Page 31 of Dangerous Temptation

It was late one night when she sat in bed with her shoulders propped against the headboard and her new laptop balanced upon her bent knees.

Her fingers moved over the keyboard as she browsed the Internet.

Night had fallen and the wind outside was howling.

She’d stopped working long ago. She wasn’t searching for economic models or trends.

She had a more personal topic on her mind.

One Alex Wolfe, with an ‘e’.

Her teeth worried her lower lip as she looked at old articles from Page Six of the New York Post . Ax, as they liked to call him, hadn’t lived up to the social awkwardness of most software geeks before his incarceration. In fact, he’d looked a little too comfortable on the social scene.

Her jaw tightened as she looked at a picture of him with a leggy blonde. She read the caption underneath. Barbie was an actress who’d been in two consecutive blockbusters but had planned on going artsy. Too bad that hadn’t worked out.

Jabbing the back button, Elena chose a different link.

And found him with a vivacious redhead. Her heart squeezed.

Both of the people in the photograph were stunning. Impeccably groomed and confident. Used to the upper-crust world in which they lived.

Stomach turning, she backed out of that site, too.

She wasn’t competing with these women. That wasn’t the way things were between her and Alex. She was not jealous.

Her gaze fell on a newer article written on the day he’d left prison.

Everything inside her went quiet. In the shot, the sun was glinting off his sunglasses as he walked to the awaiting car.

The building at his back looked dull and rigid.

With his tailored suit and spiky hair, he appeared arrogant and unapologetic, yet she saw the muscle clenched in his jaw – the one that said he was holding everything in tightly.

Darn it.

She pulled back her hand, which had unconsciously reached out to trace that tell-tale sign. She shouldn’t know him that well. They weren’t having a relationship.

In her mind, that was being disloyal to everyone she knew … everything she was fighting for …

In her body and her soul, though, she knew she couldn’t fight the truth much longer. She didn’t sleep with just anybody.

‘Do you need Leonard to get you some more raspberry body lotion?’ Alex called.

‘I can just use …’

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he said as he came out of the bathroom.

He switched off the light and the only illumination left in the room came from the bedside table.

Oh, yes, Elena thought as she watched him through her eyelashes. They might not be a couple, but they had a routine.

She watched as he closed the bedroom door. He only did that when she was with him. Her gaze ran over his back from his wide shoulders to his narrowed waist. He wore black silk pyjama bottoms and nothing else.

Tonight, she wore one of the nighties he’d bought for her. The pale-yellow one.

His gaze was soft as he walked to the bed. ‘That laptop still working OK for you?’

She hurried to switch pages on her browser.

‘I love it. It’s so fast.’ The mattress dipped as he took his place in bed beside her. ‘Thank you again.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He kissed her temple, and his lips moved down to the shell of her ear as he reached out to confiscate her machine. ‘But no computers in bed.’

‘You’re one to talk.’ She arched her neck, but just before her eyes closed she saw something.

‘Wait.’

She grabbed the computer and raised the screen so she could see it better.

A random click had landed her on another story related to him, only this one was about business.

Wolfe Pack’s stock was down twenty per cent.

‘Your company,’ she murmured as she scanned the article.

He stretched out beside her, propping himself up on an elbow. ‘The stock has taken a beating.’

But not because he’d been released from prison. She frowned as she came to the writer’s conclusion. Investors were nervous because he hadn’t returned to day-to-day activities. He was the mastermind who powered the company. Without him, people were worried about innovation and sustainability.

‘They want you back at work.’

‘I am at work. I’ve been teleconferencing with my people every day. Outsiders just don’t know that.’

‘Should they?’

He ran his fingertip down her arm, giving her shivers. ‘It’s my company.’

‘You did go public.’

‘Because the SEC made me.’

She was seeing some of the stubbornness that had gotten him where he was today. Top of the world and on the wrong side of a federal jury.

‘Is there a way you could appease them?’ She couldn’t help but think of all the people who’d lost money investing with Wolfe Financial due to fraudulent reporting.

Wolfe Pack, on the contrary, was a healthy company whose stock price was suffering not from market pressures but because of speculation.

She knew, because she’d run the numbers.

He’d told her he’d made his money honestly. From what she could deduce, he was telling the truth. That company was clean.

She grimaced as a possible solution came to mind. ‘Much as it pains me, could you do an interview or something?’

His expression turned turbulent. ‘I’m not letting those mongrels inside the gate.’

‘No, no. Not the paparazzi. I was thinking of a business reporter. Surely you know a respectable one.’ She thought of all the beautiful women in the photos and had to steel her resolve. ‘Are you friendly with any of them?’

He cupped her face and ran his thumb over her chin. ‘They’re all cut from the same cloth, baby. The interview would start out fine, but eventually the questions would drift towards the scandal and my stay at Otisville.’

He practically spit out the last words, and she laid her hand on his chest. He was stretched out casually beside her, but his muscles were clenched.

‘I’m sorry I mentioned it.’ She hadn’t meant to upset him. ‘You run your company the way you think best.’

He sighed. ‘Actually, my COO wants me to come in, even if it’s just for show.’

Come in? As in to the city?

‘He thinks that alone would settle some rumours.’

Wind rattled the windows, and a chill washed through her.

Return to the real world? She hadn’t considered that as an option. Not this early.

Which really wasn’t so early after all. It had been weeks.

Her fingers went numb when he drew the laptop from her grip. He powered it down and set it aside. The chill in her bones got worse and she pulled up the covers. They’d been isolated from everything here on the estate, and protected.

They had been playing house.

She’d buried her head in the sand and hadn’t had to face the difficult questions or tough decisions. She wasn’t ready for that yet. She wasn’t prepared for the real world to break in.

‘Are you going to go?’ The words dragged through her throat like barbed wire.

He wasn’t hiding out for the same reasons she was.

If anything, he was defiant towards the people who wanted to pry into his life.

She knew he’d come here to regroup but, based on this article, he could go back and thumb his nose at everyone.

His time had been served. He could do whatever he wanted.

So why had he stayed?

He settled his hand wide across her belly. It felt warmer than the computer, and much more personal. The thin satin was like a second layer of skin.

‘I haven’t finished what I set out to do yet.’

Was that what all the programming was about?

Whenever she wandered up to the manor during the day to borrow a book or grab a snack, he was typing all that mysterious computer code and consulting his notebooks.

Did he have some big upgrade, some wave-it-in-their-face advances he wanted to spring on all his detractors?

‘Your company needs you now,’ she said, meeting his steady gaze. She fought the shudder that threatened to rack her body. She knew what she had to say, but it didn’t come easily. ‘You should go back, Alex.’

His eyes narrowed.

She licked her dry lips. ‘For your people and for Wolfe Financial. It needs you, too.’

His fingers curled against her. ‘My grandfather’s company can go under for all I care.’

The tightness in his body said otherwise.

‘The Board meeting is in two days,’ she pressed.

‘They don’t want me there.’

She closed her eyes and resignation settled inside her chest, heavy and immovable. ‘If you’re innocent like you say, the investors do. They need someone who can straighten out the mess.’

His slate-coloured eyes took on the chill in the air and tension suddenly snapped. ‘If I’m innocent.’

She lay beside him, feeling small and vulnerable.

He swore. ‘Are you going to make me say it?’

Her hands fisted in the covers. ‘I don’t think anyone can make you do anything.’

His hand set like a rock on her belly, but he didn’t pull it back. ‘I shouldn’t have to, not to you.’

‘I need to hear it.’ She held her ground, but the honesty made her throat feel thick. ‘I need to look you in the eyes as you say it.’

A howl cut through the room, and the sliding glass door rattled as the wind buffeted it. Inside, the silence was just as deafening.

‘I did nothing wrong.’ His eyes were fiery and, as belligerent as his voice was, it cracked.

That one weakness, that one true sign of character …

It cracked the shell around Elena’s heart, and she melted. She believed him, and not just because she wanted to. She could see the pain in his eyes and hear the anger of injustice in his words.

She rolled towards him, cupped his face and snuggled close. Stretching out her legs, she slid under the covers until her body was pressed tight against his. So strong. So defiant. So hurt.

‘Then go help them,’ she whispered. Go help himself.