Unconditional (10 page)

This time she’d listen.

God please let him be telling the
truth!

Getting Neo to take her out to dinner without Dominic’s knowledge wasn’t sitting well with the big man. He had been her protector and friend since Dominic had left their marriage. For months, she’d had no idea she’d been under surveillance, but it was hard to maintain such close watch over someone on an island this small and remain anonymous.

She had easily recognized him, despite meeting him only a few times. Victor, Dominic seemed to tolerate for the sake of their childhood. But he considered Neo, Sean, Rico, and Jaden his true friends. She had confronted Neo as soon as she realized he was following her. The gentle giant was relieved to have her aware of his presence. After explaining that Dominic was concerned for their safety, given his wealth and former profession, he and his men found it easier to protect her and the children with her aware of their duties.

Rinah had reluctantly agreed to protection after an attempted kidnapping of her son from his kindergarten. Neo and his men were able to foil that incident, but it had terrified the crap out of her. She had been grateful for their comforting presence ever since.

It wasn’t having dinner with her that he objected to. After all, he’d had dinner with her and the kids on numerous occasions since Dominic left. On those occasions, he talked a lot about his long-standing relationship with her husband, how they’d been through so much together. They had attended the same military school and had served in the same SEAL team. She now cherished his friendship and the wonderful uncle figure he provided for her children.

Neo struck an imposing figure, standing at over six feet four, with well-defined muscles in every inch of his body, dark chocolate, smooth skin, and piercing black eyes. He reminded her of the actor Djimon Hounsou. Like Dominic, he made her feel intensely feminine. However, he didn’t elicit even a flicker of sexual response, as Dominic did. He was a big brother and friend, and like her girlfriends, had been there for her when she needed him.

At first, Dominic only had eyes for his wife.

She was shockingly beautiful in a metallic white halter dress. The silky strands of her dark hair were in a sexy side ponytail, falling over a naked shoulder. His gaze was drawn again and again to the graceful column of her neck, her slender, toned shoulders and arms, and the gentle swell of her breasts, perfectly encased in the deep-V cut neckline.

It took him a moment to realize that she was not alone.

Dominic narrowed his eyes and tightened his fists as he strode across the room, weaving through the crowded tables of the restaurant in order to confront the couple.

His wife seemed engrossed in her conversation with Neo and didn’t look up as he approached. From the tail end of the conversation, it appeared his friend was recounting a comical story about them during a particularly sticky moment on assignment in a remote town in Russia. The picture he drew, of the two of them posing as women, two enormously obese and tall women, and the reaction they’d gotten from the town’s people, had apparently had her rolling with laughter.

Dominic was embarrassed at how insanely jealous he’d become upon seeing her reaction to the other man. He hadn’t seen her that happy in years. His voice was not gentle when he addressed them.

“What are you doing here?” Not trusting himself to look at his wife, he directed the question at Neo. The sight of her with another man made him light-headed with possessiveness, obliterating his usual icy façade. Losing it in front of clients, the same clients and members of his team who were now being seated about a foot away from his wife’s table, was not an option.

“Didn’t we just have this conversation yesterday?” Rinah asked as she tried unsuccessfully to suppress her laughter. The more he frowned, the more it seemed to fuel her mirth.

He became even more pissed upon hearing her smothered giggles. He found nothing about the situation amusing. Not moving a muscle, he maintained his teammate’s gaze. “I asked you a question. What are you doing here with
my
wife?” He spoke in a low voice.

“Look, man, Rin wanted to go out to eat and wanted some company,” Neo answered calmly.

“Rin? What the fuck? And when did you become so familiar with
my
wife to give her a fucking nickname? Her name is Rinah!” The hot poker of jealous rage pierced him.

“Dom, you should let them enjoy their date. They make such an extraordinarily striking couple. After all, you had to find out at some time that your wife had moved on,” Flavia offered smoothly as she approached them.

“When I want your fucking opinion, Flavia, I’ll ask for it!” She flinched under his exasperated regard.

“And how is your
date
going, Flavia?” Rinah arched one eyebrow in inquiry at the woman, nodding at the three other women and six men in their entourage. “I’m going to kick your skinny ass for messing with me! It may not be now, but you’d better believe I’m going to come looking for you very soon,” the normally non-violent mother of his children muttered furiously.

Dominic looked sharply at Flavia, then at Rinah. He noted the other woman’s increased pallor upon hearing his wife’s chilling promise.

“Go and ensure our clients are taken care of.” Feeling like he would explode at any moment, he dismissed the other woman’s interference and turned to his wife. He grasped Rinah’s hand and pulled her from the chair.

“What are you doing?” Rinah whispered sharply.

He ignored her question, as his hand tightened around her waist, pulling her closer against his side as he glared angrily at Neo. The effect she had on him was instant. Her scent and the impact of her softness against his hard frame immediately calmed some of his most explosive emotions. He palmed one globe of her ass: she shivered and curled her body into him. He wondered if she even realized how telling her response to his touch was.

“Neo, you and I will have a long chat tomorrow,” Dominic stated more calmly, knowing he had overreacted to the sight of his wife with his friend. He trusted Neo with his life, and more importantly, he trusted him with the lives of his family.

“Certainly, old man. I’ll look forward to it.” Neo grinned.

But his obstinate wife had other ideas. “We came for a quick meal, Dominic. There’s no need to disrupt your meeting.”

He raked his gaze over her tantalizing figure, wanting nothing more than to take her home immediately. “Neo, say goodbye to my wife,” he arrogantly instructed.

The other man willingly complied, and kissed Rinah on the cheek for good measure. He gathered his jacket and exited the restaurant moments later with a cheerful whistle.

Dominic watched his lazy stroll and gave in to a slight grin himself.

“I swear you’re so insufferable sometimes!” his wife hissed.

“Only some of the time?” He smirked. Yes, certainly, some explanation was required on how close Neo had gotten to his wife, but given the reaction of Rinah to his touch just now, he wasn’t overly concerned.

Seating her next to him, he looked at Flavia, noting the tightening of her lips and her menacing glare at Rinah. Obviously, Flavia had some hand in agitating his wife and prompting her into action. She also had some explaining to do, a fact he made clear with a glare of his own, when she finally dragged her eyes from Rinah and looked at him. He had no intention of letting anyone fuck with his family.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my wife will be joining us.” Ignoring his wife’s objections, he introduced her to everyone. He instructed the waitress to bring his wife’s dinner from the other table. Ensuring that she was comfortable and taken care of, Dominic turned his attention to speeding up the proceedings and bringing closure to the meeting as soon as possible.

He wanted everyone gone so he could concentrate more fully on Rinah. He never removed his hand from her. Anywhere he could reach was petted, caressed. There was no way he could honor his promise of keeping their relationship platonic for another few weeks. He needed her, wanted her, too keenly. Even now, he was in such acute pain that he barely ate the meal in front of him or contributed to the conversation going on around the table.

Not so his wife. No, she was happily conversing with his client, the president of a major pharmaceutical manufacturing company, who was considering using Dominic’s shipping company to facilitate deliveries to their buyers in Asia and Europe. The deal was worth billions of dollars to everyone, all around. But Dominic couldn’t care less about that at this point. The sight of the other man flirting with his wife was too much.

Just as he was about to give the unsuspecting man a piece of his mind, Flavia interrupted him yet again, asking another of her inane questions. He knew what she was trying to do, and while he might appreciate her efforts tomorrow, tonight his desire was too raw and primitive to keep in check for much longer.

Barely an hour later, with everyone just finishing their dinner, Dominic rose and took Rinah’s hand to help her from the table.

“Thank you all for a very productive meeting. My team will have the final contracts ready for signing tomorrow. I apologize for the timing, but as my wife said earlier, we have a sick daughter at home and need to be with her. So if you would excuse us?” He turned and shook hands with the men, and lightly kissed each woman on the cheek. Everyone made sympathetic noises and wished their daughter well, except Flavia, who was practically frothing at the mouth.

His wife glared at the other woman. The cold retribution in her gaze even gave him pause.

He couldn’t wait to tap into her fiery passion. With renewed haste, he quickly made their escape from the restaurant, not trusting Rinah to hold on to her temper much longer.

Dominic assisted her into the passenger side of his silver Maserati and quickly crossed over to the driver’s side. He held her gaze as he turned the ignition. The atmosphere in the car instantly heated in searing awareness. The car’s engine purred to life at the light touch of his applied pressure. Her focus swung to his hands and seemed to be glued there. He heard the telling hitch in her breath, right before it became audibly labored.

His desire spiked in response to the yearning that was clearly evident in the liquid depths of her eyes.

How the fuck am I supposed to drive us safely home after that visual
caress?

There was no way he could make it back to their house on the other side of the island, which was at least a half hour’s drive away, even in light traffic. To distract her from his purpose, he thought it prudent to introduce a topic that would be sure to spark a volatile response. “Do you care to explain what you were doing, having an intimate dinner with Neo?” he asked conversationally.

“Not particularly. Neo is a friend and that’s all there is to it.” Her reaction was not what he had expected and he needed to take the next corner without her noticing. That response was too calm. He needed a more distracting emotion.

“And if I was out with Flavia tonight, just the two of us, would I get the same pass? Would you accept that we are just friends?” he asked in the same conversational manner.

Rinah’s lips tightened and she refused to answer. He sighed in the mounting silence, pretending annoyance.

“That’s what I thought. You don’t like to acknowledge when you’re wrong. Do me a favor, the next time you have a bone to pick with me, leave my poor friend out of it. You could’ve gotten the bastard killed, or at least hospitalized for an extended stay.” He made his delivery deceptively calm.

“You couldn’t possibly still think I care about what you do. I’ve been on my own for eight months and as far as I’m concerned, I can do what the hell I like. I’m no longer the dutiful wife who stays home and hopes her husband comes home. We’re separated, remember?” she muttered darkly.

Dominic smiled as he had managed to park outside his condo without her even pausing in her tirade. Now if he could distract her long enough to accomplish the journey across the threshold, he would breathe easier. Once inside, there would be no turning back. She was his and he intended to enjoy every detectable inch of her.

“We are not separated!” he vehemently responded. “I have allowed you time to cool your temper, but I now realize that that was a mistake. You have seen this as permission to have intimate meals with other men, and that I can’t allow!”

“You
allow
? Are you flippin’ crazy? You can’t stop me from doing anything!” She was vibrating with outrage. “You’re my husband, not my damn jailor.”

Internally, he grinned with satisfaction. They had entered the complex, gained access to the elevator, and were now being taken up to the penthouse.

“What the hell are we doing here, anyway? I thought we were going home?” she asked in the middle of her tirade, glaring at the escalating numbers of the elevator and then at him. “Dom?”

The car suddenly stopped.

As the door of the elevator opened, Rinah refused to move. She remained rooted to a position in the corner as Dominic held the door for her.

“You promised.” Her softly spoken plea almost made him reconsider.

He ignored the entreaty in her eyes, refusing to give in to or acknowledge a promise that was made under duress.

“You’re my wife. The fact of which you drove home tonight with your deliberate display of possessiveness. Didn’t you intend I get the message with that dress?” he asked calmly.

“I didn’t—”

“Hell, no! Don’t even bother to deny it. My God, Rin, that was the dress you wore on the first night of our honeymoon. Do you think I wouldn’t remember, and ache for you? Were you punishing me for going to a business meeting tonight instead of coming home to you?” Grimacing at the vulnerability in his voice, he didn’t try to hide how much he desired her. The soft light in the elevator accentuated the lush radiance of her skin, enflaming his need for her further. He had accepted defeat and surrendered completely to her. Now she would do the same. “Baby, you know what to expect when you wear
that
dress. I can’t take another fucking night without you!