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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.
