Shrouded in Darkness (Shrouded Series) (11 page)

With the back of one hand, she brushed angrily at a tear that had slipped past her lashes. Crying never solved anything. At least not in her life. She’d learned while growing up that tears only brought censure or indifference. A Davenport never cried or showed any sign of deep emotion. That’s probably why she’d failed both parents.

She drank the rest of the bottle. The wine coated her fear, deadened her feelings and pulled her into a world of oblivion. Sleep finally dragged her under as she slumped against the couch.

That’s where Jake found her. An empty bottle of wine on one side and an overturned glass on her other.

“Damn it, Margot,” he whispered, frustrated. “Alcohol isn’t going to make your life any better. It’ll only push you down deeper.”

He took both bottle and glass from her side and shoved the bottle in the trash beneath her desk and left the glass on top by the computer.

It didn’t take much to pick her up, carry her over from the side of the couch and gently set her down on the cushions. Her head fell limply to the side and a wave of raven hair slipped across her cheek. He slid the strands aside, exposing her flushed cheek—a cheek where deep hollows clung below the bone. From the photos he’d seen around the house, she’d lost weight—a lot of weight. If she lost any more, her health would be in danger, if it wasn’t already.

Jake didn’t look around the room. He’d already seen enough. The guilt of it buried itself into his gut. He might not have torn the place apart, but he was equally to blame. Malcolm knew he was here. It was also obvious Malcolm suspected another copy of the formula was secreted away in the house.

Reluctantly, Jake left her on the couch. He had to right some of the wrong done to her. Less than an hour later, when he came back and found Margot still sleeping, he sank down on the edge of the couch and caressed her forearm with a gloved hand.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, knowing she couldn’t hear. “For having Malcolm follow me. For all the destruction and all the pain it’s caused. And for frightening you with the blanket. I never meant for you to doubt yourself, but I didn’t see any other way to stop you. You were going to discover everything. I can’t let that happen. I can’t put you in any more danger, or myself.”

Her lips parted, giving him a glimpse of even white teeth. He touched her bottom lip with an index finger, and then trailed it down across the line of her jaw and smooth column of her throat to her delicate breastbone and the scooped neckline of her dark brown sweater. Her low-slung, faded jeans clung to her hips and thighs in all the right places.

He groaned. He shouldn’t be thinking of sex. She had enough problems without him adding to it. But he couldn’t help but think of a sexual relationship with her, however short. He couldn’t ignore his body’s reaction—a reaction that both amazed and alarmed him. He’d never been that sexual. Work, more importantly, science, had been his life, something that had always taken precedence over anything else.

He’d had women, of course. There’d never been a problem getting sex. As to his looks or his sexual prowess, he’d never had complaints. But any relationship he’d encountered had lacked any great feeling.

Damn. What a cold ass he’d been. He’d made the mistake of letting everything important fall unheeded behind him. Until now.

Now with his mortality threatened, he hungered for life and everything it involved.

He slid his index finger back up over the column of her throat. Dissatisfied, he pulled away. The gloves masked the feel and texture of her skin.

Margot stirred. Her lids snapped open and she stared at him with large, thick lashed eyes. An indefinable emotion flickered in their depths before they widened. She scrambled along the couch and away from him.

“You’ve done this before. Sat there, watched me, touched me while I’ve been sleeping, haven’t you?”

The question threw him. How could he explain without sounding like a pervert?

“It’s not what you think,” he insisted. But wasn’t it? Hadn’t he crept into her room in the middle of the night and watched her sleep? Hadn’t he touched her? Hadn’t he wanted to take her in his arms, have her naked and crying out his name?

“You’ve been in my room. Late at night while I’ve been asleep.” She shoved her knees up to her chin and wrapped both arms around her jean-clad shins. She regarded him with huge brown, liquid eyes. “I had such dreams... I thought they were my imagination. I’d wake up in the morning feeling so—I thought—”

Sudden awareness flared between them. He felt it, saw it in her eyes and the quick intake of her breath as his own breathing escalated and his groin throbbed and hardened.

“I wanted you.” The admission seemed dragged from her lips. “In my dreams I wanted you to go further than a simple touch.”

It was the truth, Margot realized in dismay, acutely conscious of Jake sitting on the same sofa with her and aware of being in a dark and isolated house together. The idea both horrified and aroused her. He was darkly dangerous, darkly male and darkly mysterious.

His sudden stillness told her he’d been affected by her words. She sensed his desire across the short distance and her body responded, hunger wrapping, then squeezing itself around her belly.

“You don’t know how tempted I was to do more than touch you,” he admitted.

His words, deep, rough and thick with desire washed over her, weakening what little resolve she had. “Don’t.” She lifted her chin. “You don’t have any right to steal into my room. I sure as hell didn’t invite you.”

“But you wanted me. Late at night, alone in bed. At least your body did. You’d arch up, urging me to touch your breasts, curl my fingers between your legs and—”

“Stop it!” She stumbled off the sofa and stepped on a book. The pages ripped beneath her foot. She stared at the crushed volume and remembered everything. Her body once hot and flushed turned icy. Oh my God—to think for a few moments she’d forgotten the vandalism. She glanced over at Jake still seated on the sofa. “I want you out of here.”

She dodged a mound of books and snapped on the lamp on top of her desk. She blinked at the brightness, while the sudden throb of a headache pressed against her temples. She could thank the wine. Rubbing at her brow, she looked at the books thrown at her feet.

Jake saw her glance at the floor and then look at him. The accusation on her face was unmistakable. His heart rate faltered, then galloped full tilt. “You think I did this?”

“Of course. Who else? Can you tell me that? It’s seems damned strange that you show up at my door and this happens! It took Joyce and I hours just to clean a portion of the place—your room included.” She tossed several raven strands over one shoulder. “I don’t want you here. I’ll give you enough time to pack before I call the police. It won’t take Carl long to get here.”

“That doesn’t make sense! Why would I trash my own stuff? Can you answer me that?”

“I don’t know!” She balled her hands at her sides. “I don’t know you! Or what motivates you! For all I know you could be some sick lunatic.”

Jake rose to his feet, but he wasn’t ready to leave yet. “I’m not some lunatic. How can I convince you I didn’t do this?”

“Can you give me proof?”

“Proof? You want proof?” He turned, intending to walk the length of the room, but stumbled over a book. He picked it up and leafed through the pages. Did he dare tell her? No. Once she knew, matters would escalate. More questions would be raised, more people would become involved. Someone else would get hurt or even die. He couldn’t handle that. Margot might not value her life, but he did.

“I have no alibi,” he said, his voice weary and tired as he placed the volume on an empty bookshelf beside him. “I was alone.”

Palms upward, he raised his hands. “Damn it, Margot. You’ve got to believe me. I had nothing to do with this. If I’d known it was happening, I would have done something to stop it.”

“Even if you had nothing to do with what happened today—something’s going on. Why else would you make an effort to disguise yourself? The wig. The glasses. You’re hiding from someone or something. I want to know what it is. I want the truth. And I want it now. Are you running from the police?”

He ignored the panic. How could he have ever thought she’d forget her little discovery in his bedroom? What did he say? What could he say? Did he tell her the truth? He rubbed the back of his neck where the label of his turtleneck chaffed at his skin.

“Well?” She folded her arms across her middle. “I want answers. Do I have to call Carl? Because I will. Maybe he’ll get to the bottom of this. Maybe he’ll be able to find out what you’re hiding.”

When he still didn’t answer, she strode over to the desk, reached over and put her hand on the phone. Damn it! He bounded over a pile of books to get to her side and covered his gloved hand over her own. The light was shining on him, damn it, but he couldn’t let her make that call.

She tried to pull away while retaining a grip on the receiver, but he held on. “Don’t,” he breathed into her ear, unable to mask the desperation in his voice. “Don’t call the police.”

She turned as if in slow motion—her waist twisting, her neck arching sideways as she lifted her head to look at him. The light on the table hit every pore of his body. She’d know. In a second she’d see the light illuminate his features, his mouth, his teeth—

He continued to hold her hand down against the telephone, as he slammed his other hand against the lamp’s candelabra. The light skirted across the table, tipped over and crashed against the floor.

Utter blackness enveloped the den, then slowly, very slowly moonlight whispered into the room, painting a myriad of different shades of gray against the furniture and fixtures. Blessed shadows shielded him from her eyes. Only then did he let go of her hand.

She stumbled back. “Why did you do that?”

“It was an accident.” He backed away from her, tripping over another damn book with his clumsy feet. He grabbed an empty shelf along the wall to steady himself. “I can’t have you call Carl—or anyone else for that matter.”

“Then tell me,” she insisted.

He bowed his head. For too long he’d kept everything to himself. Years now. There’d been his co-workers of course, but he had yet to confide with anyone outside of Miltronics. No one else knew the details of his research, not even his sister.

He lifted his head and glanced across the distance of the room. Jaw ridged, tension radiating from her slim figure, Margot stood waiting.

“Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll tell you.”

Margot stared at him across the shadowed room. “I need some light in here. You might be able to live in the dark, but I can’t.”

She wove through the debris and lit the fireplace. Flames bloomed from the ceramic logs, and a yellow glow illuminated the room and flickered across the wall and the window. Because of the fire’s reflection, Jake couldn’t see past the glass to the world outside, but anyone on the other side could easily observe Margot and himself.

He strode over and pulled the drapes from the wall anchors and brought both sides of the thick velvet material together.

“So are you going to give me some answers?”

Jake turned from the drape and saw that Margot had sunk down in a high-backed chair. Faded jeans hugged her slim hips and shapely legs, while the dark brown sweater accented her pallor. Even with the dim lighting, she looked exhausted. If he hadn’t shown up at her house, maybe she wouldn’t be going through what she was right now. No. That wasn’t necessarily true. He shouldn’t feel guilty. There were other players.

He cleared his throat. What the hell was he doing? If he spilled his guts, he’d put her in jeopardy. But at the same time, he couldn’t let her start asking questions. Then she’d be in deeper trouble. What had Malcolm said? She wouldn’t be worth one of her

‘dime store books’. Damn. How he hated that phrase and the careless, apathetic way it had been said. When it came down to it, Jake guessed supplying her with some answers was the better of two evils.

“Where do I start?”

“How about at the beginning.”

The feminine huskiness of her voice floated across the room, reminding him all too clearly of his attraction to her. He’d been battling it since that night she’d run into him—even before really. She’d felt so good in his arms. Curves in all the right places. Well, if he were any type of man, he’d fight this thing he had for her.

“I guess I’ll start with Miltronics.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Leaning forward, she rested both elbows on her knees. “Go on.”

He shifted. Getting the words out was proving more difficult than he’d anticipated. “I asked John to safeguard a disk for me. It was a duplicate of a scientific discovery we had been diligently working on for several years. We’d just completed it last month.

Granted, there were a few minor glitches, but it was a relatively pure formula. I had a copy made. It was the only smart thing I did.

At the time, I hadn’t been using my brain or paying attention to the people around me. I didn’t see it coming—not really. I was so damn euphoric. Our department was humming with excitement. We’d actually hit pay dirt with the hypothesis we’d reconstructed!”

His hands were damp beneath the leather gloves and the temptation to rip them off was overwhelming, but of course he didn’t.

He dragged in a deep breath and saw he’d captured her rapt attention. But did he dare tell her what part he’d played? The entire scenario? Shame and self-loathing decided him against the idea. What he’d done was unforgivable.

He exhaled. “To make a long story short—a critical portion of the formula was destroyed. I’ve been trying to reconstruct it without success. The only other complete copy is the one I gave John.”

“And that disk is here, isn’t it?”

“Here or in the lab.”

She jerked to her feet and swept an arm around her. “So you decided to do a little hunting and to hell with my house!”

“No! I told you I didn’t do this!”

“Then who?” She glared at him. “Can you tell me that? Can you?” Hands on her hips, she waited. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it. Suddenly the anger in her eyes dissolved. Surprise and understanding washed over her pale features.