Mistresses: After Hours With The Boss: Her Little White Lie / Their Most Forbidden Fling / An Inescapable Temptation
Mistresses: After Hours With The Boss: Her Little White Lie / Their Most Forbidden Fling / An Inescapable Temptation
Maisey Yates
Scarlet Wilson
MELANIE MILBURNE
He’s Very Demanding…Paige Harper told a little white lie that’s made headlines. The only way to secure the adoption of her best friend’s daughter was to fake an engagement with her boss. Now she can hear Dante Romani marching down the corridor to fire her…or maybe not! What else could he want?As Molly Drummond’s new boss, Lucas Banning poses a challenge – he’s brooding, demanding, and far too good-looking. He’s also a living, breathing reminder of the greatest tragedy in Molly’s life – so what does it mean that her heart skips a beat every time she sees him? Would a whirlwind fling be forbidden?Nurse Francesca Cruz has taken a job on a cruise ship bound for the Mediterranean except she finds herself trapped with gorgeous, arrogant doctor Gabriel Russo. She knows his type well, and won’t be tempted. But with nowhere to escape and her delicious boss lying in the next cabin, it’s easier said than done!
Mistresses: After Hours with the Boss
Her Little White Lie
Maisey Yates
Their Most Forbidden Fling
Melanie Milburne
An Inescapable Temptation
Scarlet Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ua7cddc60-e5e1-53b1-83cf-cd77bd505d50)
Title Page (#ua3758fb0-8455-507a-88bc-dcfd6ff79902)
Her Little White Lie (#u59a7ca9b-531e-58d1-ae8a-8d26f1304cb5)
Extract (#uc16f2464-e368-58f0-adaa-d726c91a9429)
About the Author (#ud476e42e-ca4d-583f-a14b-567d865194f3)
Dedication (#ub7fc3671-1fd3-547e-9125-41a3c162ff27)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub3eea39c-9d13-56bc-acdc-e8ac5b389e06)
CHAPTER TWO (#u2e6461ce-ea6f-51db-a859-8cf0479f1b68)
CHAPTER THREE (#u1a9b260e-20aa-559c-a83d-9bccc7e7d56d)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u3893665c-6cbd-5897-b4a9-4f056cf02a4d)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u7a358bca-2e61-51eb-bcdf-7a5f7c90063a)
CHAPTER SIX (#u8620d73b-4e31-5997-ab22-24dbd6a6df2e)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u0a1b6b35-aec5-5f9c-9583-93232e39bfa2)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u085604dc-ffea-5d6e-b639-ee441249f28a)
CHAPTER NINE (#udf926321-1344-5332-b587-fcd98017213d)
CHAPTER TEN (#u23c78d58-daf6-5cef-84ae-82cc34439bd4)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Their Most Forbidden Fling (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
An Inescapable Temptation (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Her Little White Lie (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
He’d tried to block out the intense need that had been rioting through him from the moment he’d gotten out of bed last night and left her there alone when he’d wanted nothing more than to take her again. And again. And again.
Dante wanted even more to try and eradicate the pain in his chest that seemed to hit him so hard and strong whenever he looked at Paige holding Ana. A mother and her child. The love that passed between them. The truest love he’d known. The love he had lost.
He wanted to crush those feelings. Bury them beneath something stronger. Lust. Sex. Desire.
“Don’t ignore me, Paige,” he said. He swept her hair to the side and bent, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “Ever.”
She shivered beneath his touch. “I wasn’t.”
“You were trying to ignore this.” He traced the line of her neck with the tip of his tongue. “And you know we can’t.”
USA Today bestselling author MAISEY YATES lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiselled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit. Visit her online at her website www.maiseyyates.com (http://www.maiseyyates.com).
For my grandma,
who passed on her love of books and romance to me.
CHAPTER ONE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
“EXPLAIN this, or pack up your things and get out.”
Paige Harper looked up from her seated position and into her boss’s dark, angry eyes. Having him here, in her office, was enough to leave her speechless. Breathless. He was handsome from far away and, up close, even enraged, he was arresting. It was hard to look away from him, but she managed. Then she looked down at the newspaper he’d thrown onto the surface of her desk and her heart sank into her stomach.
“Oh …” She picked up the paper. “Oh …”
“Speechless?”
“Oh …”
“I said explain, Ms. Harper. ‘Oh’ is not an explanation in any language that I am aware of.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and Paige suddenly felt two inches tall.
“I …” She looked back down at the paper, open to the lifestyle section, the main headline reading Dante Romani to Tie the Knot with Employee. Underneath the headline were two pictures. One of Dante, looking forbidding and perfectly pressed in a custom-made suit. And one of her, on a ladder, in a window at Colson’s, hanging strips of tinsel from the ceiling in preparation for the holiday season.
“I …” She tried again as she scanned the article.
Dante Romani, notorious bad boy of the Colson Department Store empire, who just last week made headlines for the callous axing of a top exec, and for replacing the family man in favor of a younger, less-attached man, is now engaged to one of his employees. We can’t help but wonder if playing games with his staff is a favored pastime of the much-maligned businessman. Either firing them or marrying them at will.
Her stomach tightened with horror. She couldn’t fathom how this had ended up in the paper. She’d done a fair amount of panicking over how she was going to fix the lie she’d told the social worker, but she’d thought she would have some time. She hadn’t expected this, not even in her wildest dreams.
But there it was, the lie of the century, shouting at her in black and white.
“That’s hardly more eloquent, or more informative.”
“I told a lie,” she said.
He looked around her office, and her eyes followed his, over the stacks of fabric samples, boxes with beads hanging out of them, aerosol cans of flocking and paint sitting in the corner and Christmas knickknacks spread over every surface.
He looked back at her, his lip curled upward. “On second thought, why don’t you skip packing and just walk out. I can have your things express delivered to you.”
“Wait … no …” Losing her job was unthinkable, as was getting caught in her lie. She needed her job. And she really didn’t need child services to find out she’d lied during her adoption interview. Well, what she really needed was a time machine so that she could go back and opt not to lie to Rebecca Addler, but that was probably a bit too complicated as solutions went.
She looked back down at the article.
It’s hard to imagine that a man who so recently fired someone for being, reportedly more devoted to his family than to the almighty dollar, could settle down and become a family man himself. The question is: Can this thoroughly average woman reform the soulless CEO? Or will she become another in the long line of professional and personal casualties Dante Romani leaves in his wake?
Average woman. Yeah, that sounded like her life. Even in her lie, where she was engaged to the hottest billionaire in town, she came out of it as the average woman.
She swallowed and looked back up at her boss’s blazing expression. “This is horrible journalism. Sensationalist nonsense, really. All but an opinion piece, one might say. Fluff, even.”
Dante cut her off, his black eyes hard, flat. “What did you hope to accomplish with this? Was it fun gossip you didn’t think would spread around to this degree? Or was it something you wanted?”
She stood, her knees shaking. “No, I just …”
“You might not be newsworthy, Ms. Harper, but I am.”
“Hey!” The assessment burned, especially on the heels of the descriptor of her as “average.” Of course, she had to admit, looking at their pictures side by side, that average was a pretty kind descriptor.
“Did I offend you?”
“A little.”
“I guarantee it is not half so offensive as coming into work to discover you’re engaged to someone you have barely had four conversations with.”
“Actually, I’m sort of in the same boat you are. I didn’t expect for this to be in the paper. I didn’t … I didn’t expect for anyone to ever find out.”
“Be that as it may, they have. And now I have. It would be best if you were to see yourself out. I do not wish to call security.” He turned and started to walk out of the room and she felt her heart slide the rest of the way down.
“Mr. Romani,” she said, “please, hear me out.” She was nearly pleading. No, who was she kidding? She was pleading. And she wasn’t ashamed. She would get down on her knees and beg if she had to, but she wasn’t going to let him ruin this.
“I tried. You had nothing of interest to say.”
“Because I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning works for me.”
She took a deep breath. “Rebecca Addler frowns on single mothers. Not every social worker does, but this one … this one doesn’t like them. I mean, not that she doesn’t like them personally, but in general. And she asked me why Ana would be better off with me as opposed to a real, traditional family with a mother and a father and I just sort of told her that there would be a father because I was getting married and then your name slipped out because … well, because I work for you, so I see it a lot and it was the first name I thought of.”
He blinked twice, then shifted, his head tilted to the side. “That was not the beginning.”
Paige took another deep breath, trying to slow down her brain and find a better starting point. “I’m trying to adopt.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, I have my daughter in the day care here.”
“I don’t go to the day care,” he said, his tone flat.
“Ana’s just a baby. She’s been with me almost from the moment she was born. I …” Thinking of Shyla still made her throat tighten, made her ache everywhere. Her beautiful, vivacious best friend. The only person who’d really enjoyed her eccentricity rather than simply bearing it. “Her mother is gone. And I’m taking care of her. Nothing was made official before Shyla … anyway she’s a ward now.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the state has the final say over her placement. It’s been fine for me to foster her, I’m approved for that. But … but not necessarily for adopting. I’ve been trying and I had a meeting with the worker handling the case two days ago. It was looking like they weren’t going to approve the adoption. And yes, I lied. About us. And about … the engagement, but please believe it had nothing to do with you.”
A slight lie. It had a lot to do with the fact that he was much better looking than any man had a right to be. And she had to go in to work in the same building as he did, and chance walking by him in the halls. Being exposed to all that male beauty was a hazard.
So, yes, there were times she thought of him away from work. In fairness, he was the best-looking man she’d ever encountered in her entire life, and she was in a dating dry spell of epic proportions, which meant, pleasant time with images of Dante was about all she had going on in her love life.
And she saw the man all the time, and that made things worse.
As a result of the exposure, when pressed for the name of her fiancé by Rebecca Addler, the only man she’d been able to picture had been Dante. And so his name had sort of spilled out.
Another gaffe in a long line of them for her. When it came to “oops,” she was well above average.
So there, newspaper reporter.
One of his dark eyebrows shot upward. “I’m flattered.”
She put her hand on her forehead. “There is no way for me to win trying to explain this,” she said. “It’s just awkward. But … but … I don’t really know what to do now. It wasn’t supposed to be in the paper, and now it is, and if it turns out we aren’t engaged they’ll know that I lied and then …”
“And then you’ll be a single mother who is also a liar. Two strikes, I would think.” His tone was so disengaged, so unfeeling.
She swallowed. “Well, exactly.”
He was right. Two strikes. If not a plain old strikeout. It wasn’t an acceptable risk. Not where Ana was concerned. Ana, the brightest spot in her life. Her helpless little girl, the baby she loved more than her own life. There was nothing and no one else she would even consider stooping to this level of subterfuge for, nothing else that could possibly compel her to do what she was starting to think she had to do: propose to her boss.
The man who practically stole the air from her lungs when he walked into a room. The man who was so far out of her league, even thinking of a dinner date with him was laughable.
But this was bigger than that. Bigger than a little crush or her insecurity. Her fear of outright rejection.
“I … I think I need your help.”
There was no change in his expression. Dante Romani was impossible to read, but then, that wasn’t really new. He was the dark prince of the Colson empire, the adopted son of Don and Mary Colson. The media speculated that they’d adopted him because he’d shown profound brilliance at an early age. No one imagined it had been his personality that had won over the older couple.
She’d always thought those stories were sad and unfair. Now she wondered. Wondered if he was as heartless as he was portrayed to be. She really hoped he wasn’t, because she was going to need him to care at least a little bit in order to pull this off.
“I’m not in the position to give this kind of help,” he said, his tone dry.
“Why?” she asked, pushing herself into a standing position. “Why not? I … I don’t need you forever, I just need …”
“You need me to marry you. I think that’s a step too far into crazy town, don’t you?”
“For my daughter,” she said, the words raw, loud and echoing in the room. And now that she’d said them, out loud, she didn’t regret them. She would do anything for Ana. Even this. Even if it meant getting thrown out of the office building.
Because for the first time in her memory, something mattered. It mattered more than self-protection or fending off disappointment. It was worth the possibility of adding to her list of failures.
“She’s not your daughter,” he said.
She gritted her teeth, trying to keep a handle on the adrenaline that was pounding through her, making her shake. “Blood isn’t everything. I would think you would understand that.” Probably not the best idea to be taking shots at him, but it was true. He should understand.
He regarded her for a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I will not fire you. For now. But I will require further explanation. An explanation that makes sense. What do you have on your agenda for the day?”
“I’m working on Christmas,” she said, indicating the array of decorations spread out in the room. “For Colson’s and for Trinka.” She was working on a series of elegant displays for the parent store, and for their offshoot, teen clothing store, something mod and edgy.
“You’ll be in the office?”
She nodded. “Just fiddling today.”
“Good. Don’t leave until we’ve spoken again.” He turned and walked out of her office and she sank to her knees, her hands shaking, her entire body wound so tight she wanted to curl in on herself.
She was so stupid. Nothing new. She’d spoken without thinking. As per usual. Only this time it had landed her in serious trouble, with the man who signed her checks.
Everything was in his hands now. Her future. Her family. Her money.
“Time to learn to think before you talk,” she said into the empty office. Unfortunately, it was too late for that. Way, way too late.
Dante finished with the last item of work on his agenda and turned to his file cabinet, placing the last document on his desk into its appropriate spot. Then he put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, staring at the newspaper on the shining surface.
He’d studied the news story again when he’d come back into his office. A scathing piece on how the impostor of the Colson family moved people around like pawns on a chessboard. It was stacked with details about the man, Carl Johnson, he’d fired last week for skipping out on an important meeting to go to a child’s sporting event.
The press had covered it a week ago, too, since Carl had gone screaming to the papers over discrimination of some kind. In Dante’s mind, it wasn’t discrimination to expect an employee to attend mandatory meetings, no matter whether it was the last game of a five-year-old’s T-ball season or not.
Still, it had been another of those juicy bits the media had latched on to to further stack the case against him and his possession of human decency. It generally didn’t matter to him.
But one thing in that article stood out to him: Can she reform him?
Could Paige Harper reform him? The idea amused him. He had the bare minimum of contact with her. She did her job, and she did it well, so he never had a reason to involve himself. But he had noticed her. Impossible not to. She was a blur of shimmer when she moved around the office. Boundless energy and a sense of the accidental radiated from her.
He would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by her. She was a window into so many things he would never seek out: chaos, color, motion. So many things he would never be. Combined with the fact that she had a figure most men would be hard-pressed to ignore, and yes, he was intrigued by her.
But no matter how intrigued, she simply wasn’t the sort of woman he would normally approach. Until this.
“Can this thoroughly average woman reform the soulless CEO?”
He had no desire to take part in a reformation, but the idea of an image overhaul in the media? That had possibilities.
He could have demanded a retraction the moment he’d walked in that morning. Or he could let it run. Let them build off the image they’d created for him when he’d been thrust into the spotlight. A fourteen-year-old boy, adopted, finally, and suspected of being capable of all manner of violence and sociopathic behaviors.
His story had been written in the public eye before he’d had a chance to live it. And so he had never challenged it. Had never cared.
But suddenly he had been handed a tool that might help change things.
He turned around and faced the windows, looked out at the harbor. He could still see the look on her face. Not just the expression, but the depth of fear and desperation in her eyes. The press had a few things right about him, and one of them was that feelings, emotions, mattered little to him. And still … still he couldn’t forget. And he thought of the baby, too.
He had no use for children. No desire for them. But he could remember being one all too well. Could remember being passed around the foster care system for eight years of his life. Could remember what it was like to be at the mercy of either the State, or, before that, adults who brought harm, not love.
Could he consign Ana to that same fate? Or to a family who might not feel that same desperate longing that Paige seemed to feel for her?
And why should he care at all? That was the million-dollar question. Caring wasn’t counted among his usual afflictions.
The door to his office opened and Paige breezed in. Maybe breezed was the wrong term. A breeze denoted something gentle, soothing even. Paige was more a gale-force wind.
She had a big, gold bag hanging off her shoulder, one that matched her glittering, golden pumps that likely added four inches to her height. She also had a bolt of fabric held tightly beneath the other arm, and a large sketchbook beneath that. She looked like she might drop all of it at any moment.
She plunked her things down in the chair in front of his desk, bending at the waist, her skirt tightening over the curve of her butt, and pushed her hand back through her dark brown hair, revealing a streak of bright pink nearly hidden beneath the top layers.
She was a very bright woman in general, one of the things that made her impossible to ignore. Bright makeup, lime-green on her lids, magenta on her lips, and matching fingernails. She made for an enticing picture, one he found himself struggling to look away from.
“You said to come in and see you before I left?”
“Yes,” he said, breaking his focus from her for the first time since she’d come in, looking at the items she’d chucked haphazardly into the chair. He had a very strong urge to straighten them. Hang them on a hook. Anything but simply let them lie there.
“Are you going to fire me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, tightening his jaw. “Tell me more about your situation.”
A little wrinkle appeared between her brows, her full lips turning down. “In a nutshell, Shyla was my best friend. We moved here together. She got a boyfriend, got pregnant. He left. And everything was fine for a while, because we were working it out together. But she got really sick after giving birth to Ana. She lost a lot of blood during delivery and she had a hard time recovering. She ended up … there was a clot and it traveled to her lungs.” She paused and took a breath, her petite shoulders rising and falling with the motion. “She died and that left … Ana and I.”
He pushed aside the strange surge of emotion that hit him in the chest. The thought of a motherless child. A mother the child had lost to death. He tightened his jaw. “Your friend’s parents?”
“Shyla’s mother has never been around. Her father is still alive as far as I know, but he wouldn’t be able to care for a child. He wouldn’t want to, either.”
“And you can’t adopt unless you’re married.”
She let out a long breath and started pacing. “It’s not that simple. I mean, she didn’t say that absolutely. There’s no … law, or anything. I mean, obviously. But from the moment Rebecca Addler, the caseworker, came to my apartment it was clear that she wasn’t thrilled with it.”
“What’s wrong with your apartment?”
“It’s small. I mean, it’s nice—it’s in a good area, but it’s small.”
“Housing is expensive in San Diego.”
“Yes. Exactly. Expensive. So I have a small apartment, and right now Ana shares a room with me. And I admit that a fifth-floor apartment isn’t ideal for raising a child, but plenty of people do it.”
“Then why can’t you do it?” he asked, frustration starting to grow in his chest, making it feel tight. Making him feel short-tempered.
“I don’t know why. But it was really obvious by the way she said … by how she was saying that Ana would be better off with a mother and a father, and didn’t I want her to have that? Well, that made it pretty obvious that she really doesn’t want me to get custody. And … I panicked.”
“And somehow my name came into this? And into the paper?”
Her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. “I don’t know how that happened. The paper. I can’t imagine Rebecca … If you could have met her, you would know she didn’t do it. Maybe whoever handled the paperwork because I know she made a note.”
“A note?”
Paige winced. “Yeah. A note.”
“Saying?”
“Your name. That we’d just gotten engaged. She said it was possible it would make a difference.”
“You don’t think it has more to do with the fact that I’m a billionaire than it has to do with the fact that you’re getting married.”
He was under no illusion about his charm, or lack of it. And neither was the world in general. The thing that attracted women to him was money. The thing that made him acceptable in the eyes of the social worker would be the same thing. Monetarily, he would be able to provide for a child. Several children, and that did matter. A sorry way to decide parentage in his opinion.
But that was the way the world worked. Coming from having none, to having more than he could ever spend, had taught him that in a very effective way.
“Possibly,” she said, sucking her bright pink bottom lip into her mouth and worrying it with her teeth.
His phone rang and he punched the speaker button. “Dante Romani.”
His assistant’s nervous voice filled the room. “Mr. Romani,” he said, “the press have been calling all afternoon looking for a statement … about your engagement.”
Dante shot Paige his deadliest glare. She didn’t shrink. She hardly seemed to notice. She was looking past him, out the window, at the harbor, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, her knees shaking back and forth. She was the most … haphazard creature he’d ever seen.
“What about it?” Dante asked, still unsure how he was going to play it.
As far as the press was concerned, he was marrying Paige and he was adopting a child with her. To go back on that a day later would kill the last vestiges of speculation that he might possess honor or human decency. That wasn’t exactly a goal of his. Yes, by the standards of some, he lacked charm. Really, he just wasn’t inclined to kiss ass, and he never had been. But it didn’t mean he was angling for a complete character assassination by the media, either.
If things got too bad, and they were headed that way, it might affect business. And that was completely unacceptable to him. Don and Mary Colson had adopted an heir to their fortune, to their department store empire, for a reason. It was not so he could let it fail.
And then there was Ana. Dante didn’t like children. Didn’t want them. But the memories from his own childhood, memories of foster care, of going from home to home, sometimes good, sometimes not, were strong.
Perhaps Ana would be adopted right away. But would they care for her? Would they love her? Paige did; that much even he could recognize.
This concern, for another human being, was unusual for him. It was foreign. But he couldn’t deny that it was there. Very real, very strong. The need to spare an innocent child from some of the potential horrors of life. Horrors he knew far too well.
“They want details,” Trevor said.
Dante’s eyes locked with Paige’s. “Of course they do.” So do I. “But they’ll have to wait. I have no statement at this time.” He punched the off button on the phone’s intercom. “But I will need one,” he said to Paige. A plan was forming in his mind, a way to take this potential PR disaster and turn it into something that would benefit him. But first, he wanted to hear an explanation. “What do you propose we do?”
Paige stopped jiggling her leg. “Get married?” Her expression was so hopeless, so utterly lost looking. “Or … at least let the engagement go on for a while?” The desperation, coming from her in waves, was palpable.
No one had ever cared for him with so much passion, not in the years since he’d lost his birth mother. He didn’t regret it. It was far too late in life for that.
But it isn’t too late for Ana.
He looked back down at the newspaper. It wouldn’t only be for Ana anyway. It was a strange thought … the idea of being able to manipulate the image he’d always had in the press.
He’d grown from sullen teenage boy to feared man all in the eye of the public. For years he’d been painted as an unloving, ungrateful adopted child who had no place in the Colson family. As he’d grown up, his image had changed to that of a hard boss, a heartless lover who drew women in with sexual promises, sensual corruption and money before discarding them. It colored the way people saw him. The way they talked to him. The way they did business with him.
What would it be like to have it change? It wouldn’t last, of course. He wouldn’t stay with her. Wouldn’t pursue anything remotely resembling a real marriage. An engagement though, at least for a while, had interesting possibilities.
But to be seen as the angel rather than the devil … it was an interesting thought. It might make certain transactions easier. Smoother.
Dante was past the point where negative character assessments bothered him. Unless they affected a business. And in the past, he knew people had shied away from dealings with him thanks to his reputation.
A womanizer. Heartless. Cutthroat. Dangerous. It had all been said and then some, most of it spun from speculation and created stories. Would it change things if he were considered settled? A family man? Even if it wasn’t permanent, it could quite possibly shift how people saw him.
An interesting thought indeed.
Can she reform him? The real question was, could he use her to reform his image?
For a moment, a brief moment, he allowed himself to think of the many ways he could use her. Fantasies that had been on the edge of his consciousness every time she breezed through the office. Fantasies he had not allowed.
He gave them a moment’s time, and then shut the door on them. It was not her body he needed.
“All right, Ms. Harper, for the purposes of keeping the facade, I accept your proposal.”
Her blue eyes widened. “You … what?”
“I have decided that I will marry you.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE was pretty sure the floor shook underneath her feet. But Dante didn’t look at all perturbed, and everything appeared to be stable, so maybe the shaking was all internal.
“You … what?”
“I accept. At least on a surface level. At least until the furor in the media dies down.”
“I … Okay,” she said, watching her boss as he stood from his position behind his desk. His movements were methodical, planned and purposeful.
He was always like that. Smooth and unruffled. She had wondered, more than once, what it took to get him to loosen up. What it took to shake that perfect, well-ordered control.
She’d wondered, only a couple of times, if a lover ever managed to do it for him. Loosen his tie, run her fingers through his hair.
Now she knew she had the power to do it. Not in the way a lover would, but by inadvertently leaking a fake engagement to the press.
“Excellent,” he said, his tone clipped. Decisive. “I see no reason why this can’t work.”
“I … Why?”
“Is this not what you want? What you need?”
Her head was spinning. This morning everything in her world had been on the verge of collapse, and now—now it seemed like she might actually be able to keep it all standing. “Well … yes. But let’s be honest. You aren’t exactly known for your accommodating and helpful nature, sorry, so it seems … out of character.”
He bent and picked up the paper from his desk, his dark eyes skimming it. “Can you imagine what the media would say if I backed out? They’re already salivating for the chance to rip me to pieces if I would just give it to them. This article is practically a setup for the following piece where they will gleefully report that I have dropped my subordinate fiancée, who I was likely playing power games with, for my own debauched satisfaction, and ruined her chances of adopting her much-loved child. It would have an even darker angle to it, considering I myself am adopted. I can see that headline now.”
“Well, yes, I can see how that would be … not good. But I’m surprised they just … believed that we were engaged anyway.” Average woman. That was what they’d called her in the paper. And Dante Romani would never be linked with a woman who was average.
In so many ways it was like a bad joke. A cruel high school flashback.
“Been reading stories about me?” he asked, his lips curving into a half smile.
“Well, I mean, I see them,” she said, stuttering. He didn’t need to know that sometimes she looked at pictures of him for a little longer than necessary. It wasn’t like anyone could blame her. She was a woman; he was a stunningly attractive man. But she knew she had no shot with him, ever. And no desire to take one. “But also, we haven’t really been seen together in public, so it seems odd that they would just assume, based on a random tip, that we’re engaged.”
He shrugged. “It sounds like something I would do. Keep a real relationship under wraps. In theory. I haven’t had one, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Right. Yes. I know that.”
“You do read the stories, then.”
Her cheeks heated and she cleared her throat. “That and I have keen powers of observation and … Oh, no!”
“What?”
Paige looked at the clock on Dante’s wall, positioned just above his head. “I have to go pick Ana up. Everyone is probably waiting on me.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“What?” She needed to get away from him for a minute. Or have flustered-angry Dante back. Now that he had a plan he had taken firm control over everything and it was making her feel dazed.
“Well, I am your fiancé now, am I not?”
Paige’s head was swimming, her fingers feeling slightly numb. “I don’t know … are you?”
He nodded once. “Yes. For all intents and purposes.”
“Oookay then.”
“You seem uncertain, Paige,” he said, taking his coat off the peg that was mounted to the wall and opening the door.
Paige scrambled to collect her things from the chair. “I … I’m not, not really. I just don’t know how you went from spitting nails in my office to … agreeing.”
“I’m a man of action. I don’t have time to be indecisive.”
She walked past him and out into the lobby area of his floor. His assistant, Trevor, was positioned behind his desk, his eyes locked on to the both of them.
“Have a nice evening, Mr. Romani,” he said.
“You too, Trevor. You should go home,” Dante said.
“In a bit. So …”
“Oh, yeah,” Paige said. “We’re engaged.”
“You are?” he asked, his expression skeptical.
Paige nodded and looked at Dante who looked … uncharacteristically amused. “Yes,” she said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“I … didn’t know,” Trevor said.
“I’m a private man,” Dante said. “When it suits me.”
“Apparently,” Trevor said, looking back at his computer screen.
“See you tomorrow,” Dante said. Trevor made a vague nod in acknowledgment.
Paige followed Dante to the elevator and stepped inside when the doors opened. “So … Trevor doesn’t seem thrilled,” she said. Really, she was surprised at the dynamic between Dante and his assistant. Dante was something of a fearsome figure in her mind, and the fact that Trevor hadn’t been fired on the spot for his obvious annoyance with the situation wasn’t exactly what she’d expected.
“Trevor is mad because he didn’t know,” Dante said. “Because he likes to know everything, and make sure it’s jotted down in my schedule at least six months in advance.”
“And you don’t mind that he was … upset?”
Dante frowned. “Why? Did you expect me to throw him from the thirtieth-floor window?”
“It was a possibility I hadn’t ruled out.”
“I’m not a tyrant.”
“No?” He gave her a hard stare. “Well, you fired Carl Johnson. For the baseball game,” she said.
“And it makes me a tyrant because I expect my employees to show up during work hours and earn the generous salaries I pay them?” he asked.
“Well … it was for his child’s T-ball game …”
“That meant nothing to anyone else in the meeting. It might have personally meant something to Carl, but not to anyone else. And if everyone was allowed to miss work anytime something seemed like it might take precedence for them personally, we would not be able to get anything done.”
“Well, what about when you have something in your personal life that requires attention.”
“I have neatly handled what might have been a dilemma by having no personal life,” he said, his tone hard.
“Oh. Well …”
“You expect me to be unreasonable because of what is written about me,” he said, “in spite of what you see in the office on a daily basis. Which only serves to prove the power of the media. And the fact that it’s time I manipulated it to my advantage.”
Her face burned. “I … suppose.” It was true. Dante was a hard man but, other than this morning, she’d never heard him raise his voice. As bosses went, he’d never been a bad one. But she’d always gotten an illicit thrill when he was around. A sense of something dark. And it was very likely the media was to blame.
“And you do read the stories they write about me,” he said, as if he was able to read her mind.
She pursed her lips. “Fine. I’ve read some of what’s been written about you.”
“Being a tyrant implies a lack of control, in my opinion, Paige. And it shows an attempt to claim it in a very base way. I have control over this company, of my business, in all situations, and I don’t have to raise my voice to get it.”
She cleared her throat and stared straight ahead at the closed elevator door. At their warped reflections in the gleaming metal. She came just past his shoulder, and that was in her killer heels. She looked … tiny. A bit awkward. And he looked … well, like Dante always looked. Dark and delicious, supremely masculine, completely not awkward and just a little frightening.
“You raised your voice when you were in my office,” she said, still looking at reflection Dante, and not actual Dante. Actual Dante was almost too handsome to look at directly, especially when standing so close to him.
He laughed, a short, one-note sound. “It was deserved in the situation, don’t you think?”
“Was it?”
“How would you have felt if the situations were reversed?”
“I don’t know. Look, are you serious about this?” she asked, turning to face him just as the doors to their floor slid open.
“I don’t joke very often, if at all,” he said.
“Well, that’s true. But in my experience when men say they want to date me, it can turn out to have been a cruel joke, so I’m thinking my boss agreeing to get engaged to me could be something along those same lines.”
“What is this?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, just … high school. You are planning on following through with this, right? Dante, if I get caught—committing fraud, basically—it might not just be Ana that I lose.”
“As previously stated, Paige, I do not joke. I am not joking now.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re helping me.”
“Because it helps me.”
He said it with such certainty, and no shame.
Paige sputtered. “In what regard?”
“People see me … well, as a tyrant. If not that, a corruptor of innocents, and perhaps, the personification of Charon, ready to lead people down the river Styx and into Hades.”
He said it lightly, with some amusement, though his expression stayed smooth. Paige laughed. “Uh, yes, well, I suppose that’s true.”
“Already there is speculation that you might manage to reform me. The idea of giving that impression … I find it intriguing. An interesting social experiment if nothing else, and one with the potential to improve business for me.”
“Of course you would also actually be helping me and Ana,” she pointed out.
He nodded once. “I don’t find that objectionable.”
She could have laughed. He said it so seriously, as if she might really think he would find helping others something vile. And he said it like that perception didn’t bother him.
“Okay. Good.” She continued on down the hall with him, on the way to the day care center that she’d come to be so grateful for.
She opened the door and sighed heavily when she saw Genevieve, the main caregiver, holding Ana. They were the last two there. “I’m so sorry,” she said, dumping her things on the counter and reaching for Ana.
Genevieve smiled. “No worries. She’s almost asleep again. She did scream a little bit when five rolled around and you weren’t here.”
Paige frowned, a sharp pain hitting her in the chest. Ana was only four months old, but she already knew Paige as her mother. There had been such few moments in Paige’s life when she’d been certain of something, where she hadn’t felt restless and on the verge of failure.
One of those moments was when she’d been hired to design the window displays for Colson’s. The other was when Shyla had placed Ana in Paige’s arms.
Can you take care of her?
She’d only meant for a moment. While she rested and tried to shake some of the chronic fatigue that came with having a newborn. But Shyla had lain down on their sofa for a nap that day and never woken up. And Paige was still taking care of Ana. Because she had to. Because she wanted to. Because she loved Ana more than her own life.
Genevieve transferred Ana and her blanket into Paige’s arms, and Paige pulled her daughter in close, her heart melting, her eyes stinging. She looked back at Dante, and she knew that she’d done the right thing.
Because she would be damned if anyone was taking Ana from her, and she would do whatever she had to do to insure that no one did. Ana was hers forever. And even if marriage to Dante wasn’t strictly necessary, she would take it as insurance every time.
Genevieve bent to retrieve Ana’s diaper bag, then popped back up, her eyes widening when she registered the presence of their boss. “Mr. Romani, what brings you down here?”
Paige thought the girl had a slightly hopeful edge to her voice. As if she was hoping Dante had come to ravish her against the wall. Something Paige could kind of relate to, since Dante had that effect. Even Paige, who knew better than to fantasize about men who were so far out of her league, struggled with the odd Dante-themed fantasy. It was involuntary, really.
“I’m here to collect Ana,” he said.
Genevieve looked confused. “Oh … I …” He reached over the counter and took the diaper bag from the surprised-looking Genevieve.
“With Paige,” he finished. “It was announced in the news today, but in case you haven’t heard, Paige and I are to be married.”
Genevieve’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, I …”
“Let’s go, caramia,” he said, sweeping Paige’s things from the counter and gathering them into his arms. Her big, broad-chested Italian boss, clutching her sequined purse to his chest, was enough to make her dissolve into hysteric fits of laughter, but there was something else, another feeling, one that made her stomach tight and her chest warm, stopping the giggles.
She wiggled her fingers in Genevieve’s direction and walked through the door, which Dante was currently holding open for her with his shoulder.
Paige continued down the hall, heading toward the parking garage. Dante was behind her, still holding all of her things. She stopped. “Sorry, I can take that.”
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“But you don’t have to … I mean … you don’t have to walk me out to my car.”
“I think I do,” he said.
“No. You really don’t. There’s no reason.”
“We have just announced our engagement. Do you think I would let my fiancée walk out to her car by herself, with a baby, a diaper bag, a purse and … whatever else I’m currently holding?”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But then, you don’t really have a reputation for being chivalrous.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but I’m changing it, remember?”
“Why exactly?”
“Walk while you talk,” he said.
Not for the first time, Paige noticed that he didn’t look at Ana. She seemed no more interesting to him than the inanimate objects in his arms. Most people softened when they saw her, reached out and touched her cheek or hair. Not Dante.
“Okay,” she said, turning away from him and continuing on. “So … how are we going to do this?” she asked.
She paused at the door, a strange, new habit she seemed to have developed just since coming down from the top floor with Dante. And he didn’t let her down. He reached past her and opened the door, holding it for her as she walked into the parking garage.
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“There,” she said, flicking her head to the right. “I get to park close now because of Ana.”
“Nice policy,” he said. “I don’t believe I was responsible for it.”
“I think your father was.”
A strange expression passed over his face. “Interesting. But very like Don. He’s always been very practical. One reason he put in the day care facility early on. Because he knew that employees with children needed to feel like their family concerns were a priority. And better for the company because it ensures that there will be minimal issues with employees missing work because of child care concerns. Of course, missing baseball games cannot be helped sometimes, and I am not putting a field in the parking garage,” he finished dryly.
“I imagine not.” She shifted, not quite sure what to do next. “Well, I’ve never met your father, but judging by some of the policies here, he’s a very good man.”
Dante nodded. “He is.”
Paige turned and headed toward her car. “Oh … purse,” she said, stopping her progress and turning to look at Dante. He started trying to extricate the glittery bag from the pile in his arms. Then she checked the door. “Never mind, I forgot to lock it.”
“You forgot to lock it?”
“It’s secure down here,” she said, pulling the back door open and depositing the sleeping Ana in her seat.
“Locking it would make it doubly secure,” he said, his tone stiff.
She straightened. “How long have you lived in this country?”
He frowned. “Since I was six. Why?”
“You just … you speak very formal English.”
“It’s my second language. And anyway, Don and Mary speak very formal English. They are quite upper-crust, you know.”
“And you call them by their first names?”
“I was fourteen when they adopted me, which I’m sure you know given your proclivity for tabloids.”
“Wow. Exaggerate much? Proclivity …”
“And,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “it would have seemed strange to call them anything other than their first names. I was adopted to be the heir to the Colson empire, more than I was adopted to be a son.”
“Is that what they told you?”
His expression didn’t alter. “It’s the only reason I can think of.”
“Then why aren’t you a Colson?” She’d often wondered that, but she’d never asked, of course. Partly because until today she’d never had more than a moment to speak to him.
“Something Don and I agreed on from the start. I wished to keep my mother’s name.”
“Not your father’s?”
His face hardened, his dark eyes black, blank. “No.”
Paige blinked. “Oh.” She looked back down at Ana, who was sleeping soundly and was buckled tightly into her seat. She closed the door and leaned against the side of the car. “So … I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“You’ll see me tonight,” he said, turning away from her.
“What?”
“We’re not going into this without a plan. And if I’m going to help you, you will help me. It’s in both of our best interests that it look real, once we take one step into confirming this, there is no going back. You understand?”
She nodded slowly.
“And you need to remember this. It’s essential for you, much more than it is for me. If this blows up it would simply be another bruise on my reputation, and frankly, what’s one more beating in that area? You on the other hand …”
“I could lose everything,” she said, a sharp pang of regret hitting her in the stomach.
“So we’ll make sure we don’t misstep,” he said. “I’ll follow you to your apartment.”
The thought of him, so big and masculine and … orderly, in her tiny, cluttered space, made her feel edgy. Of having a man, any man really, but a man like him specifically, in her space, was so foreign. But really, there was no other option. And she couldn’t act like he made her nervous. He was supposed to be her fiancé.
And people were somehow supposed to believe that he had chosen her.
“I feel dizzy,” she said.
He frowned. “Should I drive?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said, opening the driver’s side door. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated again, for her own benefit more than his.
And she really hoped it was true.
CHAPTER THREE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE’S house was very like her. Bright, disordered and a bit manic. The living area was packed with things. Canvases, mannequins, bolts of fabric. There was a large bookshelf at the back wall filled with bins. Bins of beads, sequins and other things that sparkled. Her office had simply been the tip of the iceberg.
This was the glittery underbelly.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “You can just dump my stuff on the couch.” She set the baby’s car seat gently on the coffee table and bent, unbuckling the little girl from her seat, drawing her to her chest.
He looked away from the scene. Watching her with the baby reminded him of things. He wasn’t even sure what things exactly, because every time a piece of memory tried to push into his mind, he pushed it out.
He focused instead on trying to find a hook of some kind, something to hang her bag on at least.
“Just dump it,” she said, shifting Ana in her arms.
“I don’t … dump things,” he said tightly.
She rolled her eyes. “Then hold Ana while I do it.”
He drew back, discomfort tightening his throat. “I don’t hold babies.”
She rolled her eyes. “Pick one,” she said.
He set her purse on her kitchen counter and then went farther into the living room, depositing her fabric on another pile of fabric, and placing her sketchbook next to a bin that had paints and pencils in it.
That had some reason to it, at least.
She laughed. “You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t just dump it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with caring for what you have.”
“I do care for it.”
“How do you find everything in here?”
She cocked her head to the side and he caught sight of the flash of pink buried in her hair again. “Easily.” She put her hand on Ana’s back and patted her absently, pacing across the living room.
There was no denying that she looked at ease in her surroundings, even if he couldn’t fathom it. He needed order. A space for everything. A clear and obvious space for himself. He prized it, above almost everything else.
He cleared his throat. “What size ring do you wear?”
“Six,” she said, frowning. “Why?”
“You need one.”
“Well, I have rings. I can just wear one of those,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal.
“You do not have the sort of ring I would buy the woman I intended to marry.”
She paused her pacing. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t buy the sort of ring I would want.”
“We’ll come to a compromise, but your engagement ring must be up to my standards.”
She groaned and sank onto the couch, baby Ana still resting against her chest. “This is bizarre.”
“You’re the one who said we were engaged.”
“Yes. I know. And I knew the minute I said it I was in over my head but it just … popped out.”
For some reason, he didn’t doubt her. Probably because he was the least logical option to choose. If she’d been thinking, she would have chosen a different man. One who liked children and puppies and had some semblance of compassion.
He was not that man, and he knew it as well as everyone around him.
“I can’t lose her,” she said, her focus on the baby in her arms. “I can’t let one stupid mistake ruin her life. And mine.”
He looked at Paige, at the baby nestled against her, ignoring the piece of his brain that demanded he look away from the scene of maternal love. Ana took a deep breath, almost a sigh, that lifted her tiny shoulders and shook her whole little frame. She was content, at rest, against the woman she knew as her mother.
Unexpectedly, genuine concern wrenched his gut. It was foreign. Emotion, in general, was foreign to him. But this kind even more so.
“I understand,” he said. And he found that he did. “But that means this can’t just look real, it has to be real.”
It occurred to him, just as he spoke the words. The engagement wouldn’t be enough. It would have to be more. It would have to be marriage.
“You want to keep Ana.”
“More than anything,” she said.
“Then we have to be sure that the adoption is final before we go our separate ways. We need to get married, not just get engaged.”
She blinked twice. “Like … really get married?”
“I think a government office would be especially concerned with the legality of our union so we can’t very well jump over a broom on the beach.”
“But … but a real marriage?”
“Of course.”
Her blue eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?”
He almost laughed at the abject horror evident in her expression. Most women didn’t look horrified if it was implied they might sleep together; on the contrary, he was used to women being eager to accept the invitation or eager to seek him out.
Though he turned his share down. Far too many were out to reform the bad boy. To make the man with the heart of stone care, to reach him, save him, perhaps. Something that simply wasn’t possible.
He wasn’t a sadist and he had no interest in hurting people. He could easily take advantage of wide-eyed innocents with a desire to reform him. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Still, he found Paige’s clear aversion to it interesting.
“I don’t mean in that way,” he said.
Her blue eyes widened further. “What way?” As if she had to prove her thoughts hadn’t even gotten near the bedroom door. She was a very cute, unconvincing liar.
“I don’t intend to sleep with you.” Even as he said it, he wondered if the underwear she had on beneath her clothes was a bright as the rest of her. Bright pink, showing hints of pale skin beneath delicate lace? He could imagine laying her down on white sheets, the filmy garments electric against the pristine backdrop.
Color flooded her cheeks and she looked down at the top of Ana’s head. “I … of course not. I mean … I never thought you did.”
He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be toying with fantasies of it, either. He had to stay focused. He tightened down on the vein that seemed to bleed a never-ending flow of erotic, Paige-themed imagery through his brain.
“The look on your face said otherwise.”
“It was just an honest question. And anyway, you’re taking this a step deeper, and I’m entitled to ask some questions, and I just need to know what ‘real’ would mean to you. Other than the license, I guess.”
“What I mean by it being real, has to do with our activities outside the bedroom. You will need to accompany me to any events I might need to attend. We will have to get married, and you will have to move into my home. It has to look real.”
Dante didn’t like the idea of it. Not in the least. Of bringing this little rainbow whirlwind into his personal space. And not just Paige, but the baby, as well.
He gritted his teeth. His house was big. It would be fine. And it would be temporary. He didn’t question the decisions he made. He simply made them.
She nodded slowly. “I know. But I mean … it seems crazy and extreme.”
“It’s hardly extreme. Understand this, Paige, you’ve gotten us both into a bit of a dangerous game. There could be very real consequences if we’re caught in the lie. Very real for you, especially.”
She looked away, pulling her lush bottom lip between her teeth. “You’re right.”
He pulled his focus away from her mouth. “Of course I am. Do you have anything to drink?”
“Uh … there’s a box of wine in the fridge.”
Dante didn’t bother to keep the disapproval from showing on his face. “A box?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry if that doesn’t meet with your standards. Maybe you can choose me some wine and a ring?”
“I’m not opposed to it. However, when you move into my home, there will be a wine selection waiting for you. And none of it will be boxed.”
“Well, la-dee-da,” she said, standing. “I’m going to put Ana in her crib. Do you think you can stand here for a minute and keep the internal judgment to a minimum?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said drily.
He watched her walk out of the room, his eyes drawn to the sway of her hips and the rounded curve of her butt. He was only human, and she was beautiful. Not his type in the least, and yet, it wasn’t the first time he’d noticed her.
He liked women who were cool. Contained. In both looks and manner. And Paige was none of those things, which made her both a fascination and impossible to ignore.
Paige returned a moment later, hands free, a wet spot on her shirt near her shoulder. “You have something on your shirt,” he said.
She looked down. “Oh. Yeah. She’s really drooly right now. No teeth to hold it back.”
He let out a long breath and sat down on the couch. “I think I will take some wine.”
The idea of having this woman and her explosion of belongings and a baby who was, by Paige’s description, drooly, in his home was enough to send a kick of anxiety through him.
Paige shrugged and headed to the kitchen, reaching up into a high cabinet and taking down two mismatched pieces of stemware. A green champagne flute and a clear wine goblet. Then she opened up the fridge and bent down, dispensing wine from the plastic tap that was jammed into the cardboard box, into the cups.
She kicked her shoes off and pushed them to the side as she walked to the couch, wineglasses in her hands. “I haven’t had anyone over in a long time. You know, other than the social worker.” She handed him the clear glass and moved to a chair that was positioned next to the couch. She sat down on her knees, her feet tucked up under her.
“In how long?”
Paige looked down into her wine. “Since Shyla died.”
“That must have been difficult.” It was hard for him to find the words you were supposed to say when people were grieving. Hard to know what they wanted to hear. He had experience dealing with death, and yet, he couldn’t remember what people had said to him. If they had said anything.
Paige took a sip of her wine and nodded. “Yes. She was my best friend. She and I moved to San Diego from Oregon together shortly after we graduated.”
“Why here?”
She shrugged. “It’s sunny? I don’t know. A chance to start over, I guess. Be new people. She met her boyfriend really soon after we got here, and she ended up moving in with him. Then she got pregnant and he freaked out. And I had her move in with me. It was crowded but great. And then … and then Ana was born and it was so fun to have her here. So amazing.” Paige looked down into her glass, tears sparkling on her lashes like shattered crystal. “We were making it work. The three of us.”
“How old are you, Paige?” he asked. She looked young. Beneath all the makeup, he was sure she looked like a girl who could still be in school. Her skin was smooth and pale, her blue eyes round, fringed with long, dark lashes. Her lips were full and pink, turned down at the corners, giving the illusion of a slight pout.
“Twenty-two.”
“You’re only twenty-two?” Ten years younger than he was. And yet she was willing to take on raising a child by herself. “Then why do you want to raise a child right now? You have so many years ahead of you. And don’t you want to get married?”
She shrugged. “Not really. And anyway, I guess … no this isn’t the ideal time for me to have a baby. And if you had asked me a few months ago if I was ready to have a baby, I would have told you no. But that would be a hypothetical baby. And Ana isn’t hypothetical. She’s here. And she doesn’t have anyone. Her birth mother is dead, my friend, my best friend is dead. The line on the birth certificate that should have a father’s name on it is blank. She needs me.”
“She needs anyone who will care for her. It doesn’t have to be you.” She flinched when he said the words.
“It does,” she said, her voice thin.
“Why?”
“I don’t know for sure if anyone else will love her like I do. And I … I knew Shyla. I knew her better than anyone, and she knew me. I’ll be able to tell her about her mother.” Paige’s throat convulsed. “And Shyla asked me to. She asked me to take care of her.”
That answer hit him hard in the chest and the memories he’d been pushing away from the moment they’d picked Ana up at the nursery crowded in, too fast and forceful for him to hold back anymore. He’d been much older than Ana when he’d lost his mother, so he remembered a lot on his own. Memories that he often wished he didn’t have. Of soft lullabies, gentle hands … and blood. In the end … so much blood.
He blinked and shook off the memory, reclaiming control, lifting the glass of wine to his lips and grimacing when the chilled, acrid liquid hit his tongue. There was no buzz on earth worth that. He set it back down on the table.
“I understand that.”
“It’s not just for her. It’s for me, too. I love her. Like … like she really is my baby. I saw her come into the world. I cared for her from the start, did the midnight feedings and visits to the doctor. I can’t … I can’t just let her go. Let her go to someone else. Someone who might not love her like I do. How could anyone love her like I do? I love her so much that sometimes it overwhelms me.”
Paige spoke with conviction, so much it vibrated from her petite frame. Dante couldn’t imagine emotion like that. It was so far beyond where he was now.
In truth, he couldn’t imagine a good emotion that strong. Fear, grief, the type that had the power to reduce a man to a quivering, raw mass of anguish … that he knew. But nothing like it since. Nothing that even came close. He was numb to feeling.
But he could sense hers, could feel them radiating off her. She didn’t hide them, didn’t sublimate them to try to deal with them. He doubted she could. She was too honest.
Well, except for that one little lie. The one he was currently enmeshed in.
“You cannot keep the pink in your hair,” he said. He needed to tone her down, to make her less distracting.
“What?” she sifted her fingers through her dark hair, the movement unconsciously sexy.
“I would hardly become engaged to a woman with pink hair.”
“Um … but you did. You totally just did.”
“I didn’t know about the pink stripe until recently. When I found out I nearly broke it off with you, so you promised to go to the hairdresser.”
“You can’t even see it if I have my hair down.”
“I saw it when we were in bed.” Again, the images of her skin against his sheets hit him hard.
Her cheeks colored a deep rose. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a woman blush, discounting Paige, and he certainly couldn’t remember ever finding it so fascinating.
“Uh … and that was your predominant thought? My pink hair? We did something wrong, in that case.” She looked away from him and took another long drink of her vile wine.
“Just color over it,” he said.
“I have an appointment in a few weeks. It’ll keep.”
“You seem to forget that I’m doing you a favor.”
“I didn’t think that was your predominant motivation. And anyway, I’m doing you a favor, too.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know what the reaction will be. I’m curious to find out.”
“So, this is just a social experiment to you?”
“It’s interesting, yes. Ultimately though, it’s with a mind to improving business.”
“And deceiving people doesn’t bother you?”
“Does it bother you?”
She frowned. “Usually. But not now. Not for … not for Ana. I would do anything for her.”
“So I gathered.”
“I’m far more bothered by the fact that we’re actually … that we’ll be getting married.” She looked down, giving him a view of long, dark lashes spread over pale skin, and lids that were lined in emerald green, a sprinkling of golden glitter adding sparkle.
“If you can think of another way …”
She raised her focus, her expression open, honest. “I can’t. Nothing this certain.”
“Then don’t trouble yourself over it.”
She frowned. “I won’t. So, now what do we do?”
“I’ll text your ring size to Trevor and send him to procure something suitable. You will have it on your desk by lunch. Then … then we have a charity event to go to.”
“I don’t have anyone to watch Ana.”
“I’ll pay Genevieve to do it. She’s good with Ana, isn’t she?”
“Well, yes, but … I’ll have been away from her all day.”
“Leave early,” he said. “I’ll come here and pick you up before the event.”
“Why do you keep having answers to all of my problems?” she asked, her tone petulant.
“I would think that would be a good thing, especially since you have so many problems at the moment.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Granted.”
He stood, taking his glass of nearly untouched wine off the coffee table. “Good night, then. I’ll be by to pick you and Ana up at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Wait … pick me up?”
“You’re my woman now, Paige, and that comes with a certain set of expectations.”
She blinked. “I didn’t … I didn’t agree to this.”
“You brought me into this. That means you aren’t making all the rules anymore.” He turned and walked into the kitchen, pausing at the sink and dumping the contents of his glass down the drain. “That wine is unforgivable. I will teach you to like good wine.”
“And you’ll teach me to like good jewelry, and the sort of hair you deem ‘good.’ Tell me, Dante, what else will you teach me to like?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts—rather generous breasts—and a rush of heat assailed him. Intense. Impossible to ignore.
The desire to lean in and trace her lips with his fingertip, with his tongue, was nearly too strong for him to overcome. But he would. He would keep control, as he always did.
He took one last, lingering look, at her pink lips. “That’s a very dangerous question, Paige,” he said. “Very dangerous.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
THAT’S a very dangerous question.
Yes, it had been a dangerous question. Only Paige hadn’t realized just how dangerous until it had come out of her mouth. And she was certain that Dante didn’t realize how much truth was behind it. How much teaching she would need.
Oh, dear.
Just thinking about it again made her feel hot, all over. And that was exactly why she wasn’t going to think about her futile, one-sided attraction anymore
She looked at the clock and shifted in her chair. Genevieve was already here, and Ana had been happily passed off to her. It hadn’t taken the little girl more than a moment to recognize her daily caregiver and the two were happily playing on the rug in the living room.
Paige sighed and realized that she was jiggling her leg. She stopped herself. Her little nervous habit wasn’t a good look with the long, silky gown she was wearing.
Yes, she was wearing a dress, to go on a date. Which was something she hadn’t done in … almost ever. She wasn’t the girl that men went after. She was the screwup, the funny one. The one with a pink stripe in her hair, although Dante was putting the kibosh on that.
She didn’t get dressed up in slinky gowns to go to fancy charity dinners with billionaires. She also didn’t get engaged to billionaires. Oh, yeah, she didn’t really marry them, either, though that was now in her future. All because her stupid, impulsive brain had spit out the most ridiculous lie at the worst time.
Desperation wasn’t her best state. She more or less had a handle on the blurting these days. When she’d been a kid, all the way up into high school, it had been really bad. She was always saying stupid things and embarrassing herself, which was one reason she’d opted for class clown rather than trying to be sexy or cool or anything like that. Letting it go, instead of wishing she could be something she wasn’t, had been much easier.
Or rather, as the case had been, she’d had one incredibly defining, humiliating moment that never let her forget that there were certain guys, who liked certain kinds of girls. And she was not one of them.
There was a heavy knock at her door and she scrambled up out of the chair, grabbing her handbag and wrap. She scurried into the living room and bent down, dropping a kiss onto Ana’s soft, fuzzy head.
“I won’t be too late,” she said to Genevieve.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” Genevieve said.
Paige’s cheeks got hot and she was sure they were a lovely shade of red. “I … we won’t be late.” She had to get a handle on the blushing, too. There was no reason to blush. Dante Romani was hardly going to ravish her in the back of his car.
She straightened and draped her bright purple wrap over her bare shoulders, giving herself a little look in the small mirror that hung in her living room on her way to the door of her apartment.
The door opened just as she reached it.
“Were you going to leave me freezing on the front step?”
“It’s San Diego. It’s not freezing. And you’re in the temperature-controlled hallway.”
“It’s the principle,” he said.
“I had to say goodbye to Ana. Do you want to see her?”
A strange look crossed his face. Confusion, fear, then boredom. “No.”
“Oh, sorry. Most people like babies, you know,” she said, stepping out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
“I have no interest in having any of my own. I’m not certain why it would be important for me to like babies.”
“They’re cute.”
“Yes, so are puppies but I don’t want one.”
“A baby isn’t a puppy,” she said.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me for the reason previously stated.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed the button on the elevator. “Right. Well. I hope Ana and I don’t disturb you too much when we live in your home, as you don’t want a wife or a child.”
“It’s a large house,” he said, his words carrying a stiff undertone, as if he didn’t believe it would be large enough.
The doors to the elevator slid open and they both stepped inside. She’d never noticed how small elevators really were before she’d taken to riding in them with Dante Romani. He made everything feel smaller. Tighter. Because he filled the space he was in so absolutely.
It wasn’t just because he was well over six feet tall and broad, either. It was his charisma, the dark energy that radiated from him. He was so unobtainable, so uninterested in what was happening around him. It made you want to go and grab his attention. Made you want to be in his sphere. To make him seem interested. To make him smile.
To make him laugh.
At least she did, but she was good at that. Making people laugh and smile. Defusing tension with antics and jokes. And she had, apparently, not learned her lesson about unobtainable men.
She nearly opened her mouth to make one when her eyes locked with his and the breath leached from her body.
His dark eyes roamed over her curves, taking in every inch of her. And she was reminded again of their exchange last night.
What else will you teach me to like?
Oh, no, no, no. She wasn’t going there. She never had before, no reason to start now.
Besides, Dante could have any woman he wanted, on the terms he chose. He had no reason to start lusting after her pink-striped self.
She’d grown up in a small town, and every guy she knew had known her from the time they were in kindergarten together. They knew that she talked too much, and that she very often laughed too loud. That she had trouble paying attention in class. That she’d cut a boy’s tongue with her braces during her first kiss. They knew that she’d been the focus of what had essentially been the senior prank. They knew that she’d barely passed high school, that her parents hadn’t seen the point of paying for her to go to college when she just wouldn’t apply herself. They’d watched her get a job at a coffee shop instead of going away to school like everyone else.
They had all watched her grow from an awkward kid, to an awkward teen, to an awkward adult. It was like living in a fishbowl. And being the slow fish with the crippled fin. Nothing like her straight-A achieving sister and her football-star brother.
She was just … Paige. And it had always seemed like a pitifully small accomplishment, just being her. For most of her life, she’d accepted it. She’d just put on the image they’d applied to her and owned it. So much easier than trying to be anything else.
But there was a point, as she was pouring a cup of coffee for her fiftieth customer of the day, who asked her about her brother or sister, and not about her, that she couldn’t do it anymore.
A week later she’d moved. Just so she could be new to a place. So she had a hope of finding who she was apart from the painful averageness that marked her life.
It hadn’t been an instant transformation, no sudden rise to the top of the social heap. But she’d made a small group of friends. She’d found her job at Colson’s. That provided her with the first real sense of pride she’d ever had in a job.
They’d seen her raw talent and they’d hired her based on that, not based on classroom performance. Colson’s, and by extension, Dante, was her first experience with being believed in.
Strange.
She cast him a sideways glance. He was tall and … rigid in his tux. Each line of his suit jacket conforming to his physique with precision. Dante was never ruffled. She envied that a little bit. Or a lot of a bit, truth be told. She was captivated by it, really, his control. His perfection. His beauty. It was a dark, masculine beauty, nothing soft or traditionally pretty about him. It made her want to look at him, and keep looking.
The elevator doors slid open and they walked out of her apartment building and to the street. There was a black car parked against the curb, waiting for them, she assumed.
Dante opened the back door for her and she slid inside. She’d never ridden in a car with a driver before. Not even a taxi. She always drove her own seen-better-days car.
“It will be nice not being the one fighting traffic for a change,” she said when Dante got in on the other side and settled into the seat beside her.
“Mmm,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket and devoting his attention to checking his email.
And just like that, the hot guy wasn’t looking at her anymore. Typical.
She let her gaze wander to her left hand, to her still-bare ring finger. “Oh … didn’t you … you were going to give me a ring before tonight, weren’t you?”
He set his phone down. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re intent on spoiling the surprise.”
“Uh … because it’s not a surprise.”
“Perhaps I had something planned.”
She didn’t think he was serious. But with Dante it was hard to tell. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like, to have a man like him do the get-down-on-one-knee thing and ask her to be his wife. To look at her with intensity in those dark eyes and …
“So, ring?” She held out her hand and tried to shut out the little fantasy that was playing in the back of her mind.
Forget a dream proposal. She should aim for a kiss that wasn’t a disaster first.
Her reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and produced a velvet box. “Be my wife, et cetera,” he said, opening the box, revealing a pear-shaped emerald surrounded by diamonds.
“It’s … wow.” Hard not to be completely floored when a gorgeous man was giving you a beautiful ring. “How did you know I liked green?”
“Your eye shadow,” he said.
She looked up, as if she could see it. “Oh.”
“And I thought the color and style would suit you. Sedate doesn’t seem to be your thing.”
“Uh … no. Not so much.”
“Put it on,” he said.
“What? Oh, yeah.” She looked down at the ring and a clawing sense of dread made her chest tighten. Was she really going to do this? To put on his ring and go all the way with this?
Yes. Yes, she was. She’d never believed in anything more in her whole life. She’d never been the goal-oriented one in her family. She’d never been the top achiever. She’d never wanted anything so much it made her ache.
That wasn’t the case now. Now there was Ana. And she made Paige want to be the best mother. Made her want to do everything she could to give her baby the best life possible. To encourage her, to love her as she was.
She took a deep breath and lifted the ring from its silken nest, sliding it onto her finger. “There. We’re engaged now,” she said.
He nodded slowly and leaned back in the seat. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. If he was thinking.
“What?” she asked.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was just wondering what you were thinking. I mean … this is weird.” She wondered if he was thinking of a beautiful blonde, or stunning, dark-haired beauty he would rather have given a ring to. The thought made her chest feel odd. Tight. “We don’t really know each other and … were you planning on getting married ever?”
“No,” he said, definitively. Decisively.
“Oh. Not even if you meet the right person?”
“There is no right person for me. Or at least not one who’s right for more than a couple of days. And nights.”
Dante watched Paige’s face, the confusion, the little bit of judgment. What he’d just said wasn’t true in the strictest sense. The part about marriage was true, but the way he’d spoken of his relationships made it sound like he and the women he slept with met and spent a few days locked in a passionate embrace.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
He’d had arrangements with a few different women over the course of his adult life. Women who were just as busy and driven as he was. Women who were just as averse to relationships.
The women he usually took to the charity events, the models, the actresses … he didn’t sleep with them. They were the bit of flash, the ones who looked good in pictures and who wanted to be in them.
But they were too young, many of then. Too starry-eyed and not nearly cynical enough. The women he took to bed, all they wanted was a couple of hours and a couple of orgasms. They wanted what he wanted. They didn’t want forever and fireworks; they wanted a basic need to be met. And that’s what happened. Basic, simple pursuit of release.
Still, there was no way to explain that without making it sound even worse.
And when had he ever cared what anyone thought? Never. He’d come into the public eye amid speculation and criticism. The Italian orphan that had somehow weaseled his way into the Colson family. That had been named as the heir of a billion-dollar fortune. There had been endless speculation about him, about how it had happened. As if he, even at fourteen, had known some sort of dark secret about the older couple who had taken him into their home. Something that would have enticed them to take on such a sullen, angry child.
He had never once tried to correct the rumors.
But something about the look in Paige’s eyes made him want to clarify, to change her assumptions. Or at least make an excuse.
“What about you,” he asked, happy to redirect the focus of the conversation to her. “Do you want to get married? Beyond this, I mean.”
“Well, I wasn’t really at the point where I was thinking about it.”
“All women think about it.”
“That’s a gross generalization and there’s no way you can know that. Or rather, you can know that you’re wrong because I wasn’t. Not in a serious way.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been too busy discovering who I am. Apart from the small town I grew up in, I mean. I’ve been down here for about three years and I’ve been kind of … finding myself. Which sounds maybe a little bit geeky but it’s true. Back at home there were all these preconceived ideas about me. Who I was, what I was capable of. And when the town is as small as mine, those ideas don’t just come from your parents, they come from … everyone. I moved here and decided to really figure out who I would be if there was no one around expecting anything different.”
“A noble quest,” he said. And interesting, considering that he was doing the same thing, in a way. On a surface level, at least. He had no interest in finding himself, whatever that meant. But the idea of changing perceptions, that one grabbed him.
“Not really,” she said. “Just a desire to be seen as something other than a terminal dork.”
“I can’t imagine you being thought of as a … as that.”
“Well, I was. Scrub off the makeup, add a ponytail … I revert right back. Actually, I don’t think I’m evolved all that far beyond dork status—it’s just that I have a better handle on confusing people by presenting a more polished appearance.”
“Polished but flashy.”
“Distract them with something shiny, right?”
In some ways he understood that philosophy, too. Bring a beautiful, bubbly date and people might not notice how much he hated being at public events. Might not notice how little he smiled.
“Right,” he said, his eyes on her ring. He took her hand in his, ran his thumb over her smooth skin, to the gem that glittered on her finger. “This should do it,” he said, looking up, meeting her gaze.
Her eyes were round, her lips parted slightly and he knew that he could lean in and kiss her and she would kiss him back. The desire to do it, the need, tightened his gut. They would have to do it in public eventually. It would be perfectly reasonable to give it a try now. To press his lips to that soft, pink mouth. To dip his tongue inside and find out if she tasted as explosive as she looked.
He turned away from her sharply, putting his focus back on his phone. He wouldn’t kiss her. Not now. Not because he wanted to. Not because the desire, pumping hot and hard through his veins told him to. No, when there was a need for it, he would do it. Not before then.
He was in absolute control of his body, and his desires. Always. It would be no different with Paige. They were playing a game that bordered on dangerous, and that meant he had to be sure that he kept things tightly in line.
Paige cleared her throat. “Right. It certainly is … distracting.”
“Yes,” he said, clenching his teeth tight, “it is.”
You can’t have more champagne. You’ll make a total ass of yourself.
She’d already rolled her ankle twice while walking around the lavishly decorated ballroom and had stumbled obviously, teetering sharply to the right thanks to her three-inch heels.
She wasn’t exactly making the best appearance as Dante’s brand-new fiancée.
But this had all happened so fast she hadn’t had time to adjust. And that was one of the many reasons that alcohol felt slightly necessary.
The other was that moment in the car, just before they’d arrived, when Dante’s dark eyes had been focused on her mouth. When heat and desire had spread through her, flushing her skin, making her heart race. When she’d looked like a total fool, drooling over a man who didn’t have the slightest interest in her.
Yeah, there was that.
“Enjoying yourself, cara mia?” Dante appeared, holding two glasses of champagne. He offered her one, and she took it, in spite of herself.
“I’m not really sure,” she said.
“You aren’t sure?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know anyone here but you so I’m basically just standing next to you smiling and no one is really talking to me and … my cheeks hurt.”
“Your cheeks?”
“From the smiling.”
“Ah.” He frowned. “I must confess most of my dates aren’t here for conversation so I imagine the assumption has now been made about you.”
“What are they here for?” she asked. The obvious, she imagined. The pleasure of having Dante later.
“For the publicity,” he said, uprooting her previous assumption. “There will be several pictures of you, standing next to me and smiling, published in various places online and in print by tomorrow morning.”
“So, women date you to get their picture in the paper?”
“I’m not really vain, but I don’t think that’s the only reason.”
Paige’s heart slammed hard against her breastbone as she thought of all the other reasons women might date Dante. Oh, yeah, she could see that for sure. “Well, I mean … I’m sure your sparkling wit and effusive personality also net you a few dinner engagements.”
He laughed, a more genuine, rich laugh than she’d heard from him before. “I doubt it, somehow, but thank you for the confidence in me.”
“Or course,” she said. “It’s the least I can do considering what you’re doing for me.”
“I’m getting something in return.”
“You say that like you have to convince yourself you aren’t being altruistic,” she said, regretting the two glasses of champagne she’d already had, and the candor that came with them, the moment she said it.
“Because I never am.”
“So can never be?”
“Mr. Romani, and your lovely fiancée!” They were interrupted by an older woman with a broad smile.
Dante inclined his head. “Nice to see you again, Catherine, and please, call me Dante.”
“Dante, of course.” Catherine began regaling Dante with stories of her country club, gossip, both personal and business related. She noticed that Dante managed to appear vaguely interested, his expression politely pleasant.
And yet she could see something behind his eyes. Calculation. She could almost see him filtering out the unimportant, retaining bits about failing businesses and mistresses who might cause trouble in someone’s professional life.
Then he smiled, a smile that some might call warm, and bid the older woman goodbye.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“A friend of my … parents,” he said, the word coming out in a few, halting syllables.
“Oh.”
“I’ll confess, I don’t like these things, either,” he said. “But, you do hear interesting information. It’s worth it. So that about sums up my altruism, really. It’s for charity, which is nice. But I get something out of it, too. Nothing is purely altruistic.”
She thought of Ana, of how much joy Ana brought to her life. How much love and purpose. “I suppose not.”
“Does the purity of motivation really matter anyway? As long as no one is hurt. As long as people are cared for?”
“I always imagined it did.”
“Nobody gets points for good intentions.”
“I suppose not.” The champagne spoke for her again. “Does anyone hold bad intentions against you if you don’t act on them?”
“Speaking of yourself, or of me?”
She shrugged. “Just curious if it works both ways.”
“In my experience, intentions, and sometimes actions, don’t really matter at all. What matters is what people think.”
“Now that is true,” she said, sighing heavily, thinking back to how people had perceived her in her home town. Of how the social worker perceived her and her situation.
He lifted his glass. “To reinvention,” he said.
She lifted her glass in response but opted out of taking a sip. She needed to get her feet back on solid ground, needed to get her words back under control. And she really needed to get her thoughts in regards to Dante back under control.
“Perhaps when we’re through with this you and I will both be totally different people,” she said. “Or at least, in your case, people will think so.”
A smile curved his lips. Not a friendly smile. One that was dangerous. And, though it really shouldn’t have been, sexy. “Perhaps.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE took her latte off the counter and waved to her favorite barista as she walked out the door of the coffee shop.
She paused and put her sunglasses on, taking a sip of her drink while admiring the afternoon light filtering through the palm trees. It was a perfect day. The light glinted on her new engagement ring and it put a slight dent in her moment of zen.
There was a flash to her left and she turned to look. It was not a little flare of afternoon light. There was a photographer, standing there, holding his camera up, not even trying to be subtle.
“Uh … could you not do that?” she asked.
“Ms. Harper?”
“What?”
“When are you and Dante Romani getting married?”
She clutched her sequined purse to her side and strode down the sidewalk, away from the man with the camera, her heart pounding. She turned back to look and saw that he was still there, snapping off shots casually. Like she was a monkey in a zoo.
Her purse vibrated and she reached inside, casting another glance behind her as she retrieved her phone and answered the call. “Hello?”
“Ms. Harper, this is Rebecca Addler with child services. I wanted to speak to you about your case.”
She quickened her pace, heading back to the office building. Back to Ana. Back to Dante even. She could hide behind his broad chest. And she wasn’t even ashamed for wanting to hide behind him right now.
“Right. Great to hear from you. What about the case?” she asked, scurrying through the revolving door to the Colson’s corporate building and walking quickly to the elevators.
“We’re going to have to interview your fiancé. He’s going to be involved in the process, of course.”
“Well, of course.”
“And he’ll be adopting Ana, as well.”
Damn.
“So there will be paperwork for that,” she finished.
Paige had overlooked that bit. She’d overlooked it completely. “Of course,” she said, her throat dry. She took another sip of latte and scalded her mouth. She punched the up button on the wall and waited for an elevator.
She dashed inside as soon as the door opened.
“And we’ll want to do a parent interview with him.”
“Naturally. Dante will be delighted—” like Dante was ever delighted about anything “—to participate.”
“We’ll do a little meet-up this Friday if that works for you.”
“Of course it does!” she said, far too brightly.
The elevator reached her floor, and she stood inside, waffling. Then she hit the button that would take her to Dante’s floor and the door slid closed again.
She tapped her foot while she finalized the details of the appointment with Rebecca. She ended the phone call as quickly as possible and tapped her fingers on the wall, waiting for the elevator to stop. When it did, and the doors opened, she nearly ran out, past Trevor, and to Dante’s office.
She didn’t bother to knock.
“I just got my picture taken. Like … a hundred times by some photographer. And then Rebecca Addler called and said we need to start doing interviews as a couple. Oh, I just realized there will be a home study, and we’ll have to start over and do it at your house because as far as everyone is concerned that is where we’ll be living. And you’re going to adopt Ana legally. Which is sort of … obvious but I didn’t think of it until now and … and I’m officially panicking a little bit.”
“Don’t,” he said, standing from his position behind the desk, his large, masculine hands planted palms down on the pristine surface. He didn’t even have the decency to look surprised that she’d burst into his office. He just looked … smooth and calm and unaffected as ever.
It was just unfair, because her cage was well and truly rattled.
“Don’t panic?”
“No. There’s no need. When we divorce I’ll sign custody of Ana over to you. You have my word on that.”
“Oh.” She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in a rush. “That does make me feel better.”
“I thought it might.”
“Then there’s the home study.”
“You and Ana should move in with me. Soon.” That he said with a kind of grim determination that let her know exactly what he thought of it.
“I can see you’re completely thrilled at the idea.”
“I value my own space,” he said.
“Well, as you mentioned, it’s a big house. I’m sure we won’t be on top of each other.”
He lifted one dark brow, and horror crept over her as she realized the double meaning of her words. As she pictured just what it might be like to be on top of him.
Or to have him on top of her.
Her entire face heated, prickling awareness spreading over her skin. Her heart was racing and she was … turned on. And it was obvious. She was certain it was.
She was such a dork. A side effect of spending her school years as the funny one. She didn’t know how to be smooth; she knew how to go for a joke. Another side effect of that was that guys didn’t flirt with her.
Well, that might have also been because of the time Michael Weston had tried to make out with her at a party and had ended up cutting his tongue on her braces. No one had wanted to kiss her after that. Kissing her became a running joke, and very firmly kept her in her place as school screwup.
Well, after that someone had made her think he wanted to kiss her, and more than that. It had all been a gag, of course. Thinking about that reduced the horror of the situation a little bit, because nothing, nothing in the history of the world, was quite as bad as meeting a guy under the bleachers after prom to … to … and having the popular kids standing by, waiting for just the right moment, waiting for the top of her prom dress to come down, for her “date” to pull her out from beneath the bleachers onto the field so they could throw eggs at her. And laugh. And take pictures of her humiliation for posterity.
Yes, that put a woman off dating for a while.
As a result, she wasn’t great at handling men. Unless they were more like buddies. And Dante didn’t feel like a buddy. Not even a little.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“As for the parent interview …” He neatly sidestepped the moment.
“What about it?”
“I don’t see how it will be a problem.”
“You may have to grow a personality between now and then.”
“And you may want to tone yours down.”
“Why because a fun-loving, smiley person might not make a good parent? Do I need to be a bit more dour?”
“Are you calling me … dour?” he asked.
“If the scowl fits.”
“You’re going to have to keep yourself from taking shots at me in the presence of the social worker. Actually, you should probably keep yourself from taking shots at me because I’m your boss.”
She bit her lower lip. “Yeah. Okay, that could be …”
“And don’t bite your lip like that.” He leaned forward and extended his hand, putting his thumb on her chin, just beneath her mouth.
She slowly released her hold on her lip, her heart pounding heavily, butterflies taking flight in her stomach and crashing around, making her insides feel jittery.
She could only stare at him, at his incredibly handsome face, his dark, compelling eyes.
“I’ll try not to,” she said, not sure why she agreed with him. She should be annoyed that he was being so dictatorial, and yet she found she wasn’t. But that could be because he was touching her, and men didn’t make a habit of touching her.
It didn’t mean she didn’t want them to. It just hadn’t really happened for her for many and varied reasons. A huge reason being she was too afraid to let a moment like that happen. Because she was afraid to acknowledge she wanted it, for fear of it all being a joke again.
“Good. You’re also going to have to work on not blushing like a schoolgirl every time I get near you.”
“I don’t blush.” She could feel the heat creeping into her face, calling her bluff.
“You blush more than any woman I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m very pale. It’s hard to hide when you have no pigment to disguise it.”
“I imagine,” he said. “Even so, if we were truly engaged we would be well past the point where I could make you blush with just the casual brush of my hands. Unless…” he said, rounding the desk, coming to stand near her. “Unless you were thinking of all the things my hands have done for you.”
His voice changed, became rougher, more ragged. Something in his expression changed, too. Hardened. Never, ever, ever had a man looked at her like that before. Not even close.
She wanted to say something to defuse the tension. Something funny, or random, something to break the spell. But she couldn’t. A part of her didn’t want to. She wanted to stand there, and have Dante Romani look at her like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. She wanted to get closer to him, see if he was as hot as he looked. To see if the fire smoldering in his eyes would burn her.
“I … suppose that could be a possibility.” She looked down, trying to catch her breath. But her eyes connected with his hands, and that did not help her regulate her breathing. “Subtext, right? Like when you’re acting? You make sure that even your thoughts match those of your character. And … stuff.”
“Something like that,” he said.
Of course to really have good subtext she would have to know exactly what he could do with his hands, and frankly, some of that information was a little hazy for her. And she was in no position to change it. Not now, not with him. And, given that she was going to be single mother of a small child for quite a few years, maybe not anytime soon.
That had never really been her plan. But she’d been too afraid to put herself out there after the way she’d been treated. Too afraid of rejection.
Dante picked up his phone and dialed a number. “Trevor, I need you to hire some movers. Send them to Paige’s apartment. The address is on file. Personal items only, no furniture, all of the baby supplies. It needs to be done by the end of the day.” He hit the end button on the phone and put it back in the holder on his desk.
“Did you just … evict me?”
“You’ll keep the apartment, for later. I assume that’s the place you’ll go back to.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll need my home. But what’s going to happen with it in the meantime?”
“There’s no reason to do anything with the apartment. I can handle the rent for you for the duration of your stay at my home.”
“I pay the rent. I’m not having trouble with the rent—there’s no reason for you to pay it for me!”
He shrugged. “But I can, so I don’t see why it’s an issue.”
“Because I can,” she said.
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“Me? You’re telling me not to be stubborn? That is funny, Dante, real funny.”
“This ruse really ought to be easy. In fact, they may assume we’ve been married for twenty years given the way you argue with me.”
“I argue with you? Hmph.”
“Yes, you do. Just like that.”
“Well, I’m annoyed with you.”
“Then you had better get un-annoyed, cara. Remember, this whole thing is of your making. I never would have sought you out.” His words made her flinch internally. “I will take advantage of the situation, yes, but I would not have sought you out. You’re completely unsuitable, obviously, and if I had felt the need for a wife pressing I would have one already.”
Stupidly, a little pang of hurt hit her square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her, making her eyes sting. “I’m … unsuitable? Wh-why?”
She shouldn’t have asked why. Not when she really didn’t want to hear it all.
“Am I suitable to you?” he asked, his tone incredulous.
“No,” she said. “No, you’re rude. And obnoxious. And you don’t know how to laugh.”
He took a step toward her, his dark eyes intent on hers. “And you are disorganized and scattered.”
“I must not be too bad since you keep me on here. Clearly I know how to do my job.”
“As do hundreds of my employees, but that does not mean they would make a good spouse for me.”
She took a step toward him, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. “I’m sure they feel the same way about you.”
He reached out his hand and took a lock of her hair, her pink hair, between his thumb and forefinger. “I would clearly never become involved with a woman who has pink hair.”
She leaned in, up on her tiptoes, trying to make herself eye level with him. “And I would never become involved with a man who’s more starched than his shirt collar.”
He reached out and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her up against his hard body. She squeaked as her breasts came up against the muscular wall of his chest. “You think I’m too serious, is that it?” She nodded mutely, no words coming to her. “That I don’t know how to have fun.” His fingers flexed against her back, sending little pops of sensation from the point of contact all throughout her body.
“Yes,” she managed, heat flooding her.
He dipped his head so that his lips were nearly touching her cheek, his breath hot on her skin. “I think I might surprise you.”
She was trembling, actually trembling, and in danger of having a knee-buckling experience. No man had ever held her like this before. With such purpose, with such strength. No man had ever made her feel so wanted. No man had ever made her want to arch against him, press her breasts harder into his body.
And most especially, no man had made her want to kiss him while she was angry at him.
But here she was, quivering with the need to touch Dante, even while thinking murderous thoughts about him and his autocratic behavior.
Dante released her suddenly and she stumbled back, trying hard to catch her breath. She looked at him, searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking. To try to figure out if he was as affected, as shaken, as she was.
But he wasn’t. He was just standing there, his hair smooth, his suit crisp, as though he had never taken her into his arms. As though he hadn’t just held her so close she could feel his heart beating, hard and heavy against her chest.
“You had better figure out a way to forgive me,” he said. And that was when she realized that he was affected. Because he might look as smooth as ever, but his voice was rough, his shredded control evident in each word he spoke. “Because at the end of the day, you’re coming home with me.”
CHAPTER SIX (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
DANTE’S home was his most prized possession. The lawn was immaculate, cut perfectly and kept in top condition by his team of groundskeepers.
The house itself was a triumph of architecture. Clean lines, an open design, windows that made the most of the ocean view. The interior was white, the carpets, the walls, the furniture. Evidence of how orderly it was.
Evidence of the control he now held over his life.
And as Paige, with her glittery high heels, walked over the threshold, carrying a bright-eyed baby girl with drool running down her chin, he felt a pang of absolute dread hit him in the gut.
There was nothing orderly about either of them, and he could feel the hard-won control of his surroundings slipping away from him.
“This is …” Paige looked around, her mouth open, her blue eyes round. “This is incredible. Gorgeous. I don’t. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I had it built five years ago, shortly after the control of Colson’s passed to me.”
“I’m thinking the social worker will like this place better than she liked mine.”
“Probably,” he said, thinking of her cluttered little apartment. “I apologize for my lack of boxed wine. I suppose something from the cellar with have to do.”
“Now, now, nobody likes a show-off.”
“That depends on what they’re being shown.”
“Heh. No, it depends on how much money and power the show-off possesses, and then the person will pretend to be suitably impressed based on how much they figure ingratiating themselves will help them out.”
“So you think my admirers are merely out to use me for my wealth and fame?”
She shrugged. “Not so far-fetched, is it?”
“You’re not very good for my ego, Paige, as you seem to think no one would suffer my company without heavy compensation.”
“That’s not what I meant. Oh … pfft. I like your house—that’s the important thing right now.”
“I assume the location of your bedrooms are important, as well?”
“Bedrooms?”
“Ana will have a nursery. I called my housekeeper earlier and ensured that all of her things have been put in there.”
“A nursery?”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Did you think I would cram you both in the basement to keep you out of the way?”
“Well, I didn’t know. I didn’t … We really need to discuss this more.”
“I agree, which is why we’re having dinner together later.”
“Oh.”
“Here, so you don’t need to worry about a babysitter. Now come with me.” He started up the stairs and down the hall. He could hear Paige’s footsteps behind him, slow and methodical. He turned and saw that she was practically getting whiplash. “What is it?”
“Your art!” she said.
“What about it?”
“It’s so beautiful. And it really stands out in the white space. You have fabulous taste.”
“Fabulous? Rarely am I accused of being fabulous.”
“Well, in this instance, you are. I’m going to have to take the time to study it all later.”
“So, you like art?”
She smiled and her entire face brightened, her blue eyes glittering. “Love it. I’m not just into dressing windows. I paint, too. Well, I started with painting. And some sculpture. It was about the only thing that held my attention in school. Unfortunately, one cannot graduate with art credits alone.”
“I would guess not.” The enthusiasm she felt for the subject, for the paintings—paintings he hardly looked at anymore—was fascinating. She was so different than most of the people he knew. She was open. She wore her passion all over her, for anyone to read. Not just her passion, her anger, her happiness. Everything was just laid bare with her.
And she evoked something in him. Emotions, things he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember. As a result, he’d made a mistake in his office earlier, and he didn’t make mistakes.
But she’d been standing there, all challenge and fire, angry as hell. And she’d made him angry. More than that, she’d tempted him. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from walking forward, from wrapping his arm around her and drawing her body against his.
She challenged him. No one challenged him. But she did. And she picked at his control, pushing and pushing until he’d been unable to do anything but push back.
He didn’t like it. Emotion was destructive. Painful. But he wouldn’t give in to it. What he hadn’t lost the day his mother died had been drained from him over the course of eight years in foster care.
Now, he doubted there was even enough in him to cause problems, even if he wanted it to. No, what had come over him in his office was lust. Pure and simple. Normally, that wasn’t a problem for him, but he was only a man, so it wasn’t too surprising.
Paige had the added benefit of being forbidden fruit, another thing that had never appealed to him before, but he could certainly understand why it might.
“Ana’s room is here,” he said, redirecting his thoughts, indicating a door on the left. As he pushed it open, a strange flash of anxiety ran through him. It was unfamiliar. Completely different than it had been that morning when he’d left for work. It gave him a strange sense of being back in his childhood. Opening the door to a new bedroom for the first time, seeing what was there.
Whether it would be spare, or crowded. Clean or dirty. Nothing that belonged to him.
The space that had been organized for Ana was immaculate.
Plain white walls and a double bed had been replaced with an ornate, dark wood crib with pink bedding and a mobile hanging over it. There was a rocking chair, a matching dresser and a closet filled with pink clothes.
“Oh.” Behind him Paige made a little noise. Then she brushed past him and into the room. “Ana, look. It’s your very own room.”
His chest seized up tight, his breath locking in his lungs. The light in Paige’s eyes as she presented Ana with a space that belonged to her was … he had never seen anything like it. All of Paige’s unruly enthusiasm was, in this moment, focused on her daughter.
How anyone could doubt that she would be a good mother was beyond him. It was hard for him to remember his birth mother, hard because thinking about her always dredged up other memories that he wanted to keep firmly locked behind a closed door in his mind.
Mary Colson, his adoptive mother, had been a firm and constant presence. Both she and Don had invested in him, into his education, into guiding him, putting him on a path that would lead to success. He was grateful to them, and their distant, tough sort of parenting had been ideal for him.
But for a moment, he wondered if anyone had ever looked at him the way Paige was looking at Ana.
It didn’t matter. He closed the door on the yawning, empty well inside of him. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need obvious displays of emotion. Far from it, he avoided them if at all possible. And being around Paige didn’t seem to allow for that. She was constant bubbling energy, and emotion. And glitter.
“Thank you,” she said, her blue eyes bright.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, trying to find some way to loosen the knot in his chest. “You’re here under false pretenses, due to a situation of your own making. And it’s hardly permanent, so don’t get too attached.”
She blinked, a flash of genuine pain visible on her face. So open. So real. Did the woman have no sense? Had she no defenses at all? “Okay, I … I mean I know that, but this is beautiful and I just got really excited and I didn’t mean anything by it.” All of her words ran together, coming faster as she rambled, the tension she was feeling palpable. She projected her feelings. So strongly he felt like he was being hit with a wall.
“Relax, Paige,” he said. “Take a breath.”
She snapped her mouth closed, her eyes still pooling with confused emotion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the word foreign on his tongue.
Almost instantly, the tension left her, her face brightening. “It’s awkward. For everyone. I know. I’m not picking out china patterns or anything, I’m just … making the best of things. Making the best of living in a mansion by the sea, which, I admit, is not so hard.”
“You may not be so optimistic when you hear what I have to say next,” he said.
“You’re putting me on a hide-a-bed. No, my window has an ocean view, but the beach is a nude beach. Or maybe …”
“You’re going to have to at least appear to be sharing a room with me.”
“Say what?”
“Come now, Paige, are you so naive? If we’ve moved in together, we’ll obviously be sharing a room. A bed.”
Paige bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know about that. What about good, traditional values?”
“Does anyone have them these days?”
“My social worker, it seems. Since she was so concerned about Ana having a mom and dad.”
“Which means she needs to be confident that that is indeed what Ana is getting. And my staff needs to believe it, as well. The last thing I need is for someone to slip up and make a comment that winds up in the paper. I’m not being dragged into a public farce. A private farce, it seems, is unavoidable, but I will not be humiliated in a public forum.”
“That’s not my intent,” she said. “But hey, as long as I don’t actually have to sleep with you, I’m okay with having to dig through your closet to find my clothes.”
He wasn’t. He’d never lived with a woman before, had never had feminine things mingling in with his suits. His space was highly prized and this element of their arrangement didn’t sit well with him.
But while she was comfortable with her things being put anywhere, there was clearly one area that made her uncomfortable. And he had the uncontrollable urge to push at her, just a little.
“You’re the first woman I’ve ever encountered who was so opposed to sleeping with me she had to remark on it every couple of days.”
He was rewarded by the flood of color that bled into her cheeks. “That’s not … I’m just clarifying …”
“One might think,” he said, taking a step closer to her, “that you protest too much.”
She pulled Ana in tighter to her chest, a tiny, living shield. “Hey now, that is not true. I protest just enough for a woman who isn’t interested in having a … a fling with a playboy.”
“Playboy,” he said. “Such a strange label, and not one I’ve ever felt applied to me.”
“You change lovers often enough.”
“The dates I go to events with are not my lovers. I am very discreet with my lovers. And selective.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, then, I doubt I have anything to worry about. If you’re as selective as you say, I mean.”
Paige felt like melting beneath Dante’s intense, dark gaze. She didn’t know what had possessed her to bait him like that. To tempt him to say something derogatory about her appeal. She was aware of how far short she fell when it came to sexual allure.
The problem was, it wasn’t looks, not specifically. It wasn’t the way she dressed. She’d actually managed to score dates since moving to San Diego; it was just that … when they got that serious look, like they might miss her, she sort of freaked out. The idea of failing again, with someone new, was too painful. The thought of wanting someone who wouldn’t really end up wanting her … she hadn’t been willing to take the risk.
Which was why she really hadn’t bothered with dates for a long time. Getting herself sorted out was her top priority after all. Finding her way. And anyway, she didn’t need a hundred guys. She only needed the one right guy. And she was certain that one right guy would look nothing like Dante Romani.
Which was fine. Looks weren’t everything after all. The guy didn’t have to have a square jaw, and golden skin. Or a broad chest with incredible muscles that could not be hidden by the dress shirts he wore. He didn’t have to look like the essence of temptation wrapped in a custom suit. No. There were much more important things than that.
Like … way more.
She was sure of it.
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
Something in his eyes changed, the look becoming hungry, wild almost, as far from cool, calm, stuffed shirt Dante Romani as she could possibly imagine.
“I … obviously,” she said, her throat suddenly dry.
“What is obvious about it?” he asked.
“I’m … I’m …”
“Attractive,” he said.
She blinked. “Even with the pink stripe?”
“It’s growing on me.”
“Maybe I will get it colored over next time. In that case.”
“You just like to be difficult.”
She shrugged. “I’m a contrary beast, on occasion, I admit it.” She was doing it again, deflecting with humor, so he couldn’t see how much it had meant for him to call her attractive.
“I like a challenge.”
“I’m not a challenge,” she said, nerves skittering through her, making her feel shaky and off-kilter.
“You aren’t?”
“No. That makes it sound like I’m some sort of a … a game and I don’t like that. I don’t play games. What you see is what you get.”
“I’ve noticed. But I didn’t mean that I intended to play a game with you.”
“You didn’t?”
He shook his head, his dark eyes intent on hers. “I don’t play.”
She tried to swallow again. Her throat felt like it was coated in sand. “Right. Neither do I.”
He chuckled, dark and rich like chocolate. “I got the impression that you did very little besides playing.”
She looked down at the top of Ana’s fuzzy head. “And where did you get that idea? Between working for Colson’s and taking care of Ana, I don’t have a lot of playtime.”
He frowned. “I suppose that’s true. But it’s more the way you are. The things you say. You’re … happy.”
She laughed, the sound bursting from her with no decorum or volume control, as always. “I guess so. I mean, there’s plenty of crap I’m unhappy about. Like losing my best friend and having to contend with the adoption stuff. But I suppose … I mean in general I suppose that’s true.” She studied Dante’s face for a moment, the lines that feathered out from the corners of his eyes, the brackets by his mouth. “Are you happy?”
He shrugged. “I’m not really sure what that means. I’m content.”
“Content,” she repeated. She smoothed her hands over Ana’s back and a rush of love, or pure joy and pain filled her. “How can that be enough?” It wasn’t for her. Not now. It never would be again.
“Because emotion, strong emotion, is dangerous,” he said. “You don’t seem to realize that yet, Paige. But that’s the truth of it.” His voice was rough. Savage, almost. And coming from Dante, who was always smooth, and never ruffled, it meant something. It reached down deep inside of her and twisted her stomach.
“Was it the truth for you?”
“It’s just true,” he said. “If emotions control you, you have no control over yourself. In my mind, that’s unacceptable. Now come, and I’ll show you to your room.”
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
AFTER you put Ana to bed, come down to the dining room for dinner.
Paige touched the note Dante had left her earlier. A note. Who wrote a note? She’d have to introduce the man to the mighty power of the text message. Or, better still, making human contact when you lived in the same house as someone.
She touched one of the letters on the paper. He’d pressed too hard on his pen, made dents, each letter precise and perfect, gone over two or three times she guessed. Dante didn’t do spontaneous very well, that was for sure.
Well, she supposed their arrangement fell under spontaneous, but then, even when he’d had that headline sprung on him he hadn’t acted with any sense of wild abandon. It had been with frightening calm, and complete confidence in the fact that he’d made the right decision.
Whereas, she, after blurting out the idiot untruth to Rebecca, had eaten a pint of ice cream and spent the night beating her head against the arm of her couch.
Decisive wasn’t really her thing. She needed to start getting there, though. She had a baby. A baby that would grow, and who would need a mother who could stand strong in decisions and discipline and … stuff.
The idea of it made her a little anxious. But for now, it was all about loving her. And that she had down just fine.
At least her room was nice. And yeah, all her clothes and her toiletries were in Dante’s room, but she’d managed to get her dress for dinner and her makeup essentials over to her room without running into him. Which suited her fine. She’d been feeling a little rumpled and frumpy after what had been a very long day.
But a shower and a sparkly minidress had done a lot to fix the way she felt. Her newfound sense of flashy style was something she’d acquired on arrival in San Diego, and it had done wonders for the way she felt about herself. About the outside of herself, anyway.
She leaned into the mirror and swiped her lipstick over her bottom lip, painting it with a streak of fuchsia, then spreading it evenly. She smiled. She felt better when she was bright. Like showing the world her mood, so that she had to bring herself up to match it.
She let out a long breath and opened her bedroom door, padding quietly down the hall to Ana’s room first, to make sure she was sleeping soundly, then continued to the stairs. She took the stairs two at a time, anxious now to hear what Dante would say.
To see if he would tease her again. Flirt with her? No, he wouldn’t flirt with her. There was no reason for that.
She tripped on the last step, her focus splintered over her thoughts.
“Careful.”
She looked up and her heart slammed hard against her breast. Dante was standing in the doorway of the dining room, his eyes on her. On her nearly falling on her face. He, on the other hand, looked immaculate as always. Perfectly pressed in a crisp white shirt that was open at the collar, showing a faint shadow of chest hair that she couldn’t help but notice, and black slacks that showed off his trim waist and powerful thighs.
Since when had she ever noticed a man’s thighs? What was he doing to her?
“I like to make an entrance,” she said, doing a very lopsided curtsy in an attempt to defuse the tension. All she really succeeded in doing was making herself look like a bit of an ass. That seemed to be her specialty. But it didn’t matter really. She just kept smiling. If she didn’t care, no one else seemed to. No one else seemed to notice how hard things were, how awkward she felt, if she didn’t.
She straightened and smiled, hoping she didn’t blush.
“You certainly do that.” He walked toward her, the easy grace in his movements filling her with one part envy and nine parts desire. He really was gorgeous.
“Ha. Yeah. My blessing and my curse.”
He put his hand on her lower back and heat fired through her from that point to the rest of her body. He propelled her forward into the dining room and she was afraid she might wobble again. Not because she was that big of a klutz, not usually, but because his touch was making her limbs feel rubbery.
She sucked in a breath when she saw the table. It was laid out special—gorgeous platters with appetizers and there were candles. It was very real, suddenly. Like an actual date, which she knew it wasn’t.
And she shouldn’t let it make her feel any kind of pressure. He wasn’t interested in her that way, and that was fine with her. She didn’t have the time or inclination for it.
“This looks great,” she said, too brightly.
He pulled her chair out for her and looked at her, waiting for her. She just stared.
“Would you like to sit down?” he asked.
“Oh, uh … yes. I’m not used to men pulling my chair out for me.”
“Then you need to associate with better men.”
“Or maybe find men to associate with in general.”
“I imagine your dating life is somewhat hobbled by recent developments.”
“Yeah, recent developments. That’s what’s hobbled my dating life.” She sat down and he abandoned his post at her chair and went to sit across from her. She took a salmon roll off the platter and put it onto her plate, her stomach growling, reminding her it was late for dinner. “So,” she said, “you want to talk?”
“We need to talk. I’m not sure I particularly want to talk. But we need a plan. If we’re going to be a couple, to both child services and the media we need to know about each other.”
“And how do you propose we get to know each other?” she asked, taking a bite of the sushi.
“I’m not proposing we get to know each other. I’m proposing we learn things about each other. The two are different.”
“Less involved, I suppose,” she said.
“Much.” He took a roll off the platter with a pair of chopsticks. Effortless for him, as ever. “Where are you from?”
“Silver Creek. Oregon. Small, bit of a nothing town. Everyone knows your business. Everyone knows you. The entire population is kind of like your extended family.”
“Which is why you moved.”
“Yes. To somewhere that didn’t have people with … expectations.” Expectations of her failure. Of her continuing to drift through life without a goal, without any success. “And you, where are you from?”
“Rome originally. Then moved to Los Angeles. And then … when my mother died,” he said, his voice too smooth, too controlled, as if he was saying words he’d rehearsed to perfection, “I went into foster care. I spent a few years with different families before the Colsons adopted me at fourteen.”
“I could have found all that out by reading a bio online somewhere.”
“But had you read one?”
“No.”
“So, I still had to tell you.”
“Fine, you did. What else do I need to know?” she asked.
He slid two covered plates over from the edge of the table and placed one in front of her, and one in front of himself. She uncovered it and took a moment to appreciate the tantalizing look and smell of the fish dish before directing her focus back to Dante.
“My sign?” he asked, his tone dry.
She laughed. “I don’t even know my own sign. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”
“That surprises me—you seem like you would.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re very … free-spirited. And you’re an artist.”
“I see. Well, sorry to disappoint you. What’s your favorite color?”
“I don’t have one.”
“That’s stupid. Everyone has a favorite color.”
He arched one dark eyebrow. “Did you just call me stupid?”
“No. Your lack of favorite color is stupid.”
“Fine, what’s yours?”
“Well, I’m an artist, so I have a close relationship with color. I like cool colors—they’re very calming. And of course warm colors are quite passionate. So I have to say my favorite color is … glitter.”
He laughed and she felt a small tug of gratification that she’s managed to pull an expression of humor out of him. “That isn’t a color.”
“Sure it is. I’m an expert. I don’t question you about merchandising and advertising and everything else you have a hand in. Siblings?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You?”
“Two. My sister is a pediatrician and my brother is a second-string quarterback for the Seahawks. Impressive, I know.”
“Very. So how did you get into art?”
She fought off the sting of embarrassment that always came when she had to talk about Jack and Emma. It wasn’t fair, really. They deserved their success. They earned it. They had talent, and they worked hard.
They didn’t deserve for her to make it about her. Still, it was never fun to talk about. But talking about it was better than living in a town where everyone knew that you were, without question, the big letdown of your family.
“I’ve always been interested in it. Started drawing and painting really young.”
“Did you go to school for it?”
“No.” She shook her head, kept her tone light. No big deal. It was no big deal. “I never really liked school. Just wasn’t my thing.”
“And what did your parents think of that?”
“Would you like me to lie down on the couch before you continue?”
“Just a question.”
“Well, uh … they’ve never been that impressed with my interests. My grades in school were bad, and they were spending a lot of money sending Jack and Emma to school already, even with the help of scholarships and … and they didn’t want to pay to send me too when they knew I wouldn’t apply myself. So the not going to school was a mutual decision.”
She could feel Dante’s dark gaze boring into her. “A mutual decision?”
She shrugged. “I mean, I might have gone if they …”
“But they wouldn’t.”
“No.”
“Should we tell your parents about the wedding?”
The subject change threw her for a moment. “Oh, it’s … No, probably not. It’s not like it will be huge news outside of our circle here. Your circle here, I should say and anyway … they won’t really approve of the whole thing with Ana.” An understatement. She could just hear her mother’s skepticism.
Do you think you can handle it, Paige? Filled with concern, and a bit of condescension.
But she could handle it. She was sure she could. She was almost completely sure. Again, the bigness of it all threatened to swamp her completely. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really wanted something. The last time succeeding had been so important, if it ever had been.
It was so much easier to just not care. But with Ana, she couldn’t.
“They don’t approve of you adopting?” he asked.
She shrugged and put her focus back on her food. “I haven’t talked to them about it, but I figure if I save it until everything is final I can spare everyone a lot of angst. It still might not work out.” Her throat tightened, terror wrapping icy fingers around her neck.
“It will,” he said, total confidence in his tone. “We have the media involved which, now that I think of it, is very likely going to work in your favor. I doubt social services want reports out about how they denied an adoption to a child’s lifelong, primary caregiver.”
“You may have a point. I have to ask, though, what’s really in it for you? Because I don’t have any guarantee that you won’t back out. I know you talked about easing business deals but clearly you make deals just fine without me, so I can’t fathom why it would suddenly be important.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I have opportunistic tendencies. This opportunity presented itself and I decided to follow it to its conclusion. There were two options in this situation—do what was expected of me, accept the negative press. Or, try to change things.”
“And that’s all? Because truly, with that as your only motivation, I’m not really filled with comfort and warm fuzzies.”
His gaze sharpened, his dark eyes intense. “It’s important for you to know something. When I say I will do something, I do. There is no going back.”
He said it with such purpose, such unequivocal certainly that she couldn’t help but believe him.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said. It was the truth. She was the one in the stranglehold. She was the one who was in a situation that was too big for her, nothing unusual there. She was the one who needed help.
But instead of giving up, like she usually did, she’d done whatever she’d had to in order to secure her success. Unfortunately, that had meant lying. It had meant dragging Dante into the situation, and she really did sort of feel bad about that.
“I am doing it. I made the decision. I won’t change my mind.”
“But is the media thing … that’s all you want?” she asked. Seriously, it was a stupid question because she didn’t exactly have anything to give him if changing his image in the press wasn’t enough.
He put his fork down, and took in a deep breath, his expression one of barely contained annoyance. “I have been the target of malicious rumor and speculation by the media since I was fourteen years old. I came onto the stage a villain. I thought it might be interesting to see if I could end up a hero.”
There was no real venom in his words, none of the emotion that was so easy for her to think should be there. That the media had been attacking him since he was a young teenager seemed unforgivable. But he just said it like it was an interesting fact. And he talked about changing public perception as if it were no more than a fascinating experiment.
“What did they … say about you?”
“That I had somehow tricked the Colsons into adopting me. That I was holding something over their heads, that I was a plant for the Mafia—racially motivated attacks are always nice. That I might murder the poor, trusting older couple in their beds.”
He spoke so casually, without inflection. Cold horror settled in her stomach, making her shiver. He continued. “Some thought Don Colson had ‘imported’ me because I was some sort of financial genius and he lacked an heir.”
“But you knew the truth,” she said, her heart tightening, aching for him. Things with her family were hard, and sometimes she felt like she didn’t belong, but she didn’t have the media weighing in on it.
He paused for a moment. “That’s the thing. Paige, I don’t know the truth. Why they would take me in is somewhat beyond me. A fourteen-year-old boy with no people skills and no inclination to find any. But I was smart,” he said, as if trying to reason it out. “I did well in school.”
Oh, good, he was a genius, too.
“I’m sure it was more than that,” she said. Because she really needed to believe that getting good grades in school wasn’t the deciding factor on a person’s value. Otherwise she was sunk.
“Perhaps. I’ll have to ask them sometimes.”
“You never have?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does.”
“No,” he said, his voice hard, “it doesn’t. They gave me a future, the best education possible, the best job opportunity possible. They gave me the means to support myself.” He chuckled. “That might be an understatement. They gave me the means to thrive. They owe me nothing. No explanation. No frilly words. I don’t need them. I have everything I need. And I think you and I have everything we need, too.”
He stood from the table, his food less than half-finished. “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll all drive to work together. It would look wrong to go separately.”
She nodded and watched him walk out of the room. She picked up her fork and started eating again. She wasn’t going to go to bed starving just because he’d decided to get upset about something and leave.
And he was upset. For all that he’d stayed calm, she could tell that the conversation had disturbed him.
There was so much more to her poker-faced boss. Finding out just what lay beneath the surface should be the furthest thing from her mind. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Ana.
But it was Dante dominating her thoughts tonight. She sighed and tried to focus on her dinner, and not think so much about the deep, overwhelming darkness that she’d glimpsed in his normally expressionless eyes.
Dante unbuttoned his shirt and took a hanger out of his closet. He put it on the hanger and buttoned the top few buttons, then put it in its place in the closet
He moved his hand to his belt buckle, then paused for a moment. He walked into his en suite bathroom and braced his hands on the vanity countertop, looking at his reflection in the mirror.
He didn’t look at himself often. He didn’t see much point in it. But he did now. And he wondered what other people saw.
He chuckled, the sound bitter, hollow in the empty room, and turned the sink on, running cold water onto his hand, splashing it onto his face. He knew what people thought about him. They wrote it in on society blogs and people, people from all over, were able to leave comments with their explicit opinions.
Sexy, but dead behind the eyes.
Amoral.
Italian bastard.
Impostor.
Yes, he knew what people thought of him. How they saw him. And he knew that it didn’t matter. Not because he was so at peace with who he was, but because he genuinely didn’t care.
A man makes his own destiny. If he is in control of himself, he can control everything around him.
Words from Don Colson when he’d first come to live with them. From the man he thought of as his father. The man he’d never felt worthy of calling father. It was what made him strive to be worthy. The Colsons were the only people who’d inspired that feeling in him.
Control was the key. It was what put him on Don Colson’s side. And not on the side of his real father. The man who’d spilled his mother’s blood. The man whose blood ran through his veins.
He shut off the water and turned, walking back into his room. His bedroom door opened and Paige stopped short, one foot in the room, a sharp squeak escaping her lips.
“I thought you were … that is … you didn’t say anything when I knocked, and my pj’s are in here. I’ll … come back.”
It took him a moment to realize that her wide eyes were glued to his bare chest. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction to know that, in spite of her constant reminders that she didn’t want to sleep with him, she wasn’t immune to him.
Something that shouldn’t matter.
“No need. Find your pajamas,” he said. “Don’t mind me.”
“Right,” she said, sliding into the room and moving quickly to the closet. She opened it and walked in. He watched her rummaging in the corner that had been designated for her clothing. He would have to ask his housekeeper to lay things out more nicely for her. His closet was huge, and his clothes always well spaced out so he could see what he had. There was no harm in crowding things in a little bit for Paige’s sake.
Although, just when the idea of giving her some substantial room in his home had stopped bothering him, he wasn’t sure. Maybe, stopped bothering him wasn’t the right way to put it. More that it didn’t make his eye twitch.
“Got them.” She emerged a moment later, clutching a pair of flannel pants and a white T-shirt to her chest. “So I’ll go.”
He found that he was reluctant to let her leave. If she left, he would be alone with his thoughts, and tonight, his thoughts were on a dangerous path.
“Those don’t look like I imagined they might,” he said, extending his hand, taking the flannel between his thumb and forefinger.
“No?” she asked. He noticed that her chest pitched sharply, in time with a sudden breath. That his drawing nearer to her was making her nervous. That he was right in his earlier assessment of her. She wasn’t immune to him.
“No,” he said. “Something diaphanous and flowing, I thought. Something with glitter.”
“And slippers with heels and feathers?” she asked, her voice thin and shaky.
“Also a tiara.” He took a step closer to her, heat firing in his blood. He was thinking too much tonight and being near her made him feel less like thinking, and more like acting.
He lifted his hands and brushed his finger along her cheekbone. Her mouth dropped open, her lush lips forming an O. Oh, yes, this was simpler.
He slid his hand around, cupping her head, his thumb stroking her face still. “Even so, this has a certain appeal to it. As does the dress you have on now.”
“D-Dante …”
“If we are going to be a couple, do couple interviews and things like that, you will have to look comfortable with me touching you.”
“I’m comfortable,” she said, the high pitch of her voice proving her a liar.
He wasn’t comfortable, either. He was shaking, he was hard as hell and he couldn’t fight the need that was coursing through him, not anymore. He had seen her, he had wanted her. Wondered what it would be like to taste all that color and light. To absorb it into himself.
But he had denied himself. No more.
Without thought for consequence, without even trying to gentle his movements or ask her if she was all right, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. She was so warm. So alive. Her breath filled him, the soft sound of shock she made when he slid his tongue over the seam of her mouth, made his stomach twist.
Keeping one hand on the back of her head, he curved his other arm around her waist and pulled her to him. Her arms were pinned between them, still clutching her pajamas, keeping him from feeling her body against his.
He reached between them and tugged the clothes from her hands, scattering them over the bedroom floor. She pressed her hands flat against his bare chest, her palms warm, her touch sending a shock of heat and fire through him.
He traced her bottom lip with his tongue and she opened to him, offering him entry into her mouth. He felt like drowning in her. Like losing himself completely.
He didn’t realize he’d starting moving until Paige’s back came up against his bedroom wall. She was pinned between the hard surface and him, her breasts pressing into his chest. So he deepened the kiss. Took more. Demanded more.
Her hands were still pressed tight against his chest and for a moment, he thought she might be pushing him away.
No. No, he needed more. He continued to kiss her, devouring her, until she relaxed against him, until her hands crept upward, fingers curling around his neck, clinging to him.
Yes.
His heart was pounding, sweat beading over his skin. She dug her fingernails into his neck, holding on to him tightly, pressing in closer so that his heavy length was resting against her stomach.
There was no room for rational thought. There was no thought at all. Not beyond the next hot, wet slide of her tongue on his. Not beyond the next gasp of pleasure that came from her lips. There was nothing but bright lights bursting behind his closed eyes, and a pounding need to take her, join himself to her. Go deep inside. So deep he would lose himself completely.
It would be the easiest thing to push her dress up, tug her panties down, free his aching erection and push inside her tight, wet body. Find solace in her release, and in his. To let go.
He jerked back, his heart thundering, his body protesting. This was not how he operated. Not why he had sex. Not how he allowed himself to live. He couldn’t allow it. Not ever.
He would never give in to that creeping darkness inside of himself. To the monster that lived in him. The thing that he hated most.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his words clipped.
She blinked. “Why?”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” he bit out. It was inexcusable. The loss of control. The desperation he’d felt. To use her as a salve for his wounds. To let go of everything completely.
“I see,” she said. She bent down and started collecting her clothes, her movements jerky, awkward. She seemed angry, upset.
“You think it was a good idea?” he asked, frustration pounding his temples, arousal pounding in his groin.
“What? Oh … it’s just …” She stood up. “Whatever.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “It was a kiss. It’s not like it was anything serious. No big deal. Lips. Tongue. Not a big … I’m gonna go now.” She sidestepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Dante wrenched his belt off and threw it on the ground, stalking into his bathroom and turning the shower on cold. He dropped his pants and underwear and stepped beneath the spray. He let the icy water roll over him, making him shiver, his body shaking from the inside out. It wasn’t about cooling the heat in his body. He was paying penance for losing his control.
It would not happen again.
Paige leaned against her bedroom door, her heart sill pounding heavily, her lips still burning. Just a kiss? No big deal? She was getting good at lying.
She’d never been kissed like that, by a man like him, in her life.
And of course, the first words out of his mouth had been that it was a mistake. Of course it had been. How could it be anything else? A man like him would not want to kiss a woman like her. Not really.
Sometimes she felt like she was changing. Finding out who she was apart from the labels she’d been given at home, back in high school. Tonight, she felt like she’d reverted. Back to the painfully awkward girl she’d been.
The one she still was beneath the makeup and sequins.
She changed into her pajamas as quickly as possible and tried to ignore just how conscious she was of the fabric sliding against her skin. Of how sensitive she felt. He’d lit her skin on fire, made her feel like she was burning from the inside out.
The memory of the kiss, of how it had made her feel, took the edge off her humiliation. He’d made her want to do something stupid, like run her fingers over that finely muscled chest. To feel him, firm flesh, heat and a hint of chest hair, beneath her palms.
He’d made her want more than that. Her entire body heated at the thought of exactly what he’d made her want.
And he thought it was a mistake. Had he even wanted her? Even a little? Or had he just been horny and wanting sex? And she was in his house instead of one of the women he’d selected.
He wouldn’t have stopped with one of them. Wouldn’t have called it a mistake.
She opened her door and padded down the hall, cracking open the door to Ana’s room. She pushed Dante, and the arousal, the need, the hurt he’d inflicted on her, out of her body. A sense of calm washed over her as soon as she entered her daughter’s room. She didn’t need blood relation, or a government document to feel like Ana was hers. She was, in every sense of the word, no question.
She walked over to the crib and leaned up against the rail, not minding that the wood was digging into her ribs. She bent down and ran her hand over Ana’s fuzzy head, down her stomach. Ana sighed and wiggled beneath Paige’s hand, making a little smacking sound with her mouth.
So much perfection. So much love. So much responsibility. Paige had never succeeded at anything in her life. And she had to succeed at this.
No matter how hot the kisses, Dante Romani was just a means to an end. She couldn’t let him distract her.
And that meant no more kissing. Unless they had to. For the press or for social services.
Suddenly she felt very tired. Like a weight had come to rest on her shoulders. It was harder than she’d imagined it would be. And she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t care. Couldn’t pretend that there wasn’t pressure pushing in from all sides. Couldn’t pretend that losing would mean nothing.
Not when it would mean everything.
“I’ll do my very best, sweetie,” she whispered, an ache in her throat, a tear rolling down her face. She just hoped that for once, her best would be good enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE managed to avoid Dante for the next few days. As best as she could avoid someone when she lived with him and drove to work in the same car with him every morning.
She was definitely much more careful when trying to sneak into his room for clothes. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of herself.
She’d liked the kiss too much and she was in serious danger of longing after the man. She didn’t do the longing thing. It ended in disappointment. And sometimes humiliation. Whether it was test scores or boys, that had been her experience. Longing just made the impossible hurt more.
There was no time for longing. She had to focus on Ana, not her suddenly perky hormones.
She growled into her empty office and bent down, rummaging through the box of glass, glitter-covered ornaments and gathered a few of them in her arms, taking them over to the work space she had cleared for herself in the back of the room.
The sunlight streamed in, bright and perfect for Paige to get an idea of just how everything would glitter in the windows of Colson’s department stores at Christmastime. The Christmas designs took up so much of her year, because every year there was the pressure to do bigger, better, more intricate. She loved it.
They moved her wooden frame, the same size and shape of a standard Colson’s window, so that it was right in the path of the sun and she started hanging the ornaments from the top with fishing line.
They caught the light, and they glinted. But it wasn’t enough. She needed flash. She needed something no one would walk by and ignore.
She dug through her big box of sparkle, as she’d dubbed it, and produced a canister of silver glitter, one of gold and some deep purple gems. She set to it.
The finished product was much better. They caught fire when the sun hit, and beneath the display lights they would be fantastic.
She brushed her hands on her black skinny jeans and grimaced when she noticed the trail of glitter she’d put down her thighs.
“You’ve been working hard.”
She turned at the sound of Dante’s voice and ignored the fact that her heart had slammed into her chest and then started pounding hard and fast.
“Eh, you know the old joke. Hardly working and all that,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was so quick to dismiss her work, and yet, she always did. Making light of it seemed to be her default setting. She was only just noticing it, and she didn’t like it.
“Doesn’t look that way to me,” he said, crossing the threshold and moving to her work area. “I like it.”
“There will be more. The mannequins, of course. Plus, about fifty more of these hanging at different heights. Snow. A Christmas tree. This is just for one of the side-street windows. But the main window display is going to be pretty amazing. I’m excited.”
“I can tell.”
“I put a lot of work into it,” she said, for herself more than for him. “And I work really hard.”
“Of course you do, Paige, or you would hardly still be on my payroll. This will be our third Christmas with you at the helm, and everyone has said how much higher the quality has been on the displays since then.”
“Well … thank you.”
“Tell me about the main window.”
“It’s going to be called Visions of Sugarplums. It will be a bunch of Christmas fantasies. And I think I want to have them like they’re sort of springing from a dream. So some mist and icicles and lights. Very whimsical and beautiful.”
“And all the same at each location?”
“I think each one should be slightly different,” she said. “At least the big destination stores in Paris, New York, Berlin, et cetera. So that each one is an attraction.”
“Do you have the budget for it?”
“Um, now that you mention it, I do need a slight budget increase.”
“I thought you might.”
“But you said my displays are high quality.”
“I did. How much more do you need?”
She named a sum in the several thousands and Dante didn’t bat an eye. “All right, if that’s what you need, I will make sure you have it.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She stopped and really looked at him for the first time since he’d walked in. She’d glanced at him, but she’d avoided careful study. She knew why now. Looking at him full-on was a bit like staring into the sun. He was so beautiful it made her ache. She could no more reach out and touch him, have him for her own, than she could claim a star.
It made her feel so achingly sad. Just for a moment. She didn’t have time to worry about Dante or the fact that she had the hots for him. Or the fact that, in all honesty, it felt like more than just having the hots for him.
“Ready for the couples interview?” she asked him.
“Of course,” he said, his tone sounding thoroughly unconvincing. Which was funny, because if Dante was one thing, it was certain.
“What are you worried about?”
He looked at her and arched one dark brow. “I don’t worry, cara mia.”
“About anything ever?”
“No.”
“What are you doing in business? You should be teaching self-help classes.”
He chuckled, a dark sound. “I don’t think I’m in much of a position to be telling people how to help themselves. I’m just very good at ignoring things I don’t want to deal with.”
It was shockingly honest, and it was also something she recognized.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Something we have in common,” he said.
“Who would have thought?”
“Not me. Do you think it’s enough to play the part of convincing couple?” He took a step closer to her and her stomach quivered. She could taste him on her tongue, the memory of his kiss so strong it was enough to make her knees shake.
Enough to make her take a step toward him. Stupid, really, because she shouldn’t kiss him again. He didn’t even want to kiss her, she was sure. Because that first time had been a mistake. He’d said so.
He tilted his head to the side, his expression intense, as though he was studying her.
“We certainly have chemistry,” he said, his tone rough.
She laughed, shaky, nervous. “You think so?”
He nodded and took another step toward her. “Yes, and it’s a good thing, too. Many things can be faked, Paige, and some of them even quite convincingly. But the heat between us? That’s real. And no one will question it.”
“I don’t really know if one kiss constitutes as heat,” she said. “One kiss that you said was a mistake.”
His lips curved upward. “Are you challenging me?”
“No. I’m not that stupid.”
“No, you are certainly not stupid.” Strange, but that made her chest feel warm, made her heart lift. “But you might be trying to bait me into kissing you again.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“For the same reason I’m hoping you are baiting me. I’d like to kiss you again.”
“You … want to kiss me?”
He nodded.
“B-but last time you said …”
“I said it shouldn’t have happened, because we both have goals to focus on. And I think we might both find it hard to focus while we’re tangled together in bed. And that, Paige, is where a kiss like the one we shared in my bedroom leads.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to kiss you again.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“Perhaps not, but in just an hour we will be interviewed as a couple, and it’s imperative we have no awkwardness between us.” He took another step toward her and she could feel his heat, smell the scent of him. Clean skin, soap. Man.
She took a step toward him. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth.
He reached out and put his thumb on her lip. She raised her focus, her eyes clashing with his. “I find I envy your lip,” he said.
He couldn’t possibly mean … She touched her tongue to the tip of his thumb, tasting salt, tasting Dante. Then she took a breath and a chance, and bit him gently. He closed his eyes, a rumble of satisfaction vibrating through his chest.
Emboldened, she repeated the action, biting harder this time.
He moved quickly, wrapping both arms around her and pulling her up against his hard body. She pushed up onto her toes and kissed him. It felt so familiar and so foreign at the same time. So wickedly exciting.
He thrust his tongue between her lips and she reciprocated, the slide and friction sending a shot of heat through her veins. Making her breasts ache to be touched, making her feel hollow.
He put both hands on her hips and gripped her tightly, pulling her against him, letting her feel the hard jut of his arousal against her stomach.
He backed her against the desk and she adjusted so that the edge was just under her butt, supporting her weight. He moved in closer to her, parting her thighs slightly, settling between them.
He pressed his lips to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone.
She never wanted it to stop. She wanted more. And she didn’t want to have to look him in the face when it was over and see the same regret she’d seen last night.
The kissing was safe. The kissing was good. She wanted more of that.
But it ended, and when he pulled away, it wasn’t horror or regret she saw on his face. It was worse. It was nothing. Nothing but a smooth, beautiful, unreadable mask. Like he hadn’t just pushed her to a point she’d never reached before. Like he hadn’t introduced her to a whole new side of attraction.
Like the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis. Her world certainly had.
“That, I think, proves my point,” he said.
She wanted to hit him. Kick him in the shins. Sing a show tune. Something that would get him to react. Because his coolness, his totally unruffled state, was killing her.
“That we have chemistry? Yeah, thanks. I’m really glad I got to be a part of the experiment.” She touched her lips. They were hot. And swollen. Overly sensitive just like the rest of her body.
Dante moved slightly and she caught a glimpse of gold shimmer on his suit jacket with the movement.
She frowned. “Could you move to the light here?” She indicated the shaft of sun coming through the window.
He complied, and the order did earn her a strange look, which, all things considered, she would take and feel somewhat satisfied with.
The light hit his front and a giggle climbed her throat, bursting from her lips. “Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry!”
“What?”
“Your suit.”
He looked down at the spray of golden glitter that was pressed against the entire front of his suit in a little Paige-shaped pattern.
He uttered a curse and brushed his hand over his jacket. Paige tried to hold in her laughter, and succeeded in snorting.
He gave her a dirty look.
“I’m sorry! Oh, brushing it like that isn’t going to help. Glitter is the cold sore of the craft world. It spreads easily and it’s hard to get rid of.”
“Yes,” he bit out, “thank you. I actually figured out the reference without it being explained.”
“You were the one who pulled me all up against you. I was working, as we established, and that involves …”
“It’s fine, Paige,” he said, his annoyance, probably with the whole situation, coming through now.
“I am sorry. Because that suit must have cost …”
“A lot,” he ground out, “but I have a lot so it’s not a big deal.”
Except that he was meticulous with his things to a degree she couldn’t wrap her mind around, so she knew on some level it was a big deal.
“Well, then …”
“I have some things to finish up and then I’ll meet you at the day care to pick Ana up.”
Dante had been forced to walk through the office advertising intimate contact with his own personal glitter fairy. Which, he imagined, he should be somewhat grateful for or at the very least, okay with.
She was, after all, supposed to be his fiancée, and that meant they were expected to touch. To kiss. To have interludes in her office during the workday.
He should be fine with it, but he wasn’t, and it had nothing to do with the possible ruination of his suit and everything to do with the flashing sign on his chest that was advertising his loss of control.
There were only a few minutes left until their interview. He stepped out of a cold shower and into his bedroom. He dressed quickly, ignoring the ache in his body that reminded him that no amount of icy-cold shower could steal the desire he had for her.
He gritted his teeth and turned sharply, hitting the solid wood bedpost with his open palm. The pain, he hoped, would remind him to keep himself under control. A reminder that passion had its price. That any loss of control had a cost.
Nothing was free. Nothing was without consequence.
The sting in his palm reminded him, for a moment, of her teeth grazing over his thumb. Of the reaction that faint pain had had on his body.
He closed his eyes and hit the bedpost again, the hard wood pushing past flesh and making contact with the bone in his wrist. He lowered his hand and shook it.
There was a timid knock on his door. “Come in.”
“Oh, hi. I was wondering if you were ready?” Paige opened the door wide to reveal her and Ana. They were both dressed in pink. Paige in a bright, silk dress and Ana in pale pink one, her chubby legs swinging back and forth.
“I am now,” he said, running his stinging hand over his hair.
“Good, she’s almost here.” Paige turned and flitted out of the room and he followed her. Paige had adjusted Ana so that she was up against her chest, Ana’s bright eyes peeking over Paige’s shoulder. Looking right at him.
He had no experience with babies, and no particular desire to become experienced with them. And this one, this tiny, perfectly formed human, seemed to look straight into him. As if she could see everything. And yet, her expression remained clear and bright. As if she saw it all, and it made no difference.
He realized then that there was one thing that had been neglected. He and Paige were meant to present themselves as a couple, but he’d forgotten that Ana would be with them. That he would have to find some ease with her, as well.
Suddenly, Ana’s little face crumpled and she let out a high-pitched whine. Paige stopped completely, adjusting the baby’s position, stroking her little cheek. It was amazing to see the effect Ana had on Paige. The little whirlwind of a woman was serene with her daughter in her arms. Her focus entirely on her.
Ana squeaked again and Paige started to sing. A soft, sweet sound. A lullaby. Terror curled around his heart, terror he hadn’t anticipated, and couldn’t shake off.
Paige bent forward, her necklace falling toward Ana as she continued to sing.
Cold sweat broke out over his skin, a sick, heavy weight hitting him in the gut and just lying there in him.
He knew one lullaby. And it was in Italian. If he closed his eyes, he could see his mother, leaning over his bed, her necklace hanging down, just as Paige’s was doing now. Singing softly, her hand comforting on his forehead.
Stella, stellina,
la notte si avvicina
Star, little star, the night is approaching …
He shook off the memory, but it tried to hold him, tried to make him see it all. His mother, first alive and so beautiful, and then …
He swallowed hard and took in a breath. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice too rough, too harsh.
Paige’s head snapped up and she looked at him with startled eyes. It made his heart twist. “Sorry,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I am not myself today.”
He wished that were true. Sadly, he feared he was more himself today than he ever usually allowed himself to be.
“Well, get it together. If you blow this … if we blow this … I can’t lose her.”
He looked at the little, fussing baby, and back at the woman who was, in every way that mattered, her mother.
“I know,” he said, teeth gritted, heart pounding.
They couldn’t blow it. Paige couldn’t lose Ana, he knew that. But more importantly, Ana couldn’t lose her. Because he knew, better than most, just how much of a loss it would be.
“Did it go well? I think it went well.” Paige knew she was chattering, but she couldn’t help herself.
The interview was over and they were out on the terrace on the second floor of the house. Dante’s housekeeper had barbecued for them, and they were sitting now, their plates empty, looking out at the ocean. Ana was lying happily on her stomach on a large cushion that had been placed out for her, rocking back and forth and flailing her hands and feet.
“I think it went fine,” Dante said.
There was no sign of the dark, angry man who had been in the hall earlier. There hadn’t been any sign of him from the moment Rebecca Addler had walked through the door.
He’d charmed her, utterly. Clearly, the media’s stories about him hadn’t bothered her in the least or, if they had, Dante in the flesh had erased them in a moment.
He had that effect, that ability to make everything seem fine and easy. He exuded total and complete confidence, no matter the situation. He certainly interviewed better than she did, which was galling, because it showed her just how faulty something like this could be. She was the one who loved Ana, with all of her heart, and yet, he was the one who had charmed the social worker.
Thank God he was on her team.
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling confident.”
“Why worry, Paige, the outcome will be the same either way.”
“Easy for you to say. She’s … everything to me.”
“I know,” he said, his tone serious. “And, I swear I will not let you lose her. Whatever it takes.”
“Really? Why? Why would you … why would you do that?”
“Because I know what it is to lose a mother,” he said, his tone cold. “I know what it is to drift from home to home, no one wanting you. That she is being spared the brunt of it, because of you … I will always have her be spared from it, and if I can help in any way then I will.”
She looked over at Ana, and for the first time, she let the fear that was always ready to pounce on her, overtake her fully. “Can I do this? Am I really the best person?” She looked at Dante. “Tell me. Because I’m scared I’m going to mess it up.”
He looked stunned for a moment. “I … I confess, I’m not the best person to judge how healthy a family is. But you love her. I remember love. I remember when I could feel it. I remember my mother. And the way you hold her, the way she feels when you’re near, that’s what it is.”
A lump in her throat tried to block her words. “But I mess everything up,” she said. “Ask anyone. My family, my teachers, my friends. I always got such bad grades in school. In math and science and history. I liked to read. I did well in English and art. But the other stuff … I could hardly pass a class. I did so poorly that my parents wouldn’t help me get to college. And of course I couldn’t get a scholarship. And no one was surprised. Because they just … expect it from me.” She blinked back tears. “I have messed up about every major life moment a person has. First kisses, prom, getting into college. What if I screw this up, too?”
“You haven’t messed everything in your life up,” he said, taking on that confident tone that was so familiar to her now. “You do well at your job. Exceedingly well. You lost your best friend and you carried on, both with work and with raising her child. Do you know how many people would have been content to simply let the State take over? So many, Paige. And you didn’t do that. You come through when it matters.”
“But I’m scared to want it,” she said. “I’m scared of how much I care for her.”
He frowned and looked out at the sea, the lines by his eyes deepening. “Emotion is the single most dangerous thing I can think of. The kind that controls you. Makes you do things you never thought you were capable of. But … I can see the way it pushes you with her. You told the social worker you were engaged to your boss. You were willing to do anything, take any risk, for her. There is power in that. And your love seems to have power for good. Trust that.”
His words were encouraging in a way, but so laced with a bitter sadness that they settled in her like lead.
“And what about your emotions?” she asked. “What power do you see in them?”
He looked at her, his dark eyes glittering. “I looked in myself, and saw the potential for terrible things. And since that day I haven’t felt anything. I find my power from somewhere else, a place I can control.”
She felt like someone had reached into her chest, grabbed her heart and squeezed it tight. “Dante … you’re helping me. I look in you and I see so much good.”
“Then you are blind.” He stood up and walked off the terrace into the house, and all she could do was stare at his back retreating into the shadows.
She’d seen that emptiness again. That same look he’d gotten in the hall just before he’d snapped at her. That same look he’d had in her office when they’d kissed. She’d taken it for emotionlessness but it wasn’t that.
It was something else. Something worse. Something she was afraid she couldn’t help him with.
CHAPTER NINE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
HE heard crying. He moved to a sitting position in bed and swung his legs over the side, his feet planted on the carpet.
Ana was crying.
He stood and walked out of his room, striding down the hall. He opened the door to the nursery, casting a sliver of light into the room. He saw Paige, sitting in the rocking chair, holding Ana, rocking her, patting her back. Ana was crying still. And so was Paige. Glittery tracks down her cheeks.
His first instinct was to turn away. To walk away from the scene as quickly as possible, go back to bed. Shut down the strange emotions that were rising up, pressing on his throat.
“Is everything okay?”
“No,” Paige said thickly. “She’s been crying for an hour and she won’t stop. I’ve tried everything. I fed her, I changed her. I’m holding her. I turned the light on, I turned it off. I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing you’re doing wrong.”
“What if it is?” she whispered, despair lacing her voice.
He took a step into the room, ignoring the tightness in his chest. “Babies cry, for no reason sometimes.”
He’d heard that said, though he wasn’t sure where.
“But Ana doesn’t, usually.”
“Does she have a fever?” That seemed a logical question.
Paige put her cheek down on Ana’s head. “I don’t think so.” She smoothed her hands over the baby’s brow. “She doesn’t feel warm to me. Does she feel warm to you?”
He couldn’t bring himself to touch her. She was a tiny creature, fragile. Small-boned. Delicate. He didn’t want to put his hands on her.
“I don’t think she’s warm,” he said.
Paige put her hand on the baby’s forehead. “No, you’re right. I don’t think she is. Could you sing to her?”
“Sing?” he asked.
“A lullaby.”
His breath stalled in his throat, got trapped there. “I don’t know any lullabies,” he lied.
“Oh … that’s okay.” She patted Ana on the back. “I tried to sing and she just cried harder so I thought maybe you could …”
“Sorry,” he said, curling his fingers into fists, fighting the urge to run from the room.
For that reason alone he had to stay. Dante Romani did not run. He would not.
Ana hiccuped, her tiny shoulders jerking with the motion. Her cries slowed, quieted, until they became muffled, sporadic whimpers.
He watched her for a few moments, silence settling between them as Paige continued to rock Ana until the whimpering ceased altogether.
“See, she was just crying,” he said, trying to sound certain. Trying to feel some control over the situation when the simple fact was, he had none. There was a nursery in his home. There was a baby here. A woman. She had her things in his closet.
No, nothing was in his control anymore.
“I guess she was,” Paige whispered.
She got up from the chair and walked over to the crib, placing Ana gingerly onto the mattress, then straightening, freezing for a second while she waited to see if the baby would wake up.
The room stayed silent.
“She seems like she’s asleep now,” Paige whispered.
“You should sleep, too,” he said. She looked tired. Sad.
She wrapped her robe around herself, a little tremor shaking her body. “No. I don’t … I don’t think I could sleep right now.”
The desolation in her tone did something to him. Made his stomach feel tight.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not really. But do you have chocolate?”
He let out a long, slow breath. Paige was upset, obviously, and while he would usually walk away and get back in bed without a twinge of guilt, he couldn’t do that now. He wasn’t going to take the time to analyze why. “We’ll have to go raid the cupboards and find out. I’m not certain.”
“How can you not be sure if you have chocolate?” They walked out of the nursery and left the door open so they could hear Ana if she woke.
“I’m not accustomed to raiding my kitchen at odd hours.”
“I guess that’s why you have washboard abs and I don’t.” Her eyes were trained meaningfully on his bare torso. Her complete lack of guile amused him, and aroused him. She didn’t try to hide her open appraisal of him. And yet, it was different than the sort of open gazes he was used to seeing. There was no extra motive with Paige, only admiration.
He looked back at her, treating her to the same, intense study she’d treated him to. Her T-shirt molded to her breasts, her pajama pants sitting low on her hips. Too baggy for his taste. He wanted to see the curves beneath. “I have no complaints about your figure.”
She stopped and turned sharply. “Oh, really?”
He shouldn’t have said that. There was no point in fostering the attraction between Paige and himself. It wasn’t good for either of them. She did something to him. Tested him in ways he’d never been tested before.
Detachment was normally simple for him. This time, not so much. But he couldn’t pull the compliment back now. He wasn’t the sort of man to lie to a woman, or charm her to get her into bed, but he still knew enough to know that this was a subject to tread carefully with. Could sense that the wrong words could break her, or lead her to believe he could give things he simply could not.
“Every inch of you is beautiful,” he said. It was the truth, not flattery. Though why he was compelled to speak it in that way, he wasn’t certain.
She flushed scarlet. “You haven’t seen every inch of me.”
“Yet,” he said, the word escaping without his permission and hanging between them, heavy and, he realized in that moment, stating the inevitable.
“No,” she said, turning away from him and continuing down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“No?”
“You and I both know it would be a very bad idea.”
“Why is that, Paige?” he asked. “What harm could come from a bit of fun?” There was so much wrong with that sentence. He knew exactly what harm resulted from sex and passion. Which was precisely why his sexual encounters were void of passion. Passion wasn’t required for release. It was perfunctory. The right contact in the right place and his partners found their pleasure, then he was free to take his. Find a moment of blinding oblivion. But it had very little to do with the woman he was with, and even less to do with feeling.
And fun was a word he wasn’t sure he put any stock in. He wasn’t sure if he ever had any.
“Quite a few bits of harm, I think,” she said, crossing to the stainless-steel refrigerator and opening the freezer, rummaging through the contents. “What ho! Chocolate ice cream!”
She pulled the carton out and held it high like a frozen trophy before setting in on the granite countertop. “Get spoons,” she said. “And bowls.”
“And the previous discussion is closed?”
“Yep.”
He complied with her order and produced bowls and spoons. He set them out and scooped them both some ice cream. He pulled up on the edge of the counter and sat, and Paige did the same on the counter across from him.
“Maybe I won’t be such a terrible mother,” she said, eating a spoonful of ice cream.
“You won’t be. But what has led you to the conclusion?”
“I used my stern voice and got you to change the subject and dish my ice cream,” she said, her grin impish. But the impishness didn’t reach her eyes. She still looked sad. Scared.
“I want to tell you something,” he said. He lied. He didn’t want to tell her what he was about to say, but it seemed important. It was all he had to offer.
She nodded and took another bite of ice cream, her eyes trained on his.
“Do you know what I remember about my mother?” he asked.
She blinked hard, her eyes glistening. She set her bowl and spoon down on the counter beside her. “No.”
“I was six when she died. But I do remember her. How good it felt when she put her hand on my forehead before I fell asleep. The way her voice sounded, soothing, kind. The way she sang to me.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not about getting everything right. It’s about those things, those small things. That’s all that matters. You do that for Ana. You may make mistakes, but you’ll be the constant, comforting presence in her life. That’s what matters,” he repeated.
He remembered more about his mother. Her fear. When his father would come home from work in a dark mood. Her tucking him in, locking his door with a key. So he couldn’t get out and see. So his father couldn’t get in and cause him any harm.
And he remembered her lying on the floor, too still. Too pale. The sparkle gone from her eyes forever.
He remembered lying with her on the floor and singing her a lullaby until the police came. His hand on her head, stroking her hair, like she had always done for him.
Stella, Stellina. Star, little star.
He left that part out. If only he could leave it out of his mind. If only he could scrub the memory away. Hold on to the good, leave out the bad. But it wasn’t possible.
The good always came with bad. Always.
A tear slipped down Paige’s cheek. “She must have been wonderful.”
“She was,” he said.
“I have failed at so many things,” she said. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know why things are harder for me. I tried to do well in school … I just couldn’t. And my parents … I think they tried to be supportive of me, but I don’t think they really believed that I was trying. My brother and sister, they were extraordinary, and they worked for it. But I had to work for ordinary. I had to bust my butt just to be average. And that meant no college for me. In their minds … I suppose I was a failure. I mean, I had my art but art doesn’t translate to much, not to them.”
“And that’s why you moved.”
She nodded. “To find out what it would be like if I wasn’t surrounded by people who expected nothing from me. People who had given up on me. Shyla always believed in me. She said I was smart. No one ever said that. No one else. She encouraged me to go out for the position at Colson’s and I thought … I thought there was no way. I had no degree, no experience. But your hiring manager … she saw something in me, too. In my work. She took a chance on me, and the only reason I was brave enough to take a chance on myself was because of my friend. I can’t let her down,” she said, her voice shaky. “There is so much at stake here and I can’t fail. But failure is something I’m so good at, I’m afraid history will just repeat itself.”
“Tell me, are your bother and sister artists?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Your parents, are they artists?”
“No.”
“Could any of them imagine the window settings that you do? Not only that, could they find the materials, imagine the lighting, the colors, everything that you do, to make them a reality?”
“Probably not.”
“Then maybe you haven’t failed. You’ve simply succeeded in different areas. Areas that those other people couldn’t, and so don’t understand.”
“I …” She blinked rapidly. “You’re the first person who’s ever … said it like that.”
“It’s true, though. We can’t all be great at everything. I couldn’t design the windows for the store, so I hired you to do it.”
“Your hiring manager did.”
“Fine, but you get the idea. I don’t do everything. I don’t have the ability to do everything. Why should you?”
“It’s just that what I do has never been important to my family.”
“That’s their problem. You’re good at what counts. You stand firm when you’re needed. You’re coming through for Ana. Your instinct, when you were being interviewed by the social worker, was to protect her, to keep her with you no matter what. If that doesn’t prove that you’re strong enough to do this, nothing will.”
She slid down from the counter, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She took a sharp breath and crossed to him, standing in front of him, eye level to his chest. She reached up and put her hands on his cheeks, then tugged his face down as she drew up onto her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his.
He held on to the edge of the counter, letting her lead the kiss, letting her part his lips with her tongue. Letting her set the pace, the intensity.
He could taste the salt from her tears on her mouth, could feel the barely contained sadness in each shaking breath.
He ached to take control. To tug her up against him and to kiss her with every bit of pent-up passion, sorrow and pain that was buried inside of him. That was threatening to claw its way out through his chest if he didn’t find a way to release it.
But he couldn’t allow it.
This was for her, to have what she would. He would give it to her, and feel no sense of sacrifice. Whatever she wanted, she could have. As long as the true control belonged to him.
Paige pulled back from Dante, her heart thundering, her hands shaking. She didn’t know what she was thinking, if she was thinking. All she knew was that she wanted to feel something big. Something real and affirming. She wanted Dante’s actions to confirm his words.
She wanted to prove that she could want someone, and have them want her. That she wasn’t broken. That she wasn’t a joke. She wanted the unobtainable, beautiful man all for herself.
She didn’t want happily ever after from him. She didn’t want love. And she didn’t want to thank him. It was something else, a need so deep and raw that she could hardly understand it.
All she knew was that his touch would make things better. His kiss would heal so many wounds, be the confirmation for what he’d spoken.
To prove that she wasn’t a failure with men. That she wasn’t undesirable. That someone could want her.
She smoothed her hands over his chest, his muscles hot and hard beneath her palms, his chest hair crisp. So sexy and masculine. So different from her own body.
“I want you,” she said, her lips still pressed against his.
The silence that followed seemed to last forever. He might reject her. He probably would. But this was the first time she’d ever been willing to take the chance. It felt like a chain had been loosened on her, like she could move more freely.
He slid down from the counter, locking his arm around her waist and drawing her hard up against his body. “You want to kiss me? Or you want more?”
“M-more.”
“I have to hear you say it,” he said, his tone stretched, tortured.
“I want to … to sleep with you tonight.” A sudden, horrifying thought occurred to her, and her stomach sank to her toes. “Unless you don’t want to.” Why would he? He’d pulled away from every kiss they’d shared. He was a bronzed god of a man with a physique that looked too good to be real. A man with tons of sexual experience. A man who could have, and had had, any woman he wished. For a crazy moment she’d been convinced she could have this, could have him. But maybe she’d been fooling herself. Again.
He chuckled, rough and humorless. “How can you think I don’t want you?”
“I’m average, remember?”
He moved his hand up to her hair and pushed his fingers through it, tugging on a pink strand, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “I have never seen anyone quite like you. Which means the description cannot be accurate.”
“You hate my hair.”
He shook his head. “It’s growing on me.”
He pressed his other hand against her lower back and brought her into closer contact with his body. With the evidence of his desire for her.
Her eyes widened. “You do want me.”
“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to believe. But by the end of tonight, it won’t be.”
She wished she had a witty reply, something to defuse the tension. Something to loosen the knot in her stomach and lessen the ache between her thighs. To lessen the importance of the moment. But there was nothing. Her brain was too busy spinning around all the ways he could show her.
Never before had discovering what she’d been missing with sex been so important. Been so essential. But it was now.
He kissed her again, intensifying it. He moved his hand down to the waistband of her pajama pants and let his fingertips drift beneath the flannel fabric, and down low so that he was palming her butt, his touch hot and rough and perfect. He squeezed her and a shot of liquid, sexual heat poured through her, zipping straight to her core.
She arched into him, rubbing her breasts against his chest, looking for a way to dull the ache there, squirming as the one between her thighs intensified, the hand on her bottom so close to where she needed him, the nearness making it all the more frustrating.
“We have to find a bed,” she said, pulling away from him, her breath coming in out-of-control gasps.
“We don’t need a bed,” he growled, leaning in, kissing her neck.
“Oh. Oh …” Her mind went blank for a moment as his tongue swirled over the hollow in her throat. “Yes. We do. I don’t feel like … I don’t have the experience to.” She was not going to say virgin. She was going to avoid that word at all costs. “I’m remedial. At this. I need something standard. And soft. In case I fall or something.”
He stopped for a moment, his dark eyes searching hers. “I won’t let you fall.”
You might not be able to stop me. The words hovered on the edge of her lips, but she didn’t speak them. She didn’t dare. She wasn’t even sure what they meant. Only that they terrified her down to her bones.
“I know but … please?”
He nodded and swung her up into his arms. She squeaked and clung to his neck as he walked out of the kitchen and to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He didn’t put her down until they were in his room, at the foot of his bed.
“Will this bed do?”
She nodded, her throat dry. “Yes. Now come here and kiss me. I promise not to get glitter on you.”
He moved to her, cupping her cheek and brushing his thumb across her skin. “Your wish is my command.”
He kissed her, deeply, sensually, his hands roaming over her curves. He cupped her breast, teasing her nipple with light contact, making her ache for more. For his flesh on hers. His mouth on her body.
He tugged her shirt up over her head. The cold air hit her breasts, and she didn’t have any time to feel self-conscious about what he was seeing. He tugged her against him and she gasped as her breasts brushed against his chest, the heat of his skin warming her through her whole body, his chest hair abrading her sensitized nipples.
She moved her hands over his back, his muscles shifting and bunching beneath her fingertips.
He pushed her flannel pajamas and underwear down her hips, letting them pool at her feet. She was thankful he hadn’t paused to look at her panties. A sexual interlude had been the last thing on her mind when she’d selected the purple cotton garment after her shower that evening.
She wanted to take his clothes off him, but her hands felt heavy suddenly, clumsy. She wasn’t sure if it was her move or not. Or if he liked it when a woman undressed him. Or … anything.
He was so perfect, so beautiful, just like the moment. She didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.
Thankfully, he was more than ready and willing to discard his own clothes, and after he disappeared into the bathroom briefly, he returned, fully erect, more gorgeous than any man had a right to be, and carrying a box of condoms.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. At the thick erection that stood out from his body. She’d never seen a naked man in person before, and pictures of classical statues really didn’t do them justice. Or at least, they didn’t represent Dante.
“I want to touch you,” she said, shocked at her boldness. But for some reason, the moment he’d come back into the bedroom, all of her nerves had evaporated. She was standing there, naked, and he was there, naked. And they were about to share the most intimate connection two people could possibly share.
There was no room for fear. Or shame, or awkwardness. She was sure. It was such an unusual feeling for her. And yet, with him, in the moment, everything felt right.
“Feel free,” he said, his voice rough.
She moved to him, ran her fingers from his chest down to his abs, to the dark line of hair that led from there and to his hard, thick shaft. She wrapped her fingers around him, testing his weight.
“What do you like?” she asked, her heart thundering hard, her stomach quivering.
“This,” he said, his breath hissing through his teeth.
“Just me touching you?”
“Yes,” he said. His breathing increased, his chest rising and falling quickly.
“And this?” She squeezed him gently and was rewarded with a groan that bordered on tortured.
“Yes,” he bit out.
“Harder?”
He put his hand over hers and stilled her movements. “Only if you want me to come right now.”
She pulled her hand back. “No. Not yet. You aren’t allowed yet.”
“I thought not.” He captured her lips in a fierce kiss, bringing her down onto the bed with him.
She looped her thigh over his hip, opening herself to him. She moved against him, each brush of his arousal against the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs sending a streak of white heat through her.
He lowered his head and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. A raw moan escaped her lips and she gripped his shoulders hard, her nails digging into his skin. He lifted his head, letting it fall back. She gripped him harder and he winced, his hold tightening on her back.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
And he obeyed, lowering his head to her breasts again, licking her, sucking her, bringing her to the edge and back with the sensual assault from his mouth. He moved his hand from her back, down to her waist, to her hips, holding her hard, kissing a path down her body until he came to the place that was wet and aching for him.
His tongue moved over her clitoris and she lifted her hips off the bed, sensation so deep, so intense hitting her that she couldn’t hold still. He held her, continuing as though she wasn’t whimpering beneath him, as though her body wasn’t trembling, her world crumbling inward, reducing to pleasure, to Dante.
She laced her fingers into his hair, holding him to her, so close now, so close to the peak that she had no desire to fight it. No desire to fight him.
He released his hold on her and his hand joined his mouth, one finger sliding deep inside of her as he flicked his tongue over her clitoris again. The world exploded behind her eyelids. Stars raining down on her, leaving her blanketed in heat and light.
She shook, her body trembling as each wave of release passed through her.
Dante lifted his head and kissed her hip, the space just beneath her belly button. Her stomach. Between her breasts. Then he settled between her thighs, his hardness probing the soft, wet entrance to her body.
He cursed and paused, reaching beside them and picking up the condom box. He fished inside of it for a moment, producing a small packet that he tore open quickly. He rolled the condom onto his length with deft efficiency, and she was grateful he hadn’t asked her to do it.
Then he was back over her, pressing into her. She felt a brief, searing pain as he pushed inside of her, her body stretching to accommodate him.
He paused for a moment, his dark eyes blazing, his expression pained.
She shook her head. And he didn’t speak. Instead, he thrust into her to the hilt, his body coming up hard against hers, making contact right where she needed it, pleasure erasing the pain, slowly, but oh so perfectly.
He retreated, thrusting home again, establishing a steady rhythm that built up tension inside of her again. It was deeper this time, reaching farther inside of her, calling up the need from somewhere new. It was shared desperation, shared need.
She met each thrust, working with him, moving with him, toward completion. Everything blurred, blending together, the room beyond Dante turning fuzzy, insubstantial.
His movements became erratic, evidence of his fraying control, and hers began to shred, too. Her grip on the world loosening. When they fell, they fell together, raw sounds of completion filling the room as they reached the peak.
She held on to him tightly, trying to keep from getting lost in it all. Anchoring him to her.
When his muscles stopped trembling, he let out a long, slow breath and pressed his forehead against her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and held him there. Held his body against hers, skin to skin, every inch of him against every inch of her.
She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to face reality.
But she knew that they would have to.
But not yet.
CHAPTER TEN (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
DANTE cursed himself. To hell. To any level of hell. He’d heard every reference about his name in connection with the place of suffering and damnation that the media could possibly create, and this time, he found it appropriate.
He belonged there for this.
He had let her lead, but what he hadn’t realized was that she hadn’t known the dance.
A virgin. A damn virgin.
He should have known. He should have seen it in every wide-eyed glance, in every sweet, perfect blush. In the way she didn’t seem to know the sort of power her body could wield.
But he hadn’t, or worse, he’d ignored it. That black part of his soul rising up to choke out the control, choke out the small seed of human decency that had still rested inside of him.
He avoided women who didn’t know the game. Who didn’t understand that with him sex was only about one thing: release. Even if the woman had had a hundred partners, he had to be sure she understood that.
But a woman who had no experience with sex? She was not the kind of player he picked for the game. Ever.
The voice in his head whispering that Paige was different was silenced completely.
“Dammit, Paige,” he said, his voice rough.
“Oh, no. Don’t do that please.”
She scooted away from him and burrowed under his covers. In his bed. Like she was planning on staying the night, which he was sure she was. Women didn’t stay the night with him. They never had. Not once.
They met in hotels. They got the itch scratched. They left. A long encounter lasted a couple of hours. Never more.
“Don’t get upset about you not telling me you were a virgin?” he growled.
“Yes!” She threw her arms up and brought her hands back down on the covers. “It’s stupid. You’re not a mustache-twirling villain who just ripped away my maidenhead. I knew what I was doing.”
He moved into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and forked his fingers through his hair, his heart pounding heavily. Too quickly. He hadn’t gotten his control back yet. “I cannot even wrap my head around that sentence.”
“I wanted it. I told you I wanted it. You asked me to say it, and I did. I wanted to sleep with you. I wanted you to be my first. No, you know, that’s not even it. It wasn’t about first. It was about wanting you. End of story.”
“Paige, I don’t … I can’t offer you anything.”
“Oh, you mean you can’t offer me anything other than a temporary marriage to help me keep custody of my daughter? You can’t offer me anything more than that and multiple orgasms? Is that what you mean?”
“Paige,” he growled.
“Get into bed, Dante.”
“I don’t …” He was about to tell her. To tell her that his lovers did not share his bed. His lovers didn’t usually enter his home.
But the words stuck in his throat. He should tell her, tell her that if she wanted sex, she could have it, but if she wanted to make love she would have to look somewhere else. But for the first time in his memory, the blunt words, the true words, stuck in his throat.
He stood. “I need to go and take care of things.”
She nodded, her hands clutching the covers like talons, as if proving to him that she was well and truly rooted to the spot.
He walked into the bathroom and disposed of the condom, then for the second time in only a few days, he gripped the edge of the sink and regarded the man in the mirror.
He released his hold and straightened, turning away from his reflection. And he weighed which sin would be greater. To give her what she asked for, with no intention, no ability, to offer emotion. Or to show her now, that with him, there would be no softness.
He walked back into the bedroom, his chest tightening when he saw Paige, deep in the blankets, rolled onto her side, her eyes open.
“You did come back,” she said.
“I did,” he said.
His stomach tightened, painfully, a raw, intense tremor of terror working its way beneath his skin and straight into his heart. The closer he got to the bed, the sharper the feeling became.
He stopped, trying to catch his breath. She looked … angelic. Her lips swollen and flushed pink, her skin still flushed, too. Her blue eyes filled with an innocent expectancy, a need that he knew he could never meet.
And still, the desire to slide beneath the sheets and tug her bare body against his was strong. The need to feast on her beauty, to sate himself on that need, so great, so powerful, it threatened to take over.
He took a step backward. “You are welcome to stay in here for the night, Paige,” he said, his words stilted. “But I have work to do.”
He bent and retrieved his pants from the floor, tugged them on, then did the same with his shirt. And without looking back, he walked out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him.
Paige opened her eyes slowly, squinting against the light coming through the curtains. Her first thought was that it was strange that Ana hadn’t woken up.
Her next thought was about how strange it was that she was naked. She never slept naked. She wore her pajamas. But she hadn’t last night.
Oh, yes, and now she remembered, very, very clearly why she hadn’t worn pajamas.
Dante. His hands. His mouth. His body. He was … everything a man should be. No wonder she’d been so fascinated with him for so long. Somehow, some part of her, must have known, instinctively, that that man was capable of giving pleasure that went well beyond anything she’d previously imagined.
A smile curved her lips. Okay, so she hadn’t waited for marriage, or even true love, which she was sure her perfect sister had done. But it had been worth it. So, so worth it.
She pushed away the dreaded suspicion that she might feel differently about it later, and instead, focused on the warm satisfaction that was still resting in her body. She shifted and winced. Oh, yeah, there was also a little bit of ow resting in her body, but that seemed worth it, too.
Her muscles hurt. And so did … things that had never hurt before.
She rolled over and realized that the sheets were cold where Dante should have been. And then she remembered him walking out, his expression shuttered, blank, and she wondered if he had ever come back to bed.
The door to the bedroom swung open and Dante entered, wearing the clothes from the night before.
“Good morning,” she said, feeling slightly less blissful than she had a second earlier.
He frowned. “It is morning.” He tugged his shirt up over his head and her brain stalled at watching the play of perfect, golden skin over shifting muscles.
A little thrill assaulted her. He was hot, so supposedly out of her league, and yet, last night, he’d been hers. He had wanted her. Her.
She’d gotten the hot guy, and for a moment, she just wanted to celebrate that. Before reality hit.
“Yes, it is morning,” she said, sounding far chirpier than she imagined he might like.
“Are you okay?”
She sat up, holding the covers to her chest, and poked herself in the arm. “I … feel okay.”
“Very funny, Paige. You know what I’m asking.” He dropped his pants and her stomach followed the trajectory, sinking around her toes.
“If I’m angry that you made love with me and left me for the rest of the night?” she asked, keeping her eyes trained on his tight butt as he looked through his closet, shoving her clothing aside with rough, frustrated movements. “I’m a little angry about that, yeah.”
“That isn’t what I was asking.”
She really hoped that he wasn’t actually asking what she thought he might be asking, because that was just too stupid. “You want to know if I regret the sex.”
“Yes.”
She let out an exasperated breath. “I don’t regret the sex, Dante. But I am a little put out by the way you acted after. And actually, the way you’re acting now.”
“It sounds to me like you regret anything happened at all.”
“I told you I wanted it,” she said, exasperation lacing her tone.
He draped a pair of black slacks and a white shirt over his arm, still completely naked. “I know, but that was before you knew …”
“Just because I was a virgin doesn’t mean I didn’t know anything about sex. You can know about things without actually doing them.”
“But you don’t know how they’ll make you feel.”
“I feel—felt, because now I’m a little annoyed—satisfied. And warm. And … happy until you ditched me to work or whatever it was you did.”
“So, you have it all figured out then, do you?”
“Yes. If you stop treating me like a child, or a stranger who invaded your bedroom, I think we can work something out.”
His expression turned dark, fierce. He stalked over to the bed and leaned in, planting his hands on the foot of it. “So you think we can just go on and have an affair while you’re living here? Just sex. You, me, this bed, no clothes, no emotions—is that what you think?”
He was challenging her, trying to make her back off, trying to make her say no. And she knew it wasn’t for her benefit, not really. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
“Yeah,” she said, shrugging one bare shoulder, “I think we could do that.”
He raised both eyebrows. “You do?”
“Yeah. Last night was … really fun.”
“Fun?” he asked, his tone deadly.
“I can’t believe I waited so long. Well, I can, because you know … this is really embarrassing, but when I was in high school, I made out with this guy, but I had braces, and he cut his tongue.”
Dante blinked. “He … cut his tongue?”
“Yeah, on the braces. Only because he kissed like an overzealous puppy. You’re much better, by the way.”
“Thank you,” he said, drily.
“You’re welcome. Anyway, that’s hard to live down.” She drew her knees up beneath the covers and studied the stitching on the comforter. “And so, already I was sort of a running joke at the school. And then … senior prom, this guy who was … waaaay out of my league, asked if I would be his date. And I said yes. And then after the dance part, he told me he had a blanket and some drinks waiting for us under the bleachers which means … well, you know what that means. Well, no guy had paid attention to me in a couple of years thanks to the braces incident and so I … I was going to do it.”
“But clearly you didn’t,” he said, straightening.
“Clearly,” she said. “Because that wasn’t really what I was there for.”
“What happened?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to talk about. It’s been what … four years? Stupid.” She shook her head, trying to stop the burning sting of tears in her eyes, the echoing burn of shame in her chest. “We went out to the football field, under the, um … bleachers. It was prom, you know, so … you know.”
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Maisey Yates
Scarlet Wilson
MELANIE MILBURNE
He’s Very Demanding…Paige Harper told a little white lie that’s made headlines. The only way to secure the adoption of her best friend’s daughter was to fake an engagement with her boss. Now she can hear Dante Romani marching down the corridor to fire her…or maybe not! What else could he want?As Molly Drummond’s new boss, Lucas Banning poses a challenge – he’s brooding, demanding, and far too good-looking. He’s also a living, breathing reminder of the greatest tragedy in Molly’s life – so what does it mean that her heart skips a beat every time she sees him? Would a whirlwind fling be forbidden?Nurse Francesca Cruz has taken a job on a cruise ship bound for the Mediterranean except she finds herself trapped with gorgeous, arrogant doctor Gabriel Russo. She knows his type well, and won’t be tempted. But with nowhere to escape and her delicious boss lying in the next cabin, it’s easier said than done!
Mistresses: After Hours with the Boss
Her Little White Lie
Maisey Yates
Their Most Forbidden Fling
Melanie Milburne
An Inescapable Temptation
Scarlet Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ua7cddc60-e5e1-53b1-83cf-cd77bd505d50)
Title Page (#ua3758fb0-8455-507a-88bc-dcfd6ff79902)
Her Little White Lie (#u59a7ca9b-531e-58d1-ae8a-8d26f1304cb5)
Extract (#uc16f2464-e368-58f0-adaa-d726c91a9429)
About the Author (#ud476e42e-ca4d-583f-a14b-567d865194f3)
Dedication (#ub7fc3671-1fd3-547e-9125-41a3c162ff27)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub3eea39c-9d13-56bc-acdc-e8ac5b389e06)
CHAPTER TWO (#u2e6461ce-ea6f-51db-a859-8cf0479f1b68)
CHAPTER THREE (#u1a9b260e-20aa-559c-a83d-9bccc7e7d56d)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u3893665c-6cbd-5897-b4a9-4f056cf02a4d)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u7a358bca-2e61-51eb-bcdf-7a5f7c90063a)
CHAPTER SIX (#u8620d73b-4e31-5997-ab22-24dbd6a6df2e)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u0a1b6b35-aec5-5f9c-9583-93232e39bfa2)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u085604dc-ffea-5d6e-b639-ee441249f28a)
CHAPTER NINE (#udf926321-1344-5332-b587-fcd98017213d)
CHAPTER TEN (#u23c78d58-daf6-5cef-84ae-82cc34439bd4)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Their Most Forbidden Fling (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
An Inescapable Temptation (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Her Little White Lie (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
He’d tried to block out the intense need that had been rioting through him from the moment he’d gotten out of bed last night and left her there alone when he’d wanted nothing more than to take her again. And again. And again.
Dante wanted even more to try and eradicate the pain in his chest that seemed to hit him so hard and strong whenever he looked at Paige holding Ana. A mother and her child. The love that passed between them. The truest love he’d known. The love he had lost.
He wanted to crush those feelings. Bury them beneath something stronger. Lust. Sex. Desire.
“Don’t ignore me, Paige,” he said. He swept her hair to the side and bent, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “Ever.”
She shivered beneath his touch. “I wasn’t.”
“You were trying to ignore this.” He traced the line of her neck with the tip of his tongue. “And you know we can’t.”
USA Today bestselling author MAISEY YATES lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiselled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit. Visit her online at her website www.maiseyyates.com (http://www.maiseyyates.com).
For my grandma,
who passed on her love of books and romance to me.
CHAPTER ONE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
“EXPLAIN this, or pack up your things and get out.”
Paige Harper looked up from her seated position and into her boss’s dark, angry eyes. Having him here, in her office, was enough to leave her speechless. Breathless. He was handsome from far away and, up close, even enraged, he was arresting. It was hard to look away from him, but she managed. Then she looked down at the newspaper he’d thrown onto the surface of her desk and her heart sank into her stomach.
“Oh …” She picked up the paper. “Oh …”
“Speechless?”
“Oh …”
“I said explain, Ms. Harper. ‘Oh’ is not an explanation in any language that I am aware of.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and Paige suddenly felt two inches tall.
“I …” She looked back down at the paper, open to the lifestyle section, the main headline reading Dante Romani to Tie the Knot with Employee. Underneath the headline were two pictures. One of Dante, looking forbidding and perfectly pressed in a custom-made suit. And one of her, on a ladder, in a window at Colson’s, hanging strips of tinsel from the ceiling in preparation for the holiday season.
“I …” She tried again as she scanned the article.
Dante Romani, notorious bad boy of the Colson Department Store empire, who just last week made headlines for the callous axing of a top exec, and for replacing the family man in favor of a younger, less-attached man, is now engaged to one of his employees. We can’t help but wonder if playing games with his staff is a favored pastime of the much-maligned businessman. Either firing them or marrying them at will.
Her stomach tightened with horror. She couldn’t fathom how this had ended up in the paper. She’d done a fair amount of panicking over how she was going to fix the lie she’d told the social worker, but she’d thought she would have some time. She hadn’t expected this, not even in her wildest dreams.
But there it was, the lie of the century, shouting at her in black and white.
“That’s hardly more eloquent, or more informative.”
“I told a lie,” she said.
He looked around her office, and her eyes followed his, over the stacks of fabric samples, boxes with beads hanging out of them, aerosol cans of flocking and paint sitting in the corner and Christmas knickknacks spread over every surface.
He looked back at her, his lip curled upward. “On second thought, why don’t you skip packing and just walk out. I can have your things express delivered to you.”
“Wait … no …” Losing her job was unthinkable, as was getting caught in her lie. She needed her job. And she really didn’t need child services to find out she’d lied during her adoption interview. Well, what she really needed was a time machine so that she could go back and opt not to lie to Rebecca Addler, but that was probably a bit too complicated as solutions went.
She looked back down at the article.
It’s hard to imagine that a man who so recently fired someone for being, reportedly more devoted to his family than to the almighty dollar, could settle down and become a family man himself. The question is: Can this thoroughly average woman reform the soulless CEO? Or will she become another in the long line of professional and personal casualties Dante Romani leaves in his wake?
Average woman. Yeah, that sounded like her life. Even in her lie, where she was engaged to the hottest billionaire in town, she came out of it as the average woman.
She swallowed and looked back up at her boss’s blazing expression. “This is horrible journalism. Sensationalist nonsense, really. All but an opinion piece, one might say. Fluff, even.”
Dante cut her off, his black eyes hard, flat. “What did you hope to accomplish with this? Was it fun gossip you didn’t think would spread around to this degree? Or was it something you wanted?”
She stood, her knees shaking. “No, I just …”
“You might not be newsworthy, Ms. Harper, but I am.”
“Hey!” The assessment burned, especially on the heels of the descriptor of her as “average.” Of course, she had to admit, looking at their pictures side by side, that average was a pretty kind descriptor.
“Did I offend you?”
“A little.”
“I guarantee it is not half so offensive as coming into work to discover you’re engaged to someone you have barely had four conversations with.”
“Actually, I’m sort of in the same boat you are. I didn’t expect for this to be in the paper. I didn’t … I didn’t expect for anyone to ever find out.”
“Be that as it may, they have. And now I have. It would be best if you were to see yourself out. I do not wish to call security.” He turned and started to walk out of the room and she felt her heart slide the rest of the way down.
“Mr. Romani,” she said, “please, hear me out.” She was nearly pleading. No, who was she kidding? She was pleading. And she wasn’t ashamed. She would get down on her knees and beg if she had to, but she wasn’t going to let him ruin this.
“I tried. You had nothing of interest to say.”
“Because I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning works for me.”
She took a deep breath. “Rebecca Addler frowns on single mothers. Not every social worker does, but this one … this one doesn’t like them. I mean, not that she doesn’t like them personally, but in general. And she asked me why Ana would be better off with me as opposed to a real, traditional family with a mother and a father and I just sort of told her that there would be a father because I was getting married and then your name slipped out because … well, because I work for you, so I see it a lot and it was the first name I thought of.”
He blinked twice, then shifted, his head tilted to the side. “That was not the beginning.”
Paige took another deep breath, trying to slow down her brain and find a better starting point. “I’m trying to adopt.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, I have my daughter in the day care here.”
“I don’t go to the day care,” he said, his tone flat.
“Ana’s just a baby. She’s been with me almost from the moment she was born. I …” Thinking of Shyla still made her throat tighten, made her ache everywhere. Her beautiful, vivacious best friend. The only person who’d really enjoyed her eccentricity rather than simply bearing it. “Her mother is gone. And I’m taking care of her. Nothing was made official before Shyla … anyway she’s a ward now.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the state has the final say over her placement. It’s been fine for me to foster her, I’m approved for that. But … but not necessarily for adopting. I’ve been trying and I had a meeting with the worker handling the case two days ago. It was looking like they weren’t going to approve the adoption. And yes, I lied. About us. And about … the engagement, but please believe it had nothing to do with you.”
A slight lie. It had a lot to do with the fact that he was much better looking than any man had a right to be. And she had to go in to work in the same building as he did, and chance walking by him in the halls. Being exposed to all that male beauty was a hazard.
So, yes, there were times she thought of him away from work. In fairness, he was the best-looking man she’d ever encountered in her entire life, and she was in a dating dry spell of epic proportions, which meant, pleasant time with images of Dante was about all she had going on in her love life.
And she saw the man all the time, and that made things worse.
As a result of the exposure, when pressed for the name of her fiancé by Rebecca Addler, the only man she’d been able to picture had been Dante. And so his name had sort of spilled out.
Another gaffe in a long line of them for her. When it came to “oops,” she was well above average.
So there, newspaper reporter.
One of his dark eyebrows shot upward. “I’m flattered.”
She put her hand on her forehead. “There is no way for me to win trying to explain this,” she said. “It’s just awkward. But … but … I don’t really know what to do now. It wasn’t supposed to be in the paper, and now it is, and if it turns out we aren’t engaged they’ll know that I lied and then …”
“And then you’ll be a single mother who is also a liar. Two strikes, I would think.” His tone was so disengaged, so unfeeling.
She swallowed. “Well, exactly.”
He was right. Two strikes. If not a plain old strikeout. It wasn’t an acceptable risk. Not where Ana was concerned. Ana, the brightest spot in her life. Her helpless little girl, the baby she loved more than her own life. There was nothing and no one else she would even consider stooping to this level of subterfuge for, nothing else that could possibly compel her to do what she was starting to think she had to do: propose to her boss.
The man who practically stole the air from her lungs when he walked into a room. The man who was so far out of her league, even thinking of a dinner date with him was laughable.
But this was bigger than that. Bigger than a little crush or her insecurity. Her fear of outright rejection.
“I … I think I need your help.”
There was no change in his expression. Dante Romani was impossible to read, but then, that wasn’t really new. He was the dark prince of the Colson empire, the adopted son of Don and Mary Colson. The media speculated that they’d adopted him because he’d shown profound brilliance at an early age. No one imagined it had been his personality that had won over the older couple.
She’d always thought those stories were sad and unfair. Now she wondered. Wondered if he was as heartless as he was portrayed to be. She really hoped he wasn’t, because she was going to need him to care at least a little bit in order to pull this off.
“I’m not in the position to give this kind of help,” he said, his tone dry.
“Why?” she asked, pushing herself into a standing position. “Why not? I … I don’t need you forever, I just need …”
“You need me to marry you. I think that’s a step too far into crazy town, don’t you?”
“For my daughter,” she said, the words raw, loud and echoing in the room. And now that she’d said them, out loud, she didn’t regret them. She would do anything for Ana. Even this. Even if it meant getting thrown out of the office building.
Because for the first time in her memory, something mattered. It mattered more than self-protection or fending off disappointment. It was worth the possibility of adding to her list of failures.
“She’s not your daughter,” he said.
She gritted her teeth, trying to keep a handle on the adrenaline that was pounding through her, making her shake. “Blood isn’t everything. I would think you would understand that.” Probably not the best idea to be taking shots at him, but it was true. He should understand.
He regarded her for a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I will not fire you. For now. But I will require further explanation. An explanation that makes sense. What do you have on your agenda for the day?”
“I’m working on Christmas,” she said, indicating the array of decorations spread out in the room. “For Colson’s and for Trinka.” She was working on a series of elegant displays for the parent store, and for their offshoot, teen clothing store, something mod and edgy.
“You’ll be in the office?”
She nodded. “Just fiddling today.”
“Good. Don’t leave until we’ve spoken again.” He turned and walked out of her office and she sank to her knees, her hands shaking, her entire body wound so tight she wanted to curl in on herself.
She was so stupid. Nothing new. She’d spoken without thinking. As per usual. Only this time it had landed her in serious trouble, with the man who signed her checks.
Everything was in his hands now. Her future. Her family. Her money.
“Time to learn to think before you talk,” she said into the empty office. Unfortunately, it was too late for that. Way, way too late.
Dante finished with the last item of work on his agenda and turned to his file cabinet, placing the last document on his desk into its appropriate spot. Then he put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, staring at the newspaper on the shining surface.
He’d studied the news story again when he’d come back into his office. A scathing piece on how the impostor of the Colson family moved people around like pawns on a chessboard. It was stacked with details about the man, Carl Johnson, he’d fired last week for skipping out on an important meeting to go to a child’s sporting event.
The press had covered it a week ago, too, since Carl had gone screaming to the papers over discrimination of some kind. In Dante’s mind, it wasn’t discrimination to expect an employee to attend mandatory meetings, no matter whether it was the last game of a five-year-old’s T-ball season or not.
Still, it had been another of those juicy bits the media had latched on to to further stack the case against him and his possession of human decency. It generally didn’t matter to him.
But one thing in that article stood out to him: Can she reform him?
Could Paige Harper reform him? The idea amused him. He had the bare minimum of contact with her. She did her job, and she did it well, so he never had a reason to involve himself. But he had noticed her. Impossible not to. She was a blur of shimmer when she moved around the office. Boundless energy and a sense of the accidental radiated from her.
He would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by her. She was a window into so many things he would never seek out: chaos, color, motion. So many things he would never be. Combined with the fact that she had a figure most men would be hard-pressed to ignore, and yes, he was intrigued by her.
But no matter how intrigued, she simply wasn’t the sort of woman he would normally approach. Until this.
“Can this thoroughly average woman reform the soulless CEO?”
He had no desire to take part in a reformation, but the idea of an image overhaul in the media? That had possibilities.
He could have demanded a retraction the moment he’d walked in that morning. Or he could let it run. Let them build off the image they’d created for him when he’d been thrust into the spotlight. A fourteen-year-old boy, adopted, finally, and suspected of being capable of all manner of violence and sociopathic behaviors.
His story had been written in the public eye before he’d had a chance to live it. And so he had never challenged it. Had never cared.
But suddenly he had been handed a tool that might help change things.
He turned around and faced the windows, looked out at the harbor. He could still see the look on her face. Not just the expression, but the depth of fear and desperation in her eyes. The press had a few things right about him, and one of them was that feelings, emotions, mattered little to him. And still … still he couldn’t forget. And he thought of the baby, too.
He had no use for children. No desire for them. But he could remember being one all too well. Could remember being passed around the foster care system for eight years of his life. Could remember what it was like to be at the mercy of either the State, or, before that, adults who brought harm, not love.
Could he consign Ana to that same fate? Or to a family who might not feel that same desperate longing that Paige seemed to feel for her?
And why should he care at all? That was the million-dollar question. Caring wasn’t counted among his usual afflictions.
The door to his office opened and Paige breezed in. Maybe breezed was the wrong term. A breeze denoted something gentle, soothing even. Paige was more a gale-force wind.
She had a big, gold bag hanging off her shoulder, one that matched her glittering, golden pumps that likely added four inches to her height. She also had a bolt of fabric held tightly beneath the other arm, and a large sketchbook beneath that. She looked like she might drop all of it at any moment.
She plunked her things down in the chair in front of his desk, bending at the waist, her skirt tightening over the curve of her butt, and pushed her hand back through her dark brown hair, revealing a streak of bright pink nearly hidden beneath the top layers.
She was a very bright woman in general, one of the things that made her impossible to ignore. Bright makeup, lime-green on her lids, magenta on her lips, and matching fingernails. She made for an enticing picture, one he found himself struggling to look away from.
“You said to come in and see you before I left?”
“Yes,” he said, breaking his focus from her for the first time since she’d come in, looking at the items she’d chucked haphazardly into the chair. He had a very strong urge to straighten them. Hang them on a hook. Anything but simply let them lie there.
“Are you going to fire me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, tightening his jaw. “Tell me more about your situation.”
A little wrinkle appeared between her brows, her full lips turning down. “In a nutshell, Shyla was my best friend. We moved here together. She got a boyfriend, got pregnant. He left. And everything was fine for a while, because we were working it out together. But she got really sick after giving birth to Ana. She lost a lot of blood during delivery and she had a hard time recovering. She ended up … there was a clot and it traveled to her lungs.” She paused and took a breath, her petite shoulders rising and falling with the motion. “She died and that left … Ana and I.”
He pushed aside the strange surge of emotion that hit him in the chest. The thought of a motherless child. A mother the child had lost to death. He tightened his jaw. “Your friend’s parents?”
“Shyla’s mother has never been around. Her father is still alive as far as I know, but he wouldn’t be able to care for a child. He wouldn’t want to, either.”
“And you can’t adopt unless you’re married.”
She let out a long breath and started pacing. “It’s not that simple. I mean, she didn’t say that absolutely. There’s no … law, or anything. I mean, obviously. But from the moment Rebecca Addler, the caseworker, came to my apartment it was clear that she wasn’t thrilled with it.”
“What’s wrong with your apartment?”
“It’s small. I mean, it’s nice—it’s in a good area, but it’s small.”
“Housing is expensive in San Diego.”
“Yes. Exactly. Expensive. So I have a small apartment, and right now Ana shares a room with me. And I admit that a fifth-floor apartment isn’t ideal for raising a child, but plenty of people do it.”
“Then why can’t you do it?” he asked, frustration starting to grow in his chest, making it feel tight. Making him feel short-tempered.
“I don’t know why. But it was really obvious by the way she said … by how she was saying that Ana would be better off with a mother and a father, and didn’t I want her to have that? Well, that made it pretty obvious that she really doesn’t want me to get custody. And … I panicked.”
“And somehow my name came into this? And into the paper?”
Her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. “I don’t know how that happened. The paper. I can’t imagine Rebecca … If you could have met her, you would know she didn’t do it. Maybe whoever handled the paperwork because I know she made a note.”
“A note?”
Paige winced. “Yeah. A note.”
“Saying?”
“Your name. That we’d just gotten engaged. She said it was possible it would make a difference.”
“You don’t think it has more to do with the fact that I’m a billionaire than it has to do with the fact that you’re getting married.”
He was under no illusion about his charm, or lack of it. And neither was the world in general. The thing that attracted women to him was money. The thing that made him acceptable in the eyes of the social worker would be the same thing. Monetarily, he would be able to provide for a child. Several children, and that did matter. A sorry way to decide parentage in his opinion.
But that was the way the world worked. Coming from having none, to having more than he could ever spend, had taught him that in a very effective way.
“Possibly,” she said, sucking her bright pink bottom lip into her mouth and worrying it with her teeth.
His phone rang and he punched the speaker button. “Dante Romani.”
His assistant’s nervous voice filled the room. “Mr. Romani,” he said, “the press have been calling all afternoon looking for a statement … about your engagement.”
Dante shot Paige his deadliest glare. She didn’t shrink. She hardly seemed to notice. She was looking past him, out the window, at the harbor, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, her knees shaking back and forth. She was the most … haphazard creature he’d ever seen.
“What about it?” Dante asked, still unsure how he was going to play it.
As far as the press was concerned, he was marrying Paige and he was adopting a child with her. To go back on that a day later would kill the last vestiges of speculation that he might possess honor or human decency. That wasn’t exactly a goal of his. Yes, by the standards of some, he lacked charm. Really, he just wasn’t inclined to kiss ass, and he never had been. But it didn’t mean he was angling for a complete character assassination by the media, either.
If things got too bad, and they were headed that way, it might affect business. And that was completely unacceptable to him. Don and Mary Colson had adopted an heir to their fortune, to their department store empire, for a reason. It was not so he could let it fail.
And then there was Ana. Dante didn’t like children. Didn’t want them. But the memories from his own childhood, memories of foster care, of going from home to home, sometimes good, sometimes not, were strong.
Perhaps Ana would be adopted right away. But would they care for her? Would they love her? Paige did; that much even he could recognize.
This concern, for another human being, was unusual for him. It was foreign. But he couldn’t deny that it was there. Very real, very strong. The need to spare an innocent child from some of the potential horrors of life. Horrors he knew far too well.
“They want details,” Trevor said.
Dante’s eyes locked with Paige’s. “Of course they do.” So do I. “But they’ll have to wait. I have no statement at this time.” He punched the off button on the phone’s intercom. “But I will need one,” he said to Paige. A plan was forming in his mind, a way to take this potential PR disaster and turn it into something that would benefit him. But first, he wanted to hear an explanation. “What do you propose we do?”
Paige stopped jiggling her leg. “Get married?” Her expression was so hopeless, so utterly lost looking. “Or … at least let the engagement go on for a while?” The desperation, coming from her in waves, was palpable.
No one had ever cared for him with so much passion, not in the years since he’d lost his birth mother. He didn’t regret it. It was far too late in life for that.
But it isn’t too late for Ana.
He looked back down at the newspaper. It wouldn’t only be for Ana anyway. It was a strange thought … the idea of being able to manipulate the image he’d always had in the press.
He’d grown from sullen teenage boy to feared man all in the eye of the public. For years he’d been painted as an unloving, ungrateful adopted child who had no place in the Colson family. As he’d grown up, his image had changed to that of a hard boss, a heartless lover who drew women in with sexual promises, sensual corruption and money before discarding them. It colored the way people saw him. The way they talked to him. The way they did business with him.
What would it be like to have it change? It wouldn’t last, of course. He wouldn’t stay with her. Wouldn’t pursue anything remotely resembling a real marriage. An engagement though, at least for a while, had interesting possibilities.
But to be seen as the angel rather than the devil … it was an interesting thought. It might make certain transactions easier. Smoother.
Dante was past the point where negative character assessments bothered him. Unless they affected a business. And in the past, he knew people had shied away from dealings with him thanks to his reputation.
A womanizer. Heartless. Cutthroat. Dangerous. It had all been said and then some, most of it spun from speculation and created stories. Would it change things if he were considered settled? A family man? Even if it wasn’t permanent, it could quite possibly shift how people saw him.
An interesting thought indeed.
Can she reform him? The real question was, could he use her to reform his image?
For a moment, a brief moment, he allowed himself to think of the many ways he could use her. Fantasies that had been on the edge of his consciousness every time she breezed through the office. Fantasies he had not allowed.
He gave them a moment’s time, and then shut the door on them. It was not her body he needed.
“All right, Ms. Harper, for the purposes of keeping the facade, I accept your proposal.”
Her blue eyes widened. “You … what?”
“I have decided that I will marry you.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE was pretty sure the floor shook underneath her feet. But Dante didn’t look at all perturbed, and everything appeared to be stable, so maybe the shaking was all internal.
“You … what?”
“I accept. At least on a surface level. At least until the furor in the media dies down.”
“I … Okay,” she said, watching her boss as he stood from his position behind his desk. His movements were methodical, planned and purposeful.
He was always like that. Smooth and unruffled. She had wondered, more than once, what it took to get him to loosen up. What it took to shake that perfect, well-ordered control.
She’d wondered, only a couple of times, if a lover ever managed to do it for him. Loosen his tie, run her fingers through his hair.
Now she knew she had the power to do it. Not in the way a lover would, but by inadvertently leaking a fake engagement to the press.
“Excellent,” he said, his tone clipped. Decisive. “I see no reason why this can’t work.”
“I … Why?”
“Is this not what you want? What you need?”
Her head was spinning. This morning everything in her world had been on the verge of collapse, and now—now it seemed like she might actually be able to keep it all standing. “Well … yes. But let’s be honest. You aren’t exactly known for your accommodating and helpful nature, sorry, so it seems … out of character.”
He bent and picked up the paper from his desk, his dark eyes skimming it. “Can you imagine what the media would say if I backed out? They’re already salivating for the chance to rip me to pieces if I would just give it to them. This article is practically a setup for the following piece where they will gleefully report that I have dropped my subordinate fiancée, who I was likely playing power games with, for my own debauched satisfaction, and ruined her chances of adopting her much-loved child. It would have an even darker angle to it, considering I myself am adopted. I can see that headline now.”
“Well, yes, I can see how that would be … not good. But I’m surprised they just … believed that we were engaged anyway.” Average woman. That was what they’d called her in the paper. And Dante Romani would never be linked with a woman who was average.
In so many ways it was like a bad joke. A cruel high school flashback.
“Been reading stories about me?” he asked, his lips curving into a half smile.
“Well, I mean, I see them,” she said, stuttering. He didn’t need to know that sometimes she looked at pictures of him for a little longer than necessary. It wasn’t like anyone could blame her. She was a woman; he was a stunningly attractive man. But she knew she had no shot with him, ever. And no desire to take one. “But also, we haven’t really been seen together in public, so it seems odd that they would just assume, based on a random tip, that we’re engaged.”
He shrugged. “It sounds like something I would do. Keep a real relationship under wraps. In theory. I haven’t had one, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Right. Yes. I know that.”
“You do read the stories, then.”
Her cheeks heated and she cleared her throat. “That and I have keen powers of observation and … Oh, no!”
“What?”
Paige looked at the clock on Dante’s wall, positioned just above his head. “I have to go pick Ana up. Everyone is probably waiting on me.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“What?” She needed to get away from him for a minute. Or have flustered-angry Dante back. Now that he had a plan he had taken firm control over everything and it was making her feel dazed.
“Well, I am your fiancé now, am I not?”
Paige’s head was swimming, her fingers feeling slightly numb. “I don’t know … are you?”
He nodded once. “Yes. For all intents and purposes.”
“Oookay then.”
“You seem uncertain, Paige,” he said, taking his coat off the peg that was mounted to the wall and opening the door.
Paige scrambled to collect her things from the chair. “I … I’m not, not really. I just don’t know how you went from spitting nails in my office to … agreeing.”
“I’m a man of action. I don’t have time to be indecisive.”
She walked past him and out into the lobby area of his floor. His assistant, Trevor, was positioned behind his desk, his eyes locked on to the both of them.
“Have a nice evening, Mr. Romani,” he said.
“You too, Trevor. You should go home,” Dante said.
“In a bit. So …”
“Oh, yeah,” Paige said. “We’re engaged.”
“You are?” he asked, his expression skeptical.
Paige nodded and looked at Dante who looked … uncharacteristically amused. “Yes,” she said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“I … didn’t know,” Trevor said.
“I’m a private man,” Dante said. “When it suits me.”
“Apparently,” Trevor said, looking back at his computer screen.
“See you tomorrow,” Dante said. Trevor made a vague nod in acknowledgment.
Paige followed Dante to the elevator and stepped inside when the doors opened. “So … Trevor doesn’t seem thrilled,” she said. Really, she was surprised at the dynamic between Dante and his assistant. Dante was something of a fearsome figure in her mind, and the fact that Trevor hadn’t been fired on the spot for his obvious annoyance with the situation wasn’t exactly what she’d expected.
“Trevor is mad because he didn’t know,” Dante said. “Because he likes to know everything, and make sure it’s jotted down in my schedule at least six months in advance.”
“And you don’t mind that he was … upset?”
Dante frowned. “Why? Did you expect me to throw him from the thirtieth-floor window?”
“It was a possibility I hadn’t ruled out.”
“I’m not a tyrant.”
“No?” He gave her a hard stare. “Well, you fired Carl Johnson. For the baseball game,” she said.
“And it makes me a tyrant because I expect my employees to show up during work hours and earn the generous salaries I pay them?” he asked.
“Well … it was for his child’s T-ball game …”
“That meant nothing to anyone else in the meeting. It might have personally meant something to Carl, but not to anyone else. And if everyone was allowed to miss work anytime something seemed like it might take precedence for them personally, we would not be able to get anything done.”
“Well, what about when you have something in your personal life that requires attention.”
“I have neatly handled what might have been a dilemma by having no personal life,” he said, his tone hard.
“Oh. Well …”
“You expect me to be unreasonable because of what is written about me,” he said, “in spite of what you see in the office on a daily basis. Which only serves to prove the power of the media. And the fact that it’s time I manipulated it to my advantage.”
Her face burned. “I … suppose.” It was true. Dante was a hard man but, other than this morning, she’d never heard him raise his voice. As bosses went, he’d never been a bad one. But she’d always gotten an illicit thrill when he was around. A sense of something dark. And it was very likely the media was to blame.
“And you do read the stories they write about me,” he said, as if he was able to read her mind.
She pursed her lips. “Fine. I’ve read some of what’s been written about you.”
“Being a tyrant implies a lack of control, in my opinion, Paige. And it shows an attempt to claim it in a very base way. I have control over this company, of my business, in all situations, and I don’t have to raise my voice to get it.”
She cleared her throat and stared straight ahead at the closed elevator door. At their warped reflections in the gleaming metal. She came just past his shoulder, and that was in her killer heels. She looked … tiny. A bit awkward. And he looked … well, like Dante always looked. Dark and delicious, supremely masculine, completely not awkward and just a little frightening.
“You raised your voice when you were in my office,” she said, still looking at reflection Dante, and not actual Dante. Actual Dante was almost too handsome to look at directly, especially when standing so close to him.
He laughed, a short, one-note sound. “It was deserved in the situation, don’t you think?”
“Was it?”
“How would you have felt if the situations were reversed?”
“I don’t know. Look, are you serious about this?” she asked, turning to face him just as the doors to their floor slid open.
“I don’t joke very often, if at all,” he said.
“Well, that’s true. But in my experience when men say they want to date me, it can turn out to have been a cruel joke, so I’m thinking my boss agreeing to get engaged to me could be something along those same lines.”
“What is this?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, just … high school. You are planning on following through with this, right? Dante, if I get caught—committing fraud, basically—it might not just be Ana that I lose.”
“As previously stated, Paige, I do not joke. I am not joking now.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re helping me.”
“Because it helps me.”
He said it with such certainty, and no shame.
Paige sputtered. “In what regard?”
“People see me … well, as a tyrant. If not that, a corruptor of innocents, and perhaps, the personification of Charon, ready to lead people down the river Styx and into Hades.”
He said it lightly, with some amusement, though his expression stayed smooth. Paige laughed. “Uh, yes, well, I suppose that’s true.”
“Already there is speculation that you might manage to reform me. The idea of giving that impression … I find it intriguing. An interesting social experiment if nothing else, and one with the potential to improve business for me.”
“Of course you would also actually be helping me and Ana,” she pointed out.
He nodded once. “I don’t find that objectionable.”
She could have laughed. He said it so seriously, as if she might really think he would find helping others something vile. And he said it like that perception didn’t bother him.
“Okay. Good.” She continued on down the hall with him, on the way to the day care center that she’d come to be so grateful for.
She opened the door and sighed heavily when she saw Genevieve, the main caregiver, holding Ana. They were the last two there. “I’m so sorry,” she said, dumping her things on the counter and reaching for Ana.
Genevieve smiled. “No worries. She’s almost asleep again. She did scream a little bit when five rolled around and you weren’t here.”
Paige frowned, a sharp pain hitting her in the chest. Ana was only four months old, but she already knew Paige as her mother. There had been such few moments in Paige’s life when she’d been certain of something, where she hadn’t felt restless and on the verge of failure.
One of those moments was when she’d been hired to design the window displays for Colson’s. The other was when Shyla had placed Ana in Paige’s arms.
Can you take care of her?
She’d only meant for a moment. While she rested and tried to shake some of the chronic fatigue that came with having a newborn. But Shyla had lain down on their sofa for a nap that day and never woken up. And Paige was still taking care of Ana. Because she had to. Because she wanted to. Because she loved Ana more than her own life.
Genevieve transferred Ana and her blanket into Paige’s arms, and Paige pulled her daughter in close, her heart melting, her eyes stinging. She looked back at Dante, and she knew that she’d done the right thing.
Because she would be damned if anyone was taking Ana from her, and she would do whatever she had to do to insure that no one did. Ana was hers forever. And even if marriage to Dante wasn’t strictly necessary, she would take it as insurance every time.
Genevieve bent to retrieve Ana’s diaper bag, then popped back up, her eyes widening when she registered the presence of their boss. “Mr. Romani, what brings you down here?”
Paige thought the girl had a slightly hopeful edge to her voice. As if she was hoping Dante had come to ravish her against the wall. Something Paige could kind of relate to, since Dante had that effect. Even Paige, who knew better than to fantasize about men who were so far out of her league, struggled with the odd Dante-themed fantasy. It was involuntary, really.
“I’m here to collect Ana,” he said.
Genevieve looked confused. “Oh … I …” He reached over the counter and took the diaper bag from the surprised-looking Genevieve.
“With Paige,” he finished. “It was announced in the news today, but in case you haven’t heard, Paige and I are to be married.”
Genevieve’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, I …”
“Let’s go, caramia,” he said, sweeping Paige’s things from the counter and gathering them into his arms. Her big, broad-chested Italian boss, clutching her sequined purse to his chest, was enough to make her dissolve into hysteric fits of laughter, but there was something else, another feeling, one that made her stomach tight and her chest warm, stopping the giggles.
She wiggled her fingers in Genevieve’s direction and walked through the door, which Dante was currently holding open for her with his shoulder.
Paige continued down the hall, heading toward the parking garage. Dante was behind her, still holding all of her things. She stopped. “Sorry, I can take that.”
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“But you don’t have to … I mean … you don’t have to walk me out to my car.”
“I think I do,” he said.
“No. You really don’t. There’s no reason.”
“We have just announced our engagement. Do you think I would let my fiancée walk out to her car by herself, with a baby, a diaper bag, a purse and … whatever else I’m currently holding?”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But then, you don’t really have a reputation for being chivalrous.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but I’m changing it, remember?”
“Why exactly?”
“Walk while you talk,” he said.
Not for the first time, Paige noticed that he didn’t look at Ana. She seemed no more interesting to him than the inanimate objects in his arms. Most people softened when they saw her, reached out and touched her cheek or hair. Not Dante.
“Okay,” she said, turning away from him and continuing on. “So … how are we going to do this?” she asked.
She paused at the door, a strange, new habit she seemed to have developed just since coming down from the top floor with Dante. And he didn’t let her down. He reached past her and opened the door, holding it for her as she walked into the parking garage.
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“There,” she said, flicking her head to the right. “I get to park close now because of Ana.”
“Nice policy,” he said. “I don’t believe I was responsible for it.”
“I think your father was.”
A strange expression passed over his face. “Interesting. But very like Don. He’s always been very practical. One reason he put in the day care facility early on. Because he knew that employees with children needed to feel like their family concerns were a priority. And better for the company because it ensures that there will be minimal issues with employees missing work because of child care concerns. Of course, missing baseball games cannot be helped sometimes, and I am not putting a field in the parking garage,” he finished dryly.
“I imagine not.” She shifted, not quite sure what to do next. “Well, I’ve never met your father, but judging by some of the policies here, he’s a very good man.”
Dante nodded. “He is.”
Paige turned and headed toward her car. “Oh … purse,” she said, stopping her progress and turning to look at Dante. He started trying to extricate the glittery bag from the pile in his arms. Then she checked the door. “Never mind, I forgot to lock it.”
“You forgot to lock it?”
“It’s secure down here,” she said, pulling the back door open and depositing the sleeping Ana in her seat.
“Locking it would make it doubly secure,” he said, his tone stiff.
She straightened. “How long have you lived in this country?”
He frowned. “Since I was six. Why?”
“You just … you speak very formal English.”
“It’s my second language. And anyway, Don and Mary speak very formal English. They are quite upper-crust, you know.”
“And you call them by their first names?”
“I was fourteen when they adopted me, which I’m sure you know given your proclivity for tabloids.”
“Wow. Exaggerate much? Proclivity …”
“And,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “it would have seemed strange to call them anything other than their first names. I was adopted to be the heir to the Colson empire, more than I was adopted to be a son.”
“Is that what they told you?”
His expression didn’t alter. “It’s the only reason I can think of.”
“Then why aren’t you a Colson?” She’d often wondered that, but she’d never asked, of course. Partly because until today she’d never had more than a moment to speak to him.
“Something Don and I agreed on from the start. I wished to keep my mother’s name.”
“Not your father’s?”
His face hardened, his dark eyes black, blank. “No.”
Paige blinked. “Oh.” She looked back down at Ana, who was sleeping soundly and was buckled tightly into her seat. She closed the door and leaned against the side of the car. “So … I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“You’ll see me tonight,” he said, turning away from her.
“What?”
“We’re not going into this without a plan. And if I’m going to help you, you will help me. It’s in both of our best interests that it look real, once we take one step into confirming this, there is no going back. You understand?”
She nodded slowly.
“And you need to remember this. It’s essential for you, much more than it is for me. If this blows up it would simply be another bruise on my reputation, and frankly, what’s one more beating in that area? You on the other hand …”
“I could lose everything,” she said, a sharp pang of regret hitting her in the stomach.
“So we’ll make sure we don’t misstep,” he said. “I’ll follow you to your apartment.”
The thought of him, so big and masculine and … orderly, in her tiny, cluttered space, made her feel edgy. Of having a man, any man really, but a man like him specifically, in her space, was so foreign. But really, there was no other option. And she couldn’t act like he made her nervous. He was supposed to be her fiancé.
And people were somehow supposed to believe that he had chosen her.
“I feel dizzy,” she said.
He frowned. “Should I drive?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said, opening the driver’s side door. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated again, for her own benefit more than his.
And she really hoped it was true.
CHAPTER THREE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE’S house was very like her. Bright, disordered and a bit manic. The living area was packed with things. Canvases, mannequins, bolts of fabric. There was a large bookshelf at the back wall filled with bins. Bins of beads, sequins and other things that sparkled. Her office had simply been the tip of the iceberg.
This was the glittery underbelly.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “You can just dump my stuff on the couch.” She set the baby’s car seat gently on the coffee table and bent, unbuckling the little girl from her seat, drawing her to her chest.
He looked away from the scene. Watching her with the baby reminded him of things. He wasn’t even sure what things exactly, because every time a piece of memory tried to push into his mind, he pushed it out.
He focused instead on trying to find a hook of some kind, something to hang her bag on at least.
“Just dump it,” she said, shifting Ana in her arms.
“I don’t … dump things,” he said tightly.
She rolled her eyes. “Then hold Ana while I do it.”
He drew back, discomfort tightening his throat. “I don’t hold babies.”
She rolled her eyes. “Pick one,” she said.
He set her purse on her kitchen counter and then went farther into the living room, depositing her fabric on another pile of fabric, and placing her sketchbook next to a bin that had paints and pencils in it.
That had some reason to it, at least.
She laughed. “You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t just dump it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with caring for what you have.”
“I do care for it.”
“How do you find everything in here?”
She cocked her head to the side and he caught sight of the flash of pink buried in her hair again. “Easily.” She put her hand on Ana’s back and patted her absently, pacing across the living room.
There was no denying that she looked at ease in her surroundings, even if he couldn’t fathom it. He needed order. A space for everything. A clear and obvious space for himself. He prized it, above almost everything else.
He cleared his throat. “What size ring do you wear?”
“Six,” she said, frowning. “Why?”
“You need one.”
“Well, I have rings. I can just wear one of those,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal.
“You do not have the sort of ring I would buy the woman I intended to marry.”
She paused her pacing. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t buy the sort of ring I would want.”
“We’ll come to a compromise, but your engagement ring must be up to my standards.”
She groaned and sank onto the couch, baby Ana still resting against her chest. “This is bizarre.”
“You’re the one who said we were engaged.”
“Yes. I know. And I knew the minute I said it I was in over my head but it just … popped out.”
For some reason, he didn’t doubt her. Probably because he was the least logical option to choose. If she’d been thinking, she would have chosen a different man. One who liked children and puppies and had some semblance of compassion.
He was not that man, and he knew it as well as everyone around him.
“I can’t lose her,” she said, her focus on the baby in her arms. “I can’t let one stupid mistake ruin her life. And mine.”
He looked at Paige, at the baby nestled against her, ignoring the piece of his brain that demanded he look away from the scene of maternal love. Ana took a deep breath, almost a sigh, that lifted her tiny shoulders and shook her whole little frame. She was content, at rest, against the woman she knew as her mother.
Unexpectedly, genuine concern wrenched his gut. It was foreign. Emotion, in general, was foreign to him. But this kind even more so.
“I understand,” he said. And he found that he did. “But that means this can’t just look real, it has to be real.”
It occurred to him, just as he spoke the words. The engagement wouldn’t be enough. It would have to be more. It would have to be marriage.
“You want to keep Ana.”
“More than anything,” she said.
“Then we have to be sure that the adoption is final before we go our separate ways. We need to get married, not just get engaged.”
She blinked twice. “Like … really get married?”
“I think a government office would be especially concerned with the legality of our union so we can’t very well jump over a broom on the beach.”
“But … but a real marriage?”
“Of course.”
Her blue eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?”
He almost laughed at the abject horror evident in her expression. Most women didn’t look horrified if it was implied they might sleep together; on the contrary, he was used to women being eager to accept the invitation or eager to seek him out.
Though he turned his share down. Far too many were out to reform the bad boy. To make the man with the heart of stone care, to reach him, save him, perhaps. Something that simply wasn’t possible.
He wasn’t a sadist and he had no interest in hurting people. He could easily take advantage of wide-eyed innocents with a desire to reform him. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Still, he found Paige’s clear aversion to it interesting.
“I don’t mean in that way,” he said.
Her blue eyes widened further. “What way?” As if she had to prove her thoughts hadn’t even gotten near the bedroom door. She was a very cute, unconvincing liar.
“I don’t intend to sleep with you.” Even as he said it, he wondered if the underwear she had on beneath her clothes was a bright as the rest of her. Bright pink, showing hints of pale skin beneath delicate lace? He could imagine laying her down on white sheets, the filmy garments electric against the pristine backdrop.
Color flooded her cheeks and she looked down at the top of Ana’s head. “I … of course not. I mean … I never thought you did.”
He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be toying with fantasies of it, either. He had to stay focused. He tightened down on the vein that seemed to bleed a never-ending flow of erotic, Paige-themed imagery through his brain.
“The look on your face said otherwise.”
“It was just an honest question. And anyway, you’re taking this a step deeper, and I’m entitled to ask some questions, and I just need to know what ‘real’ would mean to you. Other than the license, I guess.”
“What I mean by it being real, has to do with our activities outside the bedroom. You will need to accompany me to any events I might need to attend. We will have to get married, and you will have to move into my home. It has to look real.”
Dante didn’t like the idea of it. Not in the least. Of bringing this little rainbow whirlwind into his personal space. And not just Paige, but the baby, as well.
He gritted his teeth. His house was big. It would be fine. And it would be temporary. He didn’t question the decisions he made. He simply made them.
She nodded slowly. “I know. But I mean … it seems crazy and extreme.”
“It’s hardly extreme. Understand this, Paige, you’ve gotten us both into a bit of a dangerous game. There could be very real consequences if we’re caught in the lie. Very real for you, especially.”
She looked away, pulling her lush bottom lip between her teeth. “You’re right.”
He pulled his focus away from her mouth. “Of course I am. Do you have anything to drink?”
“Uh … there’s a box of wine in the fridge.”
Dante didn’t bother to keep the disapproval from showing on his face. “A box?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry if that doesn’t meet with your standards. Maybe you can choose me some wine and a ring?”
“I’m not opposed to it. However, when you move into my home, there will be a wine selection waiting for you. And none of it will be boxed.”
“Well, la-dee-da,” she said, standing. “I’m going to put Ana in her crib. Do you think you can stand here for a minute and keep the internal judgment to a minimum?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said drily.
He watched her walk out of the room, his eyes drawn to the sway of her hips and the rounded curve of her butt. He was only human, and she was beautiful. Not his type in the least, and yet, it wasn’t the first time he’d noticed her.
He liked women who were cool. Contained. In both looks and manner. And Paige was none of those things, which made her both a fascination and impossible to ignore.
Paige returned a moment later, hands free, a wet spot on her shirt near her shoulder. “You have something on your shirt,” he said.
She looked down. “Oh. Yeah. She’s really drooly right now. No teeth to hold it back.”
He let out a long breath and sat down on the couch. “I think I will take some wine.”
The idea of having this woman and her explosion of belongings and a baby who was, by Paige’s description, drooly, in his home was enough to send a kick of anxiety through him.
Paige shrugged and headed to the kitchen, reaching up into a high cabinet and taking down two mismatched pieces of stemware. A green champagne flute and a clear wine goblet. Then she opened up the fridge and bent down, dispensing wine from the plastic tap that was jammed into the cardboard box, into the cups.
She kicked her shoes off and pushed them to the side as she walked to the couch, wineglasses in her hands. “I haven’t had anyone over in a long time. You know, other than the social worker.” She handed him the clear glass and moved to a chair that was positioned next to the couch. She sat down on her knees, her feet tucked up under her.
“In how long?”
Paige looked down into her wine. “Since Shyla died.”
“That must have been difficult.” It was hard for him to find the words you were supposed to say when people were grieving. Hard to know what they wanted to hear. He had experience dealing with death, and yet, he couldn’t remember what people had said to him. If they had said anything.
Paige took a sip of her wine and nodded. “Yes. She was my best friend. She and I moved to San Diego from Oregon together shortly after we graduated.”
“Why here?”
She shrugged. “It’s sunny? I don’t know. A chance to start over, I guess. Be new people. She met her boyfriend really soon after we got here, and she ended up moving in with him. Then she got pregnant and he freaked out. And I had her move in with me. It was crowded but great. And then … and then Ana was born and it was so fun to have her here. So amazing.” Paige looked down into her glass, tears sparkling on her lashes like shattered crystal. “We were making it work. The three of us.”
“How old are you, Paige?” he asked. She looked young. Beneath all the makeup, he was sure she looked like a girl who could still be in school. Her skin was smooth and pale, her blue eyes round, fringed with long, dark lashes. Her lips were full and pink, turned down at the corners, giving the illusion of a slight pout.
“Twenty-two.”
“You’re only twenty-two?” Ten years younger than he was. And yet she was willing to take on raising a child by herself. “Then why do you want to raise a child right now? You have so many years ahead of you. And don’t you want to get married?”
She shrugged. “Not really. And anyway, I guess … no this isn’t the ideal time for me to have a baby. And if you had asked me a few months ago if I was ready to have a baby, I would have told you no. But that would be a hypothetical baby. And Ana isn’t hypothetical. She’s here. And she doesn’t have anyone. Her birth mother is dead, my friend, my best friend is dead. The line on the birth certificate that should have a father’s name on it is blank. She needs me.”
“She needs anyone who will care for her. It doesn’t have to be you.” She flinched when he said the words.
“It does,” she said, her voice thin.
“Why?”
“I don’t know for sure if anyone else will love her like I do. And I … I knew Shyla. I knew her better than anyone, and she knew me. I’ll be able to tell her about her mother.” Paige’s throat convulsed. “And Shyla asked me to. She asked me to take care of her.”
That answer hit him hard in the chest and the memories he’d been pushing away from the moment they’d picked Ana up at the nursery crowded in, too fast and forceful for him to hold back anymore. He’d been much older than Ana when he’d lost his mother, so he remembered a lot on his own. Memories that he often wished he didn’t have. Of soft lullabies, gentle hands … and blood. In the end … so much blood.
He blinked and shook off the memory, reclaiming control, lifting the glass of wine to his lips and grimacing when the chilled, acrid liquid hit his tongue. There was no buzz on earth worth that. He set it back down on the table.
“I understand that.”
“It’s not just for her. It’s for me, too. I love her. Like … like she really is my baby. I saw her come into the world. I cared for her from the start, did the midnight feedings and visits to the doctor. I can’t … I can’t just let her go. Let her go to someone else. Someone who might not love her like I do. How could anyone love her like I do? I love her so much that sometimes it overwhelms me.”
Paige spoke with conviction, so much it vibrated from her petite frame. Dante couldn’t imagine emotion like that. It was so far beyond where he was now.
In truth, he couldn’t imagine a good emotion that strong. Fear, grief, the type that had the power to reduce a man to a quivering, raw mass of anguish … that he knew. But nothing like it since. Nothing that even came close. He was numb to feeling.
But he could sense hers, could feel them radiating off her. She didn’t hide them, didn’t sublimate them to try to deal with them. He doubted she could. She was too honest.
Well, except for that one little lie. The one he was currently enmeshed in.
“You cannot keep the pink in your hair,” he said. He needed to tone her down, to make her less distracting.
“What?” she sifted her fingers through her dark hair, the movement unconsciously sexy.
“I would hardly become engaged to a woman with pink hair.”
“Um … but you did. You totally just did.”
“I didn’t know about the pink stripe until recently. When I found out I nearly broke it off with you, so you promised to go to the hairdresser.”
“You can’t even see it if I have my hair down.”
“I saw it when we were in bed.” Again, the images of her skin against his sheets hit him hard.
Her cheeks colored a deep rose. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a woman blush, discounting Paige, and he certainly couldn’t remember ever finding it so fascinating.
“Uh … and that was your predominant thought? My pink hair? We did something wrong, in that case.” She looked away from him and took another long drink of her vile wine.
“Just color over it,” he said.
“I have an appointment in a few weeks. It’ll keep.”
“You seem to forget that I’m doing you a favor.”
“I didn’t think that was your predominant motivation. And anyway, I’m doing you a favor, too.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know what the reaction will be. I’m curious to find out.”
“So, this is just a social experiment to you?”
“It’s interesting, yes. Ultimately though, it’s with a mind to improving business.”
“And deceiving people doesn’t bother you?”
“Does it bother you?”
She frowned. “Usually. But not now. Not for … not for Ana. I would do anything for her.”
“So I gathered.”
“I’m far more bothered by the fact that we’re actually … that we’ll be getting married.” She looked down, giving him a view of long, dark lashes spread over pale skin, and lids that were lined in emerald green, a sprinkling of golden glitter adding sparkle.
“If you can think of another way …”
She raised her focus, her expression open, honest. “I can’t. Nothing this certain.”
“Then don’t trouble yourself over it.”
She frowned. “I won’t. So, now what do we do?”
“I’ll text your ring size to Trevor and send him to procure something suitable. You will have it on your desk by lunch. Then … then we have a charity event to go to.”
“I don’t have anyone to watch Ana.”
“I’ll pay Genevieve to do it. She’s good with Ana, isn’t she?”
“Well, yes, but … I’ll have been away from her all day.”
“Leave early,” he said. “I’ll come here and pick you up before the event.”
“Why do you keep having answers to all of my problems?” she asked, her tone petulant.
“I would think that would be a good thing, especially since you have so many problems at the moment.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Granted.”
He stood, taking his glass of nearly untouched wine off the coffee table. “Good night, then. I’ll be by to pick you and Ana up at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Wait … pick me up?”
“You’re my woman now, Paige, and that comes with a certain set of expectations.”
She blinked. “I didn’t … I didn’t agree to this.”
“You brought me into this. That means you aren’t making all the rules anymore.” He turned and walked into the kitchen, pausing at the sink and dumping the contents of his glass down the drain. “That wine is unforgivable. I will teach you to like good wine.”
“And you’ll teach me to like good jewelry, and the sort of hair you deem ‘good.’ Tell me, Dante, what else will you teach me to like?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts—rather generous breasts—and a rush of heat assailed him. Intense. Impossible to ignore.
The desire to lean in and trace her lips with his fingertip, with his tongue, was nearly too strong for him to overcome. But he would. He would keep control, as he always did.
He took one last, lingering look, at her pink lips. “That’s a very dangerous question, Paige,” he said. “Very dangerous.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
THAT’S a very dangerous question.
Yes, it had been a dangerous question. Only Paige hadn’t realized just how dangerous until it had come out of her mouth. And she was certain that Dante didn’t realize how much truth was behind it. How much teaching she would need.
Oh, dear.
Just thinking about it again made her feel hot, all over. And that was exactly why she wasn’t going to think about her futile, one-sided attraction anymore
She looked at the clock and shifted in her chair. Genevieve was already here, and Ana had been happily passed off to her. It hadn’t taken the little girl more than a moment to recognize her daily caregiver and the two were happily playing on the rug in the living room.
Paige sighed and realized that she was jiggling her leg. She stopped herself. Her little nervous habit wasn’t a good look with the long, silky gown she was wearing.
Yes, she was wearing a dress, to go on a date. Which was something she hadn’t done in … almost ever. She wasn’t the girl that men went after. She was the screwup, the funny one. The one with a pink stripe in her hair, although Dante was putting the kibosh on that.
She didn’t get dressed up in slinky gowns to go to fancy charity dinners with billionaires. She also didn’t get engaged to billionaires. Oh, yeah, she didn’t really marry them, either, though that was now in her future. All because her stupid, impulsive brain had spit out the most ridiculous lie at the worst time.
Desperation wasn’t her best state. She more or less had a handle on the blurting these days. When she’d been a kid, all the way up into high school, it had been really bad. She was always saying stupid things and embarrassing herself, which was one reason she’d opted for class clown rather than trying to be sexy or cool or anything like that. Letting it go, instead of wishing she could be something she wasn’t, had been much easier.
Or rather, as the case had been, she’d had one incredibly defining, humiliating moment that never let her forget that there were certain guys, who liked certain kinds of girls. And she was not one of them.
There was a heavy knock at her door and she scrambled up out of the chair, grabbing her handbag and wrap. She scurried into the living room and bent down, dropping a kiss onto Ana’s soft, fuzzy head.
“I won’t be too late,” she said to Genevieve.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” Genevieve said.
Paige’s cheeks got hot and she was sure they were a lovely shade of red. “I … we won’t be late.” She had to get a handle on the blushing, too. There was no reason to blush. Dante Romani was hardly going to ravish her in the back of his car.
She straightened and draped her bright purple wrap over her bare shoulders, giving herself a little look in the small mirror that hung in her living room on her way to the door of her apartment.
The door opened just as she reached it.
“Were you going to leave me freezing on the front step?”
“It’s San Diego. It’s not freezing. And you’re in the temperature-controlled hallway.”
“It’s the principle,” he said.
“I had to say goodbye to Ana. Do you want to see her?”
A strange look crossed his face. Confusion, fear, then boredom. “No.”
“Oh, sorry. Most people like babies, you know,” she said, stepping out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
“I have no interest in having any of my own. I’m not certain why it would be important for me to like babies.”
“They’re cute.”
“Yes, so are puppies but I don’t want one.”
“A baby isn’t a puppy,” she said.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me for the reason previously stated.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed the button on the elevator. “Right. Well. I hope Ana and I don’t disturb you too much when we live in your home, as you don’t want a wife or a child.”
“It’s a large house,” he said, his words carrying a stiff undertone, as if he didn’t believe it would be large enough.
The doors to the elevator slid open and they both stepped inside. She’d never noticed how small elevators really were before she’d taken to riding in them with Dante Romani. He made everything feel smaller. Tighter. Because he filled the space he was in so absolutely.
It wasn’t just because he was well over six feet tall and broad, either. It was his charisma, the dark energy that radiated from him. He was so unobtainable, so uninterested in what was happening around him. It made you want to go and grab his attention. Made you want to be in his sphere. To make him seem interested. To make him smile.
To make him laugh.
At least she did, but she was good at that. Making people laugh and smile. Defusing tension with antics and jokes. And she had, apparently, not learned her lesson about unobtainable men.
She nearly opened her mouth to make one when her eyes locked with his and the breath leached from her body.
His dark eyes roamed over her curves, taking in every inch of her. And she was reminded again of their exchange last night.
What else will you teach me to like?
Oh, no, no, no. She wasn’t going there. She never had before, no reason to start now.
Besides, Dante could have any woman he wanted, on the terms he chose. He had no reason to start lusting after her pink-striped self.
She’d grown up in a small town, and every guy she knew had known her from the time they were in kindergarten together. They knew that she talked too much, and that she very often laughed too loud. That she had trouble paying attention in class. That she’d cut a boy’s tongue with her braces during her first kiss. They knew that she’d been the focus of what had essentially been the senior prank. They knew that she’d barely passed high school, that her parents hadn’t seen the point of paying for her to go to college when she just wouldn’t apply herself. They’d watched her get a job at a coffee shop instead of going away to school like everyone else.
They had all watched her grow from an awkward kid, to an awkward teen, to an awkward adult. It was like living in a fishbowl. And being the slow fish with the crippled fin. Nothing like her straight-A achieving sister and her football-star brother.
She was just … Paige. And it had always seemed like a pitifully small accomplishment, just being her. For most of her life, she’d accepted it. She’d just put on the image they’d applied to her and owned it. So much easier than trying to be anything else.
But there was a point, as she was pouring a cup of coffee for her fiftieth customer of the day, who asked her about her brother or sister, and not about her, that she couldn’t do it anymore.
A week later she’d moved. Just so she could be new to a place. So she had a hope of finding who she was apart from the painful averageness that marked her life.
It hadn’t been an instant transformation, no sudden rise to the top of the social heap. But she’d made a small group of friends. She’d found her job at Colson’s. That provided her with the first real sense of pride she’d ever had in a job.
They’d seen her raw talent and they’d hired her based on that, not based on classroom performance. Colson’s, and by extension, Dante, was her first experience with being believed in.
Strange.
She cast him a sideways glance. He was tall and … rigid in his tux. Each line of his suit jacket conforming to his physique with precision. Dante was never ruffled. She envied that a little bit. Or a lot of a bit, truth be told. She was captivated by it, really, his control. His perfection. His beauty. It was a dark, masculine beauty, nothing soft or traditionally pretty about him. It made her want to look at him, and keep looking.
The elevator doors slid open and they walked out of her apartment building and to the street. There was a black car parked against the curb, waiting for them, she assumed.
Dante opened the back door for her and she slid inside. She’d never ridden in a car with a driver before. Not even a taxi. She always drove her own seen-better-days car.
“It will be nice not being the one fighting traffic for a change,” she said when Dante got in on the other side and settled into the seat beside her.
“Mmm,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket and devoting his attention to checking his email.
And just like that, the hot guy wasn’t looking at her anymore. Typical.
She let her gaze wander to her left hand, to her still-bare ring finger. “Oh … didn’t you … you were going to give me a ring before tonight, weren’t you?”
He set his phone down. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re intent on spoiling the surprise.”
“Uh … because it’s not a surprise.”
“Perhaps I had something planned.”
She didn’t think he was serious. But with Dante it was hard to tell. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like, to have a man like him do the get-down-on-one-knee thing and ask her to be his wife. To look at her with intensity in those dark eyes and …
“So, ring?” She held out her hand and tried to shut out the little fantasy that was playing in the back of her mind.
Forget a dream proposal. She should aim for a kiss that wasn’t a disaster first.
Her reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and produced a velvet box. “Be my wife, et cetera,” he said, opening the box, revealing a pear-shaped emerald surrounded by diamonds.
“It’s … wow.” Hard not to be completely floored when a gorgeous man was giving you a beautiful ring. “How did you know I liked green?”
“Your eye shadow,” he said.
She looked up, as if she could see it. “Oh.”
“And I thought the color and style would suit you. Sedate doesn’t seem to be your thing.”
“Uh … no. Not so much.”
“Put it on,” he said.
“What? Oh, yeah.” She looked down at the ring and a clawing sense of dread made her chest tighten. Was she really going to do this? To put on his ring and go all the way with this?
Yes. Yes, she was. She’d never believed in anything more in her whole life. She’d never been the goal-oriented one in her family. She’d never been the top achiever. She’d never wanted anything so much it made her ache.
That wasn’t the case now. Now there was Ana. And she made Paige want to be the best mother. Made her want to do everything she could to give her baby the best life possible. To encourage her, to love her as she was.
She took a deep breath and lifted the ring from its silken nest, sliding it onto her finger. “There. We’re engaged now,” she said.
He nodded slowly and leaned back in the seat. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. If he was thinking.
“What?” she asked.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was just wondering what you were thinking. I mean … this is weird.” She wondered if he was thinking of a beautiful blonde, or stunning, dark-haired beauty he would rather have given a ring to. The thought made her chest feel odd. Tight. “We don’t really know each other and … were you planning on getting married ever?”
“No,” he said, definitively. Decisively.
“Oh. Not even if you meet the right person?”
“There is no right person for me. Or at least not one who’s right for more than a couple of days. And nights.”
Dante watched Paige’s face, the confusion, the little bit of judgment. What he’d just said wasn’t true in the strictest sense. The part about marriage was true, but the way he’d spoken of his relationships made it sound like he and the women he slept with met and spent a few days locked in a passionate embrace.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
He’d had arrangements with a few different women over the course of his adult life. Women who were just as busy and driven as he was. Women who were just as averse to relationships.
The women he usually took to the charity events, the models, the actresses … he didn’t sleep with them. They were the bit of flash, the ones who looked good in pictures and who wanted to be in them.
But they were too young, many of then. Too starry-eyed and not nearly cynical enough. The women he took to bed, all they wanted was a couple of hours and a couple of orgasms. They wanted what he wanted. They didn’t want forever and fireworks; they wanted a basic need to be met. And that’s what happened. Basic, simple pursuit of release.
Still, there was no way to explain that without making it sound even worse.
And when had he ever cared what anyone thought? Never. He’d come into the public eye amid speculation and criticism. The Italian orphan that had somehow weaseled his way into the Colson family. That had been named as the heir of a billion-dollar fortune. There had been endless speculation about him, about how it had happened. As if he, even at fourteen, had known some sort of dark secret about the older couple who had taken him into their home. Something that would have enticed them to take on such a sullen, angry child.
He had never once tried to correct the rumors.
But something about the look in Paige’s eyes made him want to clarify, to change her assumptions. Or at least make an excuse.
“What about you,” he asked, happy to redirect the focus of the conversation to her. “Do you want to get married? Beyond this, I mean.”
“Well, I wasn’t really at the point where I was thinking about it.”
“All women think about it.”
“That’s a gross generalization and there’s no way you can know that. Or rather, you can know that you’re wrong because I wasn’t. Not in a serious way.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been too busy discovering who I am. Apart from the small town I grew up in, I mean. I’ve been down here for about three years and I’ve been kind of … finding myself. Which sounds maybe a little bit geeky but it’s true. Back at home there were all these preconceived ideas about me. Who I was, what I was capable of. And when the town is as small as mine, those ideas don’t just come from your parents, they come from … everyone. I moved here and decided to really figure out who I would be if there was no one around expecting anything different.”
“A noble quest,” he said. And interesting, considering that he was doing the same thing, in a way. On a surface level, at least. He had no interest in finding himself, whatever that meant. But the idea of changing perceptions, that one grabbed him.
“Not really,” she said. “Just a desire to be seen as something other than a terminal dork.”
“I can’t imagine you being thought of as a … as that.”
“Well, I was. Scrub off the makeup, add a ponytail … I revert right back. Actually, I don’t think I’m evolved all that far beyond dork status—it’s just that I have a better handle on confusing people by presenting a more polished appearance.”
“Polished but flashy.”
“Distract them with something shiny, right?”
In some ways he understood that philosophy, too. Bring a beautiful, bubbly date and people might not notice how much he hated being at public events. Might not notice how little he smiled.
“Right,” he said, his eyes on her ring. He took her hand in his, ran his thumb over her smooth skin, to the gem that glittered on her finger. “This should do it,” he said, looking up, meeting her gaze.
Her eyes were round, her lips parted slightly and he knew that he could lean in and kiss her and she would kiss him back. The desire to do it, the need, tightened his gut. They would have to do it in public eventually. It would be perfectly reasonable to give it a try now. To press his lips to that soft, pink mouth. To dip his tongue inside and find out if she tasted as explosive as she looked.
He turned away from her sharply, putting his focus back on his phone. He wouldn’t kiss her. Not now. Not because he wanted to. Not because the desire, pumping hot and hard through his veins told him to. No, when there was a need for it, he would do it. Not before then.
He was in absolute control of his body, and his desires. Always. It would be no different with Paige. They were playing a game that bordered on dangerous, and that meant he had to be sure that he kept things tightly in line.
Paige cleared her throat. “Right. It certainly is … distracting.”
“Yes,” he said, clenching his teeth tight, “it is.”
You can’t have more champagne. You’ll make a total ass of yourself.
She’d already rolled her ankle twice while walking around the lavishly decorated ballroom and had stumbled obviously, teetering sharply to the right thanks to her three-inch heels.
She wasn’t exactly making the best appearance as Dante’s brand-new fiancée.
But this had all happened so fast she hadn’t had time to adjust. And that was one of the many reasons that alcohol felt slightly necessary.
The other was that moment in the car, just before they’d arrived, when Dante’s dark eyes had been focused on her mouth. When heat and desire had spread through her, flushing her skin, making her heart race. When she’d looked like a total fool, drooling over a man who didn’t have the slightest interest in her.
Yeah, there was that.
“Enjoying yourself, cara mia?” Dante appeared, holding two glasses of champagne. He offered her one, and she took it, in spite of herself.
“I’m not really sure,” she said.
“You aren’t sure?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know anyone here but you so I’m basically just standing next to you smiling and no one is really talking to me and … my cheeks hurt.”
“Your cheeks?”
“From the smiling.”
“Ah.” He frowned. “I must confess most of my dates aren’t here for conversation so I imagine the assumption has now been made about you.”
“What are they here for?” she asked. The obvious, she imagined. The pleasure of having Dante later.
“For the publicity,” he said, uprooting her previous assumption. “There will be several pictures of you, standing next to me and smiling, published in various places online and in print by tomorrow morning.”
“So, women date you to get their picture in the paper?”
“I’m not really vain, but I don’t think that’s the only reason.”
Paige’s heart slammed hard against her breastbone as she thought of all the other reasons women might date Dante. Oh, yeah, she could see that for sure. “Well, I mean … I’m sure your sparkling wit and effusive personality also net you a few dinner engagements.”
He laughed, a more genuine, rich laugh than she’d heard from him before. “I doubt it, somehow, but thank you for the confidence in me.”
“Or course,” she said. “It’s the least I can do considering what you’re doing for me.”
“I’m getting something in return.”
“You say that like you have to convince yourself you aren’t being altruistic,” she said, regretting the two glasses of champagne she’d already had, and the candor that came with them, the moment she said it.
“Because I never am.”
“So can never be?”
“Mr. Romani, and your lovely fiancée!” They were interrupted by an older woman with a broad smile.
Dante inclined his head. “Nice to see you again, Catherine, and please, call me Dante.”
“Dante, of course.” Catherine began regaling Dante with stories of her country club, gossip, both personal and business related. She noticed that Dante managed to appear vaguely interested, his expression politely pleasant.
And yet she could see something behind his eyes. Calculation. She could almost see him filtering out the unimportant, retaining bits about failing businesses and mistresses who might cause trouble in someone’s professional life.
Then he smiled, a smile that some might call warm, and bid the older woman goodbye.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“A friend of my … parents,” he said, the word coming out in a few, halting syllables.
“Oh.”
“I’ll confess, I don’t like these things, either,” he said. “But, you do hear interesting information. It’s worth it. So that about sums up my altruism, really. It’s for charity, which is nice. But I get something out of it, too. Nothing is purely altruistic.”
She thought of Ana, of how much joy Ana brought to her life. How much love and purpose. “I suppose not.”
“Does the purity of motivation really matter anyway? As long as no one is hurt. As long as people are cared for?”
“I always imagined it did.”
“Nobody gets points for good intentions.”
“I suppose not.” The champagne spoke for her again. “Does anyone hold bad intentions against you if you don’t act on them?”
“Speaking of yourself, or of me?”
She shrugged. “Just curious if it works both ways.”
“In my experience, intentions, and sometimes actions, don’t really matter at all. What matters is what people think.”
“Now that is true,” she said, sighing heavily, thinking back to how people had perceived her in her home town. Of how the social worker perceived her and her situation.
He lifted his glass. “To reinvention,” he said.
She lifted her glass in response but opted out of taking a sip. She needed to get her feet back on solid ground, needed to get her words back under control. And she really needed to get her thoughts in regards to Dante back under control.
“Perhaps when we’re through with this you and I will both be totally different people,” she said. “Or at least, in your case, people will think so.”
A smile curved his lips. Not a friendly smile. One that was dangerous. And, though it really shouldn’t have been, sexy. “Perhaps.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE took her latte off the counter and waved to her favorite barista as she walked out the door of the coffee shop.
She paused and put her sunglasses on, taking a sip of her drink while admiring the afternoon light filtering through the palm trees. It was a perfect day. The light glinted on her new engagement ring and it put a slight dent in her moment of zen.
There was a flash to her left and she turned to look. It was not a little flare of afternoon light. There was a photographer, standing there, holding his camera up, not even trying to be subtle.
“Uh … could you not do that?” she asked.
“Ms. Harper?”
“What?”
“When are you and Dante Romani getting married?”
She clutched her sequined purse to her side and strode down the sidewalk, away from the man with the camera, her heart pounding. She turned back to look and saw that he was still there, snapping off shots casually. Like she was a monkey in a zoo.
Her purse vibrated and she reached inside, casting another glance behind her as she retrieved her phone and answered the call. “Hello?”
“Ms. Harper, this is Rebecca Addler with child services. I wanted to speak to you about your case.”
She quickened her pace, heading back to the office building. Back to Ana. Back to Dante even. She could hide behind his broad chest. And she wasn’t even ashamed for wanting to hide behind him right now.
“Right. Great to hear from you. What about the case?” she asked, scurrying through the revolving door to the Colson’s corporate building and walking quickly to the elevators.
“We’re going to have to interview your fiancé. He’s going to be involved in the process, of course.”
“Well, of course.”
“And he’ll be adopting Ana, as well.”
Damn.
“So there will be paperwork for that,” she finished.
Paige had overlooked that bit. She’d overlooked it completely. “Of course,” she said, her throat dry. She took another sip of latte and scalded her mouth. She punched the up button on the wall and waited for an elevator.
She dashed inside as soon as the door opened.
“And we’ll want to do a parent interview with him.”
“Naturally. Dante will be delighted—” like Dante was ever delighted about anything “—to participate.”
“We’ll do a little meet-up this Friday if that works for you.”
“Of course it does!” she said, far too brightly.
The elevator reached her floor, and she stood inside, waffling. Then she hit the button that would take her to Dante’s floor and the door slid closed again.
She tapped her foot while she finalized the details of the appointment with Rebecca. She ended the phone call as quickly as possible and tapped her fingers on the wall, waiting for the elevator to stop. When it did, and the doors opened, she nearly ran out, past Trevor, and to Dante’s office.
She didn’t bother to knock.
“I just got my picture taken. Like … a hundred times by some photographer. And then Rebecca Addler called and said we need to start doing interviews as a couple. Oh, I just realized there will be a home study, and we’ll have to start over and do it at your house because as far as everyone is concerned that is where we’ll be living. And you’re going to adopt Ana legally. Which is sort of … obvious but I didn’t think of it until now and … and I’m officially panicking a little bit.”
“Don’t,” he said, standing from his position behind the desk, his large, masculine hands planted palms down on the pristine surface. He didn’t even have the decency to look surprised that she’d burst into his office. He just looked … smooth and calm and unaffected as ever.
It was just unfair, because her cage was well and truly rattled.
“Don’t panic?”
“No. There’s no need. When we divorce I’ll sign custody of Ana over to you. You have my word on that.”
“Oh.” She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in a rush. “That does make me feel better.”
“I thought it might.”
“Then there’s the home study.”
“You and Ana should move in with me. Soon.” That he said with a kind of grim determination that let her know exactly what he thought of it.
“I can see you’re completely thrilled at the idea.”
“I value my own space,” he said.
“Well, as you mentioned, it’s a big house. I’m sure we won’t be on top of each other.”
He lifted one dark brow, and horror crept over her as she realized the double meaning of her words. As she pictured just what it might be like to be on top of him.
Or to have him on top of her.
Her entire face heated, prickling awareness spreading over her skin. Her heart was racing and she was … turned on. And it was obvious. She was certain it was.
She was such a dork. A side effect of spending her school years as the funny one. She didn’t know how to be smooth; she knew how to go for a joke. Another side effect of that was that guys didn’t flirt with her.
Well, that might have also been because of the time Michael Weston had tried to make out with her at a party and had ended up cutting his tongue on her braces. No one had wanted to kiss her after that. Kissing her became a running joke, and very firmly kept her in her place as school screwup.
Well, after that someone had made her think he wanted to kiss her, and more than that. It had all been a gag, of course. Thinking about that reduced the horror of the situation a little bit, because nothing, nothing in the history of the world, was quite as bad as meeting a guy under the bleachers after prom to … to … and having the popular kids standing by, waiting for just the right moment, waiting for the top of her prom dress to come down, for her “date” to pull her out from beneath the bleachers onto the field so they could throw eggs at her. And laugh. And take pictures of her humiliation for posterity.
Yes, that put a woman off dating for a while.
As a result, she wasn’t great at handling men. Unless they were more like buddies. And Dante didn’t feel like a buddy. Not even a little.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“As for the parent interview …” He neatly sidestepped the moment.
“What about it?”
“I don’t see how it will be a problem.”
“You may have to grow a personality between now and then.”
“And you may want to tone yours down.”
“Why because a fun-loving, smiley person might not make a good parent? Do I need to be a bit more dour?”
“Are you calling me … dour?” he asked.
“If the scowl fits.”
“You’re going to have to keep yourself from taking shots at me in the presence of the social worker. Actually, you should probably keep yourself from taking shots at me because I’m your boss.”
She bit her lower lip. “Yeah. Okay, that could be …”
“And don’t bite your lip like that.” He leaned forward and extended his hand, putting his thumb on her chin, just beneath her mouth.
She slowly released her hold on her lip, her heart pounding heavily, butterflies taking flight in her stomach and crashing around, making her insides feel jittery.
She could only stare at him, at his incredibly handsome face, his dark, compelling eyes.
“I’ll try not to,” she said, not sure why she agreed with him. She should be annoyed that he was being so dictatorial, and yet she found she wasn’t. But that could be because he was touching her, and men didn’t make a habit of touching her.
It didn’t mean she didn’t want them to. It just hadn’t really happened for her for many and varied reasons. A huge reason being she was too afraid to let a moment like that happen. Because she was afraid to acknowledge she wanted it, for fear of it all being a joke again.
“Good. You’re also going to have to work on not blushing like a schoolgirl every time I get near you.”
“I don’t blush.” She could feel the heat creeping into her face, calling her bluff.
“You blush more than any woman I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m very pale. It’s hard to hide when you have no pigment to disguise it.”
“I imagine,” he said. “Even so, if we were truly engaged we would be well past the point where I could make you blush with just the casual brush of my hands. Unless…” he said, rounding the desk, coming to stand near her. “Unless you were thinking of all the things my hands have done for you.”
His voice changed, became rougher, more ragged. Something in his expression changed, too. Hardened. Never, ever, ever had a man looked at her like that before. Not even close.
She wanted to say something to defuse the tension. Something funny, or random, something to break the spell. But she couldn’t. A part of her didn’t want to. She wanted to stand there, and have Dante Romani look at her like she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. She wanted to get closer to him, see if he was as hot as he looked. To see if the fire smoldering in his eyes would burn her.
“I … suppose that could be a possibility.” She looked down, trying to catch her breath. But her eyes connected with his hands, and that did not help her regulate her breathing. “Subtext, right? Like when you’re acting? You make sure that even your thoughts match those of your character. And … stuff.”
“Something like that,” he said.
Of course to really have good subtext she would have to know exactly what he could do with his hands, and frankly, some of that information was a little hazy for her. And she was in no position to change it. Not now, not with him. And, given that she was going to be single mother of a small child for quite a few years, maybe not anytime soon.
That had never really been her plan. But she’d been too afraid to put herself out there after the way she’d been treated. Too afraid of rejection.
Dante picked up his phone and dialed a number. “Trevor, I need you to hire some movers. Send them to Paige’s apartment. The address is on file. Personal items only, no furniture, all of the baby supplies. It needs to be done by the end of the day.” He hit the end button on the phone and put it back in the holder on his desk.
“Did you just … evict me?”
“You’ll keep the apartment, for later. I assume that’s the place you’ll go back to.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll need my home. But what’s going to happen with it in the meantime?”
“There’s no reason to do anything with the apartment. I can handle the rent for you for the duration of your stay at my home.”
“I pay the rent. I’m not having trouble with the rent—there’s no reason for you to pay it for me!”
He shrugged. “But I can, so I don’t see why it’s an issue.”
“Because I can,” she said.
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“Me? You’re telling me not to be stubborn? That is funny, Dante, real funny.”
“This ruse really ought to be easy. In fact, they may assume we’ve been married for twenty years given the way you argue with me.”
“I argue with you? Hmph.”
“Yes, you do. Just like that.”
“Well, I’m annoyed with you.”
“Then you had better get un-annoyed, cara. Remember, this whole thing is of your making. I never would have sought you out.” His words made her flinch internally. “I will take advantage of the situation, yes, but I would not have sought you out. You’re completely unsuitable, obviously, and if I had felt the need for a wife pressing I would have one already.”
Stupidly, a little pang of hurt hit her square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her, making her eyes sting. “I’m … unsuitable? Wh-why?”
She shouldn’t have asked why. Not when she really didn’t want to hear it all.
“Am I suitable to you?” he asked, his tone incredulous.
“No,” she said. “No, you’re rude. And obnoxious. And you don’t know how to laugh.”
He took a step toward her, his dark eyes intent on hers. “And you are disorganized and scattered.”
“I must not be too bad since you keep me on here. Clearly I know how to do my job.”
“As do hundreds of my employees, but that does not mean they would make a good spouse for me.”
She took a step toward him, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. “I’m sure they feel the same way about you.”
He reached out his hand and took a lock of her hair, her pink hair, between his thumb and forefinger. “I would clearly never become involved with a woman who has pink hair.”
She leaned in, up on her tiptoes, trying to make herself eye level with him. “And I would never become involved with a man who’s more starched than his shirt collar.”
He reached out and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her up against his hard body. She squeaked as her breasts came up against the muscular wall of his chest. “You think I’m too serious, is that it?” She nodded mutely, no words coming to her. “That I don’t know how to have fun.” His fingers flexed against her back, sending little pops of sensation from the point of contact all throughout her body.
“Yes,” she managed, heat flooding her.
He dipped his head so that his lips were nearly touching her cheek, his breath hot on her skin. “I think I might surprise you.”
She was trembling, actually trembling, and in danger of having a knee-buckling experience. No man had ever held her like this before. With such purpose, with such strength. No man had ever made her feel so wanted. No man had ever made her want to arch against him, press her breasts harder into his body.
And most especially, no man had made her want to kiss him while she was angry at him.
But here she was, quivering with the need to touch Dante, even while thinking murderous thoughts about him and his autocratic behavior.
Dante released her suddenly and she stumbled back, trying hard to catch her breath. She looked at him, searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking. To try to figure out if he was as affected, as shaken, as she was.
But he wasn’t. He was just standing there, his hair smooth, his suit crisp, as though he had never taken her into his arms. As though he hadn’t just held her so close she could feel his heart beating, hard and heavy against her chest.
“You had better figure out a way to forgive me,” he said. And that was when she realized that he was affected. Because he might look as smooth as ever, but his voice was rough, his shredded control evident in each word he spoke. “Because at the end of the day, you’re coming home with me.”
CHAPTER SIX (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
DANTE’S home was his most prized possession. The lawn was immaculate, cut perfectly and kept in top condition by his team of groundskeepers.
The house itself was a triumph of architecture. Clean lines, an open design, windows that made the most of the ocean view. The interior was white, the carpets, the walls, the furniture. Evidence of how orderly it was.
Evidence of the control he now held over his life.
And as Paige, with her glittery high heels, walked over the threshold, carrying a bright-eyed baby girl with drool running down her chin, he felt a pang of absolute dread hit him in the gut.
There was nothing orderly about either of them, and he could feel the hard-won control of his surroundings slipping away from him.
“This is …” Paige looked around, her mouth open, her blue eyes round. “This is incredible. Gorgeous. I don’t. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I had it built five years ago, shortly after the control of Colson’s passed to me.”
“I’m thinking the social worker will like this place better than she liked mine.”
“Probably,” he said, thinking of her cluttered little apartment. “I apologize for my lack of boxed wine. I suppose something from the cellar with have to do.”
“Now, now, nobody likes a show-off.”
“That depends on what they’re being shown.”
“Heh. No, it depends on how much money and power the show-off possesses, and then the person will pretend to be suitably impressed based on how much they figure ingratiating themselves will help them out.”
“So you think my admirers are merely out to use me for my wealth and fame?”
She shrugged. “Not so far-fetched, is it?”
“You’re not very good for my ego, Paige, as you seem to think no one would suffer my company without heavy compensation.”
“That’s not what I meant. Oh … pfft. I like your house—that’s the important thing right now.”
“I assume the location of your bedrooms are important, as well?”
“Bedrooms?”
“Ana will have a nursery. I called my housekeeper earlier and ensured that all of her things have been put in there.”
“A nursery?”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Did you think I would cram you both in the basement to keep you out of the way?”
“Well, I didn’t know. I didn’t … We really need to discuss this more.”
“I agree, which is why we’re having dinner together later.”
“Oh.”
“Here, so you don’t need to worry about a babysitter. Now come with me.” He started up the stairs and down the hall. He could hear Paige’s footsteps behind him, slow and methodical. He turned and saw that she was practically getting whiplash. “What is it?”
“Your art!” she said.
“What about it?”
“It’s so beautiful. And it really stands out in the white space. You have fabulous taste.”
“Fabulous? Rarely am I accused of being fabulous.”
“Well, in this instance, you are. I’m going to have to take the time to study it all later.”
“So, you like art?”
She smiled and her entire face brightened, her blue eyes glittering. “Love it. I’m not just into dressing windows. I paint, too. Well, I started with painting. And some sculpture. It was about the only thing that held my attention in school. Unfortunately, one cannot graduate with art credits alone.”
“I would guess not.” The enthusiasm she felt for the subject, for the paintings—paintings he hardly looked at anymore—was fascinating. She was so different than most of the people he knew. She was open. She wore her passion all over her, for anyone to read. Not just her passion, her anger, her happiness. Everything was just laid bare with her.
And she evoked something in him. Emotions, things he hadn’t felt in longer than he could remember. As a result, he’d made a mistake in his office earlier, and he didn’t make mistakes.
But she’d been standing there, all challenge and fire, angry as hell. And she’d made him angry. More than that, she’d tempted him. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from walking forward, from wrapping his arm around her and drawing her body against his.
She challenged him. No one challenged him. But she did. And she picked at his control, pushing and pushing until he’d been unable to do anything but push back.
He didn’t like it. Emotion was destructive. Painful. But he wouldn’t give in to it. What he hadn’t lost the day his mother died had been drained from him over the course of eight years in foster care.
Now, he doubted there was even enough in him to cause problems, even if he wanted it to. No, what had come over him in his office was lust. Pure and simple. Normally, that wasn’t a problem for him, but he was only a man, so it wasn’t too surprising.
Paige had the added benefit of being forbidden fruit, another thing that had never appealed to him before, but he could certainly understand why it might.
“Ana’s room is here,” he said, redirecting his thoughts, indicating a door on the left. As he pushed it open, a strange flash of anxiety ran through him. It was unfamiliar. Completely different than it had been that morning when he’d left for work. It gave him a strange sense of being back in his childhood. Opening the door to a new bedroom for the first time, seeing what was there.
Whether it would be spare, or crowded. Clean or dirty. Nothing that belonged to him.
The space that had been organized for Ana was immaculate.
Plain white walls and a double bed had been replaced with an ornate, dark wood crib with pink bedding and a mobile hanging over it. There was a rocking chair, a matching dresser and a closet filled with pink clothes.
“Oh.” Behind him Paige made a little noise. Then she brushed past him and into the room. “Ana, look. It’s your very own room.”
His chest seized up tight, his breath locking in his lungs. The light in Paige’s eyes as she presented Ana with a space that belonged to her was … he had never seen anything like it. All of Paige’s unruly enthusiasm was, in this moment, focused on her daughter.
How anyone could doubt that she would be a good mother was beyond him. It was hard for him to remember his birth mother, hard because thinking about her always dredged up other memories that he wanted to keep firmly locked behind a closed door in his mind.
Mary Colson, his adoptive mother, had been a firm and constant presence. Both she and Don had invested in him, into his education, into guiding him, putting him on a path that would lead to success. He was grateful to them, and their distant, tough sort of parenting had been ideal for him.
But for a moment, he wondered if anyone had ever looked at him the way Paige was looking at Ana.
It didn’t matter. He closed the door on the yawning, empty well inside of him. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need obvious displays of emotion. Far from it, he avoided them if at all possible. And being around Paige didn’t seem to allow for that. She was constant bubbling energy, and emotion. And glitter.
“Thank you,” she said, her blue eyes bright.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, trying to find some way to loosen the knot in his chest. “You’re here under false pretenses, due to a situation of your own making. And it’s hardly permanent, so don’t get too attached.”
She blinked, a flash of genuine pain visible on her face. So open. So real. Did the woman have no sense? Had she no defenses at all? “Okay, I … I mean I know that, but this is beautiful and I just got really excited and I didn’t mean anything by it.” All of her words ran together, coming faster as she rambled, the tension she was feeling palpable. She projected her feelings. So strongly he felt like he was being hit with a wall.
“Relax, Paige,” he said. “Take a breath.”
She snapped her mouth closed, her eyes still pooling with confused emotion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the word foreign on his tongue.
Almost instantly, the tension left her, her face brightening. “It’s awkward. For everyone. I know. I’m not picking out china patterns or anything, I’m just … making the best of things. Making the best of living in a mansion by the sea, which, I admit, is not so hard.”
“You may not be so optimistic when you hear what I have to say next,” he said.
“You’re putting me on a hide-a-bed. No, my window has an ocean view, but the beach is a nude beach. Or maybe …”
“You’re going to have to at least appear to be sharing a room with me.”
“Say what?”
“Come now, Paige, are you so naive? If we’ve moved in together, we’ll obviously be sharing a room. A bed.”
Paige bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know about that. What about good, traditional values?”
“Does anyone have them these days?”
“My social worker, it seems. Since she was so concerned about Ana having a mom and dad.”
“Which means she needs to be confident that that is indeed what Ana is getting. And my staff needs to believe it, as well. The last thing I need is for someone to slip up and make a comment that winds up in the paper. I’m not being dragged into a public farce. A private farce, it seems, is unavoidable, but I will not be humiliated in a public forum.”
“That’s not my intent,” she said. “But hey, as long as I don’t actually have to sleep with you, I’m okay with having to dig through your closet to find my clothes.”
He wasn’t. He’d never lived with a woman before, had never had feminine things mingling in with his suits. His space was highly prized and this element of their arrangement didn’t sit well with him.
But while she was comfortable with her things being put anywhere, there was clearly one area that made her uncomfortable. And he had the uncontrollable urge to push at her, just a little.
“You’re the first woman I’ve ever encountered who was so opposed to sleeping with me she had to remark on it every couple of days.”
He was rewarded by the flood of color that bled into her cheeks. “That’s not … I’m just clarifying …”
“One might think,” he said, taking a step closer to her, “that you protest too much.”
She pulled Ana in tighter to her chest, a tiny, living shield. “Hey now, that is not true. I protest just enough for a woman who isn’t interested in having a … a fling with a playboy.”
“Playboy,” he said. “Such a strange label, and not one I’ve ever felt applied to me.”
“You change lovers often enough.”
“The dates I go to events with are not my lovers. I am very discreet with my lovers. And selective.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, then, I doubt I have anything to worry about. If you’re as selective as you say, I mean.”
Paige felt like melting beneath Dante’s intense, dark gaze. She didn’t know what had possessed her to bait him like that. To tempt him to say something derogatory about her appeal. She was aware of how far short she fell when it came to sexual allure.
The problem was, it wasn’t looks, not specifically. It wasn’t the way she dressed. She’d actually managed to score dates since moving to San Diego; it was just that … when they got that serious look, like they might miss her, she sort of freaked out. The idea of failing again, with someone new, was too painful. The thought of wanting someone who wouldn’t really end up wanting her … she hadn’t been willing to take the risk.
Which was why she really hadn’t bothered with dates for a long time. Getting herself sorted out was her top priority after all. Finding her way. And anyway, she didn’t need a hundred guys. She only needed the one right guy. And she was certain that one right guy would look nothing like Dante Romani.
Which was fine. Looks weren’t everything after all. The guy didn’t have to have a square jaw, and golden skin. Or a broad chest with incredible muscles that could not be hidden by the dress shirts he wore. He didn’t have to look like the essence of temptation wrapped in a custom suit. No. There were much more important things than that.
Like … way more.
She was sure of it.
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
Something in his eyes changed, the look becoming hungry, wild almost, as far from cool, calm, stuffed shirt Dante Romani as she could possibly imagine.
“I … obviously,” she said, her throat suddenly dry.
“What is obvious about it?” he asked.
“I’m … I’m …”
“Attractive,” he said.
She blinked. “Even with the pink stripe?”
“It’s growing on me.”
“Maybe I will get it colored over next time. In that case.”
“You just like to be difficult.”
She shrugged. “I’m a contrary beast, on occasion, I admit it.” She was doing it again, deflecting with humor, so he couldn’t see how much it had meant for him to call her attractive.
“I like a challenge.”
“I’m not a challenge,” she said, nerves skittering through her, making her feel shaky and off-kilter.
“You aren’t?”
“No. That makes it sound like I’m some sort of a … a game and I don’t like that. I don’t play games. What you see is what you get.”
“I’ve noticed. But I didn’t mean that I intended to play a game with you.”
“You didn’t?”
He shook his head, his dark eyes intent on hers. “I don’t play.”
She tried to swallow again. Her throat felt like it was coated in sand. “Right. Neither do I.”
He chuckled, dark and rich like chocolate. “I got the impression that you did very little besides playing.”
She looked down at the top of Ana’s fuzzy head. “And where did you get that idea? Between working for Colson’s and taking care of Ana, I don’t have a lot of playtime.”
He frowned. “I suppose that’s true. But it’s more the way you are. The things you say. You’re … happy.”
She laughed, the sound bursting from her with no decorum or volume control, as always. “I guess so. I mean, there’s plenty of crap I’m unhappy about. Like losing my best friend and having to contend with the adoption stuff. But I suppose … I mean in general I suppose that’s true.” She studied Dante’s face for a moment, the lines that feathered out from the corners of his eyes, the brackets by his mouth. “Are you happy?”
He shrugged. “I’m not really sure what that means. I’m content.”
“Content,” she repeated. She smoothed her hands over Ana’s back and a rush of love, or pure joy and pain filled her. “How can that be enough?” It wasn’t for her. Not now. It never would be again.
“Because emotion, strong emotion, is dangerous,” he said. “You don’t seem to realize that yet, Paige. But that’s the truth of it.” His voice was rough. Savage, almost. And coming from Dante, who was always smooth, and never ruffled, it meant something. It reached down deep inside of her and twisted her stomach.
“Was it the truth for you?”
“It’s just true,” he said. “If emotions control you, you have no control over yourself. In my mind, that’s unacceptable. Now come, and I’ll show you to your room.”
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
AFTER you put Ana to bed, come down to the dining room for dinner.
Paige touched the note Dante had left her earlier. A note. Who wrote a note? She’d have to introduce the man to the mighty power of the text message. Or, better still, making human contact when you lived in the same house as someone.
She touched one of the letters on the paper. He’d pressed too hard on his pen, made dents, each letter precise and perfect, gone over two or three times she guessed. Dante didn’t do spontaneous very well, that was for sure.
Well, she supposed their arrangement fell under spontaneous, but then, even when he’d had that headline sprung on him he hadn’t acted with any sense of wild abandon. It had been with frightening calm, and complete confidence in the fact that he’d made the right decision.
Whereas, she, after blurting out the idiot untruth to Rebecca, had eaten a pint of ice cream and spent the night beating her head against the arm of her couch.
Decisive wasn’t really her thing. She needed to start getting there, though. She had a baby. A baby that would grow, and who would need a mother who could stand strong in decisions and discipline and … stuff.
The idea of it made her a little anxious. But for now, it was all about loving her. And that she had down just fine.
At least her room was nice. And yeah, all her clothes and her toiletries were in Dante’s room, but she’d managed to get her dress for dinner and her makeup essentials over to her room without running into him. Which suited her fine. She’d been feeling a little rumpled and frumpy after what had been a very long day.
But a shower and a sparkly minidress had done a lot to fix the way she felt. Her newfound sense of flashy style was something she’d acquired on arrival in San Diego, and it had done wonders for the way she felt about herself. About the outside of herself, anyway.
She leaned into the mirror and swiped her lipstick over her bottom lip, painting it with a streak of fuchsia, then spreading it evenly. She smiled. She felt better when she was bright. Like showing the world her mood, so that she had to bring herself up to match it.
She let out a long breath and opened her bedroom door, padding quietly down the hall to Ana’s room first, to make sure she was sleeping soundly, then continued to the stairs. She took the stairs two at a time, anxious now to hear what Dante would say.
To see if he would tease her again. Flirt with her? No, he wouldn’t flirt with her. There was no reason for that.
She tripped on the last step, her focus splintered over her thoughts.
“Careful.”
She looked up and her heart slammed hard against her breast. Dante was standing in the doorway of the dining room, his eyes on her. On her nearly falling on her face. He, on the other hand, looked immaculate as always. Perfectly pressed in a crisp white shirt that was open at the collar, showing a faint shadow of chest hair that she couldn’t help but notice, and black slacks that showed off his trim waist and powerful thighs.
Since when had she ever noticed a man’s thighs? What was he doing to her?
“I like to make an entrance,” she said, doing a very lopsided curtsy in an attempt to defuse the tension. All she really succeeded in doing was making herself look like a bit of an ass. That seemed to be her specialty. But it didn’t matter really. She just kept smiling. If she didn’t care, no one else seemed to. No one else seemed to notice how hard things were, how awkward she felt, if she didn’t.
She straightened and smiled, hoping she didn’t blush.
“You certainly do that.” He walked toward her, the easy grace in his movements filling her with one part envy and nine parts desire. He really was gorgeous.
“Ha. Yeah. My blessing and my curse.”
He put his hand on her lower back and heat fired through her from that point to the rest of her body. He propelled her forward into the dining room and she was afraid she might wobble again. Not because she was that big of a klutz, not usually, but because his touch was making her limbs feel rubbery.
She sucked in a breath when she saw the table. It was laid out special—gorgeous platters with appetizers and there were candles. It was very real, suddenly. Like an actual date, which she knew it wasn’t.
And she shouldn’t let it make her feel any kind of pressure. He wasn’t interested in her that way, and that was fine with her. She didn’t have the time or inclination for it.
“This looks great,” she said, too brightly.
He pulled her chair out for her and looked at her, waiting for her. She just stared.
“Would you like to sit down?” he asked.
“Oh, uh … yes. I’m not used to men pulling my chair out for me.”
“Then you need to associate with better men.”
“Or maybe find men to associate with in general.”
“I imagine your dating life is somewhat hobbled by recent developments.”
“Yeah, recent developments. That’s what’s hobbled my dating life.” She sat down and he abandoned his post at her chair and went to sit across from her. She took a salmon roll off the platter and put it onto her plate, her stomach growling, reminding her it was late for dinner. “So,” she said, “you want to talk?”
“We need to talk. I’m not sure I particularly want to talk. But we need a plan. If we’re going to be a couple, to both child services and the media we need to know about each other.”
“And how do you propose we get to know each other?” she asked, taking a bite of the sushi.
“I’m not proposing we get to know each other. I’m proposing we learn things about each other. The two are different.”
“Less involved, I suppose,” she said.
“Much.” He took a roll off the platter with a pair of chopsticks. Effortless for him, as ever. “Where are you from?”
“Silver Creek. Oregon. Small, bit of a nothing town. Everyone knows your business. Everyone knows you. The entire population is kind of like your extended family.”
“Which is why you moved.”
“Yes. To somewhere that didn’t have people with … expectations.” Expectations of her failure. Of her continuing to drift through life without a goal, without any success. “And you, where are you from?”
“Rome originally. Then moved to Los Angeles. And then … when my mother died,” he said, his voice too smooth, too controlled, as if he was saying words he’d rehearsed to perfection, “I went into foster care. I spent a few years with different families before the Colsons adopted me at fourteen.”
“I could have found all that out by reading a bio online somewhere.”
“But had you read one?”
“No.”
“So, I still had to tell you.”
“Fine, you did. What else do I need to know?” she asked.
He slid two covered plates over from the edge of the table and placed one in front of her, and one in front of himself. She uncovered it and took a moment to appreciate the tantalizing look and smell of the fish dish before directing her focus back to Dante.
“My sign?” he asked, his tone dry.
She laughed. “I don’t even know my own sign. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”
“That surprises me—you seem like you would.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re very … free-spirited. And you’re an artist.”
“I see. Well, sorry to disappoint you. What’s your favorite color?”
“I don’t have one.”
“That’s stupid. Everyone has a favorite color.”
He arched one dark eyebrow. “Did you just call me stupid?”
“No. Your lack of favorite color is stupid.”
“Fine, what’s yours?”
“Well, I’m an artist, so I have a close relationship with color. I like cool colors—they’re very calming. And of course warm colors are quite passionate. So I have to say my favorite color is … glitter.”
He laughed and she felt a small tug of gratification that she’s managed to pull an expression of humor out of him. “That isn’t a color.”
“Sure it is. I’m an expert. I don’t question you about merchandising and advertising and everything else you have a hand in. Siblings?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You?”
“Two. My sister is a pediatrician and my brother is a second-string quarterback for the Seahawks. Impressive, I know.”
“Very. So how did you get into art?”
She fought off the sting of embarrassment that always came when she had to talk about Jack and Emma. It wasn’t fair, really. They deserved their success. They earned it. They had talent, and they worked hard.
They didn’t deserve for her to make it about her. Still, it was never fun to talk about. But talking about it was better than living in a town where everyone knew that you were, without question, the big letdown of your family.
“I’ve always been interested in it. Started drawing and painting really young.”
“Did you go to school for it?”
“No.” She shook her head, kept her tone light. No big deal. It was no big deal. “I never really liked school. Just wasn’t my thing.”
“And what did your parents think of that?”
“Would you like me to lie down on the couch before you continue?”
“Just a question.”
“Well, uh … they’ve never been that impressed with my interests. My grades in school were bad, and they were spending a lot of money sending Jack and Emma to school already, even with the help of scholarships and … and they didn’t want to pay to send me too when they knew I wouldn’t apply myself. So the not going to school was a mutual decision.”
She could feel Dante’s dark gaze boring into her. “A mutual decision?”
She shrugged. “I mean, I might have gone if they …”
“But they wouldn’t.”
“No.”
“Should we tell your parents about the wedding?”
The subject change threw her for a moment. “Oh, it’s … No, probably not. It’s not like it will be huge news outside of our circle here. Your circle here, I should say and anyway … they won’t really approve of the whole thing with Ana.” An understatement. She could just hear her mother’s skepticism.
Do you think you can handle it, Paige? Filled with concern, and a bit of condescension.
But she could handle it. She was sure she could. She was almost completely sure. Again, the bigness of it all threatened to swamp her completely. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really wanted something. The last time succeeding had been so important, if it ever had been.
It was so much easier to just not care. But with Ana, she couldn’t.
“They don’t approve of you adopting?” he asked.
She shrugged and put her focus back on her food. “I haven’t talked to them about it, but I figure if I save it until everything is final I can spare everyone a lot of angst. It still might not work out.” Her throat tightened, terror wrapping icy fingers around her neck.
“It will,” he said, total confidence in his tone. “We have the media involved which, now that I think of it, is very likely going to work in your favor. I doubt social services want reports out about how they denied an adoption to a child’s lifelong, primary caregiver.”
“You may have a point. I have to ask, though, what’s really in it for you? Because I don’t have any guarantee that you won’t back out. I know you talked about easing business deals but clearly you make deals just fine without me, so I can’t fathom why it would suddenly be important.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I have opportunistic tendencies. This opportunity presented itself and I decided to follow it to its conclusion. There were two options in this situation—do what was expected of me, accept the negative press. Or, try to change things.”
“And that’s all? Because truly, with that as your only motivation, I’m not really filled with comfort and warm fuzzies.”
His gaze sharpened, his dark eyes intense. “It’s important for you to know something. When I say I will do something, I do. There is no going back.”
He said it with such purpose, such unequivocal certainly that she couldn’t help but believe him.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said. It was the truth. She was the one in the stranglehold. She was the one who was in a situation that was too big for her, nothing unusual there. She was the one who needed help.
But instead of giving up, like she usually did, she’d done whatever she’d had to in order to secure her success. Unfortunately, that had meant lying. It had meant dragging Dante into the situation, and she really did sort of feel bad about that.
“I am doing it. I made the decision. I won’t change my mind.”
“But is the media thing … that’s all you want?” she asked. Seriously, it was a stupid question because she didn’t exactly have anything to give him if changing his image in the press wasn’t enough.
He put his fork down, and took in a deep breath, his expression one of barely contained annoyance. “I have been the target of malicious rumor and speculation by the media since I was fourteen years old. I came onto the stage a villain. I thought it might be interesting to see if I could end up a hero.”
There was no real venom in his words, none of the emotion that was so easy for her to think should be there. That the media had been attacking him since he was a young teenager seemed unforgivable. But he just said it like it was an interesting fact. And he talked about changing public perception as if it were no more than a fascinating experiment.
“What did they … say about you?”
“That I had somehow tricked the Colsons into adopting me. That I was holding something over their heads, that I was a plant for the Mafia—racially motivated attacks are always nice. That I might murder the poor, trusting older couple in their beds.”
He spoke so casually, without inflection. Cold horror settled in her stomach, making her shiver. He continued. “Some thought Don Colson had ‘imported’ me because I was some sort of financial genius and he lacked an heir.”
“But you knew the truth,” she said, her heart tightening, aching for him. Things with her family were hard, and sometimes she felt like she didn’t belong, but she didn’t have the media weighing in on it.
He paused for a moment. “That’s the thing. Paige, I don’t know the truth. Why they would take me in is somewhat beyond me. A fourteen-year-old boy with no people skills and no inclination to find any. But I was smart,” he said, as if trying to reason it out. “I did well in school.”
Oh, good, he was a genius, too.
“I’m sure it was more than that,” she said. Because she really needed to believe that getting good grades in school wasn’t the deciding factor on a person’s value. Otherwise she was sunk.
“Perhaps. I’ll have to ask them sometimes.”
“You never have?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does.”
“No,” he said, his voice hard, “it doesn’t. They gave me a future, the best education possible, the best job opportunity possible. They gave me the means to support myself.” He chuckled. “That might be an understatement. They gave me the means to thrive. They owe me nothing. No explanation. No frilly words. I don’t need them. I have everything I need. And I think you and I have everything we need, too.”
He stood from the table, his food less than half-finished. “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll all drive to work together. It would look wrong to go separately.”
She nodded and watched him walk out of the room. She picked up her fork and started eating again. She wasn’t going to go to bed starving just because he’d decided to get upset about something and leave.
And he was upset. For all that he’d stayed calm, she could tell that the conversation had disturbed him.
There was so much more to her poker-faced boss. Finding out just what lay beneath the surface should be the furthest thing from her mind. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Ana.
But it was Dante dominating her thoughts tonight. She sighed and tried to focus on her dinner, and not think so much about the deep, overwhelming darkness that she’d glimpsed in his normally expressionless eyes.
Dante unbuttoned his shirt and took a hanger out of his closet. He put it on the hanger and buttoned the top few buttons, then put it in its place in the closet
He moved his hand to his belt buckle, then paused for a moment. He walked into his en suite bathroom and braced his hands on the vanity countertop, looking at his reflection in the mirror.
He didn’t look at himself often. He didn’t see much point in it. But he did now. And he wondered what other people saw.
He chuckled, the sound bitter, hollow in the empty room, and turned the sink on, running cold water onto his hand, splashing it onto his face. He knew what people thought about him. They wrote it in on society blogs and people, people from all over, were able to leave comments with their explicit opinions.
Sexy, but dead behind the eyes.
Amoral.
Italian bastard.
Impostor.
Yes, he knew what people thought of him. How they saw him. And he knew that it didn’t matter. Not because he was so at peace with who he was, but because he genuinely didn’t care.
A man makes his own destiny. If he is in control of himself, he can control everything around him.
Words from Don Colson when he’d first come to live with them. From the man he thought of as his father. The man he’d never felt worthy of calling father. It was what made him strive to be worthy. The Colsons were the only people who’d inspired that feeling in him.
Control was the key. It was what put him on Don Colson’s side. And not on the side of his real father. The man who’d spilled his mother’s blood. The man whose blood ran through his veins.
He shut off the water and turned, walking back into his room. His bedroom door opened and Paige stopped short, one foot in the room, a sharp squeak escaping her lips.
“I thought you were … that is … you didn’t say anything when I knocked, and my pj’s are in here. I’ll … come back.”
It took him a moment to realize that her wide eyes were glued to his bare chest. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction to know that, in spite of her constant reminders that she didn’t want to sleep with him, she wasn’t immune to him.
Something that shouldn’t matter.
“No need. Find your pajamas,” he said. “Don’t mind me.”
“Right,” she said, sliding into the room and moving quickly to the closet. She opened it and walked in. He watched her rummaging in the corner that had been designated for her clothing. He would have to ask his housekeeper to lay things out more nicely for her. His closet was huge, and his clothes always well spaced out so he could see what he had. There was no harm in crowding things in a little bit for Paige’s sake.
Although, just when the idea of giving her some substantial room in his home had stopped bothering him, he wasn’t sure. Maybe, stopped bothering him wasn’t the right way to put it. More that it didn’t make his eye twitch.
“Got them.” She emerged a moment later, clutching a pair of flannel pants and a white T-shirt to her chest. “So I’ll go.”
He found that he was reluctant to let her leave. If she left, he would be alone with his thoughts, and tonight, his thoughts were on a dangerous path.
“Those don’t look like I imagined they might,” he said, extending his hand, taking the flannel between his thumb and forefinger.
“No?” she asked. He noticed that her chest pitched sharply, in time with a sudden breath. That his drawing nearer to her was making her nervous. That he was right in his earlier assessment of her. She wasn’t immune to him.
“No,” he said. “Something diaphanous and flowing, I thought. Something with glitter.”
“And slippers with heels and feathers?” she asked, her voice thin and shaky.
“Also a tiara.” He took a step closer to her, heat firing in his blood. He was thinking too much tonight and being near her made him feel less like thinking, and more like acting.
He lifted his hands and brushed his finger along her cheekbone. Her mouth dropped open, her lush lips forming an O. Oh, yes, this was simpler.
He slid his hand around, cupping her head, his thumb stroking her face still. “Even so, this has a certain appeal to it. As does the dress you have on now.”
“D-Dante …”
“If we are going to be a couple, do couple interviews and things like that, you will have to look comfortable with me touching you.”
“I’m comfortable,” she said, the high pitch of her voice proving her a liar.
He wasn’t comfortable, either. He was shaking, he was hard as hell and he couldn’t fight the need that was coursing through him, not anymore. He had seen her, he had wanted her. Wondered what it would be like to taste all that color and light. To absorb it into himself.
But he had denied himself. No more.
Without thought for consequence, without even trying to gentle his movements or ask her if she was all right, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. She was so warm. So alive. Her breath filled him, the soft sound of shock she made when he slid his tongue over the seam of her mouth, made his stomach twist.
Keeping one hand on the back of her head, he curved his other arm around her waist and pulled her to him. Her arms were pinned between them, still clutching her pajamas, keeping him from feeling her body against his.
He reached between them and tugged the clothes from her hands, scattering them over the bedroom floor. She pressed her hands flat against his bare chest, her palms warm, her touch sending a shock of heat and fire through him.
He traced her bottom lip with his tongue and she opened to him, offering him entry into her mouth. He felt like drowning in her. Like losing himself completely.
He didn’t realize he’d starting moving until Paige’s back came up against his bedroom wall. She was pinned between the hard surface and him, her breasts pressing into his chest. So he deepened the kiss. Took more. Demanded more.
Her hands were still pressed tight against his chest and for a moment, he thought she might be pushing him away.
No. No, he needed more. He continued to kiss her, devouring her, until she relaxed against him, until her hands crept upward, fingers curling around his neck, clinging to him.
Yes.
His heart was pounding, sweat beading over his skin. She dug her fingernails into his neck, holding on to him tightly, pressing in closer so that his heavy length was resting against her stomach.
There was no room for rational thought. There was no thought at all. Not beyond the next hot, wet slide of her tongue on his. Not beyond the next gasp of pleasure that came from her lips. There was nothing but bright lights bursting behind his closed eyes, and a pounding need to take her, join himself to her. Go deep inside. So deep he would lose himself completely.
It would be the easiest thing to push her dress up, tug her panties down, free his aching erection and push inside her tight, wet body. Find solace in her release, and in his. To let go.
He jerked back, his heart thundering, his body protesting. This was not how he operated. Not why he had sex. Not how he allowed himself to live. He couldn’t allow it. Not ever.
He would never give in to that creeping darkness inside of himself. To the monster that lived in him. The thing that he hated most.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his words clipped.
She blinked. “Why?”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” he bit out. It was inexcusable. The loss of control. The desperation he’d felt. To use her as a salve for his wounds. To let go of everything completely.
“I see,” she said. She bent down and started collecting her clothes, her movements jerky, awkward. She seemed angry, upset.
“You think it was a good idea?” he asked, frustration pounding his temples, arousal pounding in his groin.
“What? Oh … it’s just …” She stood up. “Whatever.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “It was a kiss. It’s not like it was anything serious. No big deal. Lips. Tongue. Not a big … I’m gonna go now.” She sidestepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Dante wrenched his belt off and threw it on the ground, stalking into his bathroom and turning the shower on cold. He dropped his pants and underwear and stepped beneath the spray. He let the icy water roll over him, making him shiver, his body shaking from the inside out. It wasn’t about cooling the heat in his body. He was paying penance for losing his control.
It would not happen again.
Paige leaned against her bedroom door, her heart sill pounding heavily, her lips still burning. Just a kiss? No big deal? She was getting good at lying.
She’d never been kissed like that, by a man like him, in her life.
And of course, the first words out of his mouth had been that it was a mistake. Of course it had been. How could it be anything else? A man like him would not want to kiss a woman like her. Not really.
Sometimes she felt like she was changing. Finding out who she was apart from the labels she’d been given at home, back in high school. Tonight, she felt like she’d reverted. Back to the painfully awkward girl she’d been.
The one she still was beneath the makeup and sequins.
She changed into her pajamas as quickly as possible and tried to ignore just how conscious she was of the fabric sliding against her skin. Of how sensitive she felt. He’d lit her skin on fire, made her feel like she was burning from the inside out.
The memory of the kiss, of how it had made her feel, took the edge off her humiliation. He’d made her want to do something stupid, like run her fingers over that finely muscled chest. To feel him, firm flesh, heat and a hint of chest hair, beneath her palms.
He’d made her want more than that. Her entire body heated at the thought of exactly what he’d made her want.
And he thought it was a mistake. Had he even wanted her? Even a little? Or had he just been horny and wanting sex? And she was in his house instead of one of the women he’d selected.
He wouldn’t have stopped with one of them. Wouldn’t have called it a mistake.
She opened her door and padded down the hall, cracking open the door to Ana’s room. She pushed Dante, and the arousal, the need, the hurt he’d inflicted on her, out of her body. A sense of calm washed over her as soon as she entered her daughter’s room. She didn’t need blood relation, or a government document to feel like Ana was hers. She was, in every sense of the word, no question.
She walked over to the crib and leaned up against the rail, not minding that the wood was digging into her ribs. She bent down and ran her hand over Ana’s fuzzy head, down her stomach. Ana sighed and wiggled beneath Paige’s hand, making a little smacking sound with her mouth.
So much perfection. So much love. So much responsibility. Paige had never succeeded at anything in her life. And she had to succeed at this.
No matter how hot the kisses, Dante Romani was just a means to an end. She couldn’t let him distract her.
And that meant no more kissing. Unless they had to. For the press or for social services.
Suddenly she felt very tired. Like a weight had come to rest on her shoulders. It was harder than she’d imagined it would be. And she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t care. Couldn’t pretend that there wasn’t pressure pushing in from all sides. Couldn’t pretend that losing would mean nothing.
Not when it would mean everything.
“I’ll do my very best, sweetie,” she whispered, an ache in her throat, a tear rolling down her face. She just hoped that for once, her best would be good enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
PAIGE managed to avoid Dante for the next few days. As best as she could avoid someone when she lived with him and drove to work in the same car with him every morning.
She was definitely much more careful when trying to sneak into his room for clothes. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of herself.
She’d liked the kiss too much and she was in serious danger of longing after the man. She didn’t do the longing thing. It ended in disappointment. And sometimes humiliation. Whether it was test scores or boys, that had been her experience. Longing just made the impossible hurt more.
There was no time for longing. She had to focus on Ana, not her suddenly perky hormones.
She growled into her empty office and bent down, rummaging through the box of glass, glitter-covered ornaments and gathered a few of them in her arms, taking them over to the work space she had cleared for herself in the back of the room.
The sunlight streamed in, bright and perfect for Paige to get an idea of just how everything would glitter in the windows of Colson’s department stores at Christmastime. The Christmas designs took up so much of her year, because every year there was the pressure to do bigger, better, more intricate. She loved it.
They moved her wooden frame, the same size and shape of a standard Colson’s window, so that it was right in the path of the sun and she started hanging the ornaments from the top with fishing line.
They caught the light, and they glinted. But it wasn’t enough. She needed flash. She needed something no one would walk by and ignore.
She dug through her big box of sparkle, as she’d dubbed it, and produced a canister of silver glitter, one of gold and some deep purple gems. She set to it.
The finished product was much better. They caught fire when the sun hit, and beneath the display lights they would be fantastic.
She brushed her hands on her black skinny jeans and grimaced when she noticed the trail of glitter she’d put down her thighs.
“You’ve been working hard.”
She turned at the sound of Dante’s voice and ignored the fact that her heart had slammed into her chest and then started pounding hard and fast.
“Eh, you know the old joke. Hardly working and all that,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was so quick to dismiss her work, and yet, she always did. Making light of it seemed to be her default setting. She was only just noticing it, and she didn’t like it.
“Doesn’t look that way to me,” he said, crossing the threshold and moving to her work area. “I like it.”
“There will be more. The mannequins, of course. Plus, about fifty more of these hanging at different heights. Snow. A Christmas tree. This is just for one of the side-street windows. But the main window display is going to be pretty amazing. I’m excited.”
“I can tell.”
“I put a lot of work into it,” she said, for herself more than for him. “And I work really hard.”
“Of course you do, Paige, or you would hardly still be on my payroll. This will be our third Christmas with you at the helm, and everyone has said how much higher the quality has been on the displays since then.”
“Well … thank you.”
“Tell me about the main window.”
“It’s going to be called Visions of Sugarplums. It will be a bunch of Christmas fantasies. And I think I want to have them like they’re sort of springing from a dream. So some mist and icicles and lights. Very whimsical and beautiful.”
“And all the same at each location?”
“I think each one should be slightly different,” she said. “At least the big destination stores in Paris, New York, Berlin, et cetera. So that each one is an attraction.”
“Do you have the budget for it?”
“Um, now that you mention it, I do need a slight budget increase.”
“I thought you might.”
“But you said my displays are high quality.”
“I did. How much more do you need?”
She named a sum in the several thousands and Dante didn’t bat an eye. “All right, if that’s what you need, I will make sure you have it.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She stopped and really looked at him for the first time since he’d walked in. She’d glanced at him, but she’d avoided careful study. She knew why now. Looking at him full-on was a bit like staring into the sun. He was so beautiful it made her ache. She could no more reach out and touch him, have him for her own, than she could claim a star.
It made her feel so achingly sad. Just for a moment. She didn’t have time to worry about Dante or the fact that she had the hots for him. Or the fact that, in all honesty, it felt like more than just having the hots for him.
“Ready for the couples interview?” she asked him.
“Of course,” he said, his tone sounding thoroughly unconvincing. Which was funny, because if Dante was one thing, it was certain.
“What are you worried about?”
He looked at her and arched one dark brow. “I don’t worry, cara mia.”
“About anything ever?”
“No.”
“What are you doing in business? You should be teaching self-help classes.”
He chuckled, a dark sound. “I don’t think I’m in much of a position to be telling people how to help themselves. I’m just very good at ignoring things I don’t want to deal with.”
It was shockingly honest, and it was also something she recognized.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Something we have in common,” he said.
“Who would have thought?”
“Not me. Do you think it’s enough to play the part of convincing couple?” He took a step closer to her and her stomach quivered. She could taste him on her tongue, the memory of his kiss so strong it was enough to make her knees shake.
Enough to make her take a step toward him. Stupid, really, because she shouldn’t kiss him again. He didn’t even want to kiss her, she was sure. Because that first time had been a mistake. He’d said so.
He tilted his head to the side, his expression intense, as though he was studying her.
“We certainly have chemistry,” he said, his tone rough.
She laughed, shaky, nervous. “You think so?”
He nodded and took another step toward her. “Yes, and it’s a good thing, too. Many things can be faked, Paige, and some of them even quite convincingly. But the heat between us? That’s real. And no one will question it.”
“I don’t really know if one kiss constitutes as heat,” she said. “One kiss that you said was a mistake.”
His lips curved upward. “Are you challenging me?”
“No. I’m not that stupid.”
“No, you are certainly not stupid.” Strange, but that made her chest feel warm, made her heart lift. “But you might be trying to bait me into kissing you again.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“For the same reason I’m hoping you are baiting me. I’d like to kiss you again.”
“You … want to kiss me?”
He nodded.
“B-but last time you said …”
“I said it shouldn’t have happened, because we both have goals to focus on. And I think we might both find it hard to focus while we’re tangled together in bed. And that, Paige, is where a kiss like the one we shared in my bedroom leads.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to kiss you again.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“Perhaps not, but in just an hour we will be interviewed as a couple, and it’s imperative we have no awkwardness between us.” He took another step toward her and she could feel his heat, smell the scent of him. Clean skin, soap. Man.
She took a step toward him. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth.
He reached out and put his thumb on her lip. She raised her focus, her eyes clashing with his. “I find I envy your lip,” he said.
He couldn’t possibly mean … She touched her tongue to the tip of his thumb, tasting salt, tasting Dante. Then she took a breath and a chance, and bit him gently. He closed his eyes, a rumble of satisfaction vibrating through his chest.
Emboldened, she repeated the action, biting harder this time.
He moved quickly, wrapping both arms around her and pulling her up against his hard body. She pushed up onto her toes and kissed him. It felt so familiar and so foreign at the same time. So wickedly exciting.
He thrust his tongue between her lips and she reciprocated, the slide and friction sending a shot of heat through her veins. Making her breasts ache to be touched, making her feel hollow.
He put both hands on her hips and gripped her tightly, pulling her against him, letting her feel the hard jut of his arousal against her stomach.
He backed her against the desk and she adjusted so that the edge was just under her butt, supporting her weight. He moved in closer to her, parting her thighs slightly, settling between them.
He pressed his lips to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone.
She never wanted it to stop. She wanted more. And she didn’t want to have to look him in the face when it was over and see the same regret she’d seen last night.
The kissing was safe. The kissing was good. She wanted more of that.
But it ended, and when he pulled away, it wasn’t horror or regret she saw on his face. It was worse. It was nothing. Nothing but a smooth, beautiful, unreadable mask. Like he hadn’t just pushed her to a point she’d never reached before. Like he hadn’t introduced her to a whole new side of attraction.
Like the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis. Her world certainly had.
“That, I think, proves my point,” he said.
She wanted to hit him. Kick him in the shins. Sing a show tune. Something that would get him to react. Because his coolness, his totally unruffled state, was killing her.
“That we have chemistry? Yeah, thanks. I’m really glad I got to be a part of the experiment.” She touched her lips. They were hot. And swollen. Overly sensitive just like the rest of her body.
Dante moved slightly and she caught a glimpse of gold shimmer on his suit jacket with the movement.
She frowned. “Could you move to the light here?” She indicated the shaft of sun coming through the window.
He complied, and the order did earn her a strange look, which, all things considered, she would take and feel somewhat satisfied with.
The light hit his front and a giggle climbed her throat, bursting from her lips. “Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry!”
“What?”
“Your suit.”
He looked down at the spray of golden glitter that was pressed against the entire front of his suit in a little Paige-shaped pattern.
He uttered a curse and brushed his hand over his jacket. Paige tried to hold in her laughter, and succeeded in snorting.
He gave her a dirty look.
“I’m sorry! Oh, brushing it like that isn’t going to help. Glitter is the cold sore of the craft world. It spreads easily and it’s hard to get rid of.”
“Yes,” he bit out, “thank you. I actually figured out the reference without it being explained.”
“You were the one who pulled me all up against you. I was working, as we established, and that involves …”
“It’s fine, Paige,” he said, his annoyance, probably with the whole situation, coming through now.
“I am sorry. Because that suit must have cost …”
“A lot,” he ground out, “but I have a lot so it’s not a big deal.”
Except that he was meticulous with his things to a degree she couldn’t wrap her mind around, so she knew on some level it was a big deal.
“Well, then …”
“I have some things to finish up and then I’ll meet you at the day care to pick Ana up.”
Dante had been forced to walk through the office advertising intimate contact with his own personal glitter fairy. Which, he imagined, he should be somewhat grateful for or at the very least, okay with.
She was, after all, supposed to be his fiancée, and that meant they were expected to touch. To kiss. To have interludes in her office during the workday.
He should be fine with it, but he wasn’t, and it had nothing to do with the possible ruination of his suit and everything to do with the flashing sign on his chest that was advertising his loss of control.
There were only a few minutes left until their interview. He stepped out of a cold shower and into his bedroom. He dressed quickly, ignoring the ache in his body that reminded him that no amount of icy-cold shower could steal the desire he had for her.
He gritted his teeth and turned sharply, hitting the solid wood bedpost with his open palm. The pain, he hoped, would remind him to keep himself under control. A reminder that passion had its price. That any loss of control had a cost.
Nothing was free. Nothing was without consequence.
The sting in his palm reminded him, for a moment, of her teeth grazing over his thumb. Of the reaction that faint pain had had on his body.
He closed his eyes and hit the bedpost again, the hard wood pushing past flesh and making contact with the bone in his wrist. He lowered his hand and shook it.
There was a timid knock on his door. “Come in.”
“Oh, hi. I was wondering if you were ready?” Paige opened the door wide to reveal her and Ana. They were both dressed in pink. Paige in a bright, silk dress and Ana in pale pink one, her chubby legs swinging back and forth.
“I am now,” he said, running his stinging hand over his hair.
“Good, she’s almost here.” Paige turned and flitted out of the room and he followed her. Paige had adjusted Ana so that she was up against her chest, Ana’s bright eyes peeking over Paige’s shoulder. Looking right at him.
He had no experience with babies, and no particular desire to become experienced with them. And this one, this tiny, perfectly formed human, seemed to look straight into him. As if she could see everything. And yet, her expression remained clear and bright. As if she saw it all, and it made no difference.
He realized then that there was one thing that had been neglected. He and Paige were meant to present themselves as a couple, but he’d forgotten that Ana would be with them. That he would have to find some ease with her, as well.
Suddenly, Ana’s little face crumpled and she let out a high-pitched whine. Paige stopped completely, adjusting the baby’s position, stroking her little cheek. It was amazing to see the effect Ana had on Paige. The little whirlwind of a woman was serene with her daughter in her arms. Her focus entirely on her.
Ana squeaked again and Paige started to sing. A soft, sweet sound. A lullaby. Terror curled around his heart, terror he hadn’t anticipated, and couldn’t shake off.
Paige bent forward, her necklace falling toward Ana as she continued to sing.
Cold sweat broke out over his skin, a sick, heavy weight hitting him in the gut and just lying there in him.
He knew one lullaby. And it was in Italian. If he closed his eyes, he could see his mother, leaning over his bed, her necklace hanging down, just as Paige’s was doing now. Singing softly, her hand comforting on his forehead.
Stella, stellina,
la notte si avvicina
Star, little star, the night is approaching …
He shook off the memory, but it tried to hold him, tried to make him see it all. His mother, first alive and so beautiful, and then …
He swallowed hard and took in a breath. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice too rough, too harsh.
Paige’s head snapped up and she looked at him with startled eyes. It made his heart twist. “Sorry,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I am not myself today.”
He wished that were true. Sadly, he feared he was more himself today than he ever usually allowed himself to be.
“Well, get it together. If you blow this … if we blow this … I can’t lose her.”
He looked at the little, fussing baby, and back at the woman who was, in every way that mattered, her mother.
“I know,” he said, teeth gritted, heart pounding.
They couldn’t blow it. Paige couldn’t lose Ana, he knew that. But more importantly, Ana couldn’t lose her. Because he knew, better than most, just how much of a loss it would be.
“Did it go well? I think it went well.” Paige knew she was chattering, but she couldn’t help herself.
The interview was over and they were out on the terrace on the second floor of the house. Dante’s housekeeper had barbecued for them, and they were sitting now, their plates empty, looking out at the ocean. Ana was lying happily on her stomach on a large cushion that had been placed out for her, rocking back and forth and flailing her hands and feet.
“I think it went fine,” Dante said.
There was no sign of the dark, angry man who had been in the hall earlier. There hadn’t been any sign of him from the moment Rebecca Addler had walked through the door.
He’d charmed her, utterly. Clearly, the media’s stories about him hadn’t bothered her in the least or, if they had, Dante in the flesh had erased them in a moment.
He had that effect, that ability to make everything seem fine and easy. He exuded total and complete confidence, no matter the situation. He certainly interviewed better than she did, which was galling, because it showed her just how faulty something like this could be. She was the one who loved Ana, with all of her heart, and yet, he was the one who had charmed the social worker.
Thank God he was on her team.
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling confident.”
“Why worry, Paige, the outcome will be the same either way.”
“Easy for you to say. She’s … everything to me.”
“I know,” he said, his tone serious. “And, I swear I will not let you lose her. Whatever it takes.”
“Really? Why? Why would you … why would you do that?”
“Because I know what it is to lose a mother,” he said, his tone cold. “I know what it is to drift from home to home, no one wanting you. That she is being spared the brunt of it, because of you … I will always have her be spared from it, and if I can help in any way then I will.”
She looked over at Ana, and for the first time, she let the fear that was always ready to pounce on her, overtake her fully. “Can I do this? Am I really the best person?” She looked at Dante. “Tell me. Because I’m scared I’m going to mess it up.”
He looked stunned for a moment. “I … I confess, I’m not the best person to judge how healthy a family is. But you love her. I remember love. I remember when I could feel it. I remember my mother. And the way you hold her, the way she feels when you’re near, that’s what it is.”
A lump in her throat tried to block her words. “But I mess everything up,” she said. “Ask anyone. My family, my teachers, my friends. I always got such bad grades in school. In math and science and history. I liked to read. I did well in English and art. But the other stuff … I could hardly pass a class. I did so poorly that my parents wouldn’t help me get to college. And of course I couldn’t get a scholarship. And no one was surprised. Because they just … expect it from me.” She blinked back tears. “I have messed up about every major life moment a person has. First kisses, prom, getting into college. What if I screw this up, too?”
“You haven’t messed everything in your life up,” he said, taking on that confident tone that was so familiar to her now. “You do well at your job. Exceedingly well. You lost your best friend and you carried on, both with work and with raising her child. Do you know how many people would have been content to simply let the State take over? So many, Paige. And you didn’t do that. You come through when it matters.”
“But I’m scared to want it,” she said. “I’m scared of how much I care for her.”
He frowned and looked out at the sea, the lines by his eyes deepening. “Emotion is the single most dangerous thing I can think of. The kind that controls you. Makes you do things you never thought you were capable of. But … I can see the way it pushes you with her. You told the social worker you were engaged to your boss. You were willing to do anything, take any risk, for her. There is power in that. And your love seems to have power for good. Trust that.”
His words were encouraging in a way, but so laced with a bitter sadness that they settled in her like lead.
“And what about your emotions?” she asked. “What power do you see in them?”
He looked at her, his dark eyes glittering. “I looked in myself, and saw the potential for terrible things. And since that day I haven’t felt anything. I find my power from somewhere else, a place I can control.”
She felt like someone had reached into her chest, grabbed her heart and squeezed it tight. “Dante … you’re helping me. I look in you and I see so much good.”
“Then you are blind.” He stood up and walked off the terrace into the house, and all she could do was stare at his back retreating into the shadows.
She’d seen that emptiness again. That same look he’d gotten in the hall just before he’d snapped at her. That same look he’d had in her office when they’d kissed. She’d taken it for emotionlessness but it wasn’t that.
It was something else. Something worse. Something she was afraid she couldn’t help him with.
CHAPTER NINE (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
HE heard crying. He moved to a sitting position in bed and swung his legs over the side, his feet planted on the carpet.
Ana was crying.
He stood and walked out of his room, striding down the hall. He opened the door to the nursery, casting a sliver of light into the room. He saw Paige, sitting in the rocking chair, holding Ana, rocking her, patting her back. Ana was crying still. And so was Paige. Glittery tracks down her cheeks.
His first instinct was to turn away. To walk away from the scene as quickly as possible, go back to bed. Shut down the strange emotions that were rising up, pressing on his throat.
“Is everything okay?”
“No,” Paige said thickly. “She’s been crying for an hour and she won’t stop. I’ve tried everything. I fed her, I changed her. I’m holding her. I turned the light on, I turned it off. I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing you’re doing wrong.”
“What if it is?” she whispered, despair lacing her voice.
He took a step into the room, ignoring the tightness in his chest. “Babies cry, for no reason sometimes.”
He’d heard that said, though he wasn’t sure where.
“But Ana doesn’t, usually.”
“Does she have a fever?” That seemed a logical question.
Paige put her cheek down on Ana’s head. “I don’t think so.” She smoothed her hands over the baby’s brow. “She doesn’t feel warm to me. Does she feel warm to you?”
He couldn’t bring himself to touch her. She was a tiny creature, fragile. Small-boned. Delicate. He didn’t want to put his hands on her.
“I don’t think she’s warm,” he said.
Paige put her hand on the baby’s forehead. “No, you’re right. I don’t think she is. Could you sing to her?”
“Sing?” he asked.
“A lullaby.”
His breath stalled in his throat, got trapped there. “I don’t know any lullabies,” he lied.
“Oh … that’s okay.” She patted Ana on the back. “I tried to sing and she just cried harder so I thought maybe you could …”
“Sorry,” he said, curling his fingers into fists, fighting the urge to run from the room.
For that reason alone he had to stay. Dante Romani did not run. He would not.
Ana hiccuped, her tiny shoulders jerking with the motion. Her cries slowed, quieted, until they became muffled, sporadic whimpers.
He watched her for a few moments, silence settling between them as Paige continued to rock Ana until the whimpering ceased altogether.
“See, she was just crying,” he said, trying to sound certain. Trying to feel some control over the situation when the simple fact was, he had none. There was a nursery in his home. There was a baby here. A woman. She had her things in his closet.
No, nothing was in his control anymore.
“I guess she was,” Paige whispered.
She got up from the chair and walked over to the crib, placing Ana gingerly onto the mattress, then straightening, freezing for a second while she waited to see if the baby would wake up.
The room stayed silent.
“She seems like she’s asleep now,” Paige whispered.
“You should sleep, too,” he said. She looked tired. Sad.
She wrapped her robe around herself, a little tremor shaking her body. “No. I don’t … I don’t think I could sleep right now.”
The desolation in her tone did something to him. Made his stomach feel tight.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not really. But do you have chocolate?”
He let out a long, slow breath. Paige was upset, obviously, and while he would usually walk away and get back in bed without a twinge of guilt, he couldn’t do that now. He wasn’t going to take the time to analyze why. “We’ll have to go raid the cupboards and find out. I’m not certain.”
“How can you not be sure if you have chocolate?” They walked out of the nursery and left the door open so they could hear Ana if she woke.
“I’m not accustomed to raiding my kitchen at odd hours.”
“I guess that’s why you have washboard abs and I don’t.” Her eyes were trained meaningfully on his bare torso. Her complete lack of guile amused him, and aroused him. She didn’t try to hide her open appraisal of him. And yet, it was different than the sort of open gazes he was used to seeing. There was no extra motive with Paige, only admiration.
He looked back at her, treating her to the same, intense study she’d treated him to. Her T-shirt molded to her breasts, her pajama pants sitting low on her hips. Too baggy for his taste. He wanted to see the curves beneath. “I have no complaints about your figure.”
She stopped and turned sharply. “Oh, really?”
He shouldn’t have said that. There was no point in fostering the attraction between Paige and himself. It wasn’t good for either of them. She did something to him. Tested him in ways he’d never been tested before.
Detachment was normally simple for him. This time, not so much. But he couldn’t pull the compliment back now. He wasn’t the sort of man to lie to a woman, or charm her to get her into bed, but he still knew enough to know that this was a subject to tread carefully with. Could sense that the wrong words could break her, or lead her to believe he could give things he simply could not.
“Every inch of you is beautiful,” he said. It was the truth, not flattery. Though why he was compelled to speak it in that way, he wasn’t certain.
She flushed scarlet. “You haven’t seen every inch of me.”
“Yet,” he said, the word escaping without his permission and hanging between them, heavy and, he realized in that moment, stating the inevitable.
“No,” she said, turning away from him and continuing down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“No?”
“You and I both know it would be a very bad idea.”
“Why is that, Paige?” he asked. “What harm could come from a bit of fun?” There was so much wrong with that sentence. He knew exactly what harm resulted from sex and passion. Which was precisely why his sexual encounters were void of passion. Passion wasn’t required for release. It was perfunctory. The right contact in the right place and his partners found their pleasure, then he was free to take his. Find a moment of blinding oblivion. But it had very little to do with the woman he was with, and even less to do with feeling.
And fun was a word he wasn’t sure he put any stock in. He wasn’t sure if he ever had any.
“Quite a few bits of harm, I think,” she said, crossing to the stainless-steel refrigerator and opening the freezer, rummaging through the contents. “What ho! Chocolate ice cream!”
She pulled the carton out and held it high like a frozen trophy before setting in on the granite countertop. “Get spoons,” she said. “And bowls.”
“And the previous discussion is closed?”
“Yep.”
He complied with her order and produced bowls and spoons. He set them out and scooped them both some ice cream. He pulled up on the edge of the counter and sat, and Paige did the same on the counter across from him.
“Maybe I won’t be such a terrible mother,” she said, eating a spoonful of ice cream.
“You won’t be. But what has led you to the conclusion?”
“I used my stern voice and got you to change the subject and dish my ice cream,” she said, her grin impish. But the impishness didn’t reach her eyes. She still looked sad. Scared.
“I want to tell you something,” he said. He lied. He didn’t want to tell her what he was about to say, but it seemed important. It was all he had to offer.
She nodded and took another bite of ice cream, her eyes trained on his.
“Do you know what I remember about my mother?” he asked.
She blinked hard, her eyes glistening. She set her bowl and spoon down on the counter beside her. “No.”
“I was six when she died. But I do remember her. How good it felt when she put her hand on my forehead before I fell asleep. The way her voice sounded, soothing, kind. The way she sang to me.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not about getting everything right. It’s about those things, those small things. That’s all that matters. You do that for Ana. You may make mistakes, but you’ll be the constant, comforting presence in her life. That’s what matters,” he repeated.
He remembered more about his mother. Her fear. When his father would come home from work in a dark mood. Her tucking him in, locking his door with a key. So he couldn’t get out and see. So his father couldn’t get in and cause him any harm.
And he remembered her lying on the floor, too still. Too pale. The sparkle gone from her eyes forever.
He remembered lying with her on the floor and singing her a lullaby until the police came. His hand on her head, stroking her hair, like she had always done for him.
Stella, Stellina. Star, little star.
He left that part out. If only he could leave it out of his mind. If only he could scrub the memory away. Hold on to the good, leave out the bad. But it wasn’t possible.
The good always came with bad. Always.
A tear slipped down Paige’s cheek. “She must have been wonderful.”
“She was,” he said.
“I have failed at so many things,” she said. “And I don’t know why. I don’t know why things are harder for me. I tried to do well in school … I just couldn’t. And my parents … I think they tried to be supportive of me, but I don’t think they really believed that I was trying. My brother and sister, they were extraordinary, and they worked for it. But I had to work for ordinary. I had to bust my butt just to be average. And that meant no college for me. In their minds … I suppose I was a failure. I mean, I had my art but art doesn’t translate to much, not to them.”
“And that’s why you moved.”
She nodded. “To find out what it would be like if I wasn’t surrounded by people who expected nothing from me. People who had given up on me. Shyla always believed in me. She said I was smart. No one ever said that. No one else. She encouraged me to go out for the position at Colson’s and I thought … I thought there was no way. I had no degree, no experience. But your hiring manager … she saw something in me, too. In my work. She took a chance on me, and the only reason I was brave enough to take a chance on myself was because of my friend. I can’t let her down,” she said, her voice shaky. “There is so much at stake here and I can’t fail. But failure is something I’m so good at, I’m afraid history will just repeat itself.”
“Tell me, are your bother and sister artists?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Your parents, are they artists?”
“No.”
“Could any of them imagine the window settings that you do? Not only that, could they find the materials, imagine the lighting, the colors, everything that you do, to make them a reality?”
“Probably not.”
“Then maybe you haven’t failed. You’ve simply succeeded in different areas. Areas that those other people couldn’t, and so don’t understand.”
“I …” She blinked rapidly. “You’re the first person who’s ever … said it like that.”
“It’s true, though. We can’t all be great at everything. I couldn’t design the windows for the store, so I hired you to do it.”
“Your hiring manager did.”
“Fine, but you get the idea. I don’t do everything. I don’t have the ability to do everything. Why should you?”
“It’s just that what I do has never been important to my family.”
“That’s their problem. You’re good at what counts. You stand firm when you’re needed. You’re coming through for Ana. Your instinct, when you were being interviewed by the social worker, was to protect her, to keep her with you no matter what. If that doesn’t prove that you’re strong enough to do this, nothing will.”
She slid down from the counter, her hands balled into fists at her sides. She took a sharp breath and crossed to him, standing in front of him, eye level to his chest. She reached up and put her hands on his cheeks, then tugged his face down as she drew up onto her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his.
He held on to the edge of the counter, letting her lead the kiss, letting her part his lips with her tongue. Letting her set the pace, the intensity.
He could taste the salt from her tears on her mouth, could feel the barely contained sadness in each shaking breath.
He ached to take control. To tug her up against him and to kiss her with every bit of pent-up passion, sorrow and pain that was buried inside of him. That was threatening to claw its way out through his chest if he didn’t find a way to release it.
But he couldn’t allow it.
This was for her, to have what she would. He would give it to her, and feel no sense of sacrifice. Whatever she wanted, she could have. As long as the true control belonged to him.
Paige pulled back from Dante, her heart thundering, her hands shaking. She didn’t know what she was thinking, if she was thinking. All she knew was that she wanted to feel something big. Something real and affirming. She wanted Dante’s actions to confirm his words.
She wanted to prove that she could want someone, and have them want her. That she wasn’t broken. That she wasn’t a joke. She wanted the unobtainable, beautiful man all for herself.
She didn’t want happily ever after from him. She didn’t want love. And she didn’t want to thank him. It was something else, a need so deep and raw that she could hardly understand it.
All she knew was that his touch would make things better. His kiss would heal so many wounds, be the confirmation for what he’d spoken.
To prove that she wasn’t a failure with men. That she wasn’t undesirable. That someone could want her.
She smoothed her hands over his chest, his muscles hot and hard beneath her palms, his chest hair crisp. So sexy and masculine. So different from her own body.
“I want you,” she said, her lips still pressed against his.
The silence that followed seemed to last forever. He might reject her. He probably would. But this was the first time she’d ever been willing to take the chance. It felt like a chain had been loosened on her, like she could move more freely.
He slid down from the counter, locking his arm around her waist and drawing her hard up against his body. “You want to kiss me? Or you want more?”
“M-more.”
“I have to hear you say it,” he said, his tone stretched, tortured.
“I want to … to sleep with you tonight.” A sudden, horrifying thought occurred to her, and her stomach sank to her toes. “Unless you don’t want to.” Why would he? He’d pulled away from every kiss they’d shared. He was a bronzed god of a man with a physique that looked too good to be real. A man with tons of sexual experience. A man who could have, and had had, any woman he wished. For a crazy moment she’d been convinced she could have this, could have him. But maybe she’d been fooling herself. Again.
He chuckled, rough and humorless. “How can you think I don’t want you?”
“I’m average, remember?”
He moved his hand up to her hair and pushed his fingers through it, tugging on a pink strand, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “I have never seen anyone quite like you. Which means the description cannot be accurate.”
“You hate my hair.”
He shook his head. “It’s growing on me.”
He pressed his other hand against her lower back and brought her into closer contact with his body. With the evidence of his desire for her.
Her eyes widened. “You do want me.”
“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to believe. But by the end of tonight, it won’t be.”
She wished she had a witty reply, something to defuse the tension. Something to loosen the knot in her stomach and lessen the ache between her thighs. To lessen the importance of the moment. But there was nothing. Her brain was too busy spinning around all the ways he could show her.
Never before had discovering what she’d been missing with sex been so important. Been so essential. But it was now.
He kissed her again, intensifying it. He moved his hand down to the waistband of her pajama pants and let his fingertips drift beneath the flannel fabric, and down low so that he was palming her butt, his touch hot and rough and perfect. He squeezed her and a shot of liquid, sexual heat poured through her, zipping straight to her core.
She arched into him, rubbing her breasts against his chest, looking for a way to dull the ache there, squirming as the one between her thighs intensified, the hand on her bottom so close to where she needed him, the nearness making it all the more frustrating.
“We have to find a bed,” she said, pulling away from him, her breath coming in out-of-control gasps.
“We don’t need a bed,” he growled, leaning in, kissing her neck.
“Oh. Oh …” Her mind went blank for a moment as his tongue swirled over the hollow in her throat. “Yes. We do. I don’t feel like … I don’t have the experience to.” She was not going to say virgin. She was going to avoid that word at all costs. “I’m remedial. At this. I need something standard. And soft. In case I fall or something.”
He stopped for a moment, his dark eyes searching hers. “I won’t let you fall.”
You might not be able to stop me. The words hovered on the edge of her lips, but she didn’t speak them. She didn’t dare. She wasn’t even sure what they meant. Only that they terrified her down to her bones.
“I know but … please?”
He nodded and swung her up into his arms. She squeaked and clung to his neck as he walked out of the kitchen and to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He didn’t put her down until they were in his room, at the foot of his bed.
“Will this bed do?”
She nodded, her throat dry. “Yes. Now come here and kiss me. I promise not to get glitter on you.”
He moved to her, cupping her cheek and brushing his thumb across her skin. “Your wish is my command.”
He kissed her, deeply, sensually, his hands roaming over her curves. He cupped her breast, teasing her nipple with light contact, making her ache for more. For his flesh on hers. His mouth on her body.
He tugged her shirt up over her head. The cold air hit her breasts, and she didn’t have any time to feel self-conscious about what he was seeing. He tugged her against him and she gasped as her breasts brushed against his chest, the heat of his skin warming her through her whole body, his chest hair abrading her sensitized nipples.
She moved her hands over his back, his muscles shifting and bunching beneath her fingertips.
He pushed her flannel pajamas and underwear down her hips, letting them pool at her feet. She was thankful he hadn’t paused to look at her panties. A sexual interlude had been the last thing on her mind when she’d selected the purple cotton garment after her shower that evening.
She wanted to take his clothes off him, but her hands felt heavy suddenly, clumsy. She wasn’t sure if it was her move or not. Or if he liked it when a woman undressed him. Or … anything.
He was so perfect, so beautiful, just like the moment. She didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.
Thankfully, he was more than ready and willing to discard his own clothes, and after he disappeared into the bathroom briefly, he returned, fully erect, more gorgeous than any man had a right to be, and carrying a box of condoms.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. At the thick erection that stood out from his body. She’d never seen a naked man in person before, and pictures of classical statues really didn’t do them justice. Or at least, they didn’t represent Dante.
“I want to touch you,” she said, shocked at her boldness. But for some reason, the moment he’d come back into the bedroom, all of her nerves had evaporated. She was standing there, naked, and he was there, naked. And they were about to share the most intimate connection two people could possibly share.
There was no room for fear. Or shame, or awkwardness. She was sure. It was such an unusual feeling for her. And yet, with him, in the moment, everything felt right.
“Feel free,” he said, his voice rough.
She moved to him, ran her fingers from his chest down to his abs, to the dark line of hair that led from there and to his hard, thick shaft. She wrapped her fingers around him, testing his weight.
“What do you like?” she asked, her heart thundering hard, her stomach quivering.
“This,” he said, his breath hissing through his teeth.
“Just me touching you?”
“Yes,” he said. His breathing increased, his chest rising and falling quickly.
“And this?” She squeezed him gently and was rewarded with a groan that bordered on tortured.
“Yes,” he bit out.
“Harder?”
He put his hand over hers and stilled her movements. “Only if you want me to come right now.”
She pulled her hand back. “No. Not yet. You aren’t allowed yet.”
“I thought not.” He captured her lips in a fierce kiss, bringing her down onto the bed with him.
She looped her thigh over his hip, opening herself to him. She moved against him, each brush of his arousal against the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs sending a streak of white heat through her.
He lowered his head and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. A raw moan escaped her lips and she gripped his shoulders hard, her nails digging into his skin. He lifted his head, letting it fall back. She gripped him harder and he winced, his hold tightening on her back.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
And he obeyed, lowering his head to her breasts again, licking her, sucking her, bringing her to the edge and back with the sensual assault from his mouth. He moved his hand from her back, down to her waist, to her hips, holding her hard, kissing a path down her body until he came to the place that was wet and aching for him.
His tongue moved over her clitoris and she lifted her hips off the bed, sensation so deep, so intense hitting her that she couldn’t hold still. He held her, continuing as though she wasn’t whimpering beneath him, as though her body wasn’t trembling, her world crumbling inward, reducing to pleasure, to Dante.
She laced her fingers into his hair, holding him to her, so close now, so close to the peak that she had no desire to fight it. No desire to fight him.
He released his hold on her and his hand joined his mouth, one finger sliding deep inside of her as he flicked his tongue over her clitoris again. The world exploded behind her eyelids. Stars raining down on her, leaving her blanketed in heat and light.
She shook, her body trembling as each wave of release passed through her.
Dante lifted his head and kissed her hip, the space just beneath her belly button. Her stomach. Between her breasts. Then he settled between her thighs, his hardness probing the soft, wet entrance to her body.
He cursed and paused, reaching beside them and picking up the condom box. He fished inside of it for a moment, producing a small packet that he tore open quickly. He rolled the condom onto his length with deft efficiency, and she was grateful he hadn’t asked her to do it.
Then he was back over her, pressing into her. She felt a brief, searing pain as he pushed inside of her, her body stretching to accommodate him.
He paused for a moment, his dark eyes blazing, his expression pained.
She shook her head. And he didn’t speak. Instead, he thrust into her to the hilt, his body coming up hard against hers, making contact right where she needed it, pleasure erasing the pain, slowly, but oh so perfectly.
He retreated, thrusting home again, establishing a steady rhythm that built up tension inside of her again. It was deeper this time, reaching farther inside of her, calling up the need from somewhere new. It was shared desperation, shared need.
She met each thrust, working with him, moving with him, toward completion. Everything blurred, blending together, the room beyond Dante turning fuzzy, insubstantial.
His movements became erratic, evidence of his fraying control, and hers began to shred, too. Her grip on the world loosening. When they fell, they fell together, raw sounds of completion filling the room as they reached the peak.
She held on to him tightly, trying to keep from getting lost in it all. Anchoring him to her.
When his muscles stopped trembling, he let out a long, slow breath and pressed his forehead against her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and held him there. Held his body against hers, skin to skin, every inch of him against every inch of her.
She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to face reality.
But she knew that they would have to.
But not yet.
CHAPTER TEN (#ucee2d68b-dd06-5d8e-abc6-862a58eb0486)
DANTE cursed himself. To hell. To any level of hell. He’d heard every reference about his name in connection with the place of suffering and damnation that the media could possibly create, and this time, he found it appropriate.
He belonged there for this.
He had let her lead, but what he hadn’t realized was that she hadn’t known the dance.
A virgin. A damn virgin.
He should have known. He should have seen it in every wide-eyed glance, in every sweet, perfect blush. In the way she didn’t seem to know the sort of power her body could wield.
But he hadn’t, or worse, he’d ignored it. That black part of his soul rising up to choke out the control, choke out the small seed of human decency that had still rested inside of him.
He avoided women who didn’t know the game. Who didn’t understand that with him sex was only about one thing: release. Even if the woman had had a hundred partners, he had to be sure she understood that.
But a woman who had no experience with sex? She was not the kind of player he picked for the game. Ever.
The voice in his head whispering that Paige was different was silenced completely.
“Dammit, Paige,” he said, his voice rough.
“Oh, no. Don’t do that please.”
She scooted away from him and burrowed under his covers. In his bed. Like she was planning on staying the night, which he was sure she was. Women didn’t stay the night with him. They never had. Not once.
They met in hotels. They got the itch scratched. They left. A long encounter lasted a couple of hours. Never more.
“Don’t get upset about you not telling me you were a virgin?” he growled.
“Yes!” She threw her arms up and brought her hands back down on the covers. “It’s stupid. You’re not a mustache-twirling villain who just ripped away my maidenhead. I knew what I was doing.”
He moved into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and forked his fingers through his hair, his heart pounding heavily. Too quickly. He hadn’t gotten his control back yet. “I cannot even wrap my head around that sentence.”
“I wanted it. I told you I wanted it. You asked me to say it, and I did. I wanted to sleep with you. I wanted you to be my first. No, you know, that’s not even it. It wasn’t about first. It was about wanting you. End of story.”
“Paige, I don’t … I can’t offer you anything.”
“Oh, you mean you can’t offer me anything other than a temporary marriage to help me keep custody of my daughter? You can’t offer me anything more than that and multiple orgasms? Is that what you mean?”
“Paige,” he growled.
“Get into bed, Dante.”
“I don’t …” He was about to tell her. To tell her that his lovers did not share his bed. His lovers didn’t usually enter his home.
But the words stuck in his throat. He should tell her, tell her that if she wanted sex, she could have it, but if she wanted to make love she would have to look somewhere else. But for the first time in his memory, the blunt words, the true words, stuck in his throat.
He stood. “I need to go and take care of things.”
She nodded, her hands clutching the covers like talons, as if proving to him that she was well and truly rooted to the spot.
He walked into the bathroom and disposed of the condom, then for the second time in only a few days, he gripped the edge of the sink and regarded the man in the mirror.
He released his hold and straightened, turning away from his reflection. And he weighed which sin would be greater. To give her what she asked for, with no intention, no ability, to offer emotion. Or to show her now, that with him, there would be no softness.
He walked back into the bedroom, his chest tightening when he saw Paige, deep in the blankets, rolled onto her side, her eyes open.
“You did come back,” she said.
“I did,” he said.
His stomach tightened, painfully, a raw, intense tremor of terror working its way beneath his skin and straight into his heart. The closer he got to the bed, the sharper the feeling became.
He stopped, trying to catch his breath. She looked … angelic. Her lips swollen and flushed pink, her skin still flushed, too. Her blue eyes filled with an innocent expectancy, a need that he knew he could never meet.
And still, the desire to slide beneath the sheets and tug her bare body against his was strong. The need to feast on her beauty, to sate himself on that need, so great, so powerful, it threatened to take over.
He took a step backward. “You are welcome to stay in here for the night, Paige,” he said, his words stilted. “But I have work to do.”
He bent and retrieved his pants from the floor, tugged them on, then did the same with his shirt. And without looking back, he walked out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him.
Paige opened her eyes slowly, squinting against the light coming through the curtains. Her first thought was that it was strange that Ana hadn’t woken up.
Her next thought was about how strange it was that she was naked. She never slept naked. She wore her pajamas. But she hadn’t last night.
Oh, yes, and now she remembered, very, very clearly why she hadn’t worn pajamas.
Dante. His hands. His mouth. His body. He was … everything a man should be. No wonder she’d been so fascinated with him for so long. Somehow, some part of her, must have known, instinctively, that that man was capable of giving pleasure that went well beyond anything she’d previously imagined.
A smile curved her lips. Okay, so she hadn’t waited for marriage, or even true love, which she was sure her perfect sister had done. But it had been worth it. So, so worth it.
She pushed away the dreaded suspicion that she might feel differently about it later, and instead, focused on the warm satisfaction that was still resting in her body. She shifted and winced. Oh, yeah, there was also a little bit of ow resting in her body, but that seemed worth it, too.
Her muscles hurt. And so did … things that had never hurt before.
She rolled over and realized that the sheets were cold where Dante should have been. And then she remembered him walking out, his expression shuttered, blank, and she wondered if he had ever come back to bed.
The door to the bedroom swung open and Dante entered, wearing the clothes from the night before.
“Good morning,” she said, feeling slightly less blissful than she had a second earlier.
He frowned. “It is morning.” He tugged his shirt up over his head and her brain stalled at watching the play of perfect, golden skin over shifting muscles.
A little thrill assaulted her. He was hot, so supposedly out of her league, and yet, last night, he’d been hers. He had wanted her. Her.
She’d gotten the hot guy, and for a moment, she just wanted to celebrate that. Before reality hit.
“Yes, it is morning,” she said, sounding far chirpier than she imagined he might like.
“Are you okay?”
She sat up, holding the covers to her chest, and poked herself in the arm. “I … feel okay.”
“Very funny, Paige. You know what I’m asking.” He dropped his pants and her stomach followed the trajectory, sinking around her toes.
“If I’m angry that you made love with me and left me for the rest of the night?” she asked, keeping her eyes trained on his tight butt as he looked through his closet, shoving her clothing aside with rough, frustrated movements. “I’m a little angry about that, yeah.”
“That isn’t what I was asking.”
She really hoped that he wasn’t actually asking what she thought he might be asking, because that was just too stupid. “You want to know if I regret the sex.”
“Yes.”
She let out an exasperated breath. “I don’t regret the sex, Dante. But I am a little put out by the way you acted after. And actually, the way you’re acting now.”
“It sounds to me like you regret anything happened at all.”
“I told you I wanted it,” she said, exasperation lacing her tone.
He draped a pair of black slacks and a white shirt over his arm, still completely naked. “I know, but that was before you knew …”
“Just because I was a virgin doesn’t mean I didn’t know anything about sex. You can know about things without actually doing them.”
“But you don’t know how they’ll make you feel.”
“I feel—felt, because now I’m a little annoyed—satisfied. And warm. And … happy until you ditched me to work or whatever it was you did.”
“So, you have it all figured out then, do you?”
“Yes. If you stop treating me like a child, or a stranger who invaded your bedroom, I think we can work something out.”
His expression turned dark, fierce. He stalked over to the bed and leaned in, planting his hands on the foot of it. “So you think we can just go on and have an affair while you’re living here? Just sex. You, me, this bed, no clothes, no emotions—is that what you think?”
He was challenging her, trying to make her back off, trying to make her say no. And she knew it wasn’t for her benefit, not really. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
“Yeah,” she said, shrugging one bare shoulder, “I think we could do that.”
He raised both eyebrows. “You do?”
“Yeah. Last night was … really fun.”
“Fun?” he asked, his tone deadly.
“I can’t believe I waited so long. Well, I can, because you know … this is really embarrassing, but when I was in high school, I made out with this guy, but I had braces, and he cut his tongue.”
Dante blinked. “He … cut his tongue?”
“Yeah, on the braces. Only because he kissed like an overzealous puppy. You’re much better, by the way.”
“Thank you,” he said, drily.
“You’re welcome. Anyway, that’s hard to live down.” She drew her knees up beneath the covers and studied the stitching on the comforter. “And so, already I was sort of a running joke at the school. And then … senior prom, this guy who was … waaaay out of my league, asked if I would be his date. And I said yes. And then after the dance part, he told me he had a blanket and some drinks waiting for us under the bleachers which means … well, you know what that means. Well, no guy had paid attention to me in a couple of years thanks to the braces incident and so I … I was going to do it.”
“But clearly you didn’t,” he said, straightening.
“Clearly,” she said. “Because that wasn’t really what I was there for.”
“What happened?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to talk about. It’s been what … four years? Stupid.” She shook her head, trying to stop the burning sting of tears in her eyes, the echoing burn of shame in her chest. “We went out to the football field, under the, um … bleachers. It was prom, you know, so … you know.”
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Maisey Yates и MELANIE MILBURNE
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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