Something more dangerous.
He's going to pay for this.
I just have to figure out how.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dante
I stay away all day on purpose.
Meetings that could have been phone calls. Lunches that stretch into late afternoon. Anything to avoid going home and dealing with the aftermath of my decision about her clothes.
It's cowardice, and I know it.
But after last night—after what happened between us—I need space to think. To get my control back. To remember that this is business, not personal.
Even if the lines have blurred so badly, I can barely see them anymore.
By the time I pull through the gates, it's after eleven. The house is mostly dark, just a few lights on in the upstairs windows. The security team gives me a nod as I pass.
Inside, everything is quiet.
Too quiet.
I loosen my tie as I climb the stairs, already bracing myself. Bianca's had all day to work herself into a fury about the clothes. She's probably planned seventeen different ways to murder me in my sleep.
I push open the bedroom door.
She's in bed, covers pulled up, back to me. Exactly like last night. Except this time, I can tell she's not asleep. Her breathing is too controlled. The kind of fake sleep where you're pretending not to notice someone.
"I know you're awake," I say, shrugging off my jacket.
"Go away."
I move to the closet, stripping off my shirt, hanging up my jacket. "We need to talk about?—"
"About how you threw away all my clothes? About how you violated what little privacy I had left? About how you're acontrolling bastard who thinks he owns everything?" She still hasn't turned around. "No thanks. I'm done talking."
"Bianca—"
"I hate you." Her voice is flat, cold. "I thought I hated you before, but I didn't understand how much until today. Until I realized you took everything that was mine and replaced it with... with..."
"With appropriate clothes for your position."
"With slut clothes!" She whips around now, sitting up, and I can see tear tracks on her face. "Every single thing you bought me is designed to make me look like I'm for sale. Like I'm your property that you're showing off."
The tears hit me harder than her anger.
"They're designer clothes. Expensive?—"
"I don't care if they cost a million dollars each!" Her hands are shaking. "They're not mine. They're yours. They're what you want me to be, not who I am."
"You need to look the part?—"
"Of what? Your whore?" She's out of bed now, stalking toward me in that t-shirt that's somehow survived the purge. "Becausethat's what those clothes say, Dante. That I'm available. That I'm yours to use however you want."
"That's not—" I run a hand through my hair, frustrated. "You're deliberately misunderstanding?—"
