A slight lie. It had a lot to do with the fact that he was much better looking than any man had a right to be. And she had to go in to work in the same building as he did, and chance walking by him in the halls. Being exposed to all that male beauty was a hazard.
So, yes, there were times she thought of him away from work. In fairness, he was the best-looking man she’d ever encountered in her entire life, and she was in a dating dry spell of epic proportions, which meant, pleasant time with images of Dante was about all she had going on in her love life.
And she saw the man all the time, and that made things worse.
As a result of the exposure, when pressed for the name of her fiancé by Rebecca Addler, the only man she’d been able to picture had been Dante. And so his name had sort of spilled out.
Another gaffe in a long line of them for her. When it came to “oops,” she was well above average.
So there, newspaper reporter.
One of his dark eyebrows shot upward. “I’m flattered.”
She put her hand on her forehead. “There is no way for me to win trying to explain this,” she said. “It’s just awkward. But … but … I don’t really know what to do now. It wasn’t supposed to be in the paper, and now it is, and if it turns out we aren’t engaged they’ll know that I lied and then …”
“And then you’ll be a single mother who is also a liar. Two strikes, I would think.” His tone was so disengaged, so unfeeling.
She swallowed. “Well, exactly.”
He was right. Two strikes. If not a plain old strikeout. It wasn’t an acceptable risk. Not where Ana was concerned. Ana, the brightest spot in her life. Her helpless little girl, the baby she loved more than her own life. There was nothing and no one else she would even consider stooping to this level of subterfuge for, nothing else that could possibly compel her to do what she was starting to think she had to do: propose to her boss.
The man who practically stole the air from her lungs when he walked into a room. The man who was so far out of her league, even thinking of a dinner date with him was laughable.
But this was bigger than that. Bigger than a little crush or her insecurity. Her fear of outright rejection.
“I … I think I need your help.”
There was no change in his expression. Dante Romani was impossible to read, but then, that wasn’t really new. He was the dark prince of the Colson empire, the adopted son of Don and Mary Colson. The media speculated that they’d adopted him because he’d shown profound brilliance at an early age. No one imagined it had been his personality that had won over the older couple.
She’d always thought those stories were sad and unfair. Now she wondered. Wondered if he was as heartless as he was portrayed to be. She really hoped he wasn’t, because she was going to need him to care at least a little bit in order to pull this off.
“I’m not in the position to give this kind of help,” he said, his tone dry.
“Why?” she asked, pushing herself into a standing position. “Why not? I … I don’t need you forever, I just need …”
“You need me to marry you. I think that’s a step too far into crazy town, don’t you?”
“For my daughter,” she said, the words raw, loud and echoing in the room. And now that she’d said them, out loud, she didn’t regret them. She would do anything for Ana. Even this. Even if it meant getting thrown out of the office building.
Because for the first time in her memory, something mattered. It mattered more than self-protection or fending off disappointment. It was worth the possibility of adding to her list of failures.
“She’s not your daughter,” he said.
She gritted her teeth, trying to keep a handle on the adrenaline that was pounding through her, making her shake. “Blood isn’t everything. I would think you would understand that.” Probably not the best idea to be taking shots at him, but it was true. He should understand.
He regarded her for a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I will not fire you. For now. But I will require further explanation. An explanation that makes sense. What do you have on your agenda for the day?”
“I’m working on Christmas,” she said, indicating the array of decorations spread out in the room. “For Colson’s and for Trinka.” She was working on a series of elegant displays for the parent store, and for their offshoot, teen clothing store, something mod and edgy.
“You’ll be in the office?”
She nodded. “Just fiddling today.”
“Good. Don’t leave until we’ve spoken again.” He turned and walked out of her office and she sank to her knees, her hands shaking, her entire body wound so tight she wanted to curl in on herself.
She was so stupid. Nothing new. She’d spoken without thinking. As per usual. Only this time it had landed her in serious trouble, with the man who signed her checks.
Everything was in his hands now. Her future. Her family. Her money.
“Time to learn to think before you talk,” she said into the empty office. Unfortunately, it was too late for that. Way, way too late.
Dante finished with the last item of work on his agenda and turned to his file cabinet, placing the last document on his desk into its appropriate spot. Then he put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, staring at the newspaper on the shining surface.
He’d studied the news story again when he’d come back into his office. A scathing piece on how the impostor of the Colson family moved people around like pawns on a chessboard. It was stacked with details about the man, Carl Johnson, he’d fired last week for skipping out on an important meeting to go to a child’s sporting event.
The press had covered it a week ago, too, since Carl had gone screaming to the papers over discrimination of some kind. In Dante’s mind, it wasn’t discrimination to expect an employee to attend mandatory meetings, no matter whether it was the last game of a five-year-old’s T-ball season or not.
Still, it had been another of those juicy bits the media had latched on to to further stack the case against him and his possession of human decency. It generally didn’t matter to him.
But one thing in that article stood out to him: Can she reform him?
Could Paige Harper reform him? The idea amused him. He had the bare minimum of contact with her. She did her job, and she did it well, so he never had a reason to involve himself. But he had noticed her. Impossible not to. She was a blur of shimmer when she moved around the office. Boundless energy and a sense of the accidental radiated from her.
He would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by her. She was a window into so many things he would never seek out: chaos, color, motion. So many things he would never be. Combined with the fact that she had a figure most men would be hard-pressed to ignore, and yes, he was intrigued by her.
But no matter how intrigued, she simply wasn’t the sort of woman he would normally approach. Until this.
“Can this thoroughly average woman reform the soulless CEO?”
He had no desire to take part in a reformation, but the idea of an image overhaul in the media? That had possibilities.
He could have demanded a retraction the moment he’d walked in that morning. Or he could let it run. Let them build off the image they’d created for him when he’d been thrust into the spotlight. A fourteen-year-old boy, adopted, finally, and suspected