Paige had the added benefit of being forbidden fruit, another thing that had never appealed to him before, but he could certainly understand why it might.
“Ana’s room is here,” he said, redirecting his thoughts, indicating a door on the left. As he pushed it open, a strange flash of anxiety ran through him. It was unfamiliar. Completely different than it had been that morning when he’d left for work. It gave him a strange sense of being back in his childhood. Opening the door to a new bedroom for the first time, seeing what was there.
Whether it would be spare, or crowded. Clean or dirty. Nothing that belonged to him.
The space that had been organized for Ana was immaculate.
Plain white walls and a double bed had been replaced with an ornate, dark wood crib with pink bedding and a mobile hanging over it. There was a rocking chair, a matching dresser and a closet filled with pink clothes.
“Oh.” Behind him Paige made a little noise. Then she brushed past him and into the room. “Ana, look. It’s your very own room.”
His chest seized up tight, his breath locking in his lungs. The light in Paige’s eyes as she presented Ana with a space that belonged to her was … he had never seen anything like it. All of Paige’s unruly enthusiasm was, in this moment, focused on her daughter.
How anyone could doubt that she would be a good mother was beyond him. It was hard for him to remember his birth mother, hard because thinking about her always dredged up other memories that he wanted to keep firmly locked behind a closed door in his mind.
Mary Colson, his adoptive mother, had been a firm and constant presence. Both she and Don had invested in him, into his education, into guiding him, putting him on a path that would lead to success. He was grateful to them, and their distant, tough sort of parenting had been ideal for him.
But for a moment, he wondered if anyone had ever looked at him the way Paige was looking at Ana.
It didn’t matter. He closed the door on the yawning, empty well inside of him. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need obvious displays of emotion. Far from it, he avoided them if at all possible. And being around Paige didn’t seem to allow for that. She was constant bubbling energy, and emotion. And glitter.
“Thank you,” she said, her blue eyes bright.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, trying to find some way to loosen the knot in his chest. “You’re here under false pretenses, due to a situation of your own making. And it’s hardly permanent, so don’t get too attached.”
She blinked, a flash of genuine pain visible on her face. So open. So real. Did the woman have no sense? Had she no defenses at all? “Okay, I … I mean I know that, but this is beautiful and I just got really excited and I didn’t mean anything by it.” All of her words ran together, coming faster as she rambled, the tension she was feeling palpable. She projected her feelings. So strongly he felt like he was being hit with a wall.
“Relax, Paige,” he said. “Take a breath.”
She snapped her mouth closed, her eyes still pooling with confused emotion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the word foreign on his tongue.
Almost instantly, the tension left her, her face brightening. “It’s awkward. For everyone. I know. I’m not picking out china patterns or anything, I’m just … making the best of things. Making the best of living in a mansion by the sea, which, I admit, is not so hard.”
“You may not be so optimistic when you hear what I have to say next,” he said.
“You’re putting me on a hide-a-bed. No, my window has an ocean view, but the beach is a nude beach. Or maybe …”
“You’re going to have to at least appear to be sharing a room with me.”
“Say what?”
“Come now, Paige, are you so naive? If we’ve moved in together, we’ll obviously be sharing a room. A bed.”
Paige bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know about that. What about good, traditional values?”
“Does anyone have them these days?”
“My social worker, it seems. Since she was so concerned about Ana having a mom and dad.”
“Which means she needs to be confident that that is indeed what Ana is getting. And my staff needs to believe it, as well. The last thing I need is for someone to slip up and make a comment that winds up in the paper. I’m not being dragged into a public farce. A private farce, it seems, is unavoidable, but I will not be humiliated in a public forum.”
“That’s not my intent,” she said. “But hey, as long as I don’t actually have to sleep with you, I’m okay with having to dig through your closet to find my clothes.”
He wasn’t. He’d never lived with a woman before, had never had feminine things mingling in with his suits. His space was highly prized and this element of their arrangement didn’t sit well with him.
But while she was comfortable with her things being put anywhere, there was clearly one area that made her uncomfortable. And he had the uncontrollable urge to push at her, just a little.
“You’re the first woman I’ve ever encountered who was so opposed to sleeping with me she had to remark on it every couple of days.”
He was rewarded by the flood of color that bled into her cheeks. “That’s not … I’m just clarifying …”
“One might think,” he said, taking a step closer to her, “that you protest too much.”
She pulled Ana in tighter to her chest, a tiny, living shield. “Hey now, that is not true. I protest just enough for a woman who isn’t interested in having a … a fling with a playboy.”
“Playboy,” he said. “Such a strange label, and not one I’ve ever felt applied to me.”
“You change lovers often enough.”
“The dates I go to events with are not my lovers. I am very discreet with my lovers. And selective.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, then, I doubt I have anything to worry about. If you’re as selective as you say, I mean.”
Paige felt like melting beneath Dante’s intense, dark gaze. She didn’t know what had possessed her to bait him like that. To tempt him to say something derogatory about her appeal. She was aware of how far short she fell when it came to sexual allure.
The problem was, it wasn’t looks, not specifically. It wasn’t the way she dressed. She’d actually managed to score dates since moving to San Diego; it was just that … when they got that serious look, like they might miss her, she sort of freaked out. The idea of failing again, with someone new, was too painful. The thought of wanting someone who wouldn’t really end up wanting her … she hadn’t been willing to take the risk.
Which was why she really hadn’t bothered with dates for a long time. Getting herself sorted out was her top priority after all. Finding her way. And anyway, she didn’t need a hundred guys. She only needed the one right guy. And she was certain that one right guy would look nothing like Dante Romani.
Which was fine. Looks weren’t everything after all. The guy didn’t have to have a square jaw, and golden skin. Or a broad chest with incredible muscles that could not be hidden by the dress shirts he wore. He didn’t have to look like the essence of temptation wrapped in a custom suit. No. There were much more important things than that.
Like … way more.
She was sure of it.
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
Something