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“I didn’t know what you’d like,” Dante said. “So I just ordered some stuff.”
She looked up at him. His mouth was a whisper away. Say something, her brain shrieked, but she couldn’t come up with a single word.
Dante cleared his throat.
“Look, there’s no problem with sending it all back. You know, if it’s not what you wanted—”
“Oh, Dante! It’s wonderful!”
His face cleared. “You think?”
“It’s just that—” she hesitated “—we can’t impose on you this way. I mean, I know how busy you are. Orsini Investments. Your family. The last thing you need is…is someone from the past cluttering up your life, your home—”
He silenced her the only way he could.
He kissed her. And kissed her. And when she kissed him back and sighed his name in the way that had always sent spirals of desire straight down to his toes, he knew that everything he had done—bringing her here, sweeping aside his plans to find her an apartment and instead settling her into his home, was right.
The idea had come to him while the doctor was with her. Gabriella was sick; she had the baby to care for. No way could he let her be on her own just yet. She’d simply have to stay with him for a couple of days. Just a temporary arrangement, of course, but even so, the baby would need things…
Except that now, looking down at the woman in his arms, he knew those were all pathetic rationalizations.
“I want you here,” he said softly, when he finally ended the kiss. “Here. With me. You and the boy—you and Daniel belong here.”
“Dante.” Her voice shook. “Please. Don’t say that and not mean it.”
“We’ll take things one step at a time.”
It wasn’t quite the answer her heart wanted but it was an honest answer. How could she fault him for that? she thought, and she nodded and said, very softly, “Okay.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Starting with that bathroom stuff you were positive I couldn’t handle.”
She smiled into his eyes. “Somehow, I can’t picture you changing a diaper.”
“Who says? Put your money where your mouth is.”
Her smile became a grin. “A buck says you can’t.”
“You’re on.”
She lost the bet.
Dante could do everything. Run a powerful corporation? Sure. Make every man in a room defer to him? That, too. Be the man all the women in the world wanted? Easy.
She’d known all that from experience.
What she’d never known until now was that he could diaper a baby as if he’d done it all his life.
Take care of her. Brew her a cup of tea. Stand over her until she gave up and downed another couple of Tylenol. Whip up a meal—though as he pointed out, heating a can of chicken broth for her, taking a steak from the freezer and broiling it for himself wasn’t exactly gourmet cooking.
But it was much, much more than she’d ever seen him do in the past. Back then he’d been a whiz at making restaurant reservations and, once or twice, phoning down for Chinese take-out.
Dante Orsini, doing kitchen duty?
Never…until tonight.
Hours later she and Daniel were both yawning. Dante offered to give the baby a bottle but she said no, she’d nurse him. “Are you sure?” Dante said and she nodded and decided that telling him she really had to do it, that her breasts would be swollen and heavy unless she did, was more than she wanted to discuss. It was too private, too intimate…
Too much.
She nursed Daniel, sitting in the beautiful rocking chair in his room while Dante cleaned up the kitchen. When she was done, they bathed the baby together. Dante said he felt too clumsy to do it, but he took over halfway through, laughing when Daniel splashed water all over him, wrapping the baby in a big bath towel, then diapering him and dressing him in a blue onesie.
Dante lowered him gently into his crib. Gabriella kissed her son’s head. Dante stroked his dark hair.
“Good night, pal,” he said softly.
Out in the hall, for the first time all day, they were alone. The penthouse seemed wrapped in silence. Their eyes met. She felt the heat rise in her face. He took a step toward her. She took a quick step back.
“No. We can’t.” Her voice was breathless. “It would—it would only complicate things.”
He nodded. Hadn’t he already reached that same conclusion?
It was her turn to nod. “So…so, good night.”
“Good night, sweetheart,” he whispered. And then he reached for her and she went into his arms.
CHAPTER TEN
SHE went into his arms as if she had never left them.
A dozen thoughts raced through his head.
