Chapter 45 #2
“That won’t be necessary.” Moving slowly, I catch up with her.
“I was hurt when I found out he betrayed me, and the wound was still raw, especially when he told me that my mom was alive when he got to the accident scene. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him for that, but it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
I pat her hand. “Absolutely.” Plus, Dante will need her when I’m gone. “I know you like him, and you’re entitled to your opinion.”
She reels. “You say that as if you don’t like him.”
I smile. “It’s complicated. I don’t like what happened, but I don’t hate him.”
Not any longer. Not now that I’m working through the painful past and coming to terms with what I can’t change. Maybe I never hated him. I just hated what he’d done.
“Of course.” She moves aside hastily. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m good, but thanks for asking.”
Dante appears at the end of the hallway. He makes his way over and unceremoniously sweeps me into his arms.
“What are you doing?” I exclaim when he walks past Emily.
“Taking you upstairs.”
“I have to exercise,” I protest. “The doctor said it’s important for my recovery.”
“Not if you stand for so long and climb too many stairs so soon.”
In Noah’s bedroom, he deposits me gently on the bed. “Scoot over, buddy.”
Noah, clearly happy to be the center of attention of both his parents, obliges eagerly.
Dante makes sure I’m comfortable on one side of Noah before he hops onto the other side of the bed.
Noah looks between us with a grin splitting his face. “I’m glad you’re home, Mommy.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” I kiss the top of his head. “I missed you.”
“And I’m glad you became my daddy,” he says to Dante.
The softness in Dante’s eyes when he looks at his son always catches me off guard. The way he behaves toward Noah sneaks into my heart when I have my defenses lowered and wreaks havoc with my hormones.
Dante brushes a hand over Noah’s head. “I’ve always been your father, and I will always be.”
Noah considers that for a moment before nodding to himself as if he’s decided to accept a fact that will never change. No matter what happens between Dante and me, Dante will always be a good father to Noah.
“Can we have pizza this weekend?” Noah pipes up.
Laughing, Dante looks at me.
The dark look in his eyes as his gaze plays over my face makes my stomach flip.
Dante has always been too handsome for any woman’s good.
Yet it’s not only his physical appearance that appeals to me.
I fell for his dark intensity right from the start.
From the first moment I laid eyes on the new guard in charge of my security, my heart was no longer my own.
I gave it to him on the night he opened the car door at the fundraiser and took my hand to help me out.
The heat of his touch scorched my cold fingers and hit me right in the chest. Boldly, he’d trailed a gaze over my face and the tight white dress I was wearing even though, if caught out, the act could’ve cost him his life.
If my father had seen how his guard was looking at me, he would’ve had him shot without asking questions.
Dante placed a hand on the top of the open door, preventing me from bumping my head when I got out.
He lifted my skirt and handed me the short trail so it wouldn’t drag in the mud.
And then he shook out an umbrella and held it over my head as he guided me to the hotel entrance with a hand on the small of my back as if I belonged to him.
The truth is I did. I belonged to him from the second I felt the sharp arrow of desire as his shoulder brushed up against mine.
I’ll never forget his smile as he stared at my face while holding the lobby door open for me.
It was a proprietary smile. After that day, whenever I sought him out in the guard lineup, he’d give me that smile, that private message that I was his.
It’s a pity I was too lovestruck to realize he was never mine.
“Mommy?”
I clear my throat. “Mm?”
“Can we? Can we have pizza?”
“Um, sure. Why not?”
“Pizza it will be.” Dante reaches across Noah and caresses my cheek with the back of his hand. “But we better eat in. I’ll call for a delivery.”
“Can I have extra cheese and pepperoni?” Noah asks. “Please?”
“You can have anything you want,” Dante says. “Now, what are we reading?”
Noah puts a small hand on my leg, touching me with the utmost care. “The yellow plane.”
Dante shoots me a conspiratorial smile. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
I listen while Dante reads the story, simply enjoying the company of my son and his father. For many years, I’d thought this was something we’d never have. I’m happy for Noah and grateful to Dante for always making time for Noah, no matter how busy he is.
When we’ve tucked Noah in with his dinosaur, I slip out of the room, eager for some solitude to come to terms with everything I’ll soon have to face, but Dante takes my hand in the hallway and says, “Come with me.”
As always, my traitorous body, even in pain and convalescence, heats up at his touch.
“Dante.” I hold back. “Where are you going?”
As he’s clearly heading toward our bedroom, the question is stupid. What I meant to ask is why he wants me to go with him.
“I want to show you something.”
Those words always scare me. I don’t like it when I don’t know what to expect, but as someone who knows what it feels like to need closure, I sense this is something he has to do.
Maybe it’s a good opportunity to get what I have to tell him off my chest. Postponing the inevitable only prolongs the pain.
We may as well say our piece and get it over with.
Not looking forward to a conversation I can no longer put off, I let him take me to our room.
Inside, he guides me to the walk-in closet and seats me on a new padded divan that I’m guessing he bought after the shooting incident.
It’s true that the bench would’ve been uncomfortable.
With the divan, I don’t have to sit up so straight.
The backrest supports my weight, allowing me to relax my abdominal muscles.
He scrutinizes me. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” I lie.
“Not too tired?”
“You wanted to show me something?”
He walks to his side of the room and brushes his jackets aside, revealing a safe at the back of the open closet. He punches in a code, not bothering to hide it from me, and takes out a flat black box.
I hold my breath as he carries the box to me. I know what’s in it even before he stops in front of me and lifts the lid. Hundreds of diamonds are mounted in gold, forming intricate flowers. Thin chains connect the petals to drape in a scalloped, V-shaped necklace that ends in glittering teardrops.
I’ve seen the necklace only twice before. The first time was when I retrieved the box and saw what was in it after my mom had given me the key. The second time was a week ago, when I got shot.
The first time, I tried it on. The diamond flowers covered my shoulders while the teardrops fell to the curve of my breasts.
The weight was surprisingly heavy, reminding me of a man’s broad hands cupping a woman’s shoulders.
In my mom’s case, the act I’d witnessed had been menacing.
Threatening. In mine, that tender act had been grounding, making me feel safe.
Until I’d learned about Dante’s betrayal.
Knowing that I’d literally hung a death sentence around my neck, I ripped off the necklace and put it back in the box.
Looking at the piece of jewelry in the clear light of the room now, it’s even more breathtaking than I remember.
A pang of regret hits me when I think that Dante will have to destroy it to sell the stones.
The diamonds will have to be extracted from the petals and centers of the flowers, leaving them unadorned and bare.
Maybe Dante will have the gold melted, although its value is nothing compared to the diamonds.
“It’s beautiful.” I glance at him. “You got it back.”
“I did.” He closes the box and sets it on the dresser. “I thought you deserved a last look.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
Smiling, he sits down next to me. “I told you why I wanted it back, but I never told you why Lee and I stole it.”
My mouth goes dry. I know instinctively what he’s about to tell me is going to be heavy. “Why did you?”
“To prove my worth to your father.”
“Your worth? But you were already working for him.”
“As a guard, yes.”
I study his face. “You wanted a promotion?”
A smile tugs at his lips. “You could say that.”
“Proving your worth by stealing this”—I motion at the box—“seems preposterous.”
“What can I say? I was young and cocky. I wanted to show your father that I could exceed his every expectation.”
It sounds incredulous. “So you stole the necklace to prove a point to my father?”
He watches me solemnly. Darkly. “I did, but then he broke our agreement, killed my brother, and kept the necklace anyway.”
I flinch at the dishonorable way in which my father acted even though it doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that Dante was willing to trade the necklace for a higher position in my father’s hierarchy.
“But the necklace is priceless.” I glance at the box again. “You could’ve sold it and built your own empire. What could you have possibly gained by trading it to my father?”
He looks me dead in the eyes. “You.”
The declaration bowls me over. “Me?”