Volatile Chemistry (Billionaires' Secrets Book 1) (6 page)

“Eleven-twenty.” She didn’t turn to look at him.

“You live in Westchester?”

“It’s where my mom’s house is.”

“The house she’s about to lose.”

“It’s a nice house, not big and fancy at all, but the way taxes are these days...” She sucked in a breath. “She has a lovely garden she’s put two decades of work into. It would kill me to see her have to give it up.”

Dominic glanced at her. Determination strengthened her elegant features. “I think it would take more than that to kill you.”

“You don’t know me.” Her accusing stare made his five o’clock stubble prickle.

“True.” He frowned. “Is Tarrant a tough boss to work for?”

“Not really. He leaves me alone to run the lab the way I want.”

“He trusts you.”

A tiny wrinkle marred her smooth forehead. “Yes. I suppose he does.”

“I guess every man’s a fool sometimes.”

Chapter Six

D
ominic climbed the marble steps of the El Cubano cigar bar on Fifth Avenue. Tarrant Hardcastle might only have a few months left to live, but he still liked to see and be seen. Despite the acres of retail space and plush corporate offices Tarrant owned a few blocks away, he spent a good portion of each day kicking back in his personal armchair at this mecca for the wealthy and self-indulgent.

Without asking, Tarrant had secured him an impossible-to- get membership. Now, although he’d never smoked anything in his life, there was a polished wood humidor with Dominic’s name emblazoned on it in engraved gold plate.

Well, the name
Dominic Hardcastle.

Glittering there among the names of Hollywood bad boys and Capitol Hill big-wigs, that name gave him a stomach- churning dose of mixed feelings.

“Good morning, Mr. Hardcastle. Can I get you a drink?”

He shook his head at the immaculately attired waiter. He didn’t need alcohol. His head hadn’t stopped spinning since last night, when a brunette scientist with a soft pink mouth and a twisted agenda had knocked him right off kilter.

He’d kissed her again at Grand Central. Fast, hot and hard. Then she ran for her platform and left him there, aching.

He shoved a hand through his hair, tried to dispel the stray energy that cramped his muscles.

“Dominic!” Tarrant Hardcastle held up his arms, as if welcoming the long-lost prodigal back to the fold.

Dominic moved toward him, jaw rigid. He wasn’t the prodigal. He was the steady, hardworking son who’d hung in there the whole time, only to have the rules change when he wasn’t looking.

“Wonderful to see you, dear boy!”

Tarrant grasped Dominic’s hand between both of his. The glowing man-about-town who ornamented the pages of various glossy Condé Nast publications seemed thinner. He’d recently let his hair turn gray, which made him look his sixty-seven years.

“Are you sure I can’t tempt you down the road to ruin with one of these
ma
g
nifi
cent Havanas?” He waved a fat stogie in Dominic’s direction. The state-of-the-art ventilation system prevented even a whiff of smoke from straying into the air.

Dominic shook his head. He couldn’t help an indulgent smile. It was easy to see how Tarrant’s childlike enthusiasm for everything charmed the socks off people around him. “Good, good. Don’t want you to get the big C like your old man.” Tarrant patted his arm.

His chest tight, Dominic settled into the leather armchair. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the treetops of Central Park.

“So you saw the lab, huh? What d’ya think?”

“Impressive.”

“That Bella Andrews is a firecracker. Could have gone anywhere with a research and business background like hers. Zurich, the Mayo—but no, she wanted to come to Hardcastle. Came to me, don’t you know?” His satisfied grin revealed two rows of gleaming capped teeth. “Damned fine gal.”

Dominic wondered if his father had always talked like an escapee from an Agatha Christie movie, or if his mode of speech was newly adopted to complement the silver hair. He suspected the latter.

“Yeah. She’s smart.”
Shame she’s planning to take you to the cleaners.

Though whatever she claimed would no doubt be pocket change to Tarrant.

“I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have you here.” Tarrant wrapped long fingers around Dominic’s. “I’m only sorry it took my illness to bring me to my senses. When you’re in a certain position, there’s a tendency for everyone to want to dip their fingers in your pockets, like they have a right to your hard-earned money. That made me so defensive I pushed away the people who should have meant the most to me.”

Emotion thickened his voice and made Dominic look up. Tarrant’s blue-green eyes glittered with moisture.

Dominic swallowed. He’d wanted a dad desperately when he was a kid. Other kids had fathers who at least visited them on weekends or sent presents on their birthdays.

Not him.

For years he’d searched the mail for a birthday card, listened for a phone call. He’d imagined himself glancing up during his first communion, or the time his Little League team made the regional finals, always hoping he’d see a tall man standing there watching him.

Never happened.

His mom had told him his father’s name when he plucked up the courage to ask. When he saw an article about Tarrant Hardcastle in the paper one day, he clipped it. He’d stared at the grainy newsprint image of that handsome face, imagining far-fetched reasons why his dad hadn’t come to claim him. He even started a scrapbook, gathering information and images to piece together a picture of the father he longed for.

At fifteen, after nursing resentment mingled with painful hope for several months, he’d angrily accused his mother of keeping his existence a secret, at which point she’d sadly and gently told him about the rejected paternity suit and shown him the court papers as proof.

He’d burned his scrapbook in the backyard brazier his mom used for destroying trash. Since then he’d avoided anything to do with Tarrant Hardcastle.

Now that he was grown up and didn’t need or want a father any more, he’d turned up.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come, you know?” Dominic’s heart squeezed as Tarrant patted his hand. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I know that. I’m not asking for it either. I just want to share what I’ve created.”

Tarrant took a deep breath and lifted his chin. The morning sun played over his weathered skin. “I put my life into this company. Ate, slept and breathed it. It was my child.” He fixed Dominic with a shiny stare. “I thought that was enough. To build something and watch it grow.”

He took a deep drag on his cigar, then puffed out a ball of smoke which disappeared instantly, sucked out of existence by expensive technology. “It’s not enough. Maybe it’s because I can’t stand the thought that I’m dying. Because I want to hang on and push my way into the future in whatever way I can. But I have to pass it on. I need a successor to take the garden I’ve planted and grow it into something even bigger and better.”

Tarrant squeezed his hand again and Dominic fought the urge to squeeze back.

“You’re the one. You’re my heir. Hell, you even look just like me.” He slapped the leather arm of his chair with delight. The exertion made him cough a bit.

Dominic looked him right in the face. “I’m not going to be your heir.”

“What do you mean? Of course you are! You’re perfect. Even a retail entrepreneur yourself. I had no idea that young upstart revolutionizing the way gourmet food was sold was my own flesh and blood. When Sam found you and told me, I couldn’t stop laughing. You can’t fight destiny, dear boy.”

So Tarrant hadn’t even recognized his name in the papers. That was a cold splash of reality. Dominic had always imagined his famous father sitting up and taking notice as his stores got raves in the press.

When Tarrant snatched those bankrupt stores out from under him, Dominic had taken grim satisfaction in the idea that at least his father was paying attention to him. Maybe even making some kind of alpha-dog jostle for dominance.

Once again, like the snot-nosed kid with the scrapbook, he’d been kidding himself.

Dominic kept his eyes on Tarrant’s. “I came here because I wanted to meet you. I wanted to look you in the face. I wanted to know why you abandoned me and my mom.” He inhaled slowly. “I’ve done that now. I’m glad of the chance to meet you, but I’m not going to take over your company. You don’t owe me anything, and I don’t owe you anything.”

Tarrant’s eyes didn’t dim. If anything they glowed brighter. “I can see you’re a tough customer.” He patted Dominic’s knee. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. Why should you want to take on a big burden from some old codger who needs a son all of a sudden? Hell, I wouldn’t either.”

Tarrant leaned forward. “Tell me, Dominic, what can I do for you? For
your
business. I’ve got my fingers in a lot of pies and I can pull you out a sweet cherry from one. Just say the word.”

Here was his opportunity to ask for the stores he wanted. But he’d rather die than take a handout from this man. He should throw his offer back in his face with a stinging insult.

But he couldn’t.

Dominic struggled to keep his face emotionless. He’d thought his childish hopes and dreams of reconciliation with his absent father were crushed out of existence and forgotten.

They weren’t. They’d been festering away below the surface the whole time and now they bubbled up like acid that stripped his insides raw.

“I’ve got to go.” He stood, burning to be out of this place where anything nasty was sucked out of the air so they could all pretend it didn’t really exist.

Tarrant Hardcastle could offer all the gold in his vaults, but that would never change the past.

His clothes felt itchy and uncomfortable as he stepped out into the high-noon heat. His gut churned and his chest ached and his heart kept beating too fast.

He decided to call it lust and go see Bella.

Chapter Seven

“H
ello, Miss Andrews.”

Bella started at the deep voice in her ear.
Dominic.
Leaning over her shoulder, staring at the graph in her hand. She snatched it out of sight. “How did you get in here?”

“Through the door.”

Kumar and Anita stood not ten feet away, going over some data in hushed voices. Sue hunched over a microscope at the nearest table, and Theo held a rack of test tubes up to the bright sunlight at the wall of windows.

Dominic’s breath, warm on the back of her neck, made her tiny hairs stand on end.

“My research team is here,” she hissed.

“I can see that. I look forward to meeting them.”

She craned her neck around. His placid, innocent expression warred with the wicked gleam in his eye.

“What do you want?”

“Lunch would work.”

She blew out a breath. Anything to get him out of here before he stirred up trouble with her team. “Let’s go.” She left her report on the counter.

Dominic’s eyes widened. Apparently he hadn’t expected her to be so easy. To her chagrin, he gestured for her to go first. She deliberately left her lab coat on all the way to the door. She could feel his gaze burning through the white fabric.

“I’ll be back in a few,” she called, as she hung her lab coat on a hook. She smoothed a hand over the front of the new cream-and-black dress she’d bought on sale. It had called out to her from the window, “Buy me, you know you want to.”

It gave her perverse pleasure to buy clothes from anywhere except Hardcastle.

Dominic let out a low whistle as the lab door closed behind them. “Bel-la. The name fits.”

His eyes roamed shamelessly over the fitted dress. It had a 1950’s-style bodice cut like it was tailor-made for her. The diamond-shaped cutout below the neckline hinted at cleavage but didn’t actually show any. Fitted through the waist and hips, the dress flared and fell below the knee.

“Thanks. It’s new.”

She wanted to smack herself on the forehead the moment the words left her mouth, but his admiring gaze had scrambled her brain.

She’d bought stilettos at the same time. Dominic’s lips parted as his gaze drifted over her ankles and feet.

One dark eyebrow lifted very slightly. “If my high school chemistry teacher had looked like you, I might be in a different line of work today.”

She shrugged. “Just part of the job. Can’t work for Tarrant and be a slob.”

His eyes twinkled. “Why does that make me want to change into jeans?”

“I thought you didn’t work for Tarrant. Yet. Or did you decide to stay?” Her stomach clenched inside the fitted waistline.

“Any reason why I should tell you?”

“None whatsoever.”

The elevator doors opened and he gestured for her to go in first. She couldn’t stop her hips from swaying slightly as she stepped over the threshold.

Reality came back with a crunch as the doors closed. She swallowed hard. “Did you tell him about me?”