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Because I hadn’t looked for him. My guard was down, and it shouldn’t have been.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” I drawled.
“Surely, you’re not surprised?”
“Surprised you want to kill me? No. Surprised to find you in my fucking office? Yes.”
He sat in one of the chairs across from my desk and traced the outline of the crease of his pants with his thumb. “It wasn’t easy if that makes you feel any better. I’d say that’s the hardest I’ve had to work in a while, but I’ve been busy.”
“Really? I heard you were incommunicado.”
“I guess that depends on who you are.”
His dismissal of Lilly’s feelings pissed me off. “She’s your fucking sister. She’s been worried about you.”
“Oh? Am I expected to believe you have her best interests at heart while you have her locked in your compound?”
“Your intel is wrong. She hasn’t been locked up at all.”
“That’s open to interpretation.”
“It’s a fact,” I bit out.
She might have started out as my captive, but we moved past that the night Lilly wore my handcuffs.
“You haven’t fooled anyone. She was brought here against her will.”
“I fooled the one person whose opinion I give a fuck about,” I growled back, thinking about Mrs. Calegari.
The silence grew. What the fuck was he waiting for?
“And that’s one reason you’re still alive.”
“Your mother likes me. If that’s why you haven’t killed me yet, then so be it.”
If the assassin sitting across the desk from me wanted me dead, I doubted he’d spend a half hour chatting me up first. I sat behind my desk and leaned back in the reclining chair.
“I’m curious though. Your intel must not be too sharp either. Lilly’s not exactly opposed to me.” I had no idea how Lilly felt about me. She trusted me, at least. I knew that. She wanted me; I could make her sopping wet with just a kiss. I could make her laugh, which had never been my goal with any other woman. But did she care about me? Had she fallen as hard for me as I had for her? I found a boyish hopefulness in the idea. She had gone along with my sham of a kidnapping effort. If she weren’t interested in me, she’d have done more to escape than she had.
If I didn’t think she was interested in me, she wouldn’t be there.
“I’m curious why Lilly’s feelings for me don’t count in this equation.”
Dante didn’t blink. “You’re not family, so that topic is off limits.”
Was this when I told him that thanks to his brother being a devious, underhanded bastard, Iwashis family?
While the pleasure of revealing that information and watching the discomfort it would bring would last me years, I needed the leverage I would gain by keeping it to myself. Actually, I needed to respect my sister’s wishes.
Suzanne was having Gabriel Calegari’s baby - my niece or nephew. When and how - or if - he, and the other Calegaris, found out about her child, was up to Suzanne.
Even I had my limits, and I suspected Dante Calegari did as well.
Then again, I didn’t know the man at all. I couldn’t let my arrogance make assumptions. The man led a double life. I shouldn’t assume he was that easy to read. Maybe I had fallen into his trap and was seeing what he wanted me to see.
But I had to make one thing clear to him. When it came to Lilly, neither he nor Gabriel could give me any fucking orders.
“Nothing about Lilly is off limits to me.”
