Dante's Shock Proposal

by Amalie Berlin

  “I don’t need to rely on you to make my decisions again,” Dante muttered, and suddenly his head started to throb. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, then dropped his head into his hands.

  “What decisions do I make for you usually?”

  He couldn’t answer that. He wouldn’t.

  “Focus,” Rafe said, punching him on the shoulder.

  Dante swayed back, his still present anger bubbling up again. “Don’t push me, Rafe.”

  “I don’t want to make decisions for you. I don’t often like making them for myself. What decisions do I make?” Another clap to his shoulder sent him swaying back.

  “You know what decision you had to make for me!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LISE HEARD THE knock at her front door and jogged to answer it. “Come on, courier...”

  It had been a week since the big explosion at the bodega, and she hadn’t heard a peep from a single Valentino, something she tried very hard not to think about. After the way she’d had a screaming match with their drunken brother, they probably thought she was at least a little unhinged. But hopefully Rafe and Cassie would still sign the agreement that she’d spoken to them about before things had all gone spiraling out of control.

  Flinging the door open, she froze at the sight of Dante standing on her front step. Sober and clean, wearing a suit—all three pieces. Of course he’d come when she was wearing yoga pants and had her hair in a messy ponytail on top of her head.

  Before either of them spoke, he held out a folio toward her.

  Papers. Fear flared to life deep in her belly.

  “What’s this?” She didn’t take it.

  “Legal documents.”

  Lise wordlessly turned and darted back inside. As soon as her hand found the door, she slammed it with all her might!

  A howl of pain erupted from the other side and she looked down to see one shiny shoe wedged between the door and frame.

  “Go away, Dante. You cannot have this baby! I don’t care what legal documents you have in your hand. This child is mine. You said you don’t want it, and it’s in my body, and you can just go to hell!”

  “They’re not mine. A courier brought them.” He grunted, then flattened his hand against the door and pushed it open enough to get his body wedged into the gap. “Here. Were you expecting documents? I’m guessing the arrangement with Rafe and Cassie?”

  She eyed the man half inside her house and then the folio again. “Yes. Why did the courier give it to you?”

  “Because I said I was going in.”

  “And he just believed you?”

  He shrugged.

  She snatched the thing from his hand and then tossed it onto the floor a short distance away so she didn’t have to let go of her door. “What do you want, then?”

  Whatever he said, she knew better than to take his word. Even asking for clarification seemed like an exercise in futility. And heartache. Just because she hadn’t loved him long didn’t mean she could get over him fast. Seeing him standing there, beautiful temptation, even knowing how things always went...hurt.

  “I’m here to beg for your forgiveness,” he said, mouth grim. “I actually tried to prepare my apology ahead of time, but—”

  “Fine. You’re forgiven, now go away,” she said, placing one hand against his upper arm and shoving to get him out before that ache she felt when she even thought about him made her stupid again. “Go home. Or wherever else you want to be.”

  “I want to be here.”

  “Well, I’m done with your games and your manipulations. I’m done dancing like a puppet on your strings. So find somewhere else you want to be. And get out of my house.” She shoved again, in case he really was that thick that he didn’t get her request to go away.

  Dante sighed and stepped through the door to stand just on the outside of it so it could be closed. “Please, just hear me out, and then if you want me to go, I’ll go. But things are different. I’m different.”

  Lise slammed the door, and took her time turning all the locks and applying the chain. She then stormed over to the sofa and crawled onto it, having furniture that practically hugged her had become something she needed more and more lately.

  * * *

  Dante took his jacket off. It was late August in Miami, and it was hot. The black jacket was only making him more miserable. Stepping off the top step, he dropped down to sit on the small concrete porch and waited, the knot in his gut tightening with every baking second.

  Twenty minutes later, the little door on the brass mail slot popped open and Lise called through it. “You have to leave if I ask, it’s the law. I’ll call the cops, Dante! See how well you can keep up appearances if you get arrested!”

  “That might be kind of you. It’s really hot out here, and this suit is wool.”

  He may have come here to talk to her, but he couldn’t stay much longer if he didn’t get inside or a gallon of water to drink soon.

  “A good reason to get into your air-conditioned car.”

  He tilted his head and looked into the mail slot, and saw her peeking at him. “If I leave, I’ll just come back later. I have to. I’m not...ready to give up on you,” he said, knowing even as he said the words that he’d never be ready to give up on her. It was only recently that he’d realized he’d all but given up on himself years ago. “If you hear me out and you still want nothing to do with me, I will understand. I’ll respect your wishes. I know you have no reason to trust me.”

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  “I told them about the club.”

  “Yes, in all your drunken shouting, you mentioned the club. And then as I was leaving, they questioned you about it. You said what?”

  “That I owned it, that I played in a band there, and that I’d kept it from every single person who knew me as a surgeon, except Fate had sent you to me, so you were the only one who knew.”

  The door on the slot closed and his head hung forward. “That wasn’t all I told them. It was the start.”

  He heard several of the locks tumble and stood up, but when she opened the door, the chain was still there. He could see her now, though, and he could stand close enough to the house to get a little of the shade cast by the eaves.

  “So now I’m supposed to what?”

  “Nothing. There’s a lot more. I told them a lot. I even told them the reason I kept it hidden.”

  “Sanctuary?”

  “Because it felt like a gateway place to my past, and the things I’ve done that I had to keep them from knowing.”

  She made a disgruntled sound, the door slammed again, but then the chain moved and she opened the door fully. “If I ask you to leave, you have to go. Don’t make me push you out the door again. I’m not kidding, I will call the police.”

  Hope surged in him, but he knew better than to get too excited. Nodding, he grabbed his jacket off the railing, and stepped into the cool little cottage.

  “I’ll get you a drink.”

  A moment later she came back with ice water, set it on a coaster on the table, and moved to stand across the room from him.

  He lifted the glass and drank tall the contents down in one go, leaving only tinkling ice at the bottom. “It’s a long story, cora—”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He nodded again and peeled his vest off and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Please, sit. It’s going to take a while.”

  Lise reached up to pull her hairband out, dropping it on the coffee table as she came round to sit on the couch, and dug her fingers into her hair to massage her scalp.

  “Headache?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, but didn’t offer treatment. Even though he wanted to.

  “I’m not sure what orde
r to do this in, so I’m probably going to bounce around a lot.” He grabbed the coffee table and scooted it out another couple feet so he could sit on the edge and face her but not be close enough to crowd her.

  “Do whatever you like. You said you weren’t leaving until you said your piece, so...”

  “The thing is, I did those things to you. I put you into a night of horror and grief with baby Eli, though I didn’t think it would be that long. I thought a couple of hours, no big deal...but then you’d see my argument without me making it over and over and you not listening.”

  “I always listened. But you have an agenda, Dante. Even right now you have an agenda. I don’t know what it is. How about you start there?”

  He felt his stomach curdle, took a deep breath and nodded. “My agenda is to make you understand that I love you, and that I’m a complete monster sometimes, and that I want to be with you, and I want to do better. And I want you. I just want you. I want our baby. I want you both. I love you both.”

  * * *

  Lise stopped rubbing her fingertips into her tense scalp, feeling a headache starting.

  He didn’t sound polished at all, he always sounded polished. “Those sound like very nice words. Tell me why I’m supposed to believe them.”

  “When the shootings happened, I lost my mind. Mom died at the scene. Alejandro was dying, and the neurosurgeon at the hospital said they could get the bullet out and save my dad’s life. And I believed it. I needed to believe it, so I just did. But things didn’t go that way. I don’t know what he did wrong—all I know is after the surgery Dad was brain dead, but the rest of his body was in good shape. No matter how smart I was, I couldn’t accept the idea that the doctor who’d been so sure, who I’d put my faith in, was wrong. I thought Dad would wake up at any time and he’d be okay.”

  He’d never talked that openly with her, and she felt the remains of memories in his voice, saw it in his eyes, and wanted to believe, but she wasn’t there yet. “How did you figure it out?”

  “I didn’t. The surgeons were telling us that we had to make the decision on whether to give Dad’s heart to Alejandro, but I still couldn’t believe that he wasn’t just going to wake up. So even though my little brother needed that heart, and even though I knew my father would want him to have it, it felt like murder to me. So I didn’t help. I didn’t support Rafe. I was supposed to be his partner in it since we were the oldest, but I was useless.” He shook his head and his eyes were glassy. It took him a moment to swallow it down.

  She wanted to reach for him. And it sucked. He was a gifted liar, this could all be just like it had been with Eli, designed to pull her in.

  “So Rafe signed the papers. I lost it. I said some nasty things to him, and I went to sit with my dad as life support was terminated. And then he was gone, and they took him to surgery and harvested his heart. And they took Alejandro—who was the skinniest ten-year-old you ever saw—and cut open his chest and put my dad’s heart into him. It took me a few days to accept it. It might have taken longer. I don’t know when I accepted that he’d been gone right after the surgery, my dad. I accepted earlier that he’d have wanted us to make that call for our brother. I accepted that a lot earlier than I accepted that it wasn’t also a murder.”

  She watched his eyes, feeling the burn that set her vision shimmering, mirroring the dampness in his dark brown eyes. She didn’t look away, but have something to say? That wasn’t in her either yet.

  “My brothers forgave me a long time ago.”

  “Forgave what?”

  “How entirely I let my family down. How entirely I let my twin down, and my youngest brother—someone my father would’ve wanted me to protect. So Rafe carried that decision on his own. And I’ve...spent the last eighteen years trying to fix it.”

  They sniffed at the same time, and Dante leaned over for his jacket, fished around in the inside pocket and handed his handkerchief to her, swiping his eyes with his palm afterward.

  “How do you fix that? Apologizing?”

  He shook his head. “By providing. By making sure that the rent got paid and the water and we had food and whatever else that the social workers might object to us lacking when they came to check and make sure we were taking good care of Alejandro. Everyone pitched in to help us get by—Santi ran the bodega mostly by himself. Rafe and I had part-time jobs and we all had school. And I had my criminal endeavors.”

  Lise wiped her eyes with the hanky and finally pulled her gaze away, focusing on the crisp, folded linen. “Are you going to tell me what you and Mateo did?”

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Lise. Anything.”

  The gruff, raw sincerity in his voice pulled her eyes back to him, and made the tears fall faster.

  “We stole things. Fancied ourselves Robin Hoods, but the poor we gave to were us. We ran poker games twice a week, cheated, and got in a number of violent altercations when our customers figured it out and objected. I’ve destroyed property—cars, windows in houses. I conned older rich ladies who stayed at the places where I played piano. I had no shame. Have... Had... I guess I do have it now.”

  “What are you ashamed of?”

  “I pushed you away because I realized that I still have that instinct in me to protect, no matter what the cost. I started to realize it that night of Mateo’s surgery, and afterward I was so angry with myself for letting you help. And I realized it fully during our last surgery, when I was panicking and knew you loved me, but didn’t think I deserved it. I don’t...” He stopped stumbling along and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “You don’t have to say any more if you don’t want to. I know this is hurting you.”

  “I need you to understand. I have to say it.” He took a breath and tried again. “In that surgery, I thought about losing you and the baby, or even just you...and I felt anger and violence in me like I’ve never felt. I almost dropped the forceps you handed me.”

  “Your hand twitched.”

  He nodded. “That was the realization I’ve done bad things—mostly the worst ones were a long time ago—to look out for my family. But I couldn’t think of one thing I wouldn’t do to protect you. I think, where you’re concerned, I could do much worse than I’ve done for my siblings. That’s not the kind of man you deserve. That’s not the kind of man I want to be, even if you kick me out after this and never look back. I want to be what I made you see. So I got really drunk for a couple of weeks, and I hurt you. And, honestly, I don’t even know how to apologize for that. I am sorry. I know that you deserve better.”

  “Did you tell Rafe you were sorry?”

  He nodded, emotion overwhelming him so that he slid onto the floor in front of her and buried his face in her lap.

  “Did he forgive you?”

  “He said he didn’t have to.” His voice had grown hoarse, and when he looked up at her, misery saturated his bloodshot eyes. She stroked her fingers over his eyes to brush away the wetness.

  “Do you believe him?”

  He shook his head, the torture in his face making her own tears flow freely down her cheeks.

  “If I tell you I forgive you, will you believe me?”

  A helpless shake of his head and he whispered, “I don’t know. I’d want to, though.”

  “I forgive you.” She leaned forward, stroking his cheeks to tilt his head back, her fingers disappearing in his hair to hold on as she brushed the gentlest kiss over his brow, over his cheeks and, finally, his lips.

  The first touch of her lips to his and a gravelly, ragged sound scratched up his throat, like that of a wounded animal, as his arms dove around her hips to pull her to him. In one powerful lift, he picked her up to roll gently onto the carpet with him.

  Though she could see how it cost him, he moved over her slowly, giving her time to push him away, to say no, to say she hated him, to take
it all back. That uncertainty she’d felt for months was unconcealed in his eyes.

  Hooking her thumbs under the waistband of her pants and panties, she tugged them off, and once the material flew off her kicking feet she reached for his belt.

  “You want to?” he said, looking into her eyes as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck.

  “Yes. I always want you, but do you know the other reason?”

  It took him a moment, but slowly he nodded. “Because you trust me when I’m inside you. Because you know I can see you when I’m inside you, and I want you to believe what I’m telling you. That I can see the truth in your eyes, and that I know you.

  “Believe that you know me,” he whispered the correction, but accepted her invitation, wrapping her legs around him and thrusting into her as far as their bodies would allow, then set the rhythm of a man who’d never believed he’d feel pleasure, or comfort, or love again.

  “So you can believe me when I tell you that I can still love you.” Pulling her legs back, she pressed against the floor and he rolled with her so that she straddled him and stopped him moving.

  “Oh, please, love. I need...”

  “Wait.”

  She sat up and caught his hands as he reached for her hips, his breathing labored, the whole of him silently begging for her to free him, to save him.

  He sat up and when she let go of his arms he wrapped them around her and just held on.

  “Do you believe me?” She started to move, tilting his head up to look at her. “Do you know that you’re worthy of my love? That you deserve me and our child? Our family?”

  He shook his head, but his whole body shook too, as if in the grip of a terrible fever.

  “What can I say that will help you believe me?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered immediately, then groaned as she began to move again, tilting and grinding her hips down on him.

  “Do you believe I’m a good person?”