"I knew enough. And after that night, after the wine and the conversation and everything that happened between us, I knew I didn't want you to leave."
"But you let me go…" I'm finding myself flustered, by the wine, by the conversation.
By the way he's looking at me like I'm the only woman on Earth.
"Because I thought it was the right thing to do. When you never came back, I forced myself to let it go. I knew how dangerous my world was. I thought you'd be safer away from me." He pauses. "I was wrong."
I sip more wine and fight the urge to fan myself.
The way he's staring at me is unnerving and arousing.
If only he weren't such a vile man, or dangerous.
I'd kill to have a man look at me like this under other conditions.
But Dante?
And knowing who he is… I have to fight my own urges.
"If I had it my way," he says, "you would never have left my bed, let alone Trastevere. You would've stayed with me. We'd be married by now."
"What?" My jaw drops and my eyes go wide.
"You heard me…" He sits back, sipping his wine as he studies my face.
I stare at him with a slack jaw and no words.
What he's saying is absurd.
We barely know each other.
We spent one night together six years ago.
But the way he looks at me makes my stomach flip.
"You're romanticizing a one-night stand," I say.
"Am I?" He stands and walks around the table then stops beside my chair and looks down at me. "Or am I telling you the truth?"
I set my wine glass down.
My hands are shaking. "What truth?"
"That I never forgot you. That I kept your earring because I wanted something to remember you by. That when you showed up at my door five days ago, it felt like fate giving me a second chance."
"A second chance at what?"
I swallow hard and try not to let those ice-blue eyes unnerve me.
"I want you back in my bed," he says.
He's so fucking close I can almost taste it. "I want you to stay there. I want you to never leave."
The heat in his words makes my skin flush.
The wine makes my head spin.
This is a terrible idea.
