He Wants It, He Gets It (Full Series)

by Kira Ward

  “Dante…” He broke the kiss and pulled Emma into his chest as Rainy’s voice brought them back to reality. “We need you in the sitting room,” she said.

  Emma felt Dante nod, felt tension in his arms as he wrapped them around her shoulders for a long second. Then he let her go and walked around her, leaving her standing alone in the dining room as he went off with Rainy.

  So much for that sense of security.

  Chapter 6

  Emma went for a walk early the next morning. There was a low fog over the back garden and the temperatures had plummeted during the night, leaving her wishing she had a heavier jacket than the thin cardigan-style jacket she’d brought. But the cold air was kind of refreshing, clearing her mind after last night’s fiasco.

  She went upstairs alone after Dante left her in the dining room, unable to face that room full of strangers after the humiliation that continued to burn for hours afterward. She couldn’t sleep despite the comfort of that impressive bed. She lay awake for hours, watching the numbers chase each other on the bedside clock. She tried to listen for Dante to come upstairs, but she couldn’t hear anything over the loud chatter of her thoughts.

  What was she doing there? What did Dante want from her? If she didn’t know any better, she would think he was jealous of her conversation with Drake. But Dante didn’t seem like the kind of man who felt emotions like jealousy. In fact, she wasn’t sure he felt any emotion at all. What kind of a man could ruin a woman’s life for defending herself? She had to keep reminding herself that Dante was the one who started all this, that he was the one who came after her. He was the monster here, not her. But it was getting harder and harder to hold on to that truth.

  She sat on a low bench that overlooked the cliffs, her heart still threatening to leap out of her chest each time she looked over that dangerous drop off. Her phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her jeans to discover that Sophie had finally answered the text she sent nearly fourteen hours ago. It just said basically the same thing Emma wrote, that she loved her and hoped she had fun. At least she seemed to be accepting the situation a little more willingly now.

  “It’s beautiful out here.” Dante came up from behind her—again—wrapped in a larger, heavier version of the leather jacket he’d been wearing the day before. He sat beside her and draped a cashmere blanket across her lap. “Beautiful, but cold.”

  “It is.”

  “One of the reasons I bought this place was because of this view. It’s wild and dangerous, but there’s a peacefulness about it, a reminder that beauty comes in all forms.”

  “Very profound.”

  “I thought so. I worked on it all the way out here.”

  Emma smiled as she knocked her shoulder into Dante. “Careful. I might start thinking you’re human.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  They were quiet for a minute, both of them staring over the cliff, lost in their separate thoughts. Emma found herself wondering what Dante was thinking. She imagined it had to do with his business, with the project he was working so hard to get approval on. She hadn’t heard a single person mention the phones last night, but she figured that was just part of the game. Everyone knew what they were there for. They didn’t need to talk it to death.

  “Did the house come with a name? Or is that something you did?”

  Dante smiled. “The name is something of a joke. My mother is old fashioned. She believes that a person should only make what he needs to survive and then give the rest of his money to people who could really use it. So, when I bought this place, she took one look at it and said, ‘Troppo lusso.’ Too much luxury. That’s why I named the house Casa Di Lusso, the house of luxury.”

  “You’re very close to your mother?”

  “I was, yes.”

  “Was?”

  “She died a few weeks ago. Pancreatic cancer.”

  “Oh, wow, I’m sorry.”

  Dante shrugged. “She’d tell you not to be sorry; she lived a good life.”

  “And what would you say?”

  “That I wish I’d gone home more. That I should have been more focused on family than my need to prove something to everyone.”

  It was very honest, what he said. She slid her hand into his and for a second he took it. He slid his fingers between hers and squeezed gently. But then he pulled away and stood.

  “The luncheon starts at noon, so you should probably go upstairs and change.”

  He walked away, moving along the edge of the cliff like Heathcliff on the moors. She watched him for a minute, wondering why he did things like that, why he admitted something that must have been a painful piece of self-revelation, and then shut himself off like he didn’t want anyone to know that he was a person with failings. It was frustrating. Every time she thought he was finally going to show her a side of his personality that she could fall for, he tucked and ran.

  ***

  “No heels today.”

  Emma smiled. “No heels. I thought I should be more sensible.”

  Drake nodded with an exaggeration of gravity. “That was probably a good choice.”

  Emma turned and looked over the room, feeling a little claustrophobic as she realized that at least another dozen people had arrived in the few minutes she had her back to the room, picking random chunks of fruit to fill her otherwise empty plate. Dante, of course, was in the middle of it all, entertaining some bald man with a trophy wife on his arm. She could see the irritation on his face despite the fake smile and polite body language. She really was getting to know him a little too well.

  “He’s doing well, convincing everyone that he’s not the monster they all think he is.”

  “Who?”

  “Dante.” Drake gestured with the mimosa flute he was holding. “That’s why he arranged this weekend. To prove to the stockholders that they shouldn’t oust him as CEO.”

  “They want to fire him?”

  “It would be more of an early retirement, but yes. He’s made quite a few mistakes in the last year or so, and they were just compounded by the unpleasantness that happened at the tech expo.”

  “I thought this weekend was to convince the stockholders to continue with the smartphone project.”

  “That’s part of it. If Dante’s ousted, so is his pet project. The stockholders feel that it might be better to go in a different direction. Dante is adamant that the future is in technology rather than some of our other, more lucrative interests, such as real estate, software, finance.”

  “But it’s his company.”

  “It was. But when he went public, and gave up the majority of his stocks, it became the stockholders’ company with the majority stockholder as the deciding vote.”

  “And who’s that?”

  Drake took a sip of his drink before gesturing at his chest. “That would be me. Or, more precisely, my father’s company.”

  “And if you don’t want Dante to stay…”

  “He’s out.”

  Emma suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She had no idea. She suddenly saw Dante in a new light. She wanted to think of him as a monster, but the more she learned about him, the more human he became. She wasn’t the only one with problems. Everyone had problems, some just had them on a much bigger scale than others.

  “There’s something I should tell you,” Emma said, touching Drake’s arm lightly. “Could we find somewhere private to talk?”

  Drake’s eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze moved to Dante before resting on her again. “Of course,” he finally said, gesturing for her to follow him. They slipped out of the sitting room and down a long hallway that led to the library, a large room with rows and rows of books carefully organized on heavy walnut shelves. As soon as Drake closed the door, Emma launched into an explanation of the banner that ruined Dante’s announcement.

  “He’s making it right,” she said after explaining how Leslie and her friends managed to get the banner in place before the presentation. “He�
��s allowing all the tenants to move into another building, a building that’s up to code and in much better condition.”

  Drake listened without interfering, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against a desk pushed into one corner of the room. When she finally stopped talking, he studied the floor like there was something written there that desperately needed his attention.

  “The only thing I don’t understand,” he said finally, “is why he bought your apartment building in the first place.”

  Emma shrugged. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

  “I’m sure he does. But the thing is, he has a history of buying up businesses and homes in order to evict the people living or working in them. There was a family in New York, he bought their bakery out from under them and then purchased their apartment building so that he could evict them. The same thing happened in Boston, he bought a whole neighborhood of houses and demolished them for the simple purpose of leaving one man homeless.”

  “I doubt that was the only reason.”

  “It’s a fact, Emma. Dante doesn’t deny it. But he also won’t apologize for his actions or even attempt to justify them in any way.”

  “I don’t know.” Emma held up her hands in a gesture of defeat. “I don’t know what to tell you. But I couldn’t let you oust him from his own company because of a stupid prank I pulled. He’s trying to make this right. Isn’t that enough to show that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone?”

  “It’s not about hurting people. It’s about the need for a stable, reliable head for this company. It’s about having someone in charge who has the best interests of the company and its stockholders in mind.”

  “What makes you think that person isn’t Dante?”

  “Because he puts the company at risk every time he uses his influence to hurt people.”

  “But he’s not hurting people this time. He’s making their lives easier.”

  “According to you.”

  “According to the people who are about to get a new home in a safer building.”

  Drake nodded. “Okay, Emma. I get your point. But this is not an easy decision to make, and it’s going to take a lot more to convince me that Dante isn’t going to put DJC in danger.”

  Drake left a minute later. Emma curled up on one of the couches, wondering if she’d done more damage than she’d repaired. Was it true that Dante had done this before? Rainy hinted at it, but Emma had never really thought about it. And if he had, did he really deserve to be saved from this situation? She wasn’t sure. But something deep inside told her that Dante deserved to keep his company. There was more to his story than what she knew. No one could be as cold and filled with anger as all that, could they?

  Chapter 7

  There was another dress waiting for Emma when she went upstairs to change for dinner. This one was black, backless, and dangerously short for her modest style. She showered before putting it on, relishing the feel of the silky material against her skin. She pinned her hair up, a nice French knot with just a few curly tendrils falling around her face. She wondered what Sophie would say if she could see her now. She’d probably have something snarky to say that would undermine Emma’s confidence. But she missed her sister and would have put up with it just the same.

  The bottom of the black pumps that were waiting with the dress were scuffed up, like someone had taken sandpaper to them to prevent her from slipping. She walked into the sitting room with a smile glued to her lips, relieved to see the luncheon crowd had been pared down by at least half. Dante was standing at the far side of the room in a tuxedo that made him look taller, his shoulders broader, than any of the dark suits he favored. He was talking to another of the many guests when she spotted him, but he seemed to sense her gaze on him. He looked up and there was a brief moment when she thought he appreciated the way the short dress clung to her curves. But then it was like a mask fell over his face, making his expression completely unreadable.

  She made her way through the room toward him, hoping he would take her under his wing during this most tedious part of the evening as he had the night before. But Rainy grabbed her while she was still four or five couples from Dante.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed in Emma’s ear.

  “Joining the party.”

  “I mean with Drake. Everyone saw you leave the luncheon this afternoon. Do you really think it’s going to help Dante’s cause if you go running off with his biggest adversary?”

  “I was just trying to help.”

  “If that’s your idea of help, I suggest you stop.”

  “Is this coming from you, or Dante?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Why did you lie to me about this thing? Why did you tell me it was about some smartphone project?”

  Confusion played a little game in Rainy’s eyes before she insisted, “It is about the project.”

  “That’s not what Drake told me.”

  “I don’t really care what Drake told you. You need to stay away from him.”

  “So you’re not going to move around the place cards tonight?”

  Guilt immediately flashed across Rainy’s face, proving what Emma had only suspected.

  “I see the way you look at him,” she said, moving closer to Rainy. “I know you have feelings for him. But playing these little, juvenile games is not going to win him over. He’s too smart for that.”

  Rainy opened her mouth to argue, but quickly snapped it shut again. Emma could feel her eyes on her back as she made her way across the room to Dante’s side. And there was something more than frustration in her eyes when Emma slid her hand into Dante’s and he pressed his fingers between hers.

  As much as it seemed a victory to Rainy, it wasn’t. Dante barely spoke to Emma the rest of the evening despite keeping her by his side from the moment their fingers touched until the last of the guests left. She learned more about investments and real estate and luxury cars than she would ever want to know, and she felt like the blonds hanging off of the older executives’ arms. She was just an ornament there to please the eye and nothing more.

  The second they were alone, Emma slipped around Dante and headed for the stairs.

  “There’s a car waiting if you want to go to his hotel.”

  “Who’s hotel?”

  “Drake Foster.”

  Emma spun on her heel just in time to watch Dante drown an entire tumbler of brandy. “You’re full of crap, you know that? You drag me out here to tell these people that you’re a nice guy, that you didn’t really mean to evict an entire apartment building of people, but then you get angry with me when I do exactly what you want.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that you disappeared all afternoon with Drake, and that’s all you were doing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why would I believe that?”

  “Because it’s the truth? That seems like a really good reason.”

  He poured another tumbler of brandy, filling it all the way to the rim, but he didn’t lift it to his lips. Instead, he stared at her through narrowed eyes. “What did he tell you about me? Did he tell you that this isn’t the first time I’ve done something like buy an apartment building to evict a single person? Did he tell you that I like to target people with the sole purpose of ruining their lives?”

  “What if he did?”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore, Dante. Everyone around me seems to be telling me half-truths or outright lying to me half the time. You tell me I’m here to convince the press that you’re not a bad guy. Rainy says you organized this to save your smartphone line. And Drake tells me that you’re about to be kicked out of your own company because of these stupid, petty, vindictive things you’ve been doing.”

  Dante nodded, lifting the tumbler carefully and again drained it in one long swallow. He set the glass down and began to fill it again, but Emma stormed over and snatched the bottle out of his hand.

  “This is not g
oing to fix anything,” she said.

  “But it helps.”

  Emma shoved the bottle back into its proper place behind the narrow bar and tossed the tumbler into the small, stainless steel sink hard enough to shatter it.

  “I don’t need this,” she said. “I don’t need a man like you in my life, a man who spends all his time feeling sorry for himself and punishing other people for his own personality faults. I don’t need to be away from my sister a week after she was released from the hospital, away from my studies and my job and my efforts to make a better life for myself. And I definitely don’t need to be here fighting for a man who can’t even fight for himself.”

  She pushed past him and headed for the stairs, actually making it halfway up before he grabbed her. She spun around, her hand raised to fight him off. But then…there was something in his eyes that made the hot air leak out of her sails.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should have lashed out at you. I never should have treated you the way I did in that diner, never should have retaliated the way I did. I’m a stupid, angry man who thinks he knows everything when, really, I know absolutely nothing. I’ve learned more in these last few weeks, in knowing you, than I have in a lifetime. And the fact that you would fight for me, that you would defend me to someone like Drake Foster…it’s impossible to wrap my mind around, because no one has ever done anything like that for me before.”

  She reached up and ran her hand slowly over the side of his face, the roughness of his slowly emerging beard an erotic tickle on the palm of her hand. “I don’t believe that.”

  “You are like no one I’ve ever known. After what I did to you, you came here, you spoke to Drake. I don’t deserve that.”

  “I just wanted to do what’s right.”

  “And how do you know that was it?”

  Emma slid her hand into his hair and tugged him close to her. Their lips brushed, and her heart seemed to stop for an instant. She moved closer, drew him in closer, and was about to indulge in the hard, passionate kiss she’d been thinking about all day when he suddenly pulled away from her.