“You are?” he asked, his expression skeptical.
Paige nodded and looked at Dante who looked … uncharacteristically amused. “Yes,” she said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“I … didn’t know,” Trevor said.
“I’m a private man,” Dante said. “When it suits me.”
“Apparently,” Trevor said, looking back at his computer screen.
“See you tomorrow,” Dante said. Trevor made a vague nod in acknowledgment.
Paige followed Dante to the elevator and stepped inside when the doors opened. “So … Trevor doesn’t seem thrilled,” she said. Really, she was surprised at the dynamic between Dante and his assistant. Dante was something of a fearsome figure in her mind, and the fact that Trevor hadn’t been fired on the spot for his obvious annoyance with the situation wasn’t exactly what she’d expected.
“Trevor is mad because he didn’t know,” Dante said. “Because he likes to know everything, and make sure it’s jotted down in my schedule at least six months in advance.”
“And you don’t mind that he was … upset?”
Dante frowned. “Why? Did you expect me to throw him from the thirtieth-floor window?”
“It was a possibility I hadn’t ruled out.”
“I’m not a tyrant.”
“No?” He gave her a hard stare. “Well, you fired Carl Johnson. For the baseball game,” she said.
“And it makes me a tyrant because I expect my employees to show up during work hours and earn the generous salaries I pay them?” he asked.
“Well … it was for his child’s T-ball game …”
“That meant nothing to anyone else in the meeting. It might have personally meant something to Carl, but not to anyone else. And if everyone was allowed to miss work anytime something seemed like it might take precedence for them personally, we would not be able to get anything done.”
“Well, what about when you have something in your personal life that requires attention.”
“I have neatly handled what might have been a dilemma by having no personal life,” he said, his tone hard.
“Oh. Well …”
“You expect me to be unreasonable because of what is written about me,” he said, “in spite of what you see in the office on a daily basis. Which only serves to prove the power of the media. And the fact that it’s time I manipulated it to my advantage.”
Her face burned. “I … suppose.” It was true. Dante was a hard man but, other than this morning, she’d never heard him raise his voice. As bosses went, he’d never been a bad one. But she’d always gotten an illicit thrill when he was around. A sense of something dark. And it was very likely the media was to blame.
“And you do read the stories they write about me,” he said, as if he was able to read her mind.
She pursed her lips. “Fine. I’ve read some of what’s been written about you.”
“Being a tyrant implies a lack of control, in my opinion, Paige. And it shows an attempt to claim it in a very base way. I have control over this company, of my business, in all situations, and I don’t have to raise my voice to get it.”
She cleared her throat and stared straight ahead at the closed elevator door. At their warped reflections in the gleaming metal. She came just past his shoulder, and that was in her killer heels. She looked … tiny. A bit awkward. And he looked … well, like Dante always looked. Dark and delicious, supremely masculine, completely not awkward and just a little frightening.
“You raised your voice when you were in my office,” she said, still looking at reflection Dante, and not actual Dante. Actual Dante was almost too handsome to look at directly, especially when standing so close to him.
He laughed, a short, one-note sound. “It was deserved in the situation, don’t you think?”
“Was it?”
“How would you have felt if the situations were reversed?”
“I don’t know. Look, are you serious about this?” she asked, turning to face him just as the doors to their floor slid open.
“I don’t joke very often, if at all,” he said.
“Well, that’s true. But in my experience when men say they want to date me, it can turn out to have been a cruel joke, so I’m thinking my boss agreeing to get engaged to me could be something along those same lines.”
“What is this?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, just … high school. You are planning on following through with this, right? Dante, if I get caught—committing fraud, basically—it might not just be Ana that I lose.”
“As previously stated, Paige, I do not joke. I am not joking now.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re helping me.”
“Because it helps me.”
He said it with such certainty, and no shame.
Paige sputtered. “In what regard?”
“People see me … well, as a tyrant. If not that, a corruptor of innocents, and perhaps, the personification of Charon, ready to lead people down the river Styx and into Hades.”
He said it lightly, with some amusement, though his expression stayed smooth. Paige laughed. “Uh, yes, well, I suppose that’s true.”
“Already there is speculation that you might manage to reform me. The idea of giving that impression … I find it intriguing. An interesting social experiment if nothing else, and one with the potential to improve business for me.”
“Of course you would also actually be helping me and Ana,” she pointed out.
He nodded once. “I don’t find that objectionable.”
She could have laughed. He said it so seriously, as if she might really think he would find helping others something vile. And he said it like that perception didn’t bother him.
“Okay. Good.” She continued on down the hall with him, on the way to the day care center that she’d come to be so grateful for.
She opened the door and sighed heavily when she saw Genevieve, the main caregiver, holding Ana. They were the last two there. “I’m so sorry,” she said, dumping her things on the counter and reaching for Ana.
Genevieve smiled. “No worries. She’s almost asleep again. She did scream a little bit when five rolled around and you weren’t here.”
Paige frowned, a sharp pain hitting her in the chest. Ana was only four months old, but she already knew Paige as her mother. There had been such few moments in Paige’s life when she’d been certain of something, where she hadn’t felt restless and on the verge of failure.
One of those moments was when she’d been hired to design the window displays for Colson’s. The other was when Shyla had placed Ana in Paige’s arms.
Can you take care of her?
She’d only meant for a moment. While she rested and tried to shake some of the chronic fatigue that came with having a newborn. But Shyla had lain down on their sofa for a nap that day and never woken up. And Paige was still taking care of Ana. Because she had to. Because she wanted to. Because she loved Ana more than her own life.
Genevieve transferred Ana and her blanket into Paige’s arms, and Paige pulled her daughter in close, her heart melting, her eyes stinging. She looked back at Dante, and she knew