Consequence of His Revenge (One Night With Consequences)

by Dani Collins

  “But I have, quite literally, hundreds of cousins. Aunts and uncles galore.” All of whom he was responsible for. If the weight of that was heavy at times, well, that didn’t matter. They were all the family he had.

  “I always thought being part of a big Italian family would be fabulous.” Her mouth tilted. “Is it?”

  “Sicilian,” he was compelled to correct, then shrugged, impatient to move on from talking about himself. “I have no complaints. You have just the one brother?”

  “Reeve, yes.”

  “Older?”

  “Four years younger.”

  Their food came, a sampler of local specialties including elk tartar, seared scallops on nasturtium leaves and smoked salmon with sunchoke chips.

  “Thank you.” She smiled shyly, wariness still hovering around her edges. “I ran down my groceries and only had a yogurt cup for breakfast.”

  Before he could remark on her being so active on very few calories, she asked, “If you’re into self-driving cars, how did you come to buy out the Tabor?”

  “I took over the family corporation, Gallo Proprietà, when my grandfather died. We have holdings in other interests, but it’s mostly hotels, restaurants, some shipping and other import-exports.”

  “I know what Gallo does, but that’s what I mean. Self-driving cars aren’t really in the company’s repertoire. Why are you running a resort conglomerate if your passion lies in something completely different?”

  “I was always intended to be my grandfather’s successor. I took a double major in business and computer engineering because it interested me. When I left school, self-driving was still a sci-fi story, but I believed in it. My grandfather believed in me, and we all expected him to be around longer than he was. It seemed a safe bet to explore my hobby for a few years, but we lost him unexpectedly. I had to put it aside and take up the leadership at Gallo.”

  “Do you like running it?”

  “I don’t dislike it. It doesn’t matter either way. I did what needed to be done.” Did she realize how closely she was skating onto thin ice?

  “Have you pursued anything to do with cars since then?”

  Not that he admitted to anyone, having learned the hard way to keep his cards against his chest. “Why? Are you looking for another bite of technology to profit from?”

  The pretty inquisitiveness that had grown in her eyes dimmed to hurt. “And here we are again,” she murmured in a tone that cooled several degrees. “I can’t blame you for being cynical, but I’m not my father. I’m just making conversation.”

  So much for a pleasant day.

  “When did Stephen—?” he started to ask, since he had been wondering.

  “Eight years ago.” She had stopped eating to dig into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out a credit card.

  “Put that away,” he growled.

  She set it on her phone and looked for their server.

  “Put it away or I’ll take it.”

  She scooped both phone and card into her lap, glaring at him. “I’m not going to sit here and be accused of things I haven’t done.”

  “I liked him,” he bit out, furious all over again, just like that. Hurt. Betrayed. “That’s why I couldn’t believe he did that to me.” He picked up his wine, but it tasted sour. He’d lost his appetite, too. “How did the crash happen? Drunk driver?”

  “Icy roads.” Her voice held a crack, and the words gave the knot around his heart a hard, abraded yank. “I got a job at a ski hill in Banff and was moving there for the winter, so I could train in my off-hours.”

  “How old were you?” She couldn’t be more than twenty-five now.

  “Sixteen.”

  “Is that when you broke your leg?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t have to tell him she felt guilty for being the reason they were on the road. He could hear it in the heaviness of her voice. Could read it in the anguish tightening her profile. That also caused a weird pang in his chest.

  “It wasn’t just a broken leg, though, was it?” He looked at the white line next to the hollow at the base of her neck.

  “Collarbone and a punctured lung. I had six surgeries over two months, then rehab for a year. Lucky to be alive, so I can’t complain.”

  Reeling under the idea that she might have died, he asked, “Was your whole family in the car?” He already knew they had been.

  Her mouth tightened. She nodded. “Mom died instantly. I was unconscious. Dad talked to Reeve for a few minutes, tried to tell him what to do, how to stop the bleeding. Reeve was twelve and had a broken arm. He managed to climb up the embankment to flag down help. It took a while for a car to come along, but they stopped, which is why I’m still here. That’s why we always stop.”

  The hairs on the back of his neck lifted, thinking he might never have met her if not for those strangers.

  “That’s why I helped your grandmother. That’s why Reeve wants to be a doctor. He felt so helpless. Don’t interfere in his plans, Dante.” She looked him dead in the eye, hers glossy and bright. “It’s not about my father or what he might have cost you. It’s about helping people you and I don’t even know and never will.”

  Dante hadn’t consciously thought her brother was becoming a plastic surgeon or some other high-paying specialist, but to hear he had such a personal, karmic reason to pursue a medical degree took him by surprise. Unsettled him.

  Careful, he reminded himself. Fagans were liars.

  But this was too brutally real. He’d seen the scars. He could hear the agony in her voice.

  “What happened after the accident? Where did you go?”

  “A group home.” She pulled her lightweight jacket around her. “Reeve was able to stay with a school friend. I was glad about that. They were good people. But taking him was a hardship, not that they would say so. They couldn’t take me, as well. I was fine.”

  It struck him that he’d known her barely forty-eight hours, and he couldn’t count the number of times she had assured him she was “fine.”

  “It was hard to see him, though. I was in Edmonton and he was in Calgary. Once I turned eighteen, I moved to Calgary, found work and an apartment. Got custody of him. We figured it out from there.”

  Her phone pinged and she flicked at the screen. “Reeve is home. I’m sending you the documents he scanned.”

  Dante’s phone pinged, but he didn’t look at it.

  “What?” she prompted, frowning at his hesitation.

  “He’s had all day to concoct something,” he admitted, trying to be dismissive, but he was affected by all she’d just said. Surgeries. Family broken and sent to a group home, yet she was quick to smile and offer help.

  Her jaw dropped open, astonishment hollowing her cheeks. Then her eyes grew sharp and bright, brow spasming once before she looked away.

  “I’m wasting my time.” She stood and walked out.

  * * *

  If he called out to her, she didn’t hear. She was too busy trying not to let on that lactic acid had set her leg on fire. She clung to the rail down the outer stairs to the ski rack, gritting her teeth.

  Do. Not. Cry. He wasn’t worth it. But she was dangerously close to tears, and it wasn’t all physical. He kept breaking down her defenses, giving her a day fashioned straight from her most cherished dreams, then kissing her so tenderly she damned near cried at the sweetness of it.

  She had put a stop to that kiss, which had taken monumental effort, but she had been feeling so fragile under the press of his mouth. He could have had her making love in public, she was that susceptible to him.

  She couldn’t understand why or how he stripped her down so easily. She had poured her heart out about her parents, reliving the pain, trying to earn some tiny shift in his regard by conveying there had been a cost. He didn’t need to punish her. She lived in torment every day. At the same time, she felt enormous empathy for him that he had lost his own parents.

  Yet he couldn’t even be bothered clicking his phone to glance at the albatros
s he had placed around her neck after she had already lost everything.

  They had absolutely nothing left to say to one another. And it gutted her.

  She took the more gradual green run down to the bottom, skiing cautiously and mostly on her good leg. She was shaking with exertion when she turned in her skis. Maybe some of her tremble was rage, but she was too tired to pick it apart. She just wanted to get to the bus station—

  Oh, damn. Her backpack was in the back of Dante’s SUV. Dear God, would this man never stop torturing her in one way or another?

  Gathering her things from her locker, she limped outside, wondering if he had already left. She would have to wait on a bus and go to his hotel, wait there for him.

  “Cami.”

  Her nemesis was right there, skis off, changed and everything, looking dark and glowering as a god of wrath.

  “How—?”

  “I took the black run.”

  Of course he had. “Rub it in, why don’t you?” She limped around him. “I need my backpack.” She was furious and hurt, most especially because he had ruined her favorite thing in the world—skiing. Today had been perfect. For a while.

  She sniffed.

  Don’t cry!

  She suddenly found herself swooping toward the sky, horizontal, as if she’d slipped on ice and was flying up, but she landed in the cradle of his arms.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Her oversize handbag swung off her shoulder, and she thought she was going to tumble as she grappled to secure it.

  He was so strong, he held her firmly until she stilled again. It felt amazing to be carried with such confidence. Strange and wonderful and terrifyingly good. She hated him, wanted to bash him, but her nose clogged with emotion and her throat stung. His virility made her weak. She felt safe, held like this. Coddled. It took everything in her to resist curling into his embrace and sobbing against his neck.

  Then he spoke and his voice was so grim, he chilled her blood.

  “How the hell do you know the name Benito Castiglione?”

  “You read it?” She let him carry her while she searched his expression, desperate for a sign that what he had seen had changed his mind about her.

  He looked worse than skeptical or remote. Hostile. Furious.

  Chest going hollow, she said weakly, “I don’t know him. He’s just the guy who told us where to send the money and how much. Why? Who is he?”

  “He was my patent lawyer. But he’s dead. He died a few days after your family left Italy.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CAMI BLINKED, TRYING to comprehend.

  A tiny spark of hope danced in her periphery, wanting to believe this news meant the money was sitting in a dormant account somewhere and would be returned to her like lotto winnings. But deep down she knew that wouldn’t happen. No, she knew she had lost that money as surely as she’d lost the Tabor job and her parents and any chance at a gold medal. That’s how her life worked.

  She stopped trying to think at that point.

  Her life had fallen apart that many times, she simply couldn’t face another level of disaster. That’s why she’d gone skiing. The world looked different from the top of a mountain. Up there, she was a tiny organism on a timeless planet. For a little while, she had skied fast enough to outrun reality.

  But like a deadly game of snakes and ladders, she had landed at the bottom yet again. Her emotions slithered and coiled into all the dark places she had visited over the years, which was a miasma of fear and depression. She tried to think what her next steps should be, but only found a void. Her brain was paralyzed.

  She swiped at a tickle on her cheek, realizing she was crying. Dante had put her into the passenger seat of his rental, and she was leaking silent tears like a giant, pathetic baby. Searching her bag, she came up with a tissue and blew her nose, trying to scrape her composure together.

  Dante pulled to a stop and she squeezed her eyes closed and open, blinking hard to see through her matted lashes. They were at his hotel.

  Well, what did she expect? That he would drive her back to her apartment building? They weren’t friends. She had not—despite heroic efforts—paid him back a dime of the money her father had stolen. He owed her nothing.

  Her breaths grew tighter as it sank in that she had lost her chance to prove she wasn’t a liar. There was no earning his good opinion now. She would only sound like more of a raving lunatic. He had a right to feel contempt toward her, but it hurt like hell that he still did.

  The valet opened her door and she slid out, gingerly putting weight on her sore leg as she limped to the back of the vehicle for her backpack.

  “Dante.”

  He turned back from walking toward the entrance. His dark glower cut her in two.

  What remained of her fragile self-worth shrank further into a hard ball inside her chest. Her voice sounded fraught when she spoke, waving at the back of his SUV. “I need my backpack.” She’d sleep on the floor at Reeve’s. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  What would her brother say about all of this? She was supposed to be older and wiser, but she had messed up again.

  This was so unfair. Everyone had things go wrong in their life, but no one’s life went this wrong, did it? When she was trying so hard to be good and do the right thing?

  “We need to talk. Come inside.”

  “I can’t.” Her emotions were barely held in check. Once she had processed all of this and figured out a course of action, she would be fine, but right now it all seemed so big and overwhelming. Impossible. Where had the money gone?

  Don’t be pathetic. No more tears. She bit her lip, fighting the pressure in her chest and behind her eyes.

  “You need me to carry you?” His voice was gruff as he came toward her. “Do you need a doctor?”

  “No. I mean I can’t talk to you. It hurts too much,” she said baldly, hand trembling as she swept her fingertips beneath her eyes.

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “I want to know exactly what is going on.” He put his arm around her, not really giving her a choice as he took most of her weight and drew her into the hotel.

  She went because she was tired and had nowhere else to go. She needed to sit down and think, maybe get a few answers of her own. She went because, just for a minute, she needed to lean on someone stronger. Even if he hated her.

  He didn’t release her in the elevator. He smelled really good, like snow and pine and spicy man. She stood there dumbly against him, absorbing his body heat, barely resisting tilting her head against his powerful chest, grateful for human contact when she was feeling so hideously small and persecuted.

  A moment later, they entered what had to be the platinum penthouse. It was a beautiful space with a main floor lounge in soft earth tones and buttery leather furniture, cozy accent pillows and a gas fireplace throwing off heat. There was a discreet kitchenette around the corner with a powder room beyond. Stairs led to what she presumed was a master bedroom in a loft while a wall of windows rose up both stories, overlooking the mountains. On a summer’s day, four doors would fold back on themselves, opening to a terrace and letting nature inside.

  “This is really nice,” she murmured as she moved to look at the view turning golden with the last of the day’s sun.

  “Noni doesn’t like stairs or she would have had it.” He turned away and began making coffee, asking if she took cream and sugar while the machine gurgled.

  She dug into her handbag, coming up with a blister pack of pain pills with two left. She popped them out and limped over to pour herself a glass of water, quivering under his watchful eye as she swallowed.

  “Why did you ski so hard when it’s not good for you?”

  She had wanted to spend time with him. That was the uncomfortable truth. Her heart squeezed. Too much about this man affected her. Pulled at her so strongly, she was now just a frayed mess of loose threads.

  “I won’t get another chance for a while. Make hay while the sun shines, right?”

  * *
*

  Cami’s wan smile and the way she avoided his gaze didn’t strike him as completely honest, but Dante didn’t know what to believe anymore. He shook his head and carried their coffee to the table in the lounge.

  She followed and sank onto the sofa, then picked up her mug, wrapping her hands around it. Her nail beds were white, and the tip of her nose red. He probably should have sent her into the bath, but he needed answers. He was still in shock after seeing Benito’s name attached to a letter dated a mere two years ago.

  “So.” He hitched his pant leg as he sat down across from her. “Explain.”

  “I—” The anxiety around her eyes increased. “I don’t know how. I thought I’d been paying you back all this time. Not from when we left Italy. I didn’t know what was going on then. Only what I told you before, that my parents kept us in the dark about a lot of it. I only knew we had to sell everything. My skis.” She tried to throw away the remark like it didn’t matter, but her voice thinned. The way her brow crinkled in a small flinch revealed how hard that had been for her.

  Judging by her passion for the sport, he could imagine what a stab in the heart it had been. Almost as lethal as when he’d realized his precious design work had been copied from his computer and given to his competitor.

  “I assumed later that Dad had made a lump sum payment to you, but I have no proof of that. Apparently, I don’t have proof of anything.” Her empty hand came up.

  If she’d been in a witness box and he in the jury, he couldn’t have picked apart her visage more thoroughly. The slant of her lashes, the color returning to her cheeks, the tension in her brow and the pull at the corners of her mouth.

  He searched meticulously for clues as to whether she was lying or telling the truth, half thinking he should have gone with his first instinct and let her ski away and out of his life once and for all. As she had walked out on their late lunch, he had told himself she wasn’t worth the head games. He was better than this. Smarter.

  But he hadn’t been able to resist glancing at the attachments she’d sent. The second he’d seen Benito’s name and the date, his brain had exploded. He’d gone after Cami only to see her skiing away on one leg. He hadn’t realized she’d cut down the beginner run until he was on the steepest one and couldn’t see her. He’d caught up to her at the bottom, but he’d been worried—sickly worried—when she took so long to show up.