Rose wasn’t exactly an outside girl. She preferred the city to the country, and the last time she’d let Sasha and Anya convince her to travel to Colorado to go skiing, she’d nearly broken her body on the bunny hill. She’d spent the rest of the trip at the bar, falling deeply into lust with a beautiful blond named Natalie. It was time much better spent, in her opinion.
Rose leaned down and pressed a hand to the deep, overstuffed couch. It was plenty long enough for her to lay on and stretch out. It would hardly be termed roughing it by sleeping on the couch, even though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept somewhere that wasn’t a bed. Maybe Lorelei’s twenty-first birthday last year when they’d all drank too much tequila and ended up passing out in the bathroom while Lorelei puked her guts up. Sleeping in the tub had left a spasm in Rose’s neck for a week. The couch had to be better than that. Hopefully.
She glanced at the windows. Once darkness fell, anyone outside might as well have a spotlight on her in the living room. And it would be dark, not like night in New York, where there were always lights, sounds, people moving about, no matter the hour. She shivered. She really should have reconsidered all those horror movie marathons with Anya and Lorelei.
“Rosa.”
She didn’t jump, but it was a near thing. When she got back home, she was definitely avoiding the scary movies. She dragged in a deep breath and turned to face her captor. “For the last time, that’s not my name.”
The man had no right to look so good. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, showing off his strong, lean body. He hadn’t even dried himself properly, and she couldn’t help watching a drip of water slide down the center of his chest between his pecs, down…down…down….
Rose jerked her gaze to his face. There was no relief for her there, though. Common consensus seemed to be that when people shaved off their beards, they lost a large percentage of their attractiveness. The same could not be said for Dante. Without his beard to soften his features, there was no hiding the perfection of his face. Someone looking at him from a distance might think he was too pretty, but the aura of danger that coated him like a second skin turned that pretty into a weapon to be used against the unsuspecting.
She wasn’t unsuspecting. Not after everything they’d been through. So why couldn’t she quite catch her breath?
Dante gave her a long look. “Should I use Roza instead?” He said her name with a perfect Russian inflection, just like her parents did when they were feeling particularly sentimental.
A chill went through her. “No. Not that. Never that.”
“Rosa, it is then.”
A losing battle, and one she should let go, but she felt like she’d gone eleven rounds in the ring and was reeling off the ropes. If she’d just shot him properly the first time, none of this would be happening. The fact that she had shot him, and he still insisted on using a pet name… It confused her. She didn’t like it. “You are not my family, Dante. You are not my boyfriend. You are not anything to me. You haven’t earned the right to use a nickname when you speak to me.”
“Può essere.” He shrugged. “Maybe I haven’t earned it. Yet. But don’t say I’m nothing to you. It’s a lie, and not even a good one at that.”
His sheer stubbornness must be quite the strength when it came to dealing with his uncle’s enemies, but it made her want to strangle him with her bare hands. “It’s not a lie.” It couldn’t be. Their history might confuse her heart, but her head was very clear on what needed to happen in the future.
He turned and started for the bedroom. “It gets chilly at night. You should consider clothes.” Dante looked over his shoulder. “Though you’re more than welcome to stay naked, and I’ll start a fire.”
She glanced at the giant fireplace dominating the far wall. It was made of river rock and the chimney had to be at least six feet wide. It was very beautiful, just like the rest of the house, but the logs artfully arranged in its mouth were most definitely fake. Rose narrowed her eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that fireplace is electric.”
“Si.” His grin was absolutely heart-stopping. “I’ll flick that switch just for you, baby.”
She would not grin. She would absolutely not smile… But her lips curved despite her determination to remain stone-faced. “I’ll take those clothes now.”
“Pity.”
Dante turned back to the hall and kept going. Even though Rose knew it was a terrible idea to be in the same room as him and a bed, especially after things had gone so sideways in the shower, her body didn’t get the memo. One step, then another. Was this how those children in the Pied Piper fairy tale felt? Afraid and drawn, all at the same time? She couldn’t blame the tangled feeling inside her on any kind of magic, though. It was messy emotions and pure lust battling with logic and fear. She was so busy arguing with herself about the intelligence of following him at all, she walked right into the closet behind him.
Rose stopped short, her heart doing something uncomfortable in her chest at the sight that greeted her. For the first time since he walked out in a towel, she wasn’t looking at him. “Dante,” she said slowly.
“Si?”
It struck her that he was using Italian a lot more freely now. How challenging had it been for him to play the generic, all-American white guy card when he pretended to be Jackson Smith? No, best not to think about that too hard. Not when there was something more pressing staring her right in the face.
Half the closet was devoted to a woman’s wardrobe.
It had never occurred to ask if he was in a relationship. He’d been fucking her for months under the guise of his persona, and then he’d spouted off about marrying her, but ultimately that didn’t mean he didn’t have a person back home. Someone who mattered enough to have clothing in the closet of his murder-cabin. Someone he brought here when he wanted to be alone and escape.
She absently rubbed the back of her hand against her sternum as if she could rub away the awful sensation taking root there. Another lie in the long list of lies. Why was she surprised? Why did it hurt after all this time? She cleared her throat. “You can’t honestly expect me to wear your girlfriend’s clothing. I don’t want that. Surely she wouldn’t want it, either, especially not after where you’ve spent the last few months.”
Dante dropped the towel, giving her a truly stellar view of his muscular ass. “Your options remain the same.”
Naked or use these clothes.
The feeling in her chest strengthened. He hadn’t rushed to tell her that there was no other woman. Honestly, why did she care? If the mystery girlfriend existed, she wouldn’t have to worry about Dante for long, not when Rose fully intended to shove him off the nearest cliff. Really, she was doing the woman a favor. Who stood by and accepted their boyfriend going undercover to fuck someone else for months and then kidnapping that someone else and fingering them in the shower…?
This was not a productive line of thinking.
She’d lost the lede somewhere along the way. It didn’t matter if Dante had a whole house full of partners, because he wasn’t hers and she hated him. Yes, the awful sensation in her chest was hate. That was all.