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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?”
