AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And he wondered for the first time—not just since this started, but in years—if he had miscalculated. He had assumed he could make a delineation between the public and private. Not have to handle anything to do with the child in private.
Clearly, Min thought different.
He had no experience with babies. He wanted no experience with babies. And, also, there was no way that he, Dante Fiori, could allow himself to be defeated by an infant.
Practicality dictated that Minerva needed both hands to eat. And that meant that he should hold the child while she did so.
“Give her to me,” he said.
“You might want to work on your tone,” she said, rising up from her seat and bringing Isabella over to him, depositing her into his arms. Then, she went and sat back down in front of her plate. The child was so light. She was barely a weight in his arms, and yet she was warm. She leaned against him, so trusting. So very... Fragile.
Minerva was busy eating, and he was pondering this. The baby’s fragility.
How could adults leave small things such as this to fend for themselves? How could they ever put them in danger?
“I’ll kill him,” Dante said, his hand resting on the back of her downy head. “I will kill him for what he’s put you through.”
“Well, that’s not something I expected,” Minerva said, looking up from her plate.
“It is true, though. It is wrong, what he’s done to you. And her. But mostly her.”
“Well, thank you very much.”
“We are adults, Minerva, and we must answer for our actions. A child like her has done nothing except be born into a broken world. She is helpless. She is dependent on the people around her to make decisions for her survival, her safety.”
“I know,” Minerva said. “And that’s why I was willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe.”
He nodded. “Of course. You would understand that.”
“I do understand it. There was nothing to be done. I had to... Whatever the cost, Dante, I had to make sure that she would be protected.”
Minerva ate in silence for a while, and then he shifted his hold on Isabella, who promptly made a sound like a very juicy hiccup and cast up her accounts on his shirt.
“Oh!” Minerva jumped up from her seat. “I’m sorry.”
She reached out and grabbed hold of Isabella. And he looked down at his damp shirt. He gripped the hem and tugged it over his head. “I’ll leave this for the staff when they come pick up the laundry.”
“Staff?”
But her eyes were not on his face. Rather, they were resting in the center of his chest.
“Yes,” he said. “We will make sure that we are not about when they come, but we will need to have supplies brought here, laundry dealt with, food replenished.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes darting up, down and back and forth, but never going higher than his shoulders.
“Minerva,” he said. “My eyes are up here.”
And then she did look stunned. Her cheeks turning red.
Minerva was not unaffected by him. She was just very, very good at playing games.
He was shocked by this realization. But, now that he had his shirt off, he seemed to have reduced her mouthiness by 20 percent or so.
“I know where your eyes are,” she snapped. “I believe your shirts are upstairs, if you want to find one.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable. Aren’t you comfortable?”
“I’m not,” she said, growing edgy and pink. “But that’s because it’s a little bit warm in here. And... I might walk down to the beach.”
