AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And he was upset. For all that he’d stayed calm, she could tell that the conversation had disturbed him.
There was so much more to her poker-faced boss. Finding out just what lay beneath the surface should be the furthest thing from her mind. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Ana.
But it was Dante dominating her thoughts tonight. She sighed and tried to focus on her dinner, and not think so much about the deep, overwhelming darkness that she’d glimpsed in his normally expressionless eyes.
* * *
Dante unbuttoned his shirt and took a hanger out of his closet. He put it on the hanger and buttoned the top few buttons, then put it in its place in the closet
He moved his hand to his belt buckle, then paused for a moment. He walked into his en suite bathroom and braced his hands on the vanity countertop, looking at his reflection in the mirror.
He didn’t look at himself often. He didn’t see much point in it. But he did now. And he wondered what other people saw.
He chuckled, the sound bitter, hollow in the empty room, and turned the sink on, running cold water onto his hand, splashing it onto his face. He knew what people thought about him. They wrote it in on society blogs and people, people from all over, were able to leave comments with their explicit opinions.
Sexy, but dead behind the eyes.
Amoral.
Italian bastard.
Impostor.
Yes, he knew what people thought of him. How they saw him. And he knew that it didn’t matter. Not because he was so at peace with who he was, but because he genuinely didn’t care.
A man makes his own destiny. If he is in control of himself, he can control everything around him.
Words from Don Colson when he’d first come to live with them. From the man he thought of as his father. The man he’d never felt worthy of calling father. It was what made him strive to be worthy. The Colsons were the only people who’d inspired that feeling in him.
Control was the key. It was what put him on Don Colson’s side. And not on the side of his real father. The man who’d spilled his mother’s blood. The man whose blood ran through his veins.
He shut off the water and turned, walking back into his room. His bedroom door opened and Paige stopped short, one foot in the room, a sharp squeak escaping her lips.
“I thought you were…that is…you didn’t say anything when I knocked, and my pj’s are in here. I’ll…come back.”
It took him a moment to realize that her wide eyes were glued to his bare chest. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction to know that, in spite of her constant reminders that she didn’t want to sleep with him, she wasn’t immune to him.
Something that shouldn’t matter.
“No need. Find your pajamas,” he said. “Don’t mind me.”
“Right,” she said, sliding into the room and moving quickly to the closet. She opened it and walked in. He watched her rummaging in the corner that had been designated for her clothing. He would have to ask his housekeeper to lay things out more nicely for her. His closet was huge, and his clothes always well spaced out so he could see what he had. There was no harm in crowding things in a little bit for Paige’s sake.
Although, just when the idea of giving her some substantial room in his home had stopped bothering him, he wasn’t sure. Maybe, stopped bothering him wasn’t the right way to put it. More that it didn’t make his eye twitch.
“Got them.” She emerged a moment later, clutching a pair of flannel pants and a white T-shirt to her chest. “So I’ll go.”
He found that he was reluctant to let her leave. If she left, he would be alone with his thoughts, and tonight, his thoughts were on a dangerous path.
“Those don’t look like I imagined they might,” he said, extending his hand, taking the flannel between his thumb and forefinger.
“No?” she asked. He noticed that her chest pitched sharply, in time with a sudden breath. That his drawing nearer to her was making her nervous. That he was right in his earlier assessment of her. She wasn’t immune to him.
“No,” he said. “Something diaphanous and flowing, I thought. Something with glitter.”
“And slippers with heels and feathers?” she asked, her voice thin and shaky.
