Page 15 of Dangerous Temptation
‘You could use the gym in the main house, if you’d like.’
The main house. She’d made use of the library before he’d returned. There were some valuable resources there that rivalled those she’d found in the NYU library. Yet he was offering her more than that, and she wasn’t certain how to interpret it. She doubted he was the type for friendly gestures – although he’d been a renowned philanthropist before the scandal had broken. Or had that all been part of the illusion?
‘I found space in the living room of the lake house,’ she replied. She had to move the coffee table and she constantly bumped up against the sofa, but he didn’t need to know that.
Although, from the look on his face, he probably did. He owned that tiny bungalow.
His gaze narrowed and his lips flattened. Finally, he dropped his foot back to the ground and folded his arms over his chest. ‘It’s up to you.’
And with that shewassummarily dismissed.
This time she knew it and she felt it.
She also felt a bit guilty, as if she’d hurt his feelings. Which was just silly and wrong on so many levels. What this man had done had hurt so many people. Yet Elena knew she’d dwell on it all night if she thought she’d been rude. She hadn’t been raised that way.
She took a step forward.
His concentration was on the laptop again, but she saw the muscles in his back stiffen. Those long, thick ropes of muscles … He knew she was still there.
‘However …’ she started.
He didn’t react, just stood there with his back turned.
It unsettled her. Should she continue? Just turn and go?
‘The library,’ she made herself say. She had Internet access, but, contrary to what some people believed, not everything could be found with a Google search.
She nearly jumped when he turned. She had his full attention. Only then did she realise she’d had it all along. The signs of fatigue were still on his face and his mussed hair made her fingers itch to smooth it into place, yet it always came back to his eyes. She couldn’t look away from them.
‘Leonard said you were going for your PhD.’
Her mouth went dry. They’d spoken about her? She nodded.
‘What subject?’ he asked.
She had to lick her lips to get them to function, and her stomach squeezed when his grey eyes sparked. ‘Ec … Economics.’
The expression that crossed his face was at once amused, ironic and resigned. ‘Of course it is.’
The knot in Elena’s belly turned fiery. ‘As it was before you and my father came clean about your Ponzi scheme.’
His jaw hardened, and the lines on his face deepened. The air between them pulsed and, for a moment, she thought she was going to see his anger flare to the surface again. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Ice was what she received instead. Cold, hard and unyielding. ‘I think everyone knows that I never came clean about that.’
She held his stare, refusing to back down. He had never admitted guilt, and it was something that galled most people. Yet there was something in his tone …
He said nothing more. He just stared at her, daring her to come at him again. She’d seen that look before as he’d done interviews. She recognised it from videotape of the prosecuting attorney questioning him. It made him look cocky, aggravating and sexy as hell.
But she wasn’t the one who was going to bring him down.
Better, more powerful people had tried and he’d come away with barely a slap on the wrist. Although … her gaze was drawn to the ottoman that sat a cockeyed angle.
‘Forget it,’ she said softly.
She turned towards the lake house, but was surprised when he took a step to follow her. It wasn’t a voluntary move, and they both knew it.
‘You can use the library,’ he said, his tone low and rough.
She looked at him through her lashes, but his gaze was on her body. Or, more precisely, on the way she’d wrapped the sweatshirt around herself. Hot embarrassment ran through her. He wasn’t the only one throwing off mixed signals.
