Page 50 of Unveiled As The Italian's Bride
Kate burst out laughing. ‘Deal.’
‘Have you missed Angelina? Milan?’ Kate sneaked a teasing sideways glance at him as they were settled into their first-class seats, ready to leave paradise behind and return to pick up where they had left off. ‘Your work?’
He was staring at his laptop and she wondered whether she was already losing him as he returned to his punishing schedule. She didn’t want that.
He glanced at her, shut the laptop and looked at her for a few silent seconds.
‘Of course.’ He paused. ‘There’s only so much time a person can take off work before the backlog piles up.’
‘Don’t you have people you can delegate things to?’
‘In times of emergency, I have things that can be put in place.’
Those times of emergency had yet to materialise. He’d always been the guy in charge, first of his own affairs, and now the affairs of the family empire. He only casually supervised it, leaving the nitty-gritty to his uncle and the comprehensive bank of CEOs who worked alongside him. They were paid enough, after all—too much to be relieved of the majority of their duties because he was a workaholic who hated to delegate.
He had spent so much of his life harnessed to doing what had to be done. Was that freedom? In the process, he had drifted away from his daughter, always too busy to be emotionally and physically available.
He had this window to set things straight on that front, and why shouldn’t he take it? The window wasn’t going to remain open for ever. There was a limited offer on this particular deal.
Dante didn’t believe in any sort of long-term relationship. He had once hoped for something that would at least offer functionality and a certain amount of predictable calm, but he had been wrong on all counts with Luciana.
He wasn’t cut out for the hype and he liked the woman sitting next to him. He liked her, respected her and fancied her. She deserved a lot more than a guy who could never give her the life she dreamt of. But he could give her huge sums of money with which to help her parents, and he could give her hot sex until the time came when that side of things fizzled out.
As it would. When he couldn’t emotionally attach, there would be nothing to replace the first flare of heat. It wouldn’t turn into anything deeper. It would just disappear. He was sure that, when that happened, they would be on the same page.
By then he would have lost this peculiar craving.
‘That said...’ he murmured, his voice inviting her to lean into him, which she did.
‘That said...?’
‘I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Kate. I feel closer to Angelina than I ever have and I see a chance for me to spend more time with her.’ He sighed. ‘You’ve somehow managed to broker a valuable meeting ground between us and I don’t want to lose that.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose I’ve been victim to the cliché that it’s way too easy to get involved in work to the exclusion of everything else.’
‘That would be really great, Dante.’
‘So, when it comes to my lifestyle of working all hours and snatching a bit of leisure time whenever and wherever I can? That, at least for the while, will be a thing of the past.’
‘Angelina will really love that.’
‘Of course, nothing is set in stone. There will be times when I have no choice but to go abroad, to work into the early hours...’
‘Of course.’ The loose, carefree feeling of drifting on a cloud was beginning to seep away. This sounded like the sort of formal speech a boss might give his secretary at her annual appraisal. She’d feasted her eyes on him in shorts, tee-shirts and loafers on their glorious escape to Morocco. Now, although he wasn’t in a suit, he was in dark trousers and dark jumper and he already looked every inch the aristocrat he was.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting and was disappointed that she was disappointed.
‘And then there’s us,’ he murmured in a lazy drawl, his dark eyes roving over her in a lingering inspection.
On cue, her eyes got slumberous with heat and her thoughts turned to the sinfully erotic. Despite the busyness of boarding going on around them, she still had to fight the urge to touch him. It was as though her newly awakened body knew no limits, was greedy for more, like a beggar at a banquet.
She also knew that he could see exactly what sort of effect he had on her, and yet she was helpless to prevent her body from responding.
He shifted so that their heads were together in intimate dialogue. ‘When you look at me like that, I feel like getting off this plane right now and heading for the nearest hotel, motel or frankly anywhere where there’s a bed and a door I can lock...’
He drew his finger over her parted mouth and looked at her with amusement. ‘You have such a transparent face,’ he said with a slow smile.
‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing,’ Kate returned with heartfelt honesty. In fact, she was uneasily aware that it very much wasnota good thing. ‘“And then there’s us”.What did you mean by that?’
Dante drew back but his eyes were still pinned to her face. He patted her leg and said crisply, ‘I hadn’t planned on this situation happening but, now that it has, I don’t see any reason why we can’t carry on having fun until—we’re no longer having fun. At least, until we’re no longer having fun between the sheets. We’re both adults, we’ve discovered that we want one another...a lot...and we’re going to be husband and wife.’
