A Ruthless Proposition(43)

Dante was standing in the doorway as she took in her new surroundings, and when she looked back at him, she was surprised to see a flash of nerves on that handsome face. He disguised it pretty quickly, but that brief glimmer had been enough for Cleo to recognize that he was actually unsure of her reaction to the room.

“I like this room a lot better now,” she said with a smile, and could see the tension around his eyes easing, even though there was no perceptible change in his expression.

“Great,” he said. “I have something else to show you. Follow me.”

Curious, she trailed him out of the room and into his gym. He stood aside and waved her in, and she passed him tentatively, wondering what he could possibly have to show her in here. When she looked around the room and noticed what was different, her eyes immediately flooded with irrational, stupid tears.

“Oh my God, Dante,” she cried, her hands going to her mouth in shock. “This is too much.”

“Do you like it?” he asked, striving to sound casual.

“How can I not?” Her voice wobbled dangerously, and she inhaled deeply as she walked toward the sprung floor that simply hadn’t been there just two weeks before. He had cleared out a whole corner of his gym for the floor, covered the wall with mirrored panels, and installed a ballet barre to run parallel with the floor.

“I know it’s not as big as the space you’re used to, but I was hoping it would suffice. And of course I consulted a professional dancer—Callum, actually—about the type of floor that would be best. I wasn’t sure . . .” She turned around and shut him up with a fierce hug and an equally intense kiss. The kiss was short-lived, and she stood back to stare into his stunned eyes through a haze of tears.

“Nobody has ever done anything like this for me before,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I . . .” At a loss for words, he settled for a shrug. Cleo kicked off her shoes and stepped onto the floor. She took hold of the barre and did a quick and easy series of demi-pliés.

“I can’t wait to give it a go,” she said over her shoulder, while he stared at her with a completely unreadable expression.

“Great,” he said tightly. “I have to get back to the office. I’ve squandered enough of my day. James will remain to run your biometrics through the security system. He’ll explain how it all works.”

He left without so much as a backward glance.

Stung, Cleo reminded herself to never lose sight of the fact that he was Dante Damaso, and despite any unexpected kindnesses he might throw her way, he wasn’t a very nice man. She was here only because of the baby in her belly, and she’d better not forget that. While there might be some residual desire between them, it would be dangerous to confuse that with anything more meaningful.

Her hand came to rest on the small bump of her baby, and all her joy in the room fled. She stepped off the floor and, barefoot, went in search of James.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

Two weeks later, Cleo was sitting on the horrendous couch with a huge comfy pillow shoved behind her back and her feet propped up on the coffee table. She had a bowl of warm, buttery popcorn on the stand next to the couch and was watching one of her all-time favorite movies with the intensity of someone seeing it for the first time.

Dante had been pretty much absent since she’d moved in. He left before she got up in the mornings and came home way after her bedtime. And because he was such a neat freak, he even had a maid come in to clean up his nonexistent mess every other day, so there was never any trace of him around the place. It was like living with a ghost.

Cleo, who was so used to Cal being up in her business and Luc constantly calling, felt lonely. She still had her friends from the dance studio and had befriended a few of the mothers of the girls she taught, but at the end of the day, she came home alone to this tomblike place. She wasn’t unhappy, but she felt increasingly isolated. She didn’t have to worry about money or work or her apartment falling apart around her ears—which was a relief—but she had no one to talk to.

Blue called her regularly, but Cleo tried to keep her sense of isolation from her friend because she didn’t want Blue to feel torn between her concern for Cleo and her love for Luc.

Cleo was spending most days at the studio now, and Susan had entrusted her with two back-to-back classes in the afternoons after school hours and with choreographing the ten- to twelve-year-old group’s upcoming recital performance. It was exciting and challenging, and she had so many ideas. Of course she had to consider her students’ abilities, and once she had everything ironed out, they would start rehearsing the dance. She couldn’t imagine anything more exciting than to see her idea come to life onstage. It felt like she had two babies due, and both of them were bringing joy, excitement, and fulfillment into her life.

Most evenings were spent working out for an hour or so at the barre Dante had installed for her—since she didn’t have time to do so at Susan’s studio anymore—working on the routine, and then eating some dinner and settling down to watch a movie. Tonight, after a long bath in the massive tub in her room, she had donned shorty pajamas and a pair of striped knee socks before getting comfy in front of the TV. She was so focused on the movie that she didn’t even notice the front door swing open and wasn’t aware of Dante’s presence until he spoke.

“What are you watching?” he asked from almost directly behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Crap,” she squeaked, lifting a hand to her chest. “You scared the stuffing out of me.”

“Stuffing?” He raised an eyebrow at her language, and she wrinkled her nose.

“I read somewhere that the baby can hear my voice. I don’t want him to pick up any bad language before he’s even born.”

“He can hear us?” Dante looked completely disconcerted by that bit of news, and after shrugging out of his jacket and neatly placing it on the chair, he sat down on the couch next to her. “Seriously?”

“Yep. Shocked the shi—sherbet out of me too.”

He grinned, the expression so infectious she found herself grinning back.

“How long do you think you’ll be able to keep that up?” he asked, his voice wobbling with laughter.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try my damnedest not to . . .” She paused, frowned, and then her shoulders sank as she grasped what she’d said. “Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he chuckled, toeing off his shiny shoes and propping his feet up on the table next to hers. Of course his legs were a lot longer, so they were bent at the knees while hers were straight. She got a funny little flutter in her stomach at the sight of his long, slender feet next to her much smaller ones. How could a man’s feet be sexy?

“I’m exhausted,” he confessed, his shoulders slumped and his voice weary. “Tokyo hit another snag, and Dubai just can’t seem to get off the ground. I spent the entire week bogged down in meetings.”

Without seeming to think about it, he turned sideways, dropping his feet over the arm of the couch and—shockingly—his head into her lap. He tugged at his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons in an effort to get more comfortable and then turned to face the TV.

“What are we watching?”

The “we” undid her, and she allowed the tension to leave her body at this unexpected turn of events. Her hands, which had been hovering in midair as she tried to figure out where to place them, dropped—one to his hair and the other to his shoulder.

“Uh . . .” She stared blankly at the screen as the high-resolution space marines argued among themselves. “Aliens.”

“Oh, I know that one,” he muttered, his voice sounding slurred. “What was that thing she said? ‘Stay away from her, bitch’?”

“Philistine,” she said with a long-suffering sigh, her hand starting to run soothingly through his hair. “You got that quote all wrong.”

He twisted his head to meet her eyes with his smiling gaze.

“Sí? What is it then?”

“You’ll see. Now be quiet and watch.”




Half an hour later, after pilfering half of her popcorn, criticizing a few of the choices some of the characters had made, and wondering why they didn’t just leave someone on the “big ship” to wait for everybody, his big body went completely limp. A quick glance down confirmed that he’d fallen asleep. Cleo smiled, feeling an overwhelming surge of affection for him. She had never expected to like Dante Damaso, and yet she did. He had wormed his way into her good graces, and she wasn’t exactly sure how.

The logical part of her brain told her to keep him at a distance, that feeling anything more than fondness for him would lead to pain and possible heartbreak. He wasn’t the type of man one could play house with. He was like a wild animal who seemed to do better without any sentimental emotion bogging him down. Cleo and this baby were momentary blips in his lifestyle, and maybe it was the novelty of the situation that drew him. She couldn’t allow herself to depend on him. Not in any emotional sense. He would keep his word when it came to supporting the child, but if she thought he could feel anything deeper than what he’d promised already, she would be fooling only herself.