Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Alarm tightens his handsome features. “What’s wrong?”
No one should be that beautiful. It hurts to look at him. It hurts because a man like him will never be mine. “I… Nothing.”
He narrows those gorgeous amber eyes. A promise of retribution sparks in their golden depths. “Then why the tears?”
He asks the question as if it matters to him—no, as if the answer is the only thing that matters in his life. The anger that cuts hard, unforgiving angles onto his face says he’s about to go on a killing spree to avenge my tears.
Something fragile breaks from a cocoon and flutters with delicate, newborn wings in my stomach. No one has ever looked at me like that.
With excruciating gentleness, he wipes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. His deep voice reverberates beneath my breastbone, little thrills of awareness jabbing into my belly with every word that falls with undisguised malice from his lips. “Who upset you, Tatiana?”
I’m both surprised and relieved that he remembers my name. I thought he’d long since forgotten about me. After all, we’d never been introduced, and this is the first time we’re speaking.
Dante used to work for my father. I never mixed with the men, but I noticed him straight away. All the women did. It was impossible not to. He often escorted my parents, Leander, and me to events where he stayed in the background with the other guards, but that didn’t stop me from stealing glances at him or fantasizing about him alone in my bed at night.
Then, two years ago, he simply disappeared. I fished for information about his whereabouts from Leander, trying not to make my interest too obvious. My brother told me if I knew what was good for me, I’d mind my own business. When I asked my mom, she told me Dante was bad news and not to mention his name in front of my father.
It starts snowing. Flakes drift from the sky and dust his sun-streaked hair and the lapels of his coat.
“Come here.” Dante pulls me against his chest and wraps his coat around me. “You’ll freeze to death.”
I rest my cheek against the hard expanse of his breast where I can hear the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath his expensive suit jacket. Unable to help myself, I splay my cold fingers over the hard ridges and well-cut muscles that map out his torso. “It’s not that cold.”
Not when I’m bundled up in his coat and arms.
Pins and needles shoot up my hands. My fingertips tingle like when I warm them over a fire after having been out in a blizzard without gloves.
When the lengths of our bodies press together, he stills. His hold tightens marginally on me, his fingers curling in on my sides, and I swear his heart beats faster and harder.
“Let me buy you a cup of coffee,” he says in my hair, his voice strangely tender and simultaneously strained. “It’ll warm you up.”
He sounds like a man practicing enormous self-constraint. And then I know. He’s doing his best not to grow hard against my belly… and failing.
My pulse goes into overdrive. The cold evaporates. My body burst into flames, a different kind of heat soaking into my skin.
I nod against his chest, burrowing closer to absorb his warmth and the incredible sensations that set every nerve-ending in my body alight.
Pedestrians flow around us and move on, but we’re isolated in our beautiful little snow globe, untouchable from the rest of the world.
He pulls away without letting me go, compelling me to look at him. When I do, I find him peering down at me with a dimpled smile.
“Do you know my name, Tatiana?”
My cheeks heat as the arrow of that smile hits me straight in the heart. If my voice sounds hoarse, it’s not from crying. “Dante.”
Possessive satisfaction heats his tone. “Good girl.”
His approval is almost predatory. Selfish. As if he wants to keep me all to himself. It speaks to a part of me that likes that.
Scooping me up into his big, masculine arms as if I don’t weigh more than a kitten, he carries me in a bridal hold. “You’re going to tell me what happened.”
It’s a command, not a request.
Savage intentions blaze in his eyes as he makes me a solemn promise. “And then I’ll fix it.”
Chapter
Two
Tatiana, almost one year later
* * *
It’s been a day since Dante kissed my hands and climbed from my window to disappear down the fire escape into the night, a day since he promised he’ll find a solution for us to be together, that instead of the stolen moments, we’ll have forever.
He’ll fix this.
I just have to be patient.
And before that, tonight still, I’ll sleep in his arms the whole night long.
My father has been weirdly housebound lately. Roughly a year ago, he stopped going to the office and meetings. He’s become paranoid about setting foot outside the condo. All his business is conducted at home. If he absolutely has to go out, like tonight, he does it with utter secrecy.