Page 82 of The Billionaire Invitation

For good this time.

The hum of the jet engine had been the only sound in the cabin until Simone Moretti broke the silence by cracking open a can of Diet Coke.

They were on their way home to Los Angeles, and Dante had done nothing but think around, over, and through what had happened over the last two weeks. During his visit to Chicago he had been vilified and misunderstood over and over again.

Last night, when he walked out of that stuffy, corporate bar, he hadn’t looked over his shoulder. Everything about being there had pissed him the fuck off.

The impersonal way she’d arranged that meeting had matched the way she’d shown up. He hadn’t even kissed her. Her body language hadn’t invited it.

He’d gone back to his hotel room and drank not one whiskey, but three. Which had helped him fall asleep, but had betrayed him at two in the morning. He’d woken parched with thirst, his heart racing, his head pounding.

Only to receive a knock on the door at seven a.m. It’d been his mother, offering to fly back with him if he wanted to leave today. Since he had but one reasonable option left—to escape with his dignity—he’d accepted.

“It seems like you are suffering from more than a hangover,” his mother said now.

He watched the clouds out the window rather than respond. He saw nothing but a sea of gray. How apt. He had been trying to stay angry but was losing the fight. Hurt had crept in.

He’d never dreamed that Honesty would no longer need him. He liked being needed, and he’d liked being needed by her most of all.

He hadn’t blown smoke up her ass, either. He’d meant it when he’d told her the charity was important. That she would make a measurable difference in the community. He’d been invested from the start, and she’d just …dismissed him.

“I could have flown home by myself. You didn’t have to come with me.” Simone slurped soda from the can. She had spent last night in her own suite at the Crane. Her favorite thing to do was order an egregious amount of room service and watch TV while sitting in an oversized bathtub.

At least that’s what he’d thought she’d done until she said, “Are you mad because Octavius and I spent the night together last night?”

The glass of water in his hand stilled in midair. “What are you talking about?”

She smiled. The twinkle in her eye made it hard to know if she was telling the truth or not. “Now that I have your attention, do you want to tell me what’s really going on with you beyond this alleged hangover?”

“Whatever happened between you and Dad anyway?” He’d rather not talk about Honesty. Ever, if possible.

“Why on earth would you ask that?”

“Dad said you didn’t want to marry him.”

“Oh, he would’ve been a terrible husband.” She waved a hand dismissively. “How does one share a man with several other women?”

He frowned. She wasn’t wrong. “But he wanted to marry you?”

She scoffed. “Don’t sound so surprised, mister. I was worthy of a proposal back then. I wasn’t interested.”

“I don’t think that you were unworthy. For years I assumed he had been the one running for the hills.”

“He proposed during sex all the time.”

Dante screwed his mouth to one side. “I’m begging you not to go into detail.”

“But yes, he did offer me a serious proposal once. At a nice restaurant with Dom Pérignon in an ice bucket and a violinist playing a love song. I wasn’t willing to be tied down to a man who so obviously didn’t want to be tied down. But I also couldn’t vanish from his life. We had a baby together—you—and there was also Zander and Brody and a few years later, Jaylyn.” Her face softened into a smile. “I love you all. Dearly.”

Dante appreciated that about his mom. She’d loved him completely. And she’d loved Brody and Zander and Jaylyn in the same way—even though they weren’t her children.

“What made you ask about your father?”

“I spent my whole life believing that Dad was the flight risk.” Dante spun the water glass in his hand, watching the light bend and create a prism on the plane wall. “It’s hard to square what I thought was true. Especially when you let me stay with him so easily.”

“Easily! I was trying to make my own way—build my own income so I wouldn’t have to rely on O’s money. Why else would I have traveled all over God’s green earth for my career?”

“Because you love it?”