7. Samantha
SAMANTHA
Over the next two weeks,I stick as close to Dante as I can, which isn’t very close. He’s gone a lot of the time, out on missions for my father—collecting, mostly.
I try to get his attention by sneaking out. I almost make it to the gate before someone clears their throat behind me.
I freeze, slowly turning around. Dante stands there, arms crossed over his chest. Watching me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out.”
“You know you’re not allowed out without an escort. I can send Ricardo—”
“I don’t want to go with Ricardo. He’s weird and he chases off all the hot guys.”
He scoffs. “And I don’t?”
He’s got a point, there. It’s not like men approach me when Dante’s around, either. He’s huge and intimidating.
So basically, I can’t get laid. Not that I’ve been interested in getting laid by anyone but Dante.
“Let me go out, just this once,” I plead. “It’s a house party on the North Side.”
“I’ll drive you.” He heads to his car as if the conversation is over.
I sigh, putting my heels back on. I’d taken them off to scale the gate. I slowly get in the car, huffing out a frustrated breath.
“You didn’t really think I’d let you sneak out alone.”
“I was hoping.”
“I won’t cramp your style. I’ll stay in the car.”
I look out the window. “You don’t have to do that.”
“What am I going to do at a house party, anyway? I promise, you can flirt with whoever you like.”
“And you won’t mind?”
A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Why would I mind?”
Oh, no reason. Just the way you made me tell me I’m yours the last time we had sex. In this very car.
And he’s been treating me like I don’t exist ever since.
“Where have you been? Haven’t seen you around the house.”
“Busy,” he grunts.
I fight not to roll my eyes. He’s doing me a favor, technically, since I’m not supposed to be leaving the house. I give him directions and we pull up at Reese’s parents’ lake house. It’s late at night but I’m hoping I can get a skinny dip in.
Too bad Dante won’t see it, waiting in the car.
He pulls out a paperback from his back pocket and I raise an eyebrow. “You read?”
“I know how,” he says dryly, and I snort out a laugh.
“Horror?” I guess, looking at the gothic architecture on the back cover.
“Something like that. Have fun.”
He looks down at the paperback, opening it with one hand. An enigma, to be sure.
I walk inside and Reese yells my name. Vaughn’’s perched on his knee and she gets up first, hugging me. I hug her back. She smells faintly of mint, and since peppermint schnapps is her favorite drink, I figure they’ve been imbibing already.
Reese wraps his arms around me. “Did you really manage to sneak out?”
I pout. “No. Guard dog is waiting in the car.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You mean he’s not following you around like a shadow?”
I shrug. “Said he didn’t want to cramp my style.”
“Good,” Sofia chirps, walking up behind me. “You need to get laid.”
I bite my lip. I haven’t told her or Reese that Dante and I have slept together.
Reese narrows his eyes at me. “What’s that face? You’re making a face.”
“I’m not making a face.”
“Like hell you aren’t. What aren’t you telling us?” Sofia asks, pushing a drink into my hand. I sip it and wince at how strong it is.
“Not here,” I whisper. “Need to tell you two in private.”
Both of them instantly take one of my elbows, ushering me outside onto the balcony. I look down at Dante’s car. He’s reclined back in the seat, reading. He can’t hear me from here, so why do I feel so nervous?
“I slept with someone,” I blurt out.
“Who? How’d you get away from Dante?” Reese asks.
I give him a look and his mouth drops open.
“No!” Sofia yelps. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m dead serious. I kissed him after I was injured—”
“You kiss him all the time,” Reese pipes up and I smack him.
“He kissed me back. We had sex once in his room and once in his car.”
“In his car?” Sofia seems scandalized but she’s grinning.
“You really did it,” Reese says admiringly. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Please,” Sofia scoffs. “Men are easy.”
“Not this one,” I admit. “He keeps saying it’s a mistake but—”
“But it happened more than once,” Sofia points out.
“Exactly.”
Reese hums. “I guess it must be hard on him, being hot for his best friend’s daughter.”
Sofia snorts out a laugh. I look down at the car, at him reclining and reading, seemingly relaxed. “He thinks I’m too young for him.”
“You are too young for him,” Sofia says.
I sigh. “I’m old enough to. make my own decisions.”
“I”m guessing your dad doesn’t know about this,” Reese says, sipping his beer. Vaughn beckons him back into the house and he shrugs at me, heading toward her with a goofy grin on his face.
“He’s hopeless.” I turn to look at Sofia, smiling softly. “It’d be nice, though. To have someone look at me like Reese looks at Vaughn.”
“I mean, Dante looks at you all the time.”
“Not like that,” I say, flushing.
“I don’t know,” she muses. “It isn’t all that different. He looks like he wants to eat you alive.”
“Wish he would,” I snort. “I can’t get him to even look at me anymore. He decided the last time was a mistake.”
“Wasn’t it?”
I look over at her, tilting my head. “You think it was a mistake?”
“Well, be honest with yourself, Sammy. It can’t go anywhere. He’s your father’s right hand. His best friend.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah I mean, I guess him being off-limits is part of the appeal.”
“Have your fun, Sammy. Just be careful,” she warns. She tilts her cup up and taps the bottom of it. “I’m on empty. Going back inside to grab a drink.”
I nod and keep standing at the rail of the balcony, looking down at the cars and people milling about. Soon enough, someone else comes outside. I hear the spark of a lighter and smell tobacco.
“You want one?” I turn to see a dark haired man, handsome enough, offering me a pack of cigarettes. I shake my head.
“Quit back when I was a kid.”
“Smart cookie.”
I turn around to look at him, curious. “I”m Sam.”
“Ethan.” He gives me a wide grin. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. Friend of Reese’s?”
He shrugs. “Friend of a friend, I guess.”
I look him up and down and then meet his eyes. He saw me size him up. He doesn’t seem insecure. Still confident.
That’s hot. Or it would be, if I could think of anyone else but Dante Bianchi.
He takes a long drag from his cigarette and blows it out. I start to walk past him. “Hey Sam.”
I turn just my head.
“If you want to get out of here later, find me.”
I fight a smile and just nod my head, walking back inside to find my friends. Vaughn and Sofia are playing a heated game of beer pong while Reese sits out, watching and cheering them on. I sit next to him on the kitchen counter, swinging my legs.
“You wanna play next?”
I shake my head. “Not in the mood.”
He hums. “Thinking about Dante?”
“Not so loud!” I huff out a breath. “But yes.”
“Go after him, then.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?”
“Yeah, and it worked, didn’t it? Just tell him you’re down for something casual. That’s all this is, anyway, right?”
Right. Not like it can go anywhere. I wouldn’t go it to go anywhere. Would I?
He’s twenty years older than me. He’s my father’s best friend. Papa would kill me.
And I’m not interested in a relationship, anyway. Not like that.
“We’d have to keep it secret?”
Reese grins at me. “But isn’t that part of what’s hot about it?”
“You won’t say anything?”
He zips his lip. “Wouldn’t dream of it. He already looks at me like he wants to strangle me. I’m not taking any chances.”
An hour later I’m playing chicken with Sofia on Ethan’s shoulders and we fall into the lake, giggling.
When I come up from the water, Dante stands at the edge of the lake, offering me a towel.
I swim up to the shore, taking it and getting out, wrapping it around my naked form. Dante won’t look at me.
“It’s time to go home.”
“Who says?”
“I do, it’s nearly daylight.”
“Did you finish your book?”
“Yes.”
I look at him for a moment. I’ve been pacing myself so I don’t feel drunk, just happy.
“Alright.” I wave to Reese and Sofia, who boo me from the lake, and put my dress back on.
Dante’s stiff as he walks me to the car. “Am I in trouble?”
“You should be,” he mutters as he gets into the car, not bothering to open my door for me like he usually does.
I smirk. “For skinny dipping?”
“I don’t care what you do.”
“You sure look like you care.”
His jaw tightens as he backs the car out into the street. “I think you should be careful.”
“I was being careful. You were right there, watching.”
“I was.”
“You wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He’s at a red light, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “I don’t like all those other eyes on you.”
My breath catches in my throat. “You don’t?”
He shakes his head brusquely. “Not one bit.”
I hold back a grin, looking out the window. But when we get home, he goes straight upstairs. Doesn’t say another word to me.
I sigh heavily as I go into my room, undressing and hopping in the shower.
I can’t read him no matter how I try.