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“You have to eat.”
“I was fine with what we had. It was lovely.”If not too extravagant for my incredibly unrefined palate.
How embarrassing is this? The man in front of me is a freaking god. And I am a peasant who likes to eat chicken nuggets and blue-box mac and cheese like I’m eight because it’s safe and comfortable.
I put my face down to my plate and fight the urge to fidget, to bite my lip, to look around the room and see if anyone is looking at me, judging.
Delilah, hands in your lap. Be a goddamned lady for once.The words the man who raised me often repeated under hushed breaths run through my mind, and I move my hands to my lap as if he’s right next to me.
“What’s going on?” Dante asks, staring at me.
My mind has frozen, though, caught between the past and the present, trying to figure out how to navigate this.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say in a whisper, embarrassment eating at me.
I am not this persona anymore.
I don’t fit in here.
That person was all a facade built by a greedy man.
I don’tknowwho I am yet, not with all my new knowledge. Not with new goals and a different understanding of how the world works.
But I do know I don’t like fancy food.
I don’t like waitresses looking down on me because I didn’t spend eight hours getting ready.
For some reason, I like the man sitting across from me even though common sense says torun, run, run.
I also know I should start trusting my gut more, that I did it tonight by agreeing to trust him, and I did it the day I decided to leave my old life.
But I also know that the new life probably doesn’t include this—fancy dinners across from fine-as-hell men.
Before I can stand and run off, though, a hand reaches under the small table, grabbing my own, the skin warm and rough.
The electricity runs through my system, snapping me to attention.
“This is the best idea I’ve had in four years,fiorella,” he says. “You are the first selfish thing I’ve done in at least two. Please. Be selfish with me. Let’s have this.”
His words churn something in my gut.
Be selfish with me.
I’ve felt bogged down by the reminder of how selfish I was since my world turned upside down. It was selfish to let my sister sacrifice so much. I was selfish when I didn’t take those journals to heart and dissect them further. Selfish when I never said no to Shane for fear of shaking my safe little bubble.
I’ve made a promise to live selflessly from here on out, to move without worrying about my own comfort until everything is set right.
And here is a man nearly begging me to do the opposite.
So for some reason, I decide to nod.
I decide to be selfish with the mysterious Dante Romano.
“Yeah. Okay. But . . . can I get a glass of wine?” I ask with a small smile. If I’m going for it, I might as well go full blast.
“Anything you want, Delilah, I’ll get for you,” he says, but he’s not smiling. He’s staring at me like he means every single syllable in every single way.
It should scare me, the intensity of his gaze, his words.
