Chapter 12
Savannah
I’d just managed to slip away from an endless monologue about a third cousin once removed who ‘almost made it to the NFL,’ when Dante appeared at my elbow like he’d been waiting for the exact moment I was seriously considering faking an injury. Or causing one . . .
“Sav.” His voice was low, pitched so only I could hear over the clinking glasses and donor laughter.
I stiffened. “What?”
“You told me I didn’t need help,” he said sharply, cutting straight to it, no smile, no charm. Just those blue eyes locking onto me as if he were calling a play, and I hadn’t caught it. “You’re wrong.”
My throat tightened. The nerve of him, cornering me here of all places. “You’re supposed to be working the room, Ten. Shake hands, smile for pictures, remember? You’ve been doing it since you got here. You’re a natural, you don’t need me.”
“Sav, play nice,” he shot back. “You think I don’t know when I need backup? You’re going to show me how to get away from these insufferable bastards with the same ease as you do, Sav. Whether you like it or not.”
Heat crawled up my neck. Half the room was watching him, not me — because of course they were — but it still felt like a spotlight had swung our way.
“Say it louder,” I murmured, enjoying the thrill of hearing his admission, while forcing my smile to remain polite and not gloating, for anyone glancing over. “Really make sure everyone here hears you admit that you need me.”
His grin flashed suddenly, sharp and devastating, and my stomach flipped because it looked nothing like surrender. “Don’t tempt me, sweetheart. I could show them all exactly what you need.”
He leaned in closer, close enough for the scent of his cologne to mingle with the champagne fizz in the air. “You’re staying with me. So maybe stop pretending you don’t like me, and instead thank me for saving you from these boring bastards who make you look like you want to die on the spot.”
Had I been so obvious?
Before I could retort, another benefactor clapped him on the back, drawing his attention.
Dante shifted smoothly, slipping back into that golden-boy act — but his words lingered, prickling under my skin as he stood beside me, his fingers lightly brushing the small of my back, keeping me close, as he made sure I didn’t use the interruption as an excuse to walk away.
He hadn’t looked like he was struggling, not at all.
But it was easier with him there. It was maybe even . . . fun. Slowly, I felt myself relax. I stayed close to him, not touching, but together we worked the room. It felt strangely natural. Somehow, the fake formality of it all was more bearable with him by my side.
I was laughing at something someone said, taking a step back as they demonstrated a lunge as part of their story, when Dante turned back to my side, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine.
He reached past, steadying a champagne flute a server nearly tipped, and in the process, his hand pressed against my lower back.
Too warm. Too steady. Too much.
“You should watch it,” he murmured, his mouth near my ear, his breath catching strands of my hair. “It would be a shame if this dress didn’t survive the night.”
I tried to move forward, to put space between us, because my whole body had just come alive at his touch, but my body wouldn’t obey, not when his thumb slowly brushed up my spine, like it was accidental. It wasn’t. Nothing this man did was accidental.
“What are you doing? We’re supposed to be mingling,” I hissed, keeping my smile plastered on for anyone watching because he’d effectively moved me from the cluster I’d been part of.
“I am mingling.” His voice was soft and soothing. “It just so happens, the most interesting person in the room is already standing next to me.”
My breath caught, and my head turned before I could stop it.
He shifted — barely — and the distance between us closed in a way I couldn't entirely account for.
His eyes were on mine, and for one brief, reckless second, we were inches apart, and the noise of the room fell away. I realized I'd tilted my face up.
“Savannah.”
My father's voice. That was all it took to break the spell, and I stepped back. Dante’s jaw clenched once, his mask snapping back into place.
I pasted on my polite smile, heart pounding, and turned toward my father before anyone saw I’d almost — almost — let myself fall.
“Savannah?”
I turned from my dad as a familiar voice spoke my name, and smiled broadly at Professor Yates. “Professor,” I greeted him warmly. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
“Yeah, it’s really not my thing,” he admitted, looking down at his dark corduroy trousers, white shirt, and dark brown blazer. He looked more like he was ready to teach a class than be at a faculty event. I liked that even more about him. He was here on his terms, no one else’s.
“You look nice,” I assured him.
“Sav, you’re being rude,” Dante murmured beside me.
I turned to him and, seeing the dangerous glint in his eye, I couldn’t stop the frown from forming. “This is Professor Yates, he’s my . . . he used to be my art professor.” I turned back to the professor. “Professor, this is—”
“Dante Spence,” the professor said with a wide, beaming smile. “Nice to meet you. I have to say, that throw to Slater on third and ten in the last two minutes of the third quarter was exceptional.”
Oh, yay, yet another football fan for his already overinflated ego.
Both of them looked at me, one in surprise and the other with way too much amusement, and I realized I’d spoken out loud.
“Um.” Yeah, I had no defense.
“She gets cranky when I get all the attention,” Dante said with a smug grin, moving a fraction of an inch closer to me, his fingers brushing over mine. “How are you this evening, Professor?”
“Oh, call me John,” Professor — John — said. I knew I was gaping, and he saw it, a slight flush on his cheeks. “You’re a student, Savannah,” he explained almost apologetically. “Dante here is—”
“A third-year student at Wrighton, same as me,” I snapped with more emotion than I should have shown.
“I think what the good professor is trying to say, Sav, is that I’m not one of his students.”
“And neither is Savannah,” my father said, smoothly slipping into the conversation.
Dante’s glance briefly shifted to me, and I held my breath in case he called me out.
“And it is better if all students avoid calling professors by their first names,” my father added.
“Agreed,” Dante said smoothly. “It’d be like me calling you Maxwell or Max, right, Dean?”
I knew they hadn’t, but I was sure everyone in the room had frozen because of his casual audacity. You simply did not joke with the dean of Wrighton University.
I swallowed, but then my nerves took over, and I laughed. The spell of ‘I can’t believe you said that’ broke, and Professor Yates laughed too.
“Good point, Dante,” he said good-humoredly. “Sorry, Max.”
“‘Dean Cole’ works just fine,” Dad said with a cool smile as he appraised both men in front of him. “Savannah, come now, I want you to meet someone.”
“Come now?” Dante murmured, his tone curious but commanding enough to stop my dad from walking away. “Is your daughter a pet, Dean Cole?”
“Excuse me?” My dad looked ready to implode.
“Come now,” Dante said again, and then paused as if he was mulling it over.
“It’s a command you’d give to a dog to get it to heel, no?
” He took a drink from his flute, and I questioned whether he had apple juice like me, because nobody sober would just say what he did to my dad.
“Do you expect her to bark on command too?”
“Dante!” I realized my mouth was hanging open and saw Professor Yates turn away, hiding his grin as Dante openly challenged my father. “Enough.”
Dante looked at me, his mouth twitched slightly, but he said nothing and simply turned his attention back to my dad.
My dad watched him with a narrowed glare. I knew that look too well. That was the look of a man who was plotting your demise.
“Dad, I—”
“You’re right,” Dad said with a slight dip of his head. “My terminology in addressing my only child was poorly worded.” He smiled thinly. He broke his stare off with the man beside me. “Savannah, would you care to join me?”
“I need the restroom,” I blurted out, ignoring his look of disappointment, but I needed space. Space to get myself together, and in a way, do what my dad wanted, which was to get me away from the provocative art professor and the even more alluring quarterback.
My heels clicked too fast across the marble floor, betraying the jitter in my chest.
I pushed open the heavy bathroom door, planting both palms on the sink as my reflection looked back at me. Cheeks flushed, eyes too wide. Pathetic. One close call with Dante, and that whole awkward encounter between him and my dad, and I looked like I’d run a mile.
I turned the faucet on and let cold water run over my wrists, breathing until my pulse stopped trying to punch its way through my ribs.
The door creaked.
I glanced up in the mirror — and froze.
Dante leaned casually against the frame, his suit immaculate, and that perfect smile playing as if we hadn’t just crossed a line in front of half the university’s boosters. Like he hadn’t had the perfect moment to tell my dad my secret.
“You planning to hide in here all night?” His voice was soft enough to crawl along my spine, daring me to admit I was still rattled from being so close to him.
I straightened up, forcing calm I didn’t genuinely feel. “What the hell was that?” I demanded, grabbing a towel to dry my hands.
“What?” Dante shrugged insolently. “He treats you like a show pony, it pissed me off.”
“A show pony?” I felt my temper rising. “I thought I was a dog?”
He had the audacity to roll his eyes. “I never called you a dog, don’t get excited.”
“You can’t speak to my dad like that.” I tossed the towel toward the linen basket and missed. I pointedly ignored the snort from the man lurking by the door.
Lurking. Stalking.