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Dante frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “I have never looked at you and seen a woman who wasn’t trying, Paige. Never.”
“Not now,” she agreed. “I’ve been changing, slowly over the past three years, since I moved. Since I got the job at Colson’s and I saw that I could be really good at something other than just splashing paint on a canvas.”
“People make a lot of money splashing paint on a canvas,” he said drily.
“Yes, but I wasn’t. And no one thought it had any kind of value, not in my family. Not in my community.”
“Blind and stupid,” he said, his tone harsh. “You have a gift for color and design. I still don’t understand how they couldn’t see it.”
His anger on her behalf warmed her. Caused a little trickle of satisfaction to filter through her veins. But that wasn’t why she was telling him about herself, about what she’d been through.
“And then there was Ana,” she said. “Suddenly another person was depending on me caring. On me making a success. Throwing myself into it and not giving a thought to failure. Because I couldn’t afford to think of failing. For Ana, it’s been a pursuit of success at all costs and suddenly I realize that I can achieve things. With your help, I grant you. But…”
“But it was your bullheaded stubbornness that got me to help,” he said.
“And that was something I didn’t know I had.” She looked into her drink, watched the bubbles rise to the surface as she picked her next words carefully. “But I had to be willing to stop trying to protect myself. I had to be willing to be hurt in order to grab anything worthwhile.”
His expression flattened, light leaching from his dark eyes. “I’m happy you were able to do that.”
So, he wasn’t going to understand what she was saying. Or he was going to pretend that he didn’t.
But she’d changed. And just because it wasn’t easy, didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. Because whether or not Dante ever loved her, Dante deserved to feel loved. He deserved to be healed. And he was worth any level of pain or disappointment she might face.
Because he was worth something. Everything.
Of all the realizations she’d had about Dante, the most terrifying, heart-wrenching one, was that her enigmatic, alpha boss, didn’t see himself as valuable. He saw himself as a liability. As a roadblock to the happiness of others. As a danger, in many ways.
She would change that. No matter what happened between them in the end, she was determined to change that. She wasn’t going to be the happy-go-lucky Paige Harper of three years ago. She wasn’t even going to be the Paige she’d been a few weeks ago.
She was stronger now. She knew she had power. She knew she could succeed.
She set her glass on the counter, walked back over to the window, sensing Dante’s gaze following her movements.
With the curtains open, the lights from the city casting a pale glow on the living area, Paige reached behind her back and gripped the tab on her zipper, sliding it down slowly, the fabric parting, exposing her back to the cool air.
The straps on the gown loosened, and she pushed them off her shoulders, the gown slipping down her body and pooling in a silken mass at her feet. She stepped away from it, keeping her back to him.
The strapless, lace undergarment she was wearing pushed her breasts up high, contoured her waist, ending at her hips, just above the white, lace thong that barely covered anything. She left her stilettos on, bright pink and shocking, with glitter dusting the heels.
Confidence—unfamiliar, empowering—burned inside of her, along with a steady pulse of desire that beat a rhythm through her entire body, centered at the apex of her thighs.
“I can tell you something else I want,” she said. “Something I’m determined to have.”
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice a low growl.
“You. Tonight, I’m going to have you.”
“Do you think so?” His voice was closer now, feral. Arousing.
“I know it.” She turned to face him, and the lean, hungry look on his face gave total evidence of her victory.
“My little innocent has become a seductress?”
