being alone a lot. You weren’t thinking about that when you started. Surely you were looking for a type.”
A type, yes, absolutely. A robot like him. Beautiful, serene, unemotional, unintrusive. Unloving. Not Caroline. He hadn’t been looking for her. “I was.”
“Part of the package had to be a certain age range,” she continued clearly heading toward some conclusion. “You told me you wanted children. In fact, I’m pretty sure your only motivation for going to the agency in the first place was because you wanted a child. Because of the deal you had with your partners. Tell me I’m wrong.”
He wouldn’t lie to her. Not at this point. “You’re not. I wanted a child. Someone I could leave my company to.”
“Okay, so I’m thirty-five. My biological clock is ticking. Why would you pick me?”
There was a tension in her voice that he didn’t understand. “You’re upset because I want to put off getting you pregnant until this over. We’re not talking years, Caroline.”
“I know.” She touched him again, her hand closing over his arm. “I just feel like we’re running out of time. For so many things. But that’s not why I asked you why you picked me. You were a man trying to find someone to have a child with. You should have picked someone younger. I know that about you, Dominic. Your choice should have been rational. Logical. So why did you pick me?”
“Your smile.” The answer sprung to his lips so quickly. It made him feel foolish. He smiled unconsciously, tucking his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling. “Not much of a rational decision, is it?”
“No.”
Since he’d opted for honesty, there was no point in stopping. “It was the first thing I saw in the picture they sent me. I thought that smile was for me. When you looked into the camera, I thought you were smiling straight at me. When you answered my first e-mail, I knew I wanted to meet you. I didn’t care about your age or whether or not you could have children. When we spoke on the phone, I got hard. Rationality went out the window.”
She moved again and this time her hand didn’t touch his arm. Instead, it slid down his belly until she was holding the erection he’d been trying to hide from her. He closed his eyes and groaned, thinking of the condoms he didn’t have.
“Caroline,” he breathed, ready to reach for her hand to pull it away.
“You don’t have to get me pregnant,” she said as she kissed his chest, then dipped her tongue into his belly button. She lifted her head. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it will be impossible this way. But at least you’ll get to feel my smile. Up close and personal.”
And he did. First her smile. Then her tongue. Then her mouth. And then there was nothing but the pleasure.
“How much farther?” She felt his gaze on her and cringed. “Fun fact about me. I don’t like long car rides. Even when I’m driving.”
He chuckled softly. “Eight, ten more hours.”
Caroline pushed down harder on the gas pedal. The landscape in front of her was barren and brown everywhere she looked. Endless and unchanging. It disturbed her because as hard as she stared, she couldn’t see what was coming over the next small rise. Couldn’t see anything but the space around her.
She needed to drive through it, get past it, so that she could see something else.
Like her future.
She thought about what she told him, how there were times she didn’t want to love him, and then she wondered if she truly had any control over that. He hadn’t returned the words, hadn’t whispered a hint about what he felt for her. Instead, he told her he didn’t want to get her pregnant. Always with him it was one step forward, then one step back.
But she knew he felt something for her. Something strong. It was in his voice when he talked about her picture. It was there when they touched.
A connection.
At least the sex made her feel less insane about turning her back on her life to follow an ex-con on his quest to expose a killer. That kind of connection didn’t just happen between two people. It made the risk worth it. Of course, she wondered if Bonnie thought the same way about Clyde.
Caroline knew nothing had been resolved last night. The sex had been intense and amazing, but in the end it was just sex. There had to be more between them if their marriage was to succeed. But she could admit that she was more anxious than ever to get back to where this started and finish it.
“And the plan when we get there?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. I think I should try to contact Serena.”
“You think she might be involved?”
“No. Not with Denny’s death. But someone had to have access to my computer to manipulate the financial statements. She would have seen something. Maybe heard chatter among other people in the office. I don’t know. Serena says little but she hears everything. If there is a chance Steven didn’t have his hand in this, maybe she can help us. I can trust her.” After a beat he added. “I think.”
Very reassuring, but she bit her lip. She liked that there was a plan. They would contact Serena first and find out what she knew. Then try to find where Denny might have hidden his super-key program. Once they had the pieces in place, they could go to Nora and the police.
It could be over. It would be over.
And then Caroline was probably going to have to decide if she was ready to get married.
Again.
Chapter 16
“Damn it!” Mark cursed. “Not again. How could this happen twice?”
Mark and Nora stood in the middle of Denny’s office and looked around for the tornado that had ripped through the place.
“You seem to be under the impression that yellow tape with the words
“Don’t mess with me, shortcake. I’m already pissed off.”
Nora shut her mouth. The day hadn’t been going well for them, but on the plus side he’d let her ride along with him. And he hadn’t threatened to call her boss in the last hour. Well, once when she’d given him grief over stopping for a pack of cigarettes. He didn’t call, though, and he didn’t buy the cigarettes. Win-win.
On the downside, when they’d shown up at Serena’s apartment to ask her a few questions it was evident that she had packed up and cleared out. There wasn’t a single personal item except for some secondhand furniture. The apartment manager had bitched about having to pay someone to haul away the couch, bed and dresser, but since Serena had left no forwarding address he was satisfied the security deposit would cover it.
Nora hadn’t felt the need to point out that the secretary’s disappearing act was awfully suspicious. Nor did she mention that a woman living as frugally as Serena seemed to would not forfeit a security deposit without a good reason.
Irritated by the secretary’s absence, and probably just to annoy Nora, Mark offered up a theory that Serena could have run to protect Dominic. If Dominic contacted her and offered her enough money to get out of Dodge, there’s no reason to think she wouldn’t go. After all she’d been his loyal secretary for ten years.
Nora told Mark his theory was lame.
That hadn’t helped his mood.
Their next stop was to check Denny’s residence again, since this time they knew what they were looking for. The crime scene seal had been broken and every room in the spacious penthouse condo had been trashed. It was chaos on top of chaos.
Bookshelves overturned. Kitchen plates smashed on the tile floor. Every desk and dresser drawer open. Clothes strewn about. Files, notes on programming and CDs cracked in half and scattered on the floor.
In fact, his house looked a lot like his office currently did.
A smashed coffee mug, an overturned computer chair, text books, magazines and yellow legal pads littering every surface. Nora recalled that Denny wasn’t the neatest guy, but this was a little extreme.
