“Water under the bridge.” She put her napkin on the table, her expression cycling from wariness to fake cheer. “Thank you for the dinner. That was a treat, even with your company. And on second thought, thanks for buying my mother’s necklace back.” She took the velvet box from him and put it underneath her clutch on the table. Waggling her brows, she leveled a saccharine smile at him. “You must know me well to give me a present I would so appreciate.”
Being on the receiving end of that smile was just so...jarring. “You mean to sell it again, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“That will only take care of the payroll for another month. I’ve seen the financials, Alisha. The charity will be bankrupt in a month.”
Her mouth tightened. “I’ll find a way. I always do.”
“Or you could just ask me for help.”
“I told you, I don’t want your money. Or the company’s or Papa’s. I need to do this on my own.”
“Does the charity home really mean that much to you?”
“It does. It’s where Mama grew up. I spent so much time there with her. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood were there.”
“If you really want to save the home, put aside your irrational resentment of me and I will funnel some much needed money into it.”
“And what do I have to do in return?”
“Marry me.”
MARRY ME...
Marry Dante...
Ali’s mind went into a loop over that one phrase, like one of those gramophone records her mama had had.
Marry Dante, marry Dante...
Dante, who thought she was selfish and spoiled.
Dante, with whom she reverted back to that lonely girl come to live with a distant father, distracted brother and a resented changeling, after her mama’s sudden death.
With Dante she would always be her worst self.
Panic skittled over her skin like a line of fire ants crawling up her legs. She needed to marry Dante like she needed a hole in her head. It would be like all the bad decisions she’d ever made steamrolled into one giant boulder that would chase her for the rest of her life.
A hysterical sound released from her mouth.
“Alisha?”
She brought her gaze to his, stood up from the booth, picked up her clutch and turned. “You’ve gone mad.”
“Alisha, wait.”
Nope.
She didn’t want to hear more. If she did, he would rope her into it.
As a master strategist, he wouldn’t have sought her out across the world, wouldn’t have approached her if he hadn’t already figured out a way to make her agree. And she needed to flee before that happened. Before their lives were even more tangled. Before she betrayed herself in the worst way possible.
Dear God, when it came to him, all she had left was her pride.
“Alisha, stop!” His arm shot out just as Ali got ready to sprint across the restaurant if necessary.
Long fingers roped around her wrist and because of her desperate forward momentum, her foot jerked to the side. Pain shot up through her ankle and she fell back against him.
The breath punched out of her as he anchored her by throwing his arm around her midriff.
Unstoppable force meets immovable object...
“What happens when they crash, Alisha? Who gets destroyed?”
The world stopped tilting at that silky whisper as she realized she’d spoken out loud. And yet, the explosion his touch evoked continued to rock through her body.
The scent of him was all over her skin, filling each pore, drowning her in masculine heat. His legs were thrown wide, the tensile power of his thighs just grazing the back of hers, his chest pushed up tight against her back. Her chest expanded as she tried to stop the panic. On the exhale, the underside of her breasts fell against his steely arm. A soft hiss of warm air bathed her neck, making it a thousand times worse. Or was that pleasure skittering across her skin?
An onslaught of sensations poured through her, her skin prickling tight, and yet, a strange lethargy crawled through her limbs. She wanted to lean into him completely, until her bottom was resting against his hips. She wanted to feel him from chest to toe against her back, she wanted to rub herself against that hard body until he was as mindlessly aroused as her. Until that iron will of his snapped like a thinly stretched rubber band.
As if he could guess the direction of her thoughts, his fingers tightened around her hip, digging into her slightly to keep her still; to keep her from leaning back and learning his body’s reaction to her.
Because, really, in what universe did she imagine Dante would want her back with this same madness?
She groaned—a feral, desperate sound. Why was it that everything she did came back to taunt her a thousand times worse?
“Because you don’t think before you do,” came the voice at her ear. Ah...perfect! Of course, she’d said that out loud too. “You’re impulsive, brash and if I hadn’t caught you, you would have fallen flat on your face.”
“Kissing the floor sounds like a better alternative,” she said, her words throaty and whispery.
“Will you sit down and listen if I let you go?”
As if operating on an instinct that defied rationality, her fingers clenched over his wrist.
She opened her eyes and swallowed hard. Since he’d undone his cuffs earlier, her palm rested against a hair-roughened wrist. She rubbed the skin—the rough texture, the plump veins on the back of his hand—the startlingly sensual contrast between her and him inviting her along further and further.
It was the sharp inhale followed by another curse that pulled her out of the fog.
Her chin flopped down to her chest. “No. I don’t want to hear anything you say. I don’t want to be near...you in this moment, much less in the future.”
The vulnerability she fought every waking minute, the longing for a deeper connection in her past, with anyone related to her past, pervaded her in his presence.
This was what would happen if she agreed: every look, every touch would wind her up; lines between want and hate, reality and fantasy would blur...until she attacked him—claws and all—just to keep herself tethered, to keep herself together. Or until she gave in to this inexplicable yearning she had felt for him for so long.
The stiffness of her posture drained away and she leaned back against his chest. She let herself be weak and vulnerable for five seconds.
Both of his arms wound around her. He held her gently, tenderly and that...that was more than Ali could bear. That uncharacteristic moment between them, the mere thought that he could pity her uncontrollable attraction to him, snapped her out of it.
She wriggled in his embrace and he instantly let her go.
Pushing her hair back, she fought for composure. The glass of cold water down her throat was a much needed burst of reality. When he sat down, when she had her wits together again, she looked back at him. “Tell me why.”
“Vikram’s been declared legally dead.”
Gray gaze drinking her in, he paused. Ali looked away.
That he knew what