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Her green eyes glazed over with tears. “I know ye would. I’m just scared.”
“Me too.” I lifted my hands to her face. “I’ve wanted to make a move on ye a dozen times over, but I was scared I’d ruin our friendship. You’re me best friend, Ina. I thought the attraction I had was one-sided.”
“It’s not.” She placed her hands on mine. “But there’s something else. Your daddy said I couldn’t date one of his mechanics. I can’t break his rule. Not only because I need me job badly, but ’cause I truly love workin’ at the garage.”
“Leave me aul fella to me.” I rubbed my thumbs over her cheeks. “We can just be private with how we do things for a time, okay? Me da won’t object to anythin’ once he’s certain I’ll treat ye well. He just doesn’t want me to, uh, date you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I date a woman, it’s never for a relationship. It’s always just one-time sex … I don’t do relationships.”
“At all?”
“Nope, but I don’t want just one-time sex with you, country. I want everythin’.”
Being honest with Ina felt right. It didn’t feel like I was revealing something I should have kept to myself. Being that as it may, I was bricking myself with the prospect of scaring her by being too honest.
“Dante, are ye tellin’ me that ye don’t do relationship, but ye want to try to have one with me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Why?” she implored, her eyes searching mine. “I promise I’m not fishin’ for compliments or reassurance when I ask this, but why me?”
“Because when I wake up in the mornin’, the first thing I want to do is see your face.”
Her pale pink lips parted. “Really?”
“Really, baby.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I want to see you when I wake up first thing too.”
Thank Christ.
“About what ye said,” she continued, her face now scalded. “About wantin’ me for more than a one-night stand. Can we … can we work up to that? The sex part, I mean.”
She looked so mortified at having this discussion that I didn’t even tease her. She looked like she might combust at any given moment.
“Of course, we’ll go at your pace. I wanna be a different Date for you.”
“How about ye just be Dante for me? I think he is pretty incredible.”
I had never been Dante for any woman before—even Alannah got Date—but for Ina, I would give my all to her. I would be Dante.
“I can do that, country.”
Her whole body seemed to slump with relief.
“I can’t believe this is happenin’.” She dropped her hands to my waist, clutching at the fabric of my T-shirt. “I … I get to kiss you whenever I want to, right?”
“That depends on one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Just how likely are ye to wear your pencil skirts at home?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Date
* * *
“Did ye win the lottery?”
“If I did, I’d never tell ye.”
“Then I give up.” Gavin threw his hands up into the air. “What has ye smilin’ so feckin’ much? It’s creepin’ me out.”
Gavin, the annoying little shite that he was, had been on my case for the past forty minutes, asking me question after question as to why I was smiling. Ina’s name never popped up once, which relieved me. We were starting our new relationship just between us and that meant not telling Gavin. If I told him, he’d tell Bronagh and Alannah since they were his “besties”.
If they knew, then the whole Slater tribe and Collins clan would know, and that would likely give Ina an anxiety attack. She was convinced that if my father found out about us that he would sack her on the spot. He wouldn’t. He’d be pissed at me for risking her position at the garage, but he wouldn’t sack her.
The man already loved her. She was his work daughter.
“I’m smilin’ ’cause I’m in a good mood,” I said to my youngest brother. “But that’ll change if ye keep pesterin’ me.”
Gavin frowned. “I don’t feckin’ pester.”
He walked off in a huff, which made me shake my head.
Time and time again, I wondered how he, out of all my brothers, was a gangster. I watched Gavin as he got back to work, muttering to himself, and I thought of the circle he ran with. Brandon Daley was known as just Brandy on the streets. The man was the head of the Irish mob and ran the gangland in Ireland. That was my brother’s boss, the dangerous man just so happened to be the uncle of Alec Slater’s wife, Keela. Gavin was supposed to have left Brandon’s gang a long time ago, but he hadn’t. He tried to limit his involvement, but he was still very much knee-deep in that life.
It worried me that something might happen to him.
“I don’t agree with Gav’s interrogation methods.” Harley’s voice drifted from my left. “But the kid’s got a point. Ye are smilin’ a little too much today.”
