This wipes the smile from his face. “We need rules.”
“Rules?”
“Should you accept, of course,” Dante pulls away from the bars. “I’m still expected to announce an engagement before we return to Brooklyn, so this won’t be an exclusive…situation.”
I bite back the bile that rises in my throat at the thought. “You recall I have a fiancé of my own waiting for me back home.”
Dante’s eyes darken at that. The thin line of his lips becomes weighted with distaste.
Not that I can blame him when the reminder is just as unwelcome for me. I don’t think it’s anything personal; there’s a reason my father has been trying to keep the arrangement quiet. Even if it’s expected, the age difference is still unsettling.
“And you need to preserve your virginity for Prince Charming?” Dante’s voice is chilling.
“Only if you enjoy having your neck attached to your shoulders,” I reply haughtily.
“That might be more threatening if Amos Rubio was in the same continent,” he quips back.
For the first time, a trickle of fear begins to run down my spine. It was one thing to flirt with this man through the bars of a cell where there was at least an illusion of separation.
But now, there’s really nothing stopping Dante from coming in here and taking whatever he wants from me.
And yes, there’s a part of me that wants that. I want to push him to see how far he’ll go, want to see if he can pull me apart with those hands, those lips. I want to taste him for myself.
But there’s still a part—the loyal part, the one that desperately wants to remain my father’s debutant, and for all those years I’vespent curating this perfect image—that doesn’t want Dante to take everything from me.
I swallow down the fear. “I mean it. You can’t…I won’t let you?—”
“Carmen,” Dante’s face is suddenly very serious.
“I’m not willing to?—”
“We won’t do anything,” Dante levels me with a stare that makes my knees shake. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I will walk away right now if that’s what you want.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
He smirks a little at that. “No, I suppose not.”
And suddenly, we’re at a stalemate. The silence stretches, and I become increasingly aware that the ball remains in my court. Dante has made an offer, one that I have no reason to believe, and yet…
“I would like to trust you,” I say on an outblown breath.
Because he’s my only way out. Because there are parts about him that I trust already. All those conversations sat on opposite sides of this cell wall felt earnest. How fiery he gets when talking about his mother, and how fond he looks when talking about the past.
Those things felt real to me.
Dante seems to be thinking hard himself, gaze scattering around the cell for a moment. “What if I got you out of here?”
I stare at him in disbelief. “What?”
At my tone, he immediately backtracks. “I meant if I moved you out of the cell. There are like a thousand rooms in this place, andit’s not like you’d even manage to reach the front door before someone stopped you.”
“You want to give me my own bedroom?”
“As a sign of good faith.”
“With a window?”
Dante gives me an odd look. “Most bedrooms tend to have those, yes.”
