Taking a deep breath to squash the pain of the destruction of their relationship, she carefully removed a red silk dress from a hanger and wondered for the hundredth time how Georgia could have put a man above her own twin. Georgia had sent that message to Niccolo knowing he would do everything in his considerable power to stop Callie getting anywhere near Accardiano, and it was pure good fortune that the man Niccolo had tasked with the job of hiding her away had been Dante. There was no saying how any of Niccolo’s other friends would have treated her if given the job…
Hold on a sec, had she really just thought that Dante being the one to kidnap her had been hergood fortune? She really was losing her mind.
And what the hell was she doing with this silk number in her hands? Was she really intending to wear it for dinnerwith him? He would take it to mean that she was dressing up for him, especially after the stunt she’d pulled with the dressing gown, and it was the whispering voice in her head taunting her that she’d selected that particular dress for exactly that reason that had her folding it into a tight ball and throwing it on the floor. Resisting the urge to kick it across the room, she yanked a clean pair of jeans with an equally expensive label to those she’d worn earlier and a loose-fitting scooped silver top off the rail and chucked them on.
There. That was better. And no, she wouldn’t run a brush through her hair. She would not do anything to make Dante believe she was sending out signals of encouragement to him. If he wanted her, he’d have to force it…
Now she did kick the discarded dress in fury at her thoughts.
Suitably worked up, Callie left her room and was again escorted to the intimate dining room. She knew perfectly well that a member of staff was on corridor duty at all times in case she tried to make another run for it.
One look at Dante came close to ruining her bad mood. One look at the man she’d just been reminding herself of all the reasons she despised him for was enough to make her heart swell, and she had to bite her cheeks to stop the smile her lips wanted to form.
He must have guessed she’d refuse to dress up and so had dressed casually in faded jeans and a light blue shirt. Where the shirt’s top two buttons were opened, she caught a glimpse of dark hair and… God, thethrobbetween her legs at the sight of it.
How could she experience such a heady rush to see him, she wondered helplessly, and there was a long moment when she had to grind her toes into the floor to ground herself back into the reality ofher situation.
The reality of your situation,the treacherous taunting voice whispered, is that you fancy the pants off him.
It was a reality made worse when she noticed how the small square table had been set. Instead of facing him, she’d been placed even closer, to his left. A candle had been lit, its stand a figurine of entwined lovers.
She took her seat without speaking and without shoving her placement back to where it had been the night before and without blowing out the candle to kill the romantic vibe. She would not do anything to reiterate in Dante’s mind that she was running scared of the attraction between them.
But that hateful knowing gleam was back in his beautiful eyes, and she knew with the same certainty she knew her middle name that he knew exactly what she was thinking.
How could someone she’d known such a short time read her so well and anticipate her actions so well too? Somehow, Dante had known she would refuse to dress up again, and so had dressed down to match her and gently tease her.
God, did this mean that she was learning to read him too?
“I want to talk to my sister,” she said tightly before he’d finished retaking his seat.
“For what reason?”
“Because she’s my sister, and I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“If you’re hoping she will send the cavalry to rescue you, then I’m afraid you will be disappointed – she knows you’re here.”
Although she’d guessed Georgia would have been told the Callie problem had been taken care of, it still landed like a fresh wound to her heart. Georgia knew Callie was being held hostage by Dante, and she didn’t care.
Hardly being held hostage, the treacherous voice in her head taunted.
“I just want to talk to her.” And she wanted Dante to takeanother shower and scrub off the fresh Dante scent clinging to him. God, how could one person smell sogood?
He contemplated her speculatively for a long moment before his eyes gleamed and his lips twitched. “You must be the only person in the world whose mood isn’t soothed by a bath.”
Dante had the pleasure of watching Callie’s glorious eyes widen.
He leaned a little closer and dropped his voice. “I can smell your bubble bath. Your skin heats the scent beautifully.” Until these last few days with Callie, he’d never appreciated how perfume drenched over skin masked the true scent of a woman. Callie’s natural, clean scent was far more alluring than anything a perfumer could create. At some point soon, he would clasp her cheeks in his hands and rub his nose over her face and neck to inhale that scent deep into his lungs.
To his greater pleasure, colour flushed over the face he wanted to inhale and which he’d spent the day becoming more and more mesmerised by. Not just her face. All of her. The way she moved. The way she talked… there had been a few moments in the vaults when her wonder at what she was being shown had shone so brightly it had dazzled. He did not doubt that if she’d been allowed to stay there after the staff had gone home, she’d have become metaphorically lost in it all. He also did not doubt that his presence there had stopped her from fully immersing herself in it all. The awareness that had developed between them had grown so strong that the manuscripts that had surrounded them would have breathed it in and trapped its essence in the weave of the ancient paper.
“I just want to talk to her,” she repeated in a voice as tight as her body language, leaning away from him and picking at the evening’s antipasti to avoid looking at him.
He poured them both a glass of wine. “And what if she doesn’t want to talk to you?”
“Then that will be no change to how things have been recently. I just want to know she’s taking care of herself and the baby.”
“Why would she not?”
