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The ocean was too serene and beautiful. And nothing inside of her felt serene.
And now, Dante was in his home office, and she wasn’t sure if, when she saw him again, he would be rude, or if he would get all “I have deflowered you and must make amends” again. If he would want her. Or if he would leave the house rather than face sleeping with her again.
She rolled her eyes and tiptoed down the stairs, headed for the kitchen and the rest of the chocolate ice cream.
She opened the freezer and let the cool air wash over her face. She felt confused. And lonely. She didn’t know why the loneliness was hitting so hard now. When Shyla had died, it had been hard. So very hard. But Ana needed her. Ana had needed her from that moment and every moment since then and there had been no time to dissolve.
There was still no time to dissolve. And in the absence of total dissolution, perhaps there could be an ice-cream binge and a few tears.
“I was looking for you.”
She turned and closed the freezer, forgetting the ice cream. Dante was there, looking end-of-the-day rumpled. Which for Dante meant he’d discarded his jacket and had obviously run his hands through his hair a few too many times. Otherwise, he remained well pressed, his black tie in place, his white shirt tucked into white slacks. She had the overwhelming urge to ruffle him.
To really find the man beneath the layer of rock and stone he kept around himself. To find out who he really was.
She’d seen glimpses of it. When he spoke of his mother. When he’d expressed genuine concern for her well-being after they’d slept together. And in each of those moments, there had been so much. Tenderness, love even, when his mother had been mentioned. But also a haunting sadness and fear that tore at her insides.
The fear she saw when he looked at her and Ana. Dark, endless. She wished she could watch it for a moment, to try to understand it. But he always covered it too quickly, taking control again as soon as he could.
She felt compelled to seek it out. Compelled to unbury it all. The good, the ugly. She had a feeling she could never reach the good if she didn’t uncover the bad, too. Expose it to the sunlight.
A few days ago, she would have rejected the idea. Because Ana was her world. And Ana was still her world. But Dante was starting to be a huge part of it, too. Not a separate part, or a bigger part, or even a smaller part. He was folded in. Impossible to extricate.
And that was just damned terrifying.
“I figured you had lots more work to do. Since it’s Saturday and you put on a tie.”
“I work, Paige. It’s what I do.”
“And what do you do for fun?”
He took a step closer to her. “I can think of one thing.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. “Oh, well, yeah. Eating chocolate ice cream is what you mean, right?” She turned back to the freezer trying to defuse some of the tension between them. Because, given her recent realization, she was more than happy to defer any intensity between them.
“Not quite.”
Dante watched Paige’s valiant effort to ignore him by digging through the freezer for much longer than necessary. She was probably making the smart choice, denying the fire that ignited between them.
He’d tried to do it all day. Work punctuated by push-ups, bicep curls until he was sure his arms were going to drop out of their sockets. Anything to build enough pain to block out the intense need that had been rioting through him from the moment he’d gotten out of bed the other night and left her there alone, when he’d wanted nothing more than to take her again. And again. And again.
He wanted even more to try to eradicate the pain in his chest that seemed to hit him, so hard and strong whenever he looked at Paige holding Ana. A mother and her child. The love that passed between them. The truest love he’d known. The love he had lost.
He wanted to crush those feelings. Bury them beneath something stronger. Lust. Sex. Desire.
Yes, Paige was being the wise one.
And for once, he wasn’t. Couldn’t be.
He moved behind her and put his hand on the freezer door. She froze in front of him, her petite frame stiff.
“Don’t ignore me, Paige,” he said. He swept her hair to the side and bent, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “Ever.”
