by Dani Collins
He’d drawn in a long breath as he drank in buttermilk skin framed in snow-white silk, pouted nipples hardening under his gaze to tight strawberries that made his mouth water.
He’d carefully centered the platinum-set stone on her breastbone, then lightly grazed his fingertips along the edges of the robe, spreading it farther, watching a flush burn down her stomach and thighs to the fine hairs of her thatch. He could practically smell her body readying for him. He’d dipped his head to taste one nipple, then the other.
“Dante,” she’d whispered, pique dissolving into the tone that prickled his scalp.
He was ready in an instant, thick and hard inside his boxers. It took one casual twist of his wrist to free himself. Then he had hitched her onto the vanity top, dipping his knees to enter her.
“Condom,” she’d gasped.
“I’ll pull out.” He couldn’t wait. Thrusting into her was a dive from an arctic wasteland into the heat of a simmering hot spring, so intense it made his back sting.
But good, fiercely good. He’d cupped his hands under her butt, cushioning her cheeks from the unforgiving edge of the vanity. She’d wrapped her legs around him and kissed him as he thrust.
He had never gone bareback before. The sensation was too good, sending shivers racing up and down his spine. She’d braced her hands behind her so she could arch, offering her throat, meeting his thrusts. Her breasts bounced with each impact. He’d lifted his gaze to his reflection in the mirror behind her, saw something approaching desperation in his expression that was too disturbing to confront and looked to the way her face contorted with the agony of sexual need instead. Need for him.
He’d increased his rhythm, trying to give her as much pleasure as he could. He felt the vise-like grip of her start to twinge and ripple. Her moans of enjoyment became sobs of abandoned delight. A growl of torment built in his throat as he’d held back his own release while he continued thrusting, hard and fast, into the powerful clench and shudder and pulse of her sheath. She was so exquisite he was quite sure he would die. She was going to kill him, head thrown back in surrender, bare heels against his ass finally easing as her panting breaths slowed into helpless bliss.
He pulled out and exploded across her stomach, straining under the force of it, completely taken apart and never likely to be the same.
His wet forehead hung against her damp shoulder, both of them shaking at the cataclysm. He lifted his head and they looked at each other as they came back to themselves, strangers who’d nearly been mowed down by the same train and were now indelibly linked by the experience.
With muscles that trembled, he had helped her find her feet and reached for a hand towel, drying her himself. The pendant had swung across the tops of her breasts, reminding him why they’d come together in such a frantic, unrestrained coupling.
“You’re my date,” he had muttered, hearing the gruffness of postorgasmic gravel in his tone. “I have to look as wealthy as I am or rumors will persist that the Tabor is struggling. Say, ‘thank you,’ Cami.”
“Thank you, Cami,” she had repeated with an acrid pang in her voice. She immediately grew abashed as she touched the pendant, saying with more sincerity, “Thank you, Dante. It’s beautiful.”
But she hadn’t met his gaze.
* * *
Now they were on that date, and he was still reeling from the encounter. Perhaps she was, as well. An introspective frown had persisted in her expression all the way here.
It bothered him. When had he ever concerned himself so deeply with what a woman might be thinking about a necklace he’d given her? If she didn’t like it, she could return it. Sell it.
But he wanted her to like it. He wanted her to think of him when she wore it. Of the way they made each other feel. Every. Single. Time.
Damn, this evening was interminable. He glanced at his watch, still needing to give his speech and shake a few hands before he could have her alone again.
He knew what was really bothering him. He only had two more nights with her. That dwindling sand in the hourglass grated. His agile brain had already rearranged his schedule a dozen ways, looking to fit in an extension of his time here. What he’d really like was to bring her back to Sicily.
“Dante.” The male voice, familiar as his own, had him turning in surprise.
“Arturo.” He embraced his cousin with warmth. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving you. Again. What the hell are you doing?”
* * *
Cami could hear what Karen was thinking as she skimmed her speculative gaze down the dress that had cost more than either of them made in two paychecks put together, then took in the stones dangling from her ears and neck.
It’s not like that, Cami wanted to say, but she was growing more and more sickened with herself because it was exactly like that.
Somehow, she had convinced herself that she and Dante were a normal couple. Dating. Lovers. It wasn’t costing him anything to let her stay in the room with him. She had cooked for him twice in the kitchenette. They were getting to know one another and putting the past behind them.
But while her infatuation was growing into something more genuine, something she didn’t even want to name because it was so vast yet elusive, he seemed quite comfortable withholding himself from all but their intensely passionate encounters. She was offering her heart. He was offering pillow-cut stones. Sharing showers and meals was not true sharing.
When he had given her this jewelry, relegating her firmly to “mistress,” she had thought she might as well be sleeping with him to pay off her father’s debt. Clearly he viewed sex with her as a commodity of one kind or another. It was more than lowering. It was a scorn of the heart she was leaving wide open in humble offering.
“I’m glad things are working out and you’ve found another position,” Karen said, drawing Cami back to their awkward conversation where Cami had been trying to explain how she was on the arm of the man who had fired her so ruthlessly.
She had come over to thank Karen for helping her land the job she was starting next week. It was a night manager position with lousy hours, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Karen had kindly provided a statement that pulling the job offer to run the Tabor had been an internal decision, not a reflection of Cami’s qualifications.
“Were you able to keep your apartment?” Karen asked.
“No, but I have some good leads.”
“Where are you staying, then?”
“With a friend.”
Karen’s gaze flicked toward the bar where Dante had gone, promising to send over champagne.
Cami felt the shame that had been sitting like a knot in her chest climb her throat, reaching toward her cheeks.
“I should get back to my date,” she murmured. “Good to see you. Thanks again.”
All she was thinking was that she wanted to escape Karen’s speculation, only noticing as she approached that Dante was talking to a man who looked like he could be his brother. He was equally handsome and well-dressed in a bespoke suit, with a five o’clock shadow and a similarly smoky tone in his voice.
He was speaking Sicilian, but as she approached Dante from behind, he looked at her over Dante’s shoulder with the kind of lurid male assessment that made any woman’s skin crawl.
She faltered.
Dante turned to spear her with a hard gaze.
The man switched to English.
“I don’t care how good the sex is. You’re underwriting a Fagan. Again. Please tell me you haven’t forgiven her father’s debt.”
Cami felt the color drain from her face while her jaw practically landed on the floor. “Who is this?”
“My cousin. Arturo.” Dante had spoken of him with affection more than once, but aside from being easy on the eye, she saw nothing to like, especially when he spoke again.
“I’m the man who put up his own money when your father stole Dante’s. Perhaps you’d like to compensate me in kind?” His vile gaze skimmed down to her breasts
and lingered.
“Arturo,” Dante ground out, but as admonishments went it was damned thin. Meanwhile, he was looking at her like he had that first day in the lobby of this very hotel, like he couldn’t believe she had the gall to exist.
“This was your idea,” she reminded him. He had made her stay with him.
“I’m sure revenge has been very sweet, given that figure,” his cousin continued, making her want to punch him in the face, but she couldn’t stop staring into Dante’s dark expression. “You can be forgiven for thinking with your belt buckle.”
“Is that what it was?” she demanded in a voice that shrank. All of her was feeling small in that moment, so belittled she began to well up. She had been trying so hard to earn his trust, she hadn’t thought to question his motivations. Her throat hurt like it was being squeezed. “You just wanted revenge?”
“What else is he getting beyond a good time?”
“Shut up!” she told that horrible man.
“That’s enough,” Dante said at the same time, but she couldn’t tell if it was directed at her or his cousin. His jaw pulsed, and he reached for her arm. “Let’s talk.”
She evaded, backing away. “Let’s not.”
People were staring. Some might even have overheard and the entire room now thought she was exactly what she had argued from the beginning she was not—a woman who could be bought.
And why shouldn’t they see her that way? She stood here in a gown and jewels Dante had paid for. She was staying in his hotel room, eating food he provided for her.
She shook her head, hating herself so much in that moment she wanted to claw out of her own skin. Every single time she went after what her heart wanted—
Dear God, no. She couldn’t feel anything toward him. Refused to allow it. No. It would kill her to be in love with him when this was only—
Biting her lip so hard she tasted blood, she gathered up her skirt and hurried out.
* * *
Cami swept out with her head high, but Dante could still see the sickly shade she’d turned. It matched the gown he had purchased in a week of what was starting to look like foolishly besotted behavior. He couldn’t even defend it, unable to explain how he had let it escalate to a public parade of his own poor judgment.
“We all have our weaknesses,” Arturo said as Dante fought an urge to go after her. “Yours is a desire to believe the best in people.”
“She wasn’t asking for any of this,” Dante growled, accepting the neat whiskey his cousin handed him and knocking back half of it. “How did you even know I was seeing her?” It was a juvenile reaction, as if his cousin’s interference was the problem, not the fact he was sleeping with the enemy.
Arturo seemed startled by the question. He sipped his own drink.
“I saw the post on Noni’s timeline showing the two of you had gone skiing. The family grapevine is abuzz with her praises of Cameo Fagan.” He ran his tongue across his teeth as though the name left a bitter taste. “I thought I should check in. That’s all.” He slid a sly look Dante’s way. “Was she worth it?”
His cousin had a base sense of humor at the best of times, but it came across as particularly misplaced today. Especially when he snorted under the look Dante cast him.
“You are well and truly hooked, aren’t you?”
He almost told his cousin that Cami had been a virgin. That her honesty about that had allowed him to begin to believe in her. He rubbed his thumb along the curve of his glass, thinking of the exquisite pleasure she had given him again and again.
But no more.
His world turned so bleak in that moment, he barely restrained himself from shattering the glass with his bare hand.
“She’s been trying to pay me back, sending money to an account supposedly owned by Benito Castiglione.”
Arturo’s brows went up. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. He died, didn’t he? Years ago?”
“Yes, but that’s why—” Dante felt like a gullible idiot, trying to defend her. “Where would she even get that name to throw it at me?”
“Old paperwork of her father’s?” Arturo guessed. “They’re a resourceful bunch. I’m just glad I was able to stop you losing more than a few grand in trinkets this time.”
“Sir?” The event planner who had organized this evening’s festivities approached with trepidation. “Would you like to give your speech now?”
Not even one little bit. Dante felt as though noxious fumes filled his lungs, but he made himself go through the motions of finishing his evening, ignoring the avid looks from the staff and honored guests, smoothing over whatever ripples his small scene with Cami had created.
All the while, he was mentally combing through the moments when Cami had challenged his view of her, searching for the point where he turned from man into mark. The very beginning? When she helped his grandmother? Kissed him? Fell apart under his touch in the hot tub?
He grew more and more furious with himself, more ramped for the inevitable confrontation when he arrived back in his suite.
“She’ll have cut and run with the goods,” Arturo said. “Which is good. You don’t want her hanging around, trying to convince you of her innocence.”
He had been convinced. That was the problem.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Arturo shadowed him all the way to the door of his suite. Dante dismissed him with a snarl of impatience.
What had transpired between him and Cami was many things, but it was above all private. He pushed in and knew before the door had shut that the suite was empty.
What he didn’t expect was to find her gown on the floor of the lounge, as though she’d shed it the second she’d entered, heels kicked off beside it. The jewelry he’d given her was on the coffee table. The only shoes missing by the door were her knee-high boots.
As he climbed the stairs, he discovered there was little satisfaction in finding all the lingerie he’d given her still in the drawers and all her new dresses, some still unworn, hanging in the closet. Even the pretty scarf with her name painted in calligraphy, which he’d bought while they enjoyed the town’s street fair of local artists, was still here.
Her well-worn backpack, her battered laptop and her toothbrush were gone, but the hotel shampoo was still here. She’d taken only what was undeniably hers.
He ran his hand down his face, wondering whether he’d given her too much credit or not enough.
His phone pinged and an email notification came through, advising him Cami had just sent a transfer—in the amount she’d been sending to Benito.
CHAPTER EIGHT
One month later...
DANTE SAW THE email notification and knew without opening it that it was another payment from Cami. Her third.
He rejected it exactly as he had the other two. Damn her! Every time he almost managed to push her from his thoughts—
Who was he kidding? She was there all the time, acting as a bar of comparison that made every other woman who crossed his path too short or too tall, too polished or too loud, too quick to make assumptions, too slow to get to the point. Too insincere and not able to laugh. Not possessing a laugh he could stand to hear.
Those were the days. At night, he woke so hard he hurt, dreams of making love to Cami dissolving into the harsh reality that he was alone in his bed and would never feel her beneath him again.
Leaning his knuckles on his desk, he gritted his teeth and told himself it was over. Let her go.
His PA buzzed through. “Signor Donatelli has arrived.”
“Send him in.” Dante clicked off his phone and moved around his desk to greet his guest.
They were distantly related through the marriage of Vito’s sister, but often crossed paths in business. Gallo had worked with the Donatelli investment bank several times, so he and Vito were well acquainted and enjoyed a comfortable friendship.
“Are you holidaying? This is a long way to come for a house call,” Dante said as they sat down with fresh es
presso.
“It’s a delicate matter.” Vito steepled his fingertips. “One I thought best handled in person. It’s taken a lot of digging and once I had an answer, I asked Paolo to confirm it. I wanted to be absolutely sure before speaking to you.”
Vito’s cousin was the president of the bank, which attested to the seriousness of the matter. Dante frowned.
“This is about the Benito account?” Dante sat back, trying to relax, but it was impossible. “I don’t think I want the answer any longer.”
Let sleeping dogs lie, he had thought each time he recalled that Vito had not been in touch. Dante didn’t want to know that Cami had followed in her father’s footsteps with skimming whatever she could from him by stringing him along as his reluctant mistress.
What had she gained, though? That was the part that drove him craziest.
“I am quite sure you do not,” Vito said, tight smile revealing the ruthless man well disguised behind a picture-book family that included a stunning American wife and two young children. “But Paolo and I cannot, and will not, allow our bank to be used for crimes.”
Vito’s wife had been implicated in one herself. That’s how the pair had met. She’d been exonerated, but it was the type of smudge that had only made the Donatellis that much more vigilant with their bank’s reputation.
“Paolo is speaking with the authorities today. This is a courtesy call, since you were the one who made us aware of the situation.”
An image of Cami behind bars flashed in his mind. “What will it cost me to quash it?”
The words left Dante’s lips before he could stop them, but the idea of Cami going to prison was beyond anything he could stomach. He shot to his feet as though he could physically reach her through the email in the phone he’d left on his desktop, somehow shielding her.
“We can’t, Dante.” Vito’s tone was both quietly regretful, in deference to their friendship, yet impassively hard. “This sort of thing could take down our bank. He has to be stopped.”