Page 64 of Wicked Takeover
Chapter Eight
Lauren slouched in her office chair, her emotions a mess. Before her evening in the park with Dante, which was already several days in the past, she’d been falling too quick and hard for him. Since then…
She couldn’t keep doing this. It was the same warning she’d given herself that night.
After she and Dante caught their second wind, he’d brought her to the horse she’d petted, helped her on the dumb thing, and slapped its flank. “Giddyap, Bessie. We gotta catch up with them vile critters who took our beloved schoolmarm. She ain’t done teachin’ us right.”
Lauren laughed so hard, she collapsed on the horse’s wooden mane. “Is that you talking, Black Bart?”
“No, ma’am. He’s the scoundrel who whisked Miss Prudence Pure Heart away, but I am packing heat.” He flexed his hips.
She choked on a giggle. “Oh my. It’s not a bird or a plane. It’s Super Cock.”
Dante howled and grabbed onto a pole to keep from falling off the carousel.
They laughed themselves silly. It was magical, especially after they finally calmed down and he stood at her side, seemingly content to watch her enjoy poor Bessie, who couldn’t do anything except slide up and down a pole. When they finally left, they’d strolled arm in arm back to his pickup, pausing frequently to kiss.
Each time they embraced it was tender, not sexual, which made the moments more captivating. They played with each other’s fingers. He slipped his arm around her waist and, to her surprise, swung her off her feet, like teens would do when they horsed around. She’d missed that growing up and appreciated it more now than she probably would have then. When they chilled and simply strolled, their silence was comfortable rather than awkward, neither trying to entertain the other.
Leaving him to go home was one of the hardest things she had ever done. She’d wanted to wake up with him in the morning even as she warned herself to cool it. Those were dangerous thoughts. He’d never be hers for the duration. He was simply a great guy and kept proving it.
The morning after their park escapade, he’d offered a check to help with her bills, which led to their first argument. She started it, and he refused to participate.
“Come on.” He wagged the check, coaxing her to take it. “You need this. I don’t.”
Lauren pushed his hand away. “I can’t accept it.”
“You’d rather see your car repossessed or your condo foreclosed on? That’s smart.”
None of this was. Men like him were on this earth for women blessed with great looks and killer bods. Lauren was okay looking but not a raving beauty. She and Dante were friends. That. Was. It. Eventually, he’d fall in love with someone as gorgeous, sweet, and smart as Jasmina. When he did, it would hurt, but Lauren didn’t want it to destroy her. She’d barely made it through the last crap life had thrown her way and didn’t need more piled on top.
She’d told him refusing his money was her decision. “Why won’t you respect it? Is it because I’m a woman?”
His eyebrows lifted. “What does your damn sex have to do with anything? You’re in a bind financially. It happens to the best of us. I’m just trying to help.”
“You’re not facing reality. You never do.”
Dante stared. “What?”
Even though she knew she was out of line, she couldn’t shut up. “Life isn’t about going to parks and riding merry-go-rounds or pretending that being a tattoo artist and managing a parlor that’s barely surviving is actually a career. It’s not about having fun all the time. It’s making hard choices and sticking with them. That’s what being an adult is about.”
She snatched the check, tore it to pieces, and threw them on the floor. “When I say no, I mean no.”
They’d been in the back room before hours when she’d said that. Finished with being a bitch, she’d stormed to her office, slammed the door, and locked it. With her face in her hands, Lauren had cried as she hadn’t since her mom had passed. She’d wanted to apologize to him but couldn’t bring herself to do so.
She was afraid to touch Dante again or have him hold her. Hell, she was terrified to see him, so she avoided being anywhere he was, which proved challenging in such a small building.
The first time she ran into him, almost literally, she’d left her office at the same time he strode down the hall and reached her door. She reared back and returned to her desk, feeling like an idiot, but was too scared to do anything else. Her heart pounded, and her hands shook. She feared he’d come inside and would say something to screw her up more than she already was.
He greeted his client, and they talked sports on the way to his workstation.
Somehow, his seeming indifference was worse than if he’d given her a dirty look for bitching at him.
The following day, they ended up in the back room at the same time. She’d deliberately waited to take lunch until late in the afternoon and hadn’t expected him to be there. He was sitting at the table, eating a Cubano. Before he noticed her watching him, she raced inside, snatched a Dove Bar, and hurried away, hoping he’d call her back yet scared he would.
He didn’t. He went about his business like nothing horrible had happened between them or he didn’t care that it had. She’d grown used to disinterest from her father and the guys who’d dumped her. Not from Dante. She wasn’t certain how much more she could stand.
Exhausted and lonely, she couldn’t fight her feelings this afternoon and wanted to simply indulge in comfort food.
