скачать книгу бесплатно
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.”
