Suspect Lover

Oh, my.

A hand on her back nudged her inside and Dominic followed, dropping their bags in the foyer.

“Can you guess what this is? It’s a surprise wedding reception! Tell me I surprised you, Dominic. Tell me.” She moved around Caroline and leaned in to peck his cheek.

“I’m surprised,” he said.

Caroline sized up the brunette elegantly dressed in white slacks and a black silk sleeveless top. Money. She wore it well. It was in the cut of her clothes, in the silver designer watch that dangled from her wrist, and the two-carat stud earrings that sparkled in her lobes. She watched as the woman slid her hands up Dominic’s cotton-covered chest in an effort to balance herself while she leaned in to kiss him.

Instantly Caroline didn’t like her.

Then she shook her head. Wow, she thought. Jealous this quickly. They’d only been married two days.

The brunette turned back and offered a dazzling—and Caroline tried to believe sincere—smile. “You must be Caroline. I can’t tell you how excited I am to meet you. I’m sorry. This must be a shock for you. But I couldn’t resist. When Steven told me Dominic was getting married, I couldn’t believe it. I had to do something, so I just threw this little party together at the last minute. This way you can meet all of Dominic’s associates and friends. Although with Dominic, that’s usually one and the same.”

“And you are?”

“I’m Anne. Surely, he mentioned me. I know he’s tight-lipped, but come on, Dominic.” Anne turned to Dominic with a chastising pout. “Really, besides Denny and Steven, I’m practically your best friend. And you didn’t mention me to your wife?”

Dominic stood awkwardly in the foyer. He glanced toward Caroline, but didn’t quite meet her eyes. Before she could wonder about that, Anne linked her arm and pulled her forward. “Come along. I’ll introduce you to everyone. And then you can tell me all about how Dominic swept you off your feet.”

Caroline followed the woman’s lead, recognizing that despite the fact that she wasn’t in the mood for a party after their tumultuous trip, she did want to meet the people in Dominic’s life.

Servers worked the party dressed in formal black-and-white attire offering trays of food and flutes of champagne. The house had been decorated with masses of white flowers—roses, daises, even tulips. Elegant and not over the top. A quartet played on the lower level of the house. Sixty or so guests seemed well fed and entertained. All things considered, it was a very nice party.

Anne pulled Caroline toward a small group gathered by the window. One of the men was tall, lean and handsome with a deep tan and a pretty face. To his right was an older gentleman that Anne introduced first.

“This is my father, Russell Long. Daddy, this is Dominic’s wife.” Anne disengaged herself from Caroline’s arm and headed off to mingle.

“It’s a pleasure, my dear.” The older man had the build of someone much younger than his full head of white hair suggested. Hair highlighted by a healthy complexion earned from either the sun or a booth. It was hard to tell. His eyes were fixed on hers and Caroline had the strangest sensation of being evaluated.

“Nice to meet you,” she mumbled.

“Steven Ford,” the younger man with the California looks announced. “Husband of Dominic’s best friend and son-in-law to Russell here. Sorry to spring this on you, but once Anne has an idea in her head she’s hard to stop.”

“No, that’s fine. I’m happy to meet all of you.”

“It must have been a whirlwind trip.”

“Yes, it was.”

That and the most emotionally wrenching experience of her life. The two weeks leading up to the ceremony had been chaos. Dominic had flown with her back to Virginia to help her pack up her clothes and her most precious possessions. Her life. She’d been uncertain, emotional and tense. If it hadn’t been for his bulldozer approach to each task, she might have changed her mind a thousand different times.

Instead he laid drop sheets on her furniture and promised her that once she was settled they could arrange another trip back to pick out the pieces she wanted shipped to California. He hadn’t suggested she sell the house. An idea which she would have rejected as she’d inherited it from her aunt. It was the only connection to her family she had left.

But wasn’t that the goal? She needed to break the connection to her past and embrace her future.

With Dominic. Her husband.

In the midst of all that, she’d learned she wasn’t pregnant. Not that she wanted it or expected it to happen so quickly, but inexplicably she felt disappointed.

“And so this is everyone he works with?”

“Most of us, yeah,” Steven answered. “There’s a bunch of programmers. Plus some account reps, salespeople and support staff. And Denny, of course. Denny, come over here and try to be sociable.”

Caroline spotted the man Steven was waving over. He wasn’t hard to miss. Separated from the rest of the room, he stood alone with a beer dangling between his fingers. His gaze lingered on something or someone behind Caroline, but before she could turn her head to see what it was, he moved and was walking toward them.

Different from the rest of the men who wore slacks and sport coats, he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days. His sandy brown hair was unkempt and overlong, as was his five o’clock shadow. As he moved closer, she could see that his eyes were almost bright red. Caroline hoped with fatigue and not drugs. There was no polite way to say it. The man was a mess.

“Hey,” he nodded. “I’m Denny.”

She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah.”

She wanted to say that Dominic had told her so much about him, but the truth was she only knew that he was a programmer. An excellent one.

“So you’ve got to tell me how all this happened.” Steven nudged her. “Dominic literally walks into my office on Friday, says he won’t be working this weekend because he’s off to Vegas to get hitched and leaves. Please tell me you guys haven’t been dating for years and I’ve been that oblivious.”

Caroline smiled and found herself instantly liking this man. He had an easy way about him that was in direct contrast to his wife’s intensity. “No, we haven’t been dating long.” She wondered what else to say, wondered how much Dominic wanted to reveal or conceal about their relationship. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed about using the agency, but the speed in which it all came about might raise a few eyebrows.

“I met her in Washington.”

Dominic came up behind Caroline and handed her a glass of wine. She took it gratefully.

“Yes,” she added. “A mutual friend set us up. And there was a connection at first sight.”

“Oh, isn’t that romantic!” Anne who had been circling, joined the group and beamed at the two of them. “And this was when?”

“Two months ago,” Caroline answered her, counting the time from when he first contacted her rather than when they actually met.

“And Dominic never said a word,” Anne repeated still evidently shocked by the news.

“He’s entitled to a private life,” Russell told his daughter.

“Yes, but surely you would tell your partners about your marriage,” Anne said directly to Dominic. “In some ways it affects all of us.”

“How so?” Caroline asked.

“Come on, Anne, nobody wants to talk about that stuff now,” Steven said casually taking hold of her elbow and giving it a slight squeeze.

Anne huffed and then turned to Denny. Instantly she sighed and rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t have at least shaved for the occasion? Really, Denny, sometimes you can be almost disgusting in your appearance.”

“Sorry.” He tipped the beer to his lips in a sort of toast. “Congratulations anyway.”

“Thank you. But tell me more about you,” Caroline urged him. “Dominic said you were working nonstop on some important new program for them.”

There was silence and Caroline got the impression that tense glances were being traded.

“Yes, Denny,” Steven said. “Please tell us what you’re working on. I’ve been trying to get budget figures and projections on this latest endeavor for two weeks and I can’t because you won’t tell us what you’re doing. You stay locked up in that cell of yours. You won’t even come out for air.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He shuffled his feet and took another sip of beer.

“You’re supposed to be making sure our product is perfect before we make our presentation at the committee hearing next month,” Steven scolded. “That better be done.”

“The program is foolproof,” he snapped. “I was working on something else. It doesn’t matter. I’m done with it.”

“What? You said what you were working on was important.”

Caroline looked at Dominic. She’d never heard that angry tone in his voice before. His face was sterner than she’d seen in the last two weeks.

“It doesn’t matter,” Denny repeated.

“Boring. No one wants to hear about work, now. This is supposed to be a party,” Anne said gaily.

Time for a change in topic, Caroline agreed. “When did the three of you become partners?”

“Actually, it was Denny and Dominic for a long time before I came on the scene and bought in,” Steven explained.

“You mean until I bought in,” Russell slapped his son-in-law on the back in a good-natured gesture.

“Right,” Steven said tightly. “As for how Denny and Dominic met…you won’t believe this but I don’t think I even know that story. You guys started Encrypton twelve years ago, but how did you originally get together?”

“Forget that, Steven,” Anne interrupted him, patting his arm. “No one cares how Denny and Dominic met. This party is about getting to know Caroline. I understand you’re a writer.”

The party continued and Caroline made the rounds and chatted to each of Dominic’s employees. Deciding she needed a break and probably a bit of freshening up, she made her way upstairs. A few people lingered on the second floor loft, but not many. She smiled at them and made her way to the guest bedroom to check in on Munch, who had been quarantined.

Munch immediately left her warm spot on the bed to greet her mistress. She stroked the animal’s head until the dog decided she’d had enough and returned to the bed to continue her nap. Caroline shut the door behind her and headed for Dominic’s room. Her room, she mentally corrected. Her home, her bedroom, hers. It was going to take some getting used to.

She opened the door, but stopped when she saw Anne with another woman by the window.

“Caroline! Oh, good. I don’t think you’ve met Serena.”

The woman turned and smiled graciously. She was older, perhaps late forties, with dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. She looked tidy, if a bit conservative, in a navy blue suit.

“I’m Mr. Santos’s assistant. I’ve been with him for a number of years.”

Caroline shook Serena’s hand. It was a loose grip, and Caroline noted that the polite smile didn’t quite reach the woman’s eyes. She didn’t think it was personal, more like Serena wasn’t the type to smile easily. She imagined that she and Dominic worked well together.

“We were just up here swapping recipes. Serena makes a burrito with homemade salsa that is simply to die for.”

“You’ll have to share.”

The older woman’s head dropped once formally. “I’ll send the recipe home with Mr. Santos tomorrow.”

“I hope you don’t mind us sneaking away up here. But this view…” Anne turned back to the window and sighed.

“Of course not. The view is incredible. When I first saw this house, I wasn’t thrilled with the design, but living in it I can see what the architect was trying to accomplish.”

“Openness,” Anne answered.

Caroline smiled. She didn’t want to correct her but there was more to it than that. Any big house with large rooms provided a sense of space. This house was about freedom.

“We’ll get out of your way,” Serena told her.

“I did want to freshen up a little. I must be a mess.”

“Oh, no. Not at all,” Anne crooned. “Maybe just your lipstick. You look a little pale. We’ll leave you to it.”

Yeah, Caroline thought. She and Anne weren’t going to be buddies.

It was shame, too. For the most part, Caroline was a loner, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to make friends in her new life. And there was the fact that Steven and Dominic seemed genuinely close. She’d watched them for a while during the party. Dominic asking Steven work-related questions and Steven firing back with sports news. Eventually Dominic had relented and Caroline learned her husband had an interest in baseball. Pals as well as partners. She doubted Dominic had many friends and she wasn’t going to let Anne get in the way of that, despite her feelings.

She was tired, that was all. She would have Anne and Steven over for dinner and give it another try. Sometimes first impressions could be misleading. She made her way to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. Deliberately, she added a little blush but left her lips untouched.

Hours later after everyone had left, Dominic opted for a hot shower to unwind. When he came out of the bathroom to find his bed empty he was surprised.

It was late. After midnight. In the past few weeks, he’d learned that his wife liked to go to bed early.

He considered it his first compromise. He preferred to work to one or two in the morning, but if he wanted to make love to her he was going to have do that first, sleep for a while, then work.

And he definitely wanted to make love to his wife.

Just thinking about her made him hard despite having had her that morning. And three times the night before. He might have been worried that he’d driven her out of his bed with his sex drive if it hadn’t been for the way she welcomed him each time.

In his life he’d never known such pleasure. Or escape.

But tonight he was going to play it differently. He planned to kiss her on the cheek and roll over like a good husband. She was obviously tired from the stress of the past two weeks. Anne’s party certainly hadn’t helped things. He was going to shelve his desire and show her his unselfish side.

Only his wife wasn’t there to receive his noble gesture. And where was Munch? That was the trick. The two had become inseparable. Find the dog and he’d find his wife.

And he did.

Munch stood on the side of the pool while Caroline drifted up and down in a lazy sort of backstroke.

“Hi. I was too wound up to sleep so I thought I’d have a swim.”

She wore a simple black suit, but seeing the way it clung to her breasts made the muscle in Dominic’s cheek twitch. His wife had fabulous breasts.

“I’ll leave you alone.” There. That had been noble.

“Why don’t you come in?”

He wondered if he hadn’t mistaken the blatant invitation. “You’re exhausted.”

“I just said I couldn’t sleep. I need to relax.” She drifted over to the side of the pool directly below him. Her hand reached out and caressed his calf, and the loose shorts he’d put on to search the house for her no longer concealed his erection.

He stepped back and pushed the shorts off, then dove over her in a perfect arc. By the time he came up for air, she had removed her suit and tossed it on the side of the pool. Munch gave a warning bark as the wet suit hit a little too close for comfort and she trotted off.

In seconds he had her pinned against the side of the pool. In his arms she felt silky and wet. In another second he was pushing inside her. Here she was silky, wet and hot. He was discovering that he needed this connection like he needed air. The idea scared the crap out of him, but for now he ignored it so he could concentrate on how good it felt. He lowered his forehead to hers and sighed. Her legs locked around his hips and he had to forcibly stop himself from thrusting or it would be over too fast.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have…” He was at a loss.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said and placed her lips on the side his neck. “Not about this.”

“What is this?” He wondered if she would even understand what he was asking.

Then she grasped his face in her hands and met his gaze. Her eyes were so beautiful. So filled with gentleness. She smiled and he felt a tightness in his chest that he hadn’t felt since long before his mother died.

Startled by it, he began moving inside her, letting his body take over, working out whatever he was feeling with a good hard screw. He pressed his hips high and hard against that sweet spot between her legs, hoping she was with him because he knew he was going to come and he didn’t want to try and stop it. He heard a gasp and felt her tighten around his shaft. Without another thought he let himself go, his body a mass of sensation.

When he came back into his head, her arms were wrapped around his neck and she hummed a little in his ear.

“This was nice.”

“Hmm.” He thought about how much energy it was going to take to get them out of the pool. He had the irrational thought of letting Munch pull them out with a towel.

“So,” she said softly. “Tell me about you and Anne.”

His hold tightened around her body. He hadn’t seen that coming. He should have.

His wife was no dummy.

Chapter 5

Dominic stared at the ceiling. After three weeks of marriage, he knew where every faint crack in the plaster was. Every heavy stroke of paint. Even in the darkness with only moonlight filtering through the glass, he could still make out the tiny little imperfections.

She was sleeping on his arm. Her mouth slightly open so that he could feel the warm breaths of air on his shoulder.

It was driving him insane.

He glanced down at her and realized he’d studied her as equally intensely as he had the ceiling these past few weeks. He knew about the dark freckle behind her right ear. He saw the faint wrinkle that ran across her forehead barely visible when she was at rest.

So serene. So at ease with him. So trusting.

Or maybe not so trusting.

He considered the question she’d asked about Anne three weeks ago.

He’d avoided answering by kissing her. He’d kissed her long enough and slow enough until they were burning up. He’d managed to get her out of the pool and back up to his room—their room—where he’d made love to her again. Exhausted, she’d fallen asleep before he had a chance to separate their bodies.

There had been no more questions about Anne.

He wasn’t even sure what he would have said had she pressed the issue. There had been an incident. A year ago at a Halloween party Anne had thrown. He’d told her he didn’t involve himself with married women and that had been the end of it. As far as he knew Steven never found out. And it seemed at least to him that whatever problems they might have had were behind them.

Anne and Steven were happy.

Dominic shifted in the bed. He wouldn’t have thought he had any idea what a happy marriage looked like. But he imagined that he and Caroline looked happy. Why shouldn’t they? He felt happy when he was with her, and the feeling was so foreign to him it was almost unnatural.

In the near month she’d been his wife, there were moments that caught him off guard. Times when he couldn’t remember what life had been like before her or couldn’t imagine how he’d cope without her.

It was too much. Too soon.

He found himself leaving the office early to be with her. Last week he’d walked through the door after a rough day at work and made love to her on the kitchen table. It was as if he couldn’t stop himself. Not when she smiled at him with that damnable serenity etched in her face. The weekend before, he’d taken her to Carmel to show her his favorite view of the ocean instead of working from home as he’d done every weekend since he’d started Encrypton.

He was losing control and he didn’t like it. This wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want to enjoy the warmth of her breath on his shoulder. He didn’t want to crave sex with her all the time. He didn’t want to feel the way she made him feel when she smiled at him.

It needed to end. Space. That’s what he needed.

“Get off me,” he said, his eyes still focused on the ceiling. He jerked his arm and twisted his body and felt her jolt awake. “Get. Off. Me.”

“Dominic? What?” The sheets slid down her body as she sat up.

He pulled away to the other side of the bed. “You’re suffocating me. I can’t stand the clinging every single night.”

He didn’t look at her. Wouldn’t look at her to see what his words had done. There was stillness from her side of the bed. That was answer enough.

“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I’ll go.” She climbed out of bed and took a pillow with her.

He didn’t stop her. Didn’t go after her. The relief he felt when she closed the door behind her was almost pleasurable. Until the regret over hurting her descended on him and the loss of her made him ache.

He couldn’t think about that now. Tomorrow he would apologize. And tomorrow he would come up with a strategy to keep her at arm’s length. There was no reason to push her completely away. He just needed some distance.

Shifting back into the center of the bed that now seemed cold to him, he went back to staring at the ceiling.

The next morning, Dominic sat down behind his desk and waited for his world to realign. This is where everything made sense. This world he could control. But as soon as he reached for one of the folders in his in-box, he found his head spinning back to Caroline and what had happened last night.

The guest room door had been closed when he emerged from his bedroom shortly after 6:00 a.m. He hadn’t slept a minute; he hoped she had.

Staring blankly at his computer he wondered how in hell he was going to fix what he’d done. But the screen in front of him offered no answers.

She was supposed to have been convenient. A sexual outlet, a sensible partner and a mother for a child he wanted.

Instead she was making him think things and feel things. Thoughts and hopes he’d closed off for so long it physically hurt him to consider making himself vulnerable again.

It was all about control. He simply needed to conquer his reactions and to a certain extent control Caroline. No more leaving work early. No more letting her talk him into a walk on the beach or a late-night swim. No more making love to her outside of their bed. In bed it was about marriage. About making a baby. That’s all he’d let it be.

There. It was a plan.

Forcing himself to concentrate on work, he picked a folder from the top of the pile. Immediately he saw that it wasn’t the one he’d left there on Friday. He might have thought he remembered incorrectly if he didn’t know himself that well.

He hit the intercom buzzer. “Serena, can you come in here.”

“Yes, Mr. Santos.”

A second later the door opened.

“Was someone in my office on Friday after I left?”

She hesitated for a second. “Yes, sir. Steven came by looking for you. You left a little early, remember?”

Caroline’s fault. She’d wanted to go out to dinner. He’d relented. No more.

“He said he needed some figures for the budget he’s preparing. He said he just needed to check a folder. I let him in.”

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

“He’s scheduled to meet with you this morning.”

“I know. Let him in as soon as he gets here.”

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