Consequence of His Revenge(24)

She threw herself into work, feeling the loss acutely when Dante disappeared. Had it been an accident, his coming upon her? Maybe he didn’t want to see her, which now made her perversely anxious to speak with him.

Minutes later, she spotted him where he’d found a seat and nearly dropped another glass. For the rest of her shift, each time she glanced over, he was looking in her direction.

When the game finished and patrons filed out, leaving free seats at the bar, he took one, saying, “Cami.”

That voice. That accent. How was this man her complete undoing in every way?

“Mind walking me home?” she asked Mark as the servers came up with their last call requests. “Or should I text Reeve?”

“I’ll walk you home,” Dante said in a low growl. “My car is parked outside your house.”

“Stalker,” she started to say, then did a double take as she realized how truly awful he looked. When he wore stubble, he usually cleaned it up around the edges, but this looked like two days without shaving. Or sleep. His eyes were sunken pits, his hair disheveled, his face lined with weariness.

Not Bernadetta. She had been running a damp cloth over the marble top of the bar, but stopped. “What happened? Is your grandmother—”

“She’s fine. But I have to talk to you.”

She flinched at the granite in his tone and went back to her closing rituals. “You need to accept my transfers.”

“It’s about that, Cami.”

Of course it was. She had stupidly pined for him all this time while he was here to talk bank balances. Again.

She shook her head, but when the lights came up, she said good-night to Mark and the rest of the staff, collected her purse and the fleece she’d stolen from her brother, and let Dante hold the door for her.

“What?” she prompted as they started down the sidewalk. Her guilty secret quivered deep in the pit of her belly.

“This is a terrible neighborhood,” he said tightly, glancing into a dark alley as they passed.

“I didn’t ask you to come here.”

Grim silence was his reply.

She tried not to feel anything, but words, so many words, crowded her throat. She had had enough time to reflect on their affair and realize how badly she had been fooling herself, thinking they were friends. Or something. Maybe being a virgin had made her susceptible to seeing more than was there, but even before the blow up with Arturo, she had begun to realize she was nothing more to him than a paid companion. It had hurt so badly. His resurgence of suspicion had been a final nail in the coffin.

What would he think about her pregnancy? She didn’t know how to tell him. Didn’t think she could face his reaction. There was zero chance it would bear any resemblance to happiness.

She brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek with a shaky hand. “Where’s your cousin?”

He drew a long, deep, pained breath.

“Never mind,” she muttered. “I don’t even care. He did me a favor. You were treating me like—The whole thing was toxic and never should have happened.”

I don’t mean you, baby. She had to fight placing a protective hand over her stomach.

Dante swore and ran a hand down his face, not disagreeing.

She swallowed, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other when his next words had her stumbling.

“Arturo is negotiating a plea deal while investigations are underway into his bank fraud, industrial espionage and ties to organized crime. He’s the one who did it, Cami. Not your father.”

“What?”

Dante caught her elbow to steady her.

That tiny touch sent yearning shooting through her, blanking her mind for a millisecond.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” She heard the rage in his voice and the pain that underscored it.

His touch tightened briefly, then he nudged her into motion. She walked on in stunned silence, afraid to believe. She couldn’t even try to comprehend what it meant for her, him, or them.

All of them.

“My father is innocent? That’s what you’re saying?” she finally had to ask. To hear it aloud.

“Yes.”

“But he signed a confession.”

“Desperate people do desperate things.” He wasn’t just talking about her father.

Would he think that’s what this baby was? An act of desperation on her part?

They arrived at the dilapidated house that had been converted to four separate apartments a generation ago. The landlord was decent enough. Leaks were fixed and there was always heat, but he didn’t put a penny into it that he didn’t have to.

A lot of students lived in this area, along with some struggling single parents and yes, some drug users and ne’er-do-wells. Cami had made do in places like this before without shame.

But Dante’s rented town car stood out like a gleaming, manicured thumb from a weathered work glove, making her embarrassed of her circumstances. She was at an utter loss as to how to react to any of this.

“Is your brother up? I want to talk to him, too.” He reached to open the gate and hold it for her. The chivalry disconcerted her. She dumbly led him around the cluttered side of the house to the stairwell of their entrance.

She tried the door and found it unlocked, which Reeve often did when she was due home. He was in his room and called, “That you?”

“Yes. Can you come out?”

“Lemme finish this.”

She hung her brother’s fleece on a chair back as Dante came in behind her.

He closed the door and pushed his hands into his pockets, taking in the shabby furnishings and the corner shelf she’d claimed as a makeshift closet. Her backpack stood beside it. Her bedding was folded and stacked on the end of the sofa.

“That’s where you sleep?” he asked, glancing from the lumpy cushions back to her with an accusatory glance.

She ought to be feeling superior. Vindicated. Instead, she felt less than ever. She folded her arms, muttering, “Don’t judge, Dante. You’re in no position.”

“I’m aware,” he stated flatly, and took in the clean dishes by the sink, the cupboards long past needing painting, the mismatched furniture. “This is how you live? How you’ve been living all these years?” He met her gaze for one second before looking away, deep emotion contorting his face. “It makes me sick.”

Her heart tilted on its edge and she wanted to say, Whose fault is that? But she could see he was in the throes of disbelief and betrayal as much as she was. She didn’t want to feel compassion. He didn’t deserve it. But she still suffered for him. A desire to reach out, emotionally and physically gripped her.

“I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you,” she murmured. He’d always spoken about his cousin with such warmth.

“I think you can,” he said with weighty perception. “Having worn these shoes all these years. Wrongly.” His voice dropped into his chest.

Her own chest ached, unable to stand seeing such a strong man humbled.

“What happened?” She tucked her cold hands beneath her arms, still unable to believe he was even here, let alone with such a message.

“Arturo has gambling debts. Big ones. It’s been a problem from his twenties, not that I or anyone saw it. If he hadn’t colluded with Benito and taken my design and emptied the account, framing your father for it, he might have been killed at that time. As it was, the windfall put him back in good graces with his bookie. He burned through it, though, and fell into trouble again. That’s when he started badgering you to pay your father’s so-called debt.”

Reeve came out of his room. His scowl of confusion at having a visitor so late deepened as Cami introduced them.

“We’re not talking to you. Just take the payments and stay out of our lives,” Reeve growled.

Cami hadn’t told him all that had transpired in Whistler, only that Dante had refused to hire her and that the payments had been going to a fake account. He was beside himself over the whole thing. They’d stopped talking about it to keep the peace.

“Dad didn’t do it,” she said numbly, but stating it with her own mouth didn’t make it any less surreal. She explained, and Reeve swung his attention to Dante.

“When did you find this out?”

“A few days ago.” Dante rubbed his stubbled jaw. “A lot has happened very quickly, but I needed to inform you and...” He drew a heavy breath. “Express my deepest regret that your father was implicated. I will be compensating you as best I can.”

He reached into his jacket pocket for a narrow envelope and set it on the battered kitchen table.

“That’s a reimbursement of the amount you deposited to the Benito account. There are things to unravel in terms of the settlement your father paid before leaving Italy. It’s at least three times that, and you’re entitled to interest and damages. You’ll see in the letter from my lawyer that this is merely a deposit as a sign of good faith. More will be forthcoming. Hire your own lawyer and have them contact ours. Legal costs will be covered on my end.”

“You can’t be serious!” Cami exclaimed, thinking of Dante’s struggle to recoup his losses the first time. “Won’t that break you? I mean financially?”

Reeve made a choking noise. “Who cares? I’d like to break his face.”