Not nearly enough.
Her ponytail hair bounced as she laughed and half-stumbled through the first awkward steps of the Chicken Dance, an exercise in self-abandon surely hatched by a mischievous mind. Totally devoid of self-consciousness, arms akimbo to mimic flapping wings, Lexie stuck her tongue out one side of her mouth as she concentrated on her feet. Her natural grace asserted itself quickly, missteps concerning her not the least.
She was too busy laughing, green eyes alight, face flushed with a pleasure she showered on everyone fortunate enough to be around her.
Or even to be watching.
She was a flame in the darkness, the light that guides a weary traveler home to safety and comfort and refuge.
He wanted her so badly he ached. Wanted to go back to the simple, powerful magic of that night.
When the dance ended, the entire assembly applauded. Lexie glanced around, startled to realize it was for her. Cheeks rosy, she grinned and sketched an exaggerated bow.
The band segued into a slow song, and before logic could stop him, Dominic let longing lead him to her.
She was surrounded by a crowd, but as though an invisible thread linked them, she looked up as he approached. The group around her gave way, and Dominic held out his hand. Not a word was said. Words were barriers; he wanted touch. He needed to touch her, to warm himself at her fire.
Despite the confusion circling in her gaze, battering at the walls he’d erected between what was smart and what he needed, Dominic drew Lexie onto the dance floor and pulled her into his arms.
He heard the hitch in her breath. “Dominic…”
“Sh-h—” He wanted to be Nikos again, for just a moment. He wanted to return to a night when they had been more than two strangers, less than reality. When they had found something together that he’d searched for all his life.
Please, Lexie, he pleaded silently. Let us be who we were, not who we really are. Just for now. Just for this dance.
And as if she’d heard him, Lexie sighed softly and settled against him.
He felt her over every inch of his body. His hand tightened at her waist as his insides began to hum like the electric singing of high-tension wire. She made his every cell vibrate with a gut-deep need for her, yet a strange sort of peace settled around his heart, as though her mere touch was the oasis he’d been seeking without ever knowing he was lost in the desert and dying of thirst.
In an act as foolish as it was essential, Dominic consigned his doubts about her possible role in his current troubles to another place, another moment.
For this one space in time, this one dance, he was Nikos and she was Lexie, and that was all either had to know. He pressed his lips to her hair and pulled her against him.
She laid her cheek against his chest and nestled closer, the movement of her flesh against his wrenching a not-quite-stifled groan from deep inside him.
Lexie felt the vibration, registered the squeeze of his big hand swallowing hers, bringing it close between them. His fingers brushed the top of her breast, and a sharp hunger clawed its way down her whole body.
It was the most delicious kind of torture to be here in public, surrounded by others, unable to move as she wanted, say what she wished…yet locked inside a space so intimate they could have been alone. Should have been alone.
Oh, how she wished for an escape to a world where only she and Nikos existed. For that’s how it felt, like she had Nikos back. She could smell him, could feel him, could see him if she’d open her eyes—
But instead she squeezed her eyes shut, trapping the moment behind them, keeping reality at bay for just a little longer. She didn’t want to think about all that divided them, all the repercussions of forgetting who he was, what he’d done.
Maybe …
Stop it, Lexie. You can’t afford to ignore the possibility that he—
She hadn’t realized how she’d tensed until she felt his hand slide up and down her back, soothing her, urging her to settle against him once more. He pressed another kiss to her hair, and her heart ached with longing.
Lexie lifted her head, wishing she could find the truth, find a way out, find some solution that would work for them both—
She realized suddenly that Dominic had worked them out of the center and into the shadows away from the crowd. Eyes so dark she could drown in them pulled her in, drew her like magnets. She tilted her head, entranced, watching his head lower to hers, feeling his breath brush her cheek, wanting to know again the power of his kiss—
The music stopped, and Nikos—
No, not Nikos. Dominic. A man she didn’t know, a powerful man who was all but a stranger.
She knew better. At last her mind overruled her longing, a need so deep and brutal that she knew to her marrow that it could destroy her.
He wasn’t offering to love her, and love was what she must have.
He was Dominic Santorini, not Nikos, and if she let herself love him, she would be lost.
With sudden, stark terror grinding deep into her bones, Lexie jerked out of his arms—
And ran from the sheltering trees, from the temptation of his body, stumbling as tears blinded her eyes, escaping the mistake she wanted so badly to make, despite all reason, all powers of logic, all the memories that didn’t seem to make one bit of difference to her foolish dreamer’s heart.
Dominic started after her, heedless of the stares, determined only to find her, bring her back, make her—
A jerk on his arm whirled him around. Bradley’s eyes shot sparks at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Not now.” Dominic turned, eyes searching for Lexie, but she’d vanished.
Bradley stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
Every fiber of Dominic’s body itched to shove his friend aside.
“Stop it, Dominic. Have you lost your mind?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“The hell it’s not. Poseidon is mine, too.”
Dominic shot a furious glance at the man who stood in his way. “Poseidon is my creation. My company.”
Bradley’s jaw worked. His voice was tight. “You didn’t build it by yourself, and I refuse to let you do something so stupid. Do I need to remind you of Celia?”
The barb hit its mark. Stung. “Lexie is not Celia.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She couldn’t—she would not do such a thing.”
“You didn’t think Celia would, either.”
Fury grayed his vision, but no amount of fury could change the fact that Bradley was right. He hadn’t seen Celia’s perfidy until it was too late. It had taken a very long time to recover from that mistake, yet his palms itched with the need to hold Lexie, to make them one—
In the white heat of passion, all logic vanished.
And that very thought sobered him, cooled him down. No woman had ever gotten to him as Lexie had. Stubbornly, he clung to what he wanted to believe. “She is not involved.”
“And just how do you know that?”
“In here.” He tapped his chest. “In here, I believe that.”
He could not blame his friend for the derision that leaped into his eyes. He would have done the same if Bradley had said something so foolish.
Dominic settled his hands on his hips and exhaled in one powerful gust, his eyes cast to the ground. “I want to believe it.”
“Dominic—” But his friend’s voice was more gentle now.
He had to remember that Bradley had been his closest friend for years. He had known Lexie for only a matter of days.
Dominic cursed beneath his breath. What had gotten into him? How had he let one small woman get to him like this? He swallowed hard and lifted his gaze to his friend’s. “I apologize. I was out of line.”
Bradley was still frowning, but the strain in his face eased. “Women.” He tried for a grin.
Dominic could not join him.
“Look, so we don’t know anything for sure. We’ll give her the benefit of the
doubt.” But his tone made it clear that he had none. “Just promise me this, Dominic. Promise me you won’t ask her directly. Don’t give Kassaros a chance to have an inside line to our thinking. Please—promise me that much.”
Dominic studied his friend, his mind working furiously. He would pay careful attention to her every movement. But he would watch everyone more closely and hope that someone would slip up, that the true insider would be revealed. He cursed the need for such discretion, but it was paramount that word not get out to the markets that they had problems, not when stock was riding high on anticipation of Lightning Quest.
He would find the proof he needed to clear her. Lightning Quest would debut, they would restore their cash flow, and he would buy back all the stock he could find so that they were never vulnerable again.
He would prove Lexie innocent, make the company whole, take care of those who depended on him, and then, when all was secure—
He would make Lexie his, would take them back to the night of magic again and again.
But if he told her that she was under suspicion, the tiny tendrils between them would be crushed beneath that weight. She need never know. Bradley’s suggestion was right, for many reasons.
“All right.” He nodded. “I will not speak of it to her.”
Bradley’s whole frame relaxed. “Good.” He glanced around them. “You want a beer or something?”
Dominic turned and watched all the people dancing and laughing and could not imagine rejoining them. He felt like he’d been run through a wringer. “No. What I want is for this to be over. All of it.”
His friend nodded sympathetically and clapped him on the shoulder. “I hear you. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll play host until the end?”
Dominic wanted to take Bradley up on his offer, but it was his company, his duty. He shook his head and reached for a smile that didn’t come easily. “Thank you, but no. Perhaps a beer would be good.”
With only one glance back in the direction Lexie had fled, Dominic followed Bradley back into the fold.
Lexie sat on the porch in an old lounge chair, her dry eyes examining every line of the swinging bed. She’d come out here as soon as she got home from the picnic, hoping for surcease from the pain of the memories filling every cubic inch of her home.
She clutched Rosebud to her so tightly, the patient cat squirmed. Where could she get away from the memories? How could she evade the pain?
She was so confused. Her pirate Nikos was gone, vanished like the mist of morning. Burned away by the sun of a powerful, successful man. Dominic Santorini had no need of a silly dreamer who lived in her imagination more often than the real world.
Despite the miracles of that one night, she was still skinny little Lexie Grayson who’d never figured out how to make a man love her. She’d been beyond foolish not to put away fantasies of Nikos that first morning when she’d awakened alone.
She had to stand on her own. Had to be fine alone.
She’d seen Dominic’s type of woman at the ball, in the clippings. Never in a million years could she be tall, sleek and glamorous. She might not be such a misfit anymore, might have learned to be comfortable with who she was, might have broken away and made her own life, proud of what she’d built. She might have even gotten prettier.
But deep inside, where it counted, she was still skinny, funny-looking Lexie Grayson, who drove a pickup and lived in a dome.
Lexie Grayson, who’d made a big mistake, who’d led with her heart and just had to get over it. Because the basic facts couldn’t be changed.
“He probably robbed Max, Rosebud,” she murmured, rubbing her cheek on the cat’s head, suddenly cold in the warm, sultry night. “Maybe he didn’t do it himself—I can’t bear to believe that. But he had to know about it, had to approve it, and he hurt my best friend.”
She stirred in the comfortable chair, pulling the cat closer. She curled up against the pain. “But Rosebud, no matter what else…I miss my pirate Nikos.” The tears from her eyes plopped softly on the gray cat’s head.
There would be no sleep tonight, she could already tell.
But thank heavens, there was always work.
Tenderly, she placed the cat on the cushion and headed for her purse. The warehouse would be nice and quiet and if she were careful, she wouldn’t wake Max, who lived upstairs.
And maybe, just maybe while she was working, she’d figure out how to tell him that she’d made love with the man who’d stolen his dream.
Dominic woke up with a start. His dream had been so vivid; a breath-taking interlude with Lexie in a room filled with candles. He’d made love to her slowly and with achingly sweet care. He’d heard her sighs and caught them with his kisses.
He’d felt her delicate hands all over his body, marking him forever with her passage. He’d soaked up the raw hunger of her passion and his own, delving into the secret, tender hollows of her body as if diving for treasure.
He’d felt warm and cherished in a way he’d never known before he’d met Lexie. The warmth of her smile, the delight in her eyes … the heart-stopping magic when her body touched his …
Then a chill had crept over them, and shards of desperation marred her green eyes. He’d seen a shadow darken them, snuffing out the reflection of warm candlelight. He’d felt her pulled out of his arms and known his enemy possessed her. He’d felt his heart rend as the darkness moved within him. As knowledge of perfidy filled him, the sorrow in her eyes chilled his soul.
As Peter Kassaros walked away with his love, Dominic Santorini knew he’d been betrayed once again. The rage and the pain searing through him eclipsed his previous anguish by a factor of thousands.
He wanted to talk to her. He had to know she was all right. Needed to know what to believe about her—and about himself.
He didn’t feel like he fit inside his own skin anymore. Who was he, the man who’d laughed and loved with Lexie in blissful ignorance—or the man who’d built an empire and encased his heart in lead?
Dominic’s cold eyes narrowed; Nikos’ hand hovered over the phone.
And in the deserted dome, there was only a cat to hear the phone ringing.
Chapter Eight
Lexie stood on a scaffold, examining the skeleton of the giant golden figure that would be the centerpiece of the inner chamber of Lightning Quest. She realized she’d been staring at the same arm joint for a long while, wondering what mattered. Wishing she could walk away from this job.
She was not a quitter, but oh, how she wanted to be. This time, just this once, she wanted to be a quitter very, very badly.
She was still shaken to the core by the day just passed. Seeing Dominic, watching him with others…hearing about the company troubles…being in his arms again. That she still wanted him so badly, despite the evidence of wrongdoing, rocked the very foundation of who she thought she was.
“Lexie? What the hell are you doing here at this hour?”
She turned too quickly at the sound of Max’s sleepy voice and lost her balance.
“Watch out!”
She grabbed the scaffolding, twelve feet up in the air. Her heart sped up, adrenaline surged.
Max was already starting to climb toward her.
“I’m okay, I’m okay. Stop hovering, Max. I’m not going to break,” she huffed.
“You’re going to break your damn neck if you don’t stop mooning over someone who doesn’t deserve you,” he snapped.
“I’m not mooning.”
“Then what are you doing here at three in the morning, staring off into space like a lovesick calf?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’re hurting. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She was so tired she could barely see straight, so confused she couldn’t think. “I can’t talk to you about this. Just leave me alone. I’ll figure it out.”
“You’ve always talked to me about everything. Why not now?”
She couldn’t meet his gaze.
H
is eyes narrowed. “Lex, why do I think there’s more to this than some guy and a one-night stand?”
“Don’t call it that.”
He grabbed her arms and lifted her off the scaffolding. “There is more. Explain.”
“Set me down.”
“So you can run away? Not hardly.”
She stared past him and sighed, then looked back at him. “What’s happening with your search for a lawyer to help you force Poseidon’s hand?”
His brows drew together. “Nothing. I have no proof, and no reputable firm is going to tackle Goliath when this David doesn’t even own a slingshot. And stop changing the subject.”
“What kind of proof do you need?”
His eyes narrowed again. “Don’t even think about it.”
Too late, she wanted to say. But she’d tried and failed. Was there another way? She was torn—should she tell Max what she’d tried? See if she could learn more, so she could try again?
You’re out of your league. But Max had been her best friend for so long…
She had to talk to Josh again. See if she could learn more.
“Lex—” Max ran his fingers through his disordered hair. “Go home. Get some sleep. Do your job at Poseidon. I’ll be fine.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I’m already working on a new program. This time I’m using a computer that doesn’t even have a modem. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.” He slung one arm around her shoulders. “Stop trying to take care of everyone you meet, kid. Just go knock ’em dead at Poseidon and don’t worry about me.”
Oh, Max… If only it were that easy.
Lexie walked back from the design team’s office, heading toward the lobby of Poseidon with a heavy tread and a headache the size of North America. She wished at this moment that she’d never spoken to Josh, never heard the details he’d given her.
“Hey there, Lexie. You’re at it early,” her friend Bob said.
She shrugged, tried for a cheer she couldn’t feel. “Early bird gets the worm, my mother always said.”
“If you’re into worms, that’s a good thing. Me, I only like them for fishing.”
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