by Kira Ward
If Dante had wanted to ruin her life, he’d done a very good job of it.
“Do you want to know what the stockholders decided?”
Emma glanced at Drake. “Did they let him go?”
“No. In fact, they’ve extended his contract another four years.”
She reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Good.”
“Good? I thought you’d be thrilled.”
“Yeah, well, things are complicated between Dante and me right now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been playing at a game whose rules I didn’t understand.”
Drake’s eyebrows rose. He clearly wanted to know more, but he was gentleman enough not to ask. Instead, he changed the subject.
“I heard a rumor that you’re in medical school.”
“No. I’m premed at Texas Tech.”
Drake studied her from behind hooded eyes. “That would make you, what, twenty?”
A blush burned her cheeks and she wasn’t quite sure why. “Closer to twenty-five…on my next birthday, anyway. I had a bit of a late start.”
“Do you mind if I ask why?”
Emma pressed her hands against her thighs, watching as they slowly slid from the tension with which she pressed them. A slow sigh escaped her lips. She hated talking about her past—she rarely did it, especially with strangers. But there was something about Drake that made her want to trust him.
“My home situation wasn’t the best. My mother was not the kind of woman who was suited to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. She drank and that led to other behaviors that eventually caused my father to wash his hands of the situation and walk away. My mother—let’s just say that alcohol stopped doing it for her and things got darker. I ran away at sixteen, went back a month later for my sister. But she wouldn’t let me take her…so I stuck around, trying to protect her as much as I could. And then, three years ago, my mother was arrested when the cops busted the prostitution ring she was running with a couple of other women. I got custody of Sophie and the rest…”
There was sympathy in Drake’s blue eyes. He was the total opposite of Dante. Light hair and dark eyes where Dante had black hair and green eyes. Drake smiled easily where getting a smile out of Dante almost took an act of congress. And Drake was sympathetic where Dante was almost always judgmental.
Why couldn’t she fall for a guy like Drake?
“You’ve been through a lot in your young life.”
“A lot of people have,” she said, shrugging off what sounded almost like a compliment. “I’m no different from anyone else.”
“But you are. You survived.”
Emma nodded, her thoughts returning to her current plight. She did survive. She survived the abuse—both physical and mental—that her mother dealt her, survived the times when her mother’s ‘friends’ forgot why they’d come to the house, survived the times her mother went out drinking and forgot to come home for days at a time, leaving Emma with a baby and no food.
The thing was, though, she was tired of surviving.
Chapter 3
“You’re ignoring my calls.”
Emma tried not to hear him. She walked with her eyes on the sidewalk ahead of her, pretending there wasn’t a large man in a very large car—a luxury car that was such a rare sight on her side of town that people were staring—riding along the curb beside her. It was childish, really, but she was kind of hoping that if she ignored him long enough, he’d just disappear.
“Emma, we need to talk.”
It wasn’t his words—she really didn’t care what he wanted—but the sight of Sophie coming toward them from the other end of the block that finally made her acknowledge him.
“I really don’t want to talk to you.”
Dante stopped his car and leaned toward the passenger side window. “I understand that. But we had a deal, and I can’t fulfill my end of it unless I have your help.”
Hope suddenly fluttered in Emma’s chest. “What are you talking about?”
“The building,” he said, gesturing toward her apartment building set just half a block from where she stood. “You kept up your end of the bargain. Now I want to keep up mine, but I need your help dealing with the tenants.”
“But I left early.”
He inclined his head slightly, his eyes clouding slightly with mention of her abrupt departure from his house in Maine. “Yes. However, you somehow managed to convince Drake to let me keep my position as CEO. And that was our deal.”
Emma glanced back down the street just in time to see Sophie offer a brief wave before her and her friend, Jill, disappeared into their building.
“You’re going to let them stay?”
“I’m going to let them move into the other building. But with the eviction notices my company sent out, none of the tenants are willing to talk to me, or anyone associated with me. But they would probably talk to you.”
Emma rested her arms on the window frame and squatted so that she could see Dante without having to bend over. He looked so achingly familiar to her that she wanted to reach inside and run her finger over the square angle of his jaw. He was wearing a suit, as he had nearly every time she’d seen him, but the tie was loose and his jacket was missing. It gave him a hint of vulnerability that made something loosen deep in her belly.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Have dinner with me.”
Emma immediately pushed away from the car and began walking toward her building again. In a flash, Dante was behind her, pulling her back. She jerked free of his touch, but she stopped, afraid he would only grab her again.
“A business dinner,” he said. “You can even bring Sophie, if you want.”
“Like I would expose my baby sister to someone like you.”
Hurt flashed in Dante’s eyes. His jaw flexed and his muscle that liked to pop and jerk when he was angry. But he didn’t act on it.
“It’s not as simple as it seems. I want to explain what’s going to happen,” he said slowly, carefully, “so that you can help explain it to the tenants.”
She wrapped her arms over her chest, waiting for the indignation, for his pride to flare and cause him to say something he couldn’t take back. But he had nothing more to say.
She was mildly impressed by his control.
She leaned back against the wall, a million thoughts racing through her mind as she tried hard not to look at him. She really didn’t want to spend any time alone with him, not here on the street and not in a crowded restaurant. But she wanted those people—the innocent tenants of her apartment building who got caught up in his attempt at revenge—to have the security that a six year lease would offer them.
If that’s was what she had to do…
“Did you listen to any of my messages?”
Emma looked up, trying not to feel anything for him even as his voice conveyed a regret that was so much more than that of a playboy who simply got caught.
There were dozens of messages over the last week—both text and voicemail. Two or three an hour, at first. Then they dwindled to ten, fifteen a day. Then to five or six. She listened to a couple at the beginning, heard the desperation in his voice when he begged her to call back. But then he tried to explain himself—something about a marriage of convenience, about a favor for his mother—and she stopped listening to them. She just deleted them the moment he left them.
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I just want these people’s homes saved. Then I want you out of my life.”
He moved closer to her, resting his arm on the wall over her shoulder even as she slid over a few inches. He didn’t follow, just stared at the ground for a minute. Then his eyes came up to hers.
“I never meant for this to happen. I didn’t know Faustina was going to show up at the house. If I had, I would have told you.”
“What would you have told me? That I’d wasted my time thinking there was some shred of humanity insi
de of you? That you could possibly see past your own nose long enough to see what you do to the people you steamroll? That a cup of coffee thrown in your face was really worth everything you’ve done to me?” She shook her head. “It wasn’t enough for you to take my ability to provide for myself and my sister, for you to take our home. You had to take my dignity, my ability to trust. You had to take the few things about me that survived my—“
She stopped, aware she was about to reveal something about herself that had been so easy for her to tell Drake, but which would be like giving up the final piece of her soul if she revealed it to Dante.
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“Like buying the diner wasn’t intentional? Like evicting all those people just to hurt me wasn’t intentional?” She shook her head, tears burning her eyes. “Did you think that I wouldn’t find out about the other people you did this to? That I wouldn’t find out what kind of a man you really are?”
Dante’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been talking to Drake.”
“At least he’s honest with me.”
“Is he? That would certainly be a first.”
That was about all she could take. She stepped around him and resumed her walk home.
“What about dinner?” he called after her.
Emma was going to continue walking, was going to ignore him again. But then she spotted Mrs. Remy standing at her kitchen window, watching over the street from her quiet apartment. She was a sweet old woman with no family, no money, no place to go. A few secure years in a safe apartment would probably see her through the end of her life. But if she had to leave now…
“Eight,” she said over her shoulder. “Somewhere family friendly. Sophie’s got a friend over, and I promised something Italian.”
“So, you’re going to let her join us?”
“Like I’d want to be alone with you.”
She began walking again, trying to pretend that she didn’t hear his pleased chuckle.
Chapter 4
Loud music greeted Emma as she pushed her way into her apartment. She could hear Sophie and Jill laughing about something in Sophie’s bedroom…at least someone was having a good time.
She sifted through the mail as she helped herself to a bottle of water from the fridge. Mostly bills—quite a few bills she probably wouldn’t be able to pay on time—and a few circulars. But then there was a heavy, manila envelope at the bottom of the pile. The return address was the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The sight of it made Emma’s heart do a little twist. She took it into her bedroom before she opened it. The last thing she needed was for Sophie to see it before she knew what the envelope contained.
“This letter is to inform you,” it began.
That was never good.
Emma sank onto the end of her bed. They were letting her out. Her mother was supposed to serve ten years, but they were letting her out after barely two years—plus the year she was in jail before and during the trial—like that was long enough to rehabilitate her or whatever jail was supposed to do.
Two weeks. She was getting out in two weeks.
Emma began to pace, thinking about Sophie. Their mother had never treated Sophie the way she did Emma. Sophie was a little princess, innocent in every way. But Emma was the spawn of the man her mother saw as her downfall. Sophie didn’t know all the things Emma knew.
What if that woman came back and wanted to see Sophie? How was Emma supposed to protect her, especially now, especially with the diabetes?
Emma cursed under her breath, her thoughts going places she had thought they wouldn’t need to go this soon. She had assumed Sophie would be of legal age when their mother was released from prison—the district attorney had practically promised. And now—
“Hey, Emma?”
She looked up, surprised to find Sophie had come into the room, Jill not far behind her.
“Hey.” Emma rubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand, surprised to find tears there. “What’s going on?”
“We were wondering what’s for dinner.”
And that opened a whole new can of worms.
***
He changed before he picked them up. He looked…why was it that he looked hot in just about everything he put on? Emma imagined he would look hot in a dress, but she much preferred him in the graphic tee and jeans that he was wearing now. The shirt stretched over his chest in a way that reminded her of how nice it had been to run her fingers slowly over his bare skin.
And that pissed her off.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Jill asked the moment they took their seats at the Italian restaurant he’d brought them to, Jill and Sophie on one side, Emma reluctantly Dante’s side.
Dante’s eyes moved over Emma before he focused on her. “No, I don’t.”
“He’s married,” Emma announced.
“Oh.” Sophie and Jill exchanged a glance that was clearly inspired by disappointment.
“Temporarily,” Dante clarified. “We actually just filed for a divorce.”
Sophie perked up as Jill elbowed her in the ribs. “Really? Why?”
Dante’s eyes skimmed over Emma again before he shrugged. “She fell in love. She wants to marry someone else.”
“Wow, that sucks,” Jill said. “If I had a husband like you, I’d never look at another man.”
Dante chuckled, a little color rushing up his neck. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t like that with Faustina and me. It was a marriage of convenience. I was trying to help out a friend.”
“I thought we were here to talk business,” Emma said, not really in the mood to hear him make up stories to cover his lies.
But Jill and Sophie were so into him that she might as well have not spoken.
“What do you mean?” Jill asked him. “What’s a marriage of convenience?”
“Faustina comes from the same village in Italy where my parents are from. Her mother was my mother’s very best friend when they were little girls. So, when Faustina got herself into a little trouble about six or seven years ago, my mother arranged for her to come here. But then there were some legal problems—something about her work visa.”
“They were going to deport her?” Sophie asked, outrage dripping from her words. Emma rolled her eyes. They’d never even met Faustina. How could they care one way or the other what might or might not have happened to her?
Dante nodded slowly, leaning forward a little to add drama to his next words. “She would have had to go back to the same trouble that caused her to leave in the first place. And her mother wasn’t there anymore. Faustina would have been all alone with nowhere to go.”
“Oh no,” Sophie and Jill sighed at the same time.
Emma picked up her menu and hid behind it, trying not to say anything she might regret later. But this really was quite annoying. Dante was making himself out to be some sort of hero and that was about as far from the truth as anything Emma could think of at the moment.
“My mother called me—I was working in California at the time—and asked me if I could do anything to help Faustina. But after consulting a lawyer, I learned that the only thing that could fix her situation was if she married an American. And of course, my mother already knew that. She had the priest all lined up by the time I called her back to explain things to her.”
“Wow, that’s so cool,” Jill said. “You saved her life.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dante said, settling back in his chair. “But she’s made a good life here. She helps my father run the family bakery in New York. That’s where she met her fiancé. He’s the head baker my father hired a few years ago when my mother got sick.”
The waiter arrived with a basket of breadsticks, drinks, and finished collecting their meal order. After everyone made their selections and the waiter had walked away, Emma had nothing to do with her hands. She pressed them against the tops of her thighs to keep them from shaking, but they slid over the slick material of her linen skirt.
Jill leaned over to Sophie and whispered som
ething before both girls turned and looked at Dante. It was pretty obvious he was the topic of their discussion. It was also obvious they were both falling head of heels for him. If only they knew…
“Your family owns a bakery?” Jill asked. “Like that guy on the TV, The Cake Boss?”
Dante inclined his head slightly. “They don’t do cakes quite like he does, but they sell a pretty impressive cupcake.”
Sophie smiled. Cupcakes were her favorite indulgence.
“Must have been cool, growing up around all that stuff all the time,” she said.
Dante tilted his head slightly, his eyes again falling over Emma before he focused on Sophie. “It had its moments. All the neighborhood kids wanted to be my friend because my mother would give them free cookies at the end of the day. But not so much fun when my parents made me work there every Saturday afternoon while the other kids were at the movies or playing in the park.”
“How come you don’t work there now?” Jill wanted to know.
Dante shrugged. “I wanted an education, a different path. And my father supported that.”
Jill and Sophie exchanged glances. Silence fell for a moment. Emma was grateful, hoping that the girls had finally fulfilled their curiosity. But then Sophie was staring at him again, that look in her eye that Emma recognized. Her sister was far from done with the questions.
“There’s a claw machine in the lobby,” Emma said. “Why don’t you girls go try your luck?”
She might as well have said they should give up their cellphones and run around the restaurant in their underwear for the way they looked at her.
She’d tried.
“It’s kind of cool, though,” Jill said, “that the bakery is still around after all this time.”
“Yes. Thirty-five years it’s been there, still in the same building my father bought when he first came to America.”
“You would think some commercial bakery would have pushed it out by now,” Emma said, a little more viciously than she’d intended.
