“Last night?” I query, acting daft. “What happened last night?”
His eyes flicker as he digs through a muddy trench for the worst excuse in the book. “Nothing.”
Nothing?Ouch.
“I’m just saying if I did something to offend you, I’m sorry.” His apology sounds genuine, but I’ve heard many fake apologies in my life. “I’ve had a lot going on lately. My head isn’t screwed on straight.”
My knife pauses mid-slice when I realize I initiated the crossing of the boundaries he’d placed up all week. Rolling my clit while thinking about him isn’t coercion, but not many men are known for thinking with the heads above their shoulders. They prefer to use the one between their legs.
“You didn’t do anything to offend me.”
He mostly kept his hands to himself, so my scorn is my own to bear.
Dante shrugs before scrubbing at the back of his neck. “Okay…” Another stint of silence stretches before he realizes he threw out his line without bait. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”
“I’m good.”
Unease gurgles deep within me when he fails to see the white flag I’m attempting to wave. “Not just with dinner. With anything.” He scoots closer, drawing his daughter’s focus and spiking my heart rate. “You know you can ask me for anything, right? Tell meanything. I won’t judge you.”
Me?Why am I being put in the spotlight? I wasn’t the one who was inappropriate with a so-called employee, then remembered I had a Tinder date partway through the “act.” I’m glad he took their antics to a hotel, but it still doesn’t feel nice. No one likes being used.
My anger that I allowed myself to get into a situation like this augments into something ugly. It bubbles in my gut and threatens to spill over. Since its overflow won’t solely scald Dante, I untie my apron and slap it on the kitchen counter.
“I’m not feeling well,” I say, slicing through the tension with a lie. “I’m going to lie down.”
I don’t wait for Dante’s reaction. I would rather not see what expression he’s wearing, especially if it is guilt or remorse.
Knowing he regretted our time together would gut me.
When I enter my studio, the first thing my eyes land on are the three bundles of 10K bands I left on Dante’s desk this morning. They shout what I’ve tried to deny all week. I am his employee. That’sallI am to him. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m someone he pays to take care of his daughter...and occasionally mess around with when no one better is available.
The anger I’m barely containing boils over. It’s violent and final.
After grabbing my backpack, I snatch up the bundles, stuff them into the weathered material, then storm out before I can tell myself that this is a bad idea.
The air outside bites at my cheeks as I march toward the money transfer business I found last week. This payment is a week early, but I need to do this before I chicken out.
Before a cognitive thought can wade through the betrayal my heart believes it’s facing, I deposit thirty thousand dollars into Edoardo’s offshore account and curse myself to hell the instant the clerk announces the funds were accepted by the receiver.
