A Ruthless Proposition

by Natasha Anders

  She put her hands below his on the urn, and he adjusted his grip until his hands were on top of hers.

  “When you’re ready,” he told her.

  “You will . . . ,” she began, but the words felt too big and obstructive to squeeze past her swollen vocal cords. She cleared her throat and tried again. “You will always be in my heart, Zach. I will love and cherish you till the end of time.” The last word was so badly mangled that it actually made her wince. Dante kissed her cheek sweetly and then returned his attention to the vessel in their hands.

  “Te amo, hijito. Te amo,” he muttered, before lifting one of his hands from hers to take the lid off the urn and hand it to Luc. Once he had his hands over hers again, he looked at her, and this close to him she could see the faint quiver of his lips and, most tellingly, the line of moisture trickling down his cheek from behind his glasses.

  “Okay?” she asked him, recognizing that nobody had asked him that question since they’d boarded the boat. His lips quirked slightly in acknowledgment of her consideration, and he inclined his head.

  They both took a huge gulp of air, and together they upended the urn and watched as the meager contents poured into the water below. A minute portion was taken by the wind and scattered toward the distant city.

  Blue and Luc scattered white rose petals into the water to mix with the ashes, and they all watched as the petals drifted away from the boat. The ash, being heavier, sank almost immediately. Cleo felt . . . hollow but at peace, grateful for the support of these three people who meant so much to her, and happy to have the opportunity to offer the same support to this man she loved with her entire being.

  They all silently watched the petals drift farther and farther away, and after half an hour, when it was almost completely dark, Dante started preparing to take them back to shore. As the boat started back up, the powerful purr of the engine shattered the silence around them, and Cleo felt a moment’s panic at leaving. But as the boat stirred up water in its wake, something absolutely astonishing happened, and she cried out at the beauty of it. Dante left Luc at the helm and came leaping over at her startled cry, but he paused when they saw what had caught Cleo’s attention.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Cleo whispered in awe. The stirred-up water in the wake of the boat was a sparkling electric blue, creating an otherworldly glowing path back to where they’d left Zach. It was perfect, and even though Cleo knew it was ocean phosphorescence, it couldn’t have happened at a better time or had a more magical impact.

  She felt a strong and familiar arm creep around her shoulder, and she leaned into Dante as they both watched the shimmering wake stream behind them.

  “It looks like a path to heaven,” she said, and then turned to look at him before hugging him fiercely. “Thank you for this, Dante. It’s perfect. So beautiful.”

  “My pleasure, dulzura,” he said, returning her hug. She took a deep breath and inhaled his wonderful scent one last time before stepping away from him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Christmas would have been a lot grimmer if not for Blue and Luc inviting him over for the day. It had been almost two weeks since Cleo had simply upped and left with nothing but an unsatisfactory note of “explanation” for Dante.

  He was pissed off and worried about her. He couldn’t understand why she’d just gone without a warning or good-bye. It had felt like a kick to the gut, especially since she’d flown out the day after they’d scattered Zach’s ashes. Dante felt a little used and a lot hurt. Only Cleo had the ability to make him feel such contrary and powerful emotions.

  He, of course, knew exactly where she was, despite the fact that she’d kept that information from Luc and Blue just to avoid the possibility of them telling him. But all he’d really needed to know was that she was with Callum Faris, and his resources had done the rest. He had known where she was since two days after she left. But he kept waiting for her to call. Only she never did.

  “Dante?” Blue’s voice prompted him, her eyes concerned. “Do you want another slice of roast beef?”

  “No, thanks,” he said, taking a sip of red wine. He’d been drinking way too much since she’d left, and he didn’t want to become that guy, the fool who turned to alcohol whenever things didn’t go his way. Still, it was damned satisfying to get rip-roaring drunk every night. At least he didn’t have to face his cold and empty apartment sober.

  He was starting to hate that place more and more. Cleo had turned it into a home while she had lived there, and he resented not having that home anymore. He missed her companionship, those movie nights with those awful films she got such a kick out of making him watch. He longed for the dinners they’d shared and the conversations they’d had. He had loved cooking for her. Once his greatest passion, it had become a lackluster affair now that he prepared meals for only himself. And even though it had driven him crazy sometimes, he even missed tripping over the stuff she used to leave lying around the place. He couldn’t bring himself to work out in his gym anymore and used the one at the office instead, because it physically hurt to stare at that dance floor and not see her doing her barre routines there. And crazy though it seemed, he even missed having her finish his sentences

  “When did you hear last from Cleo?” he asked Luc, and watched his friend tense.

  “This morning. She called with Christmas greetings.”

  “Is she alone today?” The thought of her being alone at Christmas bugged him, but then he told himself that she didn’t have to be alone. She could be here with people who cared about her.

  “Cal’s there. They’re attempting their own version of a roast lunch.”

  Dante grimaced at that news.

  “They’ll poison themselves,” he grunted, shaking his head. “Especially if Cleo does the cooking.”

  “Yeah, she’s a pretty awful cook.”

  “Is she happy?” Dante hated asking, but he needed to know, and Luc shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “She’s not unhappy, and for now I think that’s all we can hope for.”

  A month after leaving Cape Town, Cleo was starting to feel like she had a handle on her life again. Just a couple of days after arriving in Durban, she’d gone to a local dance studio and informed them they’d be idiots not to enlist her to teach a few ballet classes. Cal and a few of her former colleagues had vouched for her. She loved teaching and had fledgling dreams of opening her own dance school. She finally felt like she had a purpose again. She also choreographed dance pieces in her spare time, sometimes inspired by a song or a piece of art or even a bird in flight. It was wonderful and stimulating. She was developing quite a portfolio but didn’t know if she would ever be brave enough to pitch those ideas to any dance companies.

  It was close to five in the evening, and she was just getting home to the apartment she shared with Cal after one of her new junior dance classes. She had her head down and was fumbling with her keys when she walked straight into something huge, warm, and solid just outside of the apartment door.

  “You really need to start looking where you’re going, dulzura,” chastised the last voice she had ever expected to hear again. She dropped her keys, her head flying up in reaction to that voice. She was filled with such raw, unbridled joy at the sight of him that her knees could barely hold her upright.

  “Well?” he prompted in that dulcet voice. “Do you have anything to say to me?”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked shakily. He snorted and shook his head in disgust before bending down to retrieve her keys.

  “I think the more accurate question is, what the hell are you doing here?” He unlocked the door and steered her inside before following her in and slamming the door behind them.

  “I live here,” she replied defiantly.

  “No, you live with me,” he gritted out. “You never moved out!”

  “I seem to recall moving out after I lost our baby,” she said pointedly.

  “That was always going to be a temporary thing.”

&n
bsp; “How can you say that? I was only living there because I was pregnant.”

  “Cleo, tell me what the hell happened? We had Zach’s memorial, we said good-bye at the Waterfront, I told you I’d see you the next day, and you just left! How could you do that?”

  She had boarded the first plane out of Cape Town the next morning, telling Luc and Blue only that she would be living with Cal, but not telling them exactly where that was, because she didn’t want to put them in the position of lying to Dante. They’d protested, of course, said that she was making a mistake, and begged her to stay for Christmas. But Cleo hadn’t been able to face the holidays and had firmly believed that she needed to get out of the city and as far away from Dante as possible in order to cut him out of her life completely.

  “I left you a note,” she reminded him.

  “Which said absolutely nothing. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done. I cannot express how much it has meant to me but I think we both deserve a fresh start’?” He sounded incredulous, but Cleo was more shocked that he could recite her note verbatim. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?”

  “It meant exactly what it said, Dante. Everything that tied us together is gone, and there is no need for us to be in each other’s lives anymore.”

  “Bullshit,” he growled. “There is every reason!”

  “I didn’t want you to stick around because you felt guilty or whatever. I wanted you to go on with your life, and I tried to pick up the pieces of mine. It’s for the best. There’s just no reason for us to ever see each other again.”

  “Stop saying that!” he snapped. “No reason for us to ever see each other again? Well, what about this?” He framed her face and planted an angry, bruising kiss on her lips, and she was so shocked at first that she didn’t react, but when the shock wore off and she started to struggle against his hold, his kiss gentled. His mouth opened and his tongue traced the seam of her lips. It was an invitation she couldn’t resist . . . not when she’d spent the last month missing him every single hour of every day. She welcomed him in, and he groaned, the sound smothered against her mouth. He deepened his kiss, taking just that little bit more before ending it and stepping away from her, leaving her reeling.

  “There’s that,” he said triumphantly, pointing a finger at her, and she shook her head to clear her befuddled senses.

  “We know we have chemistry,” she said. Her tongue flicked out to taste him on her lips, and he groaned at the gesture. “We’ll probably always have chemistry, but let’s face it, that’s all we ever had, all we’ll ever have. It’s not enough.”

  “I’m getting sick of you leaving me, Cleo.”

  “I didn’t leave you, Dante.”

  “Why do you have to be so damned unreasonable?” It was a familiar refrain, one she had heard from him in various forms of exasperation before. “Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother.”

  “I don’t know either,” she said, her absolute confusion showing in her face and in her voice.

  “So you’re living with Callum again?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “It’s just temporary.”

  “And how have you been? After everything?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Some days are harder than others, you know?”

  “Yeah. I know. I got a call from that baby-furniture store the other day.” His eyes took on a shimmer. “I forgot to cancel the order, and they wanted to know . . . to know when I wanted them to deliver it.”

  “Oh God.” Her hands flew to her mouth as she imagined how awful that must have been.

  “That was one of the bad days. I left work early and went home and wished to hell I could talk to you about it! Only you weren’t around, and I got sick of giving you time to come to your senses, so I came to fetch you home.”

  “Wait, are you saying you knew where I was?”

  “Dulzura, please, you forget that I am Dante Damaso. I have wealth, power, and influence at my fingertips.”

  She rolled her eyes, old habits surfacing in his presence.

  “Also ego,” she added. He sent her a quelling glance before continuing.

  “I knew you were with Callum. It was just a matter of finding out which company he danced for, and there aren’t many options in Durban. Once I figured that out, a quick phone call told me exactly where he was staying. I’ve known since almost the beginning. But I wanted to give you time to figure this out by yourself. Then I got sick of giving you time, because I missed you like hell.”

  “W-what?”

  “I spent Christmas with your brother and Blue,” he said. “Because they felt sorry for my pathetic ass. I was always calling them and asking if they’d heard from you and wanting to know if you were okay.”

  Cleo knew that; Blue and Luc had both told her stories of how Dante kept questioning them about her well-being. She had thought it was just polite concern, but looking at him now, she could see it was far from that.

  “Damn you, Cleo! You gave me a home and family, and then you just took it away from me,” he hissed. “We lost Zach; we didn’t have to lose each other too.”

  “Okay, back up a second,” she said. “You’re making no sense, Dante. Before I lost the baby, we had an arrangement. I’d move out with Zach and set up house in an apartment you provided, and you would play the role of his glorified uncle or something. That was the extent of our relationship. We were living together for convenience, and you never once hinted at anything different.”

  “I asked you to marry me,” he reminded her, his nostrils flaring with irritation.

  “Because you wanted Zach!” she said.

  “No, you idiot.” He was practically yelling now, and she blinked at the spectacular emotional explosion she was witnessing from the famously cool Dante Damaso. This was just . . . fascinating. “Because I wanted you!”

  She stumbled backward and sat down on the hard couch with a thump. “What?”

  He sighed and sank down on the couch next to her. “I mean, of course I wanted the baby, but I wanted you too. No, let me rephrase, I wanted you especially.”

  “I . . . how?”

  “I’m not great at talking about things like this,” he said with a wince, keeping his gaze straight ahead while she kept hers fixed on his stark profile.

  “Give it a go.”

  “When we first slept together in Tokyo, that was just sex, but I couldn’t stay away from you for the entirety of that trip, despite trying my damnedest to leave you alone every night.”

  “You didn’t seem to try very hard.” She sniffed.

  “No, you’re wrong. I tried exceptionally hard, and yet every night we just wound up in bed together. Maybe I should have known then, but I wouldn’t see it. I told myself I just needed to get you out of my system; we had some crazy chemistry, and it would eventually fade. Only it didn’t. It got worse. I mean we had sex on my desk! On my desk.” He sounded mildly astonished by that fact. “I stepped over a line that day, and I didn’t even care. I transferred you out of my office and figured that was that. But it wasn’t. Every day, Cleo. I thought about you every bloody day.”

  “Well . . .” She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He was now facing her, his eyes glowing with a powerful emotion.

  “Then you came to my office and told me you were pregnant. And with all the confusion that followed, with the craziness, the disbelief and doubt and all those hurtful, angry words we exchanged, I just never . . . I never saw it. I didn’t recognize you.” He sounded completely confused, and Cleo shook her head, not understanding.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t know who you were.” His voice bordered on desperate, and the intensity in his eyes deepened as he struggled to verbalize his emotion. “Do you understand?”

  “No,” she said regretfully. She wished she did, because she sensed that this meant a lot to him, and his inability to explain it was frustrating to both of them. “I’m sorry, Dante; I don’t.”

  He glanced upward as if seeking answers from the
heavens and then brought his gaze back down to hers.

  “When we first met, I saw a pretty woman. One who immediately set off my internal alarms. ‘Instant dislike,’ I told myself. ‘Stay away from her; she’ll annoy the ever-loving hell out of you!’ But I couldn’t stay away. Before Tokyo you were in my space day in and day out. I kept farming you out to other people just so that I could get some work done. Because you did annoy me, aggravate me, shatter my concentration, and you made me feel damned uncomfortable in my own skin! I couldn’t wait to get rid of you, even while I couldn’t seem to stay away from you. But back then I didn’t know who you were, not even after we made love.”

  Made love? What had happened to his other—cruder—term for it?

  “Even after that, I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Dante, I don’t understand.” And she desperately wanted to understand.

  “You’re it, Cleo,” he snapped, clearly annoyed with himself for losing his grasp on the English language so completely. “You’re her. You’re my she. My other. Mine.”

  “What?” she whispered in disbelief. Even with his incoherence and his accent thickening on every syllable, Cleo was starting to understand. And what she thought she understood was utterly unbelievable.

  “You’re mine. The one who was put on this earth for me. And I’m so damned sorry I didn’t recognize you immediately. I was stupidly prepared to let you walk out of my life forever, but fate stepped in and gave us Zach,” he said, his voice breaking as he dashed at the tears in his eyes. “And Zach gave me a chance to see and finally recognize you.”

  “Dante,” she said, her voice wobbling slightly, “take a deep breath and tell me in easy English so that I know I’m not going out of my mind here. What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m trying to say that I’m an idiot! A blind fool. And that I already lost Zach, and I don’t want to lose you too. Because my life is shit without you! I’m saying that I adore you. I revere you. I cherish you. I fucking love you, Cleo.”