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Both OfYou
When I wake again,it’s broad daylight. I bolt upright in bed, filled with terror. “Sophie?”
“She’s all right. She’s asleep.” Dante wraps an arm around me and pulls me back down with him, bringing the covers up overme.
I burrow into his heat. Even though my body has recovered, in my mind I’m still trapped in that cold, hopeless place. “Are you sure she’sokay?”
“Yeah. My mom’s here, and Izzy’s been, and Anjelica.” I remember her; we met at Carlotta’s house. Was it only two days ago? “They all helped look after Sophie so I could stay withyou.”
“I was so scared,” I whisper to his chest. “But I knew you’d come.” I just didn’t know if you’d be intime.
“Heather, we gottatalk.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Something happened. Before that asshole grabbed you. Baby, you gotta tell me what was in yourmind.”
“Can’t we talk about it later?” Like maybe never.
“We gotta talk about it now. Before it festers any deeper into you.” He doesn’t try to make me look at him, just holds me tight. “Whatever it is, we can deal with it. But you have to talk tome.”
I don’t want to tell him, but the words spill out. “I figured it out.” My voice is broken, ragged.
“Figured whatout?”
“Why you wantme.”
The hand he’s curled around the back of my neck tenses for an instant. “And why’sthat?”
“I met Mickey.”
“And?”
“I know, Dante.”
He brings his face close to mine. His voice is very gentle when he says, “You’re gonna have to spell it out forme.”
Finally I whisper it, the secret, corrosive shame that’s been eating at me since I realized. “You wanted what Ricohad.”
There’s a silence before he says, incredulously, “You think I’m in love with Mickey?”
“No! But you want the same thing.”
Another, longer pause. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. My twin brother married a younger woman and now she’s carrying his baby, so I hooked up with the first young, single mom I could get my hands on so I wouldn’t be left behind? Is that about the size ofit?”
He makes it sound ridiculous, but I know better. “He’s your twin brother.”
“Baby, you have got some whacked-out shit in yourhead.”
I jerk away from him, but he pulls me back. When I keep struggling, he rolls us so he’s on top of me, pinning me to the bed. His hands frame my face. “Heather, listen. Listen tome.”
He keeps saying it, quietly but insistently, until I stop trying to get away from him. “Good. You listening now?” Reluctantly, Inod.
“Okay. We haven’t known each other that long, so there are some things you don’t know about me. A lot of things, actually. And one of those things is — and, babe, I don’t say this to brag, or to make you jealous, but it’s important, really important that you get this — I do not lack for female attention.”
Of course he doesn’t. He’s a gorgeous, sexy beast. I don’t know how I ever thought he wasn’t mytype.
When I don’t respond, he goes on. “How old areyou?”
