
She was different.
He wondered if she would remember one of the last things she’d said to him was that she was falling in love. He remembered. It stayed with him every hour of every day. It kept him moving and plotting for a way out of this mess.
He had no illusions that her feelings would still be what they were now that she knew about his past, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. Somehow he’d made her fall in love with him once. If she let him try, maybe he could do it again.
As if hearing his thoughts, Caroline blinked her eyes open.
Their eyes met and the silent communication was so intense he was sure he could hear her speaking. He wondered if she could hear him in return.
Without thinking, Dominic leaned forward until their lips met. He pulled her deeper against his body and wondered if he would have the power to let her go if she resisted him.
She didn’t. Instead he felt her arm around his back, felt her mouth open beneath his so that he could taste her, penetrate her, breathe her in.
He’d missed her. So damn much. He wanted to be inside her so she would absorb the pain. Replace it with pleasure. He wanted to erase Denny. He didn’t want to grieve his loss. Didn’t want to be frustrated or angry anymore because someone had done this to him. He didn’t want to be afraid any longer.
And he was frightened. Frightened he was going to lose this. Lose her.
The kiss deepened and Dominic rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Her legs tangled with his thighs and he wished he’d shucked his pants as well as his shirt so that he could feel her soft thighs against him. He cupped her bottom and pulled her close against his hard sex and her hand rested over his heart.
He knew she could feel his body pounding, throbbing underneath his skin, and he was glad. He needed her to know how desperately he wanted her. How he had never wanted another woman like this before.
Then the hands that rested on his chest began to push instead of caress.
“No, I can’t do this. I’ll forget,” Caroline muttered pulling away from him, lifting out of his arms.
Dominic sighed and let his head drop against the pillow. He was desperate to stop her from moving away. A quick jerk of her wrist and she’d be stretched out flat against his chest. Another twist and he’d have her on her back. A button undone and a lowered zipper and he’d be pushing inside her warmth.
With everything he’d learned about her in the last month, he could woo her. Seduce her. Prove to her that their connection was special and could survive anything. He could win back her love.
If not her trust.
Selfish. He wasn’t thinking about her at all, really. Just himself. Just that he needed her. She had a right to back away.
Hell, she could walk out the front door and call the police if she chose. And as much as the idea of the police made him sweat cold, he knew he wouldn’t stop her. The next move was hers. Her call to do whatever she wanted because none of this, not from the first moment he’d signed up with that damn matchmaking service because he needed an incubator for his child, had been her fault.
He thought about what he had to tell her and wondered how much of his soul he was going to have to lay at her feet to make her believe him.
She rolled off him and stood next to the bed. Her arms crossed over her chest, she lowered her head. His eyes were still drawn to her bare legs that he knew from experience could tighten around his waist like a vise when she was excited.
He waited for the questions to start. He figured she would begin with the obvious and ask him if he was a murderer. Or maybe she would want to know about his past first. His criminal record.
Instead, she took him completely by surprise.
Chapter 11
“Why did you leave me?”
His throat closed and he needed to swallow before he could answer. Pushing himself off the bed, he stood on the other side of it across from her. Munch, who had been sleeping soundly at the foot of the bed, was suddenly awake. She looked from master to mistress, clearly torn in her loyalties.
“Downstairs, Munch.” The dog immediately obeyed scampering off to do more exploring. Dominic was struck with the silly idea that he didn’t want the dog to see her parents fighting.
“Why?” Caroline asked again. This time her voice was tighter, angrier.
“I had to,” he answered simply even though he knew that there was nothing simple about it. He tried to pull his thoughts, put them into some kind of chronological order that would make sense. He wasn’t the damn storyteller.
She was shaking her head, “If you’re not going to give me more than that, I’m leaving. I mean it.”
“Time to do what?” she pressed.
“Time to figure out what the hell had happened to Denny!” He took a breath and ran a hand through his hair as everything came back to him again. “After you and I argued that night, I went to the office. Denny was there. We had talked that afternoon. He told me what he was working on.”
“You said it was dangerous.”
“Yes. Anyway, that wasn’t all and for whatever reason, he decided he didn’t want any more secrets between us.”
“What’s wrong with Denny’s project?”
“It’s trouble. Bad trouble,” Dominic elaborated. “Over-our-head trouble. Nothing that I wanted for Encrypton, I can promise you that. I told him to go home. That I would contact some people. And he left. Alive. You have to know that, Caroline. You have to believe I didn’t kill him.”
“I do.”
That was it. Two words, and all the fear and worry and anguish he’d felt in the last week was suddenly gone. Two words, and he had hope his life wasn’t over. Two words, and she’d sealed her fate as much as when she’d spoken those same words in front of the justice of the peace. Because he was never going to let her go.
Caroline was standing across from him. She was safe. She was with him. And she believed him. Nothing else mattered.
Breathing slowly, letting her belief in him settle inside his gut, he was able to tell her everything that had happened from the moment he’d learned of Denny’s project.
“It was late. My mind was racing. I sent an e-mail to a contact in Washington. With the time difference, I didn’t expect an answer right away, but I was too keyed up to even think about leaving. I don’t know what compelled me to stay. It was work and I was there. I needed to review the financial statements before our meeting next month. Files that were on my hard drive. There were entries against an expense account to a vendor I knew we didn’t have.”
“Two million dollars’ worth.”
