The others nodded, though Adriano hesitated to do so.
My pride, the wicked thing, surged through me, and before I could appeal to my rational side, I was assuming a fighter’s stance and facing off with the group of soldati.
“Try me,” I dared, a sharp smile on my face.
It didn’t occur to me until later, lying on the mat covered in sweat, hair matted with it, clothes soaked through with it, that I hadn’t stopped smiling the entire hour I sparred with Dante and his crew.
ELENA
Adriano dropped me off that morning at my favorite coffee shop, The Mug Shot, a block down from my office. He wasn’t a chatty guy, but I noticed a photo of a pretty dog as his phone screen saver and had to hide my smile behind my hand when he’d caught my eye in the review mirror.
It was busy as it always was with local businesspeople on their way to work needing their first, second, or third cup of joe, so I settled into line to wait while I replied to emails on my phone. I was midway through the line when I felt awareness trickle like cold water down my spine.
Looking up from my phone through my eyelashes, I immediately caught a pair of brilliant green eyes only a few feet away at one of the small tables in the shop.
They belonged to a man I’d never seen before but still had the vague sense I knew, like an actor or a famous model. He had the looks of one, the hard-carved face with a strong jaw and a hawkish nose that somehow looked perfect on his tan face. The verdant green of his eyes was almost startling, especially against that golden skin and the short, styled waves of his inky hair. He was broad through the shoulders, his suit tailored to his tapered torso, and something about his demeanor was as compelling as a shout from across the room, his energy palpable, almost overtly forceful.
I blinked at him, more intrigued by why he watched me than by his stark, almost bluntly masculine looks.
I’d seen handsome.
I’d dated Daniel for four years, and he had been a model for a short time.
And currently, I was being forced to cohabitate with a man who quite simply would take any woman’s breath away.
So, this man only intrigued me the way I would have been by a gorgeous painting or a new set of Louboutin pumps. Which was why I was confused when he slowly folded the newspaper he was reading and pressed it under his shoulder before he stood to walk, quite clearly, to my side.
“Good morning,” he said with a slight smile, the expression all mouth and no eyes.
I returned a polite smile. “Hello.”
We stood there for a moment, not speaking just cataloging each other. He was younger than I’d previously thought, his skin silken and mostly unlined but for two creases between his slashing brows.
I realized what it was he emanated, what had my teeth slightly on edge as if I’d been struck like a tuning fork by the power of his dynamism. It was dominance.
Dante exuded the same tangible tension, this invisible aura that made you instinctively want to obey him, but where he had charisma to soften the delivery, this man just stared at me with determination in those bright jade eyes. He looked as if he didn’t intend to take no for an answer.
So I waited for him to ask the question.
When we seemed to be in some kind of holding pattern as the line moved up and I was fourth from the top, a slight, almost begrudging smile overtook his firm mouth.
“I’d like your number,” he said, finally.
“Oh?” I asked, flattered despite myself but enjoying our little stand-off too much to act anything but cool. “That’s interesting. What would you presume to do with it?”
He seemed to actually consider it, his hand stroking the facial hair that was a little longer than stubble but not quite a beard. “After waiting an appropriate amount of time, I would call you.”
“For what purpose?”
“To tell you where I’m going to take you on our date,” he quipped easily, narrowing his eyes as he looked me up and down. It wasn’t a salacious gaze, but a calculating one. “Somewhere you can wear those heels with a tasteful suggestive dress.”
Immediately, I thought of the dress Dante had bought me, the gorgeous vintage Valentino that had fit me like a dream. Unbidden, I considered what Dante might do if he knew I was being asked out by a handsome stranger.
Irritated by my line of thinking, I acted uncharacteristically impulsively and smiled the way I’d learned from Cosima, my lips wide and parted to reveal my blessedly straight smile.
“My name is Elena,” I offered with my hand extended. “And as long as it isn’t Italian food, I just might answer your call.”
His expression was smug without being a smile, satisfaction softening his hard-green eyes as he took my hand. “Excellent.”
And when I gave him my number, I wasn’t thinking about the black-eyed gaze of a certain mafioso I knew in my bones would probably strangle this man for asking me on a date.
I definitely didn’t experience a flash of spine-tingling arousal at the idea of a man like him being possessive of me.
And if I did, I consoled myself with the truth. It had been a long time since someone had been possessive of me, and it was only natural to be intrigued.
Still, I swore an oath as I left the coffee shop for my office that I wouldn’t breathe a word of it to Dante.
That evening, I was barely through the elevator doors with Bruno, the man who attended the lobby reception having personally taken me up so he could talk my ear off about his wife and children, when I heard a sound I’d never thought to hear in Dante’s palatial apartment.
A child’s laughter.
It was high, melodic, and utterly lovely.
Something in my chest where my heart used to be flipped over like a half-done pancake. My hand went to my upper breast unconsciously, rubbing at the sensation as I moved into the living room and stared over the long room into the kitchen where the sound had emerged from.
A small girl with long, curling chestnut brown hair was seated on the long matte black kitchen island. Her white and pink dress pooled over the dark granite as she carefully rolled orecchiette pasta in her hands. Her tongue poked between her teeth in concentration as she studied her pasta dough, then darted a look over at Dante, who occupied the same task beside her.
I couldn’t move as I watched them, overcome with something that hurt.
It rolled through me hotly, molten like lead poured into my veins. I felt poisoned by the sensation, unable to breathe the way Dante had when he’d ingested cyanide.
“You okay, Donna Elena?” Bruno asked from the elevator where he still had a clear sight of me, stalled at the mouth of the living room.
His voice tuned Dante in to my presence, his face forming a smile before he even lifted his head to look at me.
Dio mio.
I rubbed the heel of my hand so hard into my chest I felt certain it would bruise.
“Buona sera,” he greeted me, already abandoning his dinner project to wipe his floured hands on a towel. “I was hoping you would be back in time to meet the love of my life.”
The girl laughed, throwing her little folded piece of pasta at Dante so it left a mark on his black button-up shirt. He growled at her, causing her to shriek with joy and throw more pasta grenades at him. When he lunged for her, she lifted her arms for him to pick her up even though she screamed as if she was frightened. By the time he planted her on his hip, she was over their little game and happily settled in his arms.
“Hello,” she called to me as Dante approached. “My name is the Love of Dante’s Life.”
The smile that warmed my face felt alien and vulnerable. I touched my other hand to my lips, then immediately lowered it when Dante frowned at me.
“Hello, beautiful,” I greeted as they trekked through the living room to my side. “Dante speaks of nothing but you.”
“I know,” she said confidently with a sage nod of her head that made me want to burst into laughter. “Boys are always falling in love with me, you know?”
/> “Are they?” I asked, then clucked my tongue. “You know, I’m not surprised. You’re very pretty, and more, I bet you’re smart.”
“One time, someone called me a genius,” she told me solemnly.
“That was your mum, gioia,” he pointed out. “Mothers always tell us we are better than we are because they love us. That is why you have uncles, to tell you the hard truths.”
She frowned at him. “Zio, am I a genius?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed immediately to her avid delight.
I couldn’t help the laugh that emerged fragile as a blown bubble from my lips. They were absolutely adorable together, and I just couldn’t understand what was happening.
I’d thought Dante’s only sibling was Alexander.
He read the confusion in my look and grinned as he set the girl down and offered his hand for her to do a twirl. “Elena, this is Aurora.”
“Don’t call me Sleeping Beauty,” she warned me before I could say anything, fisting her hands on her hips. “I don’t like princesses.”
“Alright,” I agreed. “I don’t really like them either.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “Not even Cinderella.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Especially not her.”
“How come?” she pushed.
I thought about it because she deserved a good answer. “Princesses always need saving, and I’ve always wanted to be the type of woman that saved herself. Maybe even the one who saved her handsome prince in the end instead.”
Aurora’s big brown eyes went wide before she nodded soberly. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t like them either. They’re sciocco.”
“There are different types of women in the world, gioia. There are soft ones who need saving, but maybe they have good, tender hearts that need protecting. And you know what?” Dante asked, stroking a big hand down her head as he shot me a sidelong glance. “Even the strong ones need saving sometimes.”
“Not me,” she crowed, turning to jump up on the marble coffee table, dislodging a vase that tumbled harmlessly to the carpet. She struck a sword-fighting pose. “I’m going to be the saver.”
“The savior,” I corrected.
“Okay,” she said easily. “That’s why I think my name’s stupido.”
I considered her for a second, then grabbed the long vase from the floor and used it to dub her like a knight. “Then, I think we should call you Rora, warrior princess.”
Her eyes bugged out at me. “Like the lion's roar.”
“Exactly like that,” I agreed, beaming back at her.
“Okay,” she said again in that adorably confident way like nothing in life fazed her. “You and me can be friends, okay?”
“Bene,” I agreed, offering my hand to shake.
She took it in her little one, and we smiled at each other so big it hurt.
“I knew you two would get along,” Dante interjected as he winked at me before heading back into the kitchen. “Elena is a fighter too.”
I passed the wink on to Rora as we both followed him into the kitchen. The place was a disaster zone, double zero flour and eggshells everywhere along with little folded ears of the orecchiette pasta.
“Your mama is not going to be happy about the mess,” Dante admitted as they returned to their stations at the island, Rora using my hand to help herself up onto the stool and then the counter.
“No, but you’re lucky. You’re old enough you don’t get time-outs,” she pouted before looking over at me. “You want to make ears with us?”
I was wearing a five-hundred-dollar white silk blouse and Chanel wide-legged pants that I usually meticulously kept clean, even going so far as to sit on napkins if I had to take a seat in public. I could feel Dante’s eyes on me as I nodded.
“Sure, Rora.”
She rewarded me with a smile and then launched into a monologue about her day at school and her best friend, Maria Antonia.
While she babbled happily, Dante appeared from the pantry with an apron and approached me. Instead of handing it over, he stood behind me, close enough I could feel his heat, and reached around my body to tie the fabric around my waist. Once secured, he lifted my hair with one hand to tie the other strings beneath it.
But he didn’t.
Instead, his hot breath fanned over the back of my neck, followed closely by the warm press of his nose skimming along the side of my throat.
“Mmm,” he hummed, the vibration tickling thin skin. “You smell intossicante.”
A shudder wrenched between my shoulders, impossible to hide from the predator at my back. When I spoke, I made sure my voice wasn’t as weak as my knees felt. “It’s just Chanel number 5.”
“The body’s natural chemistry reacts with a scent,” he murmured as he slowly slid the apron strings against my sensitized flesh, the rough fabric somehow deliciously sensual. “No one scent ever smells the same on different people. And this? It suits you. Elegant and sultry like a midnight assignation in a garden.”
“Can I smell?” Rora asked, interrupting the electric tension between Dante and me.
Silently, because my voice was somewhere at my toes, I offered her my wrist. She pressed her entire nose to it and sniffed deeply before smiling at me. Her happy, easy energy was contagious.
“Smells like warm flowers,” she decided. “Maybe I should wear some too?”
Dante chuckled, moving out from behind me having secured the apron. He tweaked her nose. “Little girls do not need to wear perfume.”
She frowned at him. “What do you know about it?”
I laughed.
God, but I laughed. It burst out of me indecorously, seizing my belly and warming my chest. When I recovered, eyes wet with mirth, Rora had gone back to shaping pasta in her little fingers, but Dante was watching me with something written in black ink in those long-lashed eyes.
“Bellissima,” he mouthed.
A blush worked itself under my skin, but I ducked my head to focus on the pasta, letting a curtain of dark curls fall between my cheek and his gaze. It was disconcerting how much interest Dante seemed to have in me. I wasn’t used to being…watched.
I could be an emotional terrorist, my broken pieces weaponized like shards of broken glass. I was used to being the bitch, the warrior, something strong and impenetrable, more a worthy adversary than a worthy friend.
But Dante looked at me as if I was some priceless, mysterious work of art, and he wanted to know the story behind my almost smile.
I wanted to be furious with him for forcing me into a situation where I could not only be called off the case that could make my career but one where I could lose that career entirely. And in a way, I still was. The wariness and the bitter tang of anger lingered on the back of my tongue. But emotions had a funny way of boiling together in the same cauldron of the gut, and right then, in his messy kitchen with an adorable little girl who adored him, it was impossible not to feel something completely contrary to rage.
“Ciao raggazzi,” a woman called from the entryway, drawing my notice.
A moment later, the beautiful and blond Italian woman I now knew to be Bambi walked into the living room in a form-fitting dress. Rora scrambled from the table, jumping awkwardly to the floor, falling to one knee, then taking off at a run to hug the woman.
Bambi smiled as she accepted the girl into her arms even though they were laden with grocery bags. “Bambina.”
The word made me grit my teeth. It was the nickname Sebastian and Cosima had called Giselle since they were young even though she was older than them both. It was perfectly emblematic of their relationship with her too. They coddled her, protected her, lavished her with affection and praise.
Dante’s hand was suddenly lightly pressed to the middle of my shoulder blades. He was looking at Bambi, but something about his touch told me he’d sensed my tension and was trying to offer relief.
Like an idiot, I was moved by the gesture.
“Bambi, this is Elena Lombardi,” he introduced as they came i
nto the kitchen. I noticed he didn’t mention I was his lawyer, but I figured she already knew.
I offered a small smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Really, I couldn’t get past the question of their relationship. Was she his girlfriend?
Bambi eyed Dante’s somewhat protective stance beside me, a small smile fluttering over her lips. “Likewise. I see you’ve met my daughter, Aurora.”
“Rora,” the little girl shouted, then proceeded to make a fierce little growl. “Because I roar like a lion.”
Bambi blinked at her, then looked up at Dante questioningly.
“I’m sorry, that was me,” I admitted. “She was expressing some dislike of her name because of the connection to Sleeping Beauty.” I shrugged, a little embarrassed.
“Rora,” she tested, then cupped her daughter’s plump cheek. “Beautiful and strong like my girl.”
My heart warmed even as it pulsed with hurt witnessing the genuine love and admiration between the mother and daughter. I yearned for such a connection so badly, even my teeth ached with it.
Dante’s thumb stroked over the bumps in my spine. I sucked in a small, shaky deep breath.
“I see you wanted to help zio Dante with dinner,” Bambi noted, eyes sweeping over the mess on the island.
Dante grinned, completely unabashed. “Every Italian should know how to make pasta.”
“This is why I don’t like you in my kitchen,” she grumbled good-naturedly as he took some of the grocery bags for her and cleared a spot on the counter for them. “I ran into Adriano in the entry. He said he wanted to speak to you in the office.”
Dante shot me a look, but Bambi shooed him and practically pushed him out of the kitchen. “Leave the cooking to the women. We do it so much better than you.”
He left with one last look at me, leaving me with a woman I wasn’t sure I could like.
Jealousy was a bitch, and I’d struggled with her my whole life.
“Honestly, I’m happy to have a moment alone with you,” Bambi surprised me by admitting as she began to put the groceries away. I moved to help her by route, remembering the years in Naples when I’d been Mama’s co-parent doing such things for the entire family.
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