VITTORIO'S MISTRESS (The Vittorio Series) (12 page)

“I won’t have to.
 
He knows how fed up I am with my roommate right now so all I have to do is tell him I begged you to let me camp out here for awhile.
 
Getting him to take Daniella to the zoo will be a snap because he was complaining that he didn’t get to see her when he stopped by the other night.
 
So you see,”
Chantel
gave her an encouraging smile, “we’ve got it covered.”

“God, I hope so,” Paige sighed.

“I
would
like to ask you to do one little favor.”

“After this over I’m going to owe you for life so whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

“I’m so glad you said that because I don’t think you’re going to like it much.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with my red high heels, does it?”

Chantel
laughed.
 
“No, I’ll save that one for another time.”

“Okay, lay it on me.”

“I want you to promise me something.
 
When the thirty days is up, I want your word that if there’s any chance Dante could be in love with you, even if it’s just a small chance, you’ll tell him how you feel.”

Paige shook her head.
 
“I’d just be setting myself up for a fall.
 
The only thing Dante is in love with is the mind-blowing sex we have.”

“If that’s truly what you believe then promise me something else.
 
If you can’t bring yourself to tell him you’re in love with him, at least tell him about Daniella.
 
Whether he loves you or not, Dante is still
Daniella’s
father and he deserves to know about her.”

Paige wasn’t very happy about the prospect of telling him but in her heart she knew
Chantel
was right.
 
Dante may be a little ruthless when it came to getting something he wanted but underneath that tough exterior was a genuinely good man.
 
It was going to come as quite a shock but once he met his daughter, Paige didn’t see how he could keep from loving Daniella as much as she did.

“I guess telling him about Daniella will answer both burning questions,” Paige finally conceded.
 
“If he’s in love with me and wants to be a father, the news should make him deliriously happy.”

“Not to put a damper on such a lovely scenario, but what do you think he’ll do if he’s
not
happy about it?”

After seeing Dante’s reaction when he thought Marc had kissed her, Paige shuddered at the thought of witnessing him lose his temper again.
 
Thank God he wasn’t a violent man, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a vengeful one.
 
That frightened her more than anything, and she prayed it was a side of Dante she’d never see.

Dante watched her from across the room where he’d been cornered by two bankers and a stock market broker who were all trying to coerce him into giving them his business, or rather his money.
 
He supposed he should be paying attention to them but the vision Paige presented as she chatted and laughed with his younger brother, Gianluca, was quite distracting.
 
She took his breath away and for the life of him, Dante couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.

He’d kept her all to himself for the past week but when his personal assistant reminded him on Friday that he’d obligated himself to this social event the following night, he’d been genuinely excited about bringing Paige.
 
He’d woken her early this morning and after a quick breakfast he’d taken her to an exclusive dress shop his mother recommended where she’d tried on several gowns before he selected a slinky number that matched the same stunning blue as her eyes.
 
Dante had been seated on cushy sofa and was actually enjoying watching her try on different dresses so he’d instructed the sales woman to bring in more clothes that were less formal.

“I can’t let you buy all these things,” Paige had exclaimed after he’d pointed out which clothes he wanted to purchase for her.

“Why not, you look beautiful in them.”

She eyed the vast array of clothes with longing before turning back to him.
 
“They’re very expensive,” she’d whispered, as if the sales woman had no idea just how high priced everything was.

Dante’s lip had twitched in amusement.
 
“
Cara
, I can afford it so do not worry yourself about it.”

“But I don’t need three
swimsuits,
and just look at all the blouses and slacks and dresses you’ve picked out.
 
It’s too much, and I can’t possibly accept it.”

With just a flick of his eyes, the sales woman left them alone in the private dressing room.
 
“Come here,” he’d ordered.
 
When she got close enough, Dante reached out and pulled her down onto his lap.
 
“So beautiful,” he’d murmured, then kissed her because he couldn’t help himself.
 
“Now listen to me,
carissima
.
 
I am buying these things for you because I want to and because it brings me a great deal of pleasure to see you dressed in clothes that were designed to be worn by women of your beauty.”

“But…”

“This is not a discussion,” he’d told her firmly.
 
“I am a very wealthy man with a reputation to maintain.
 
Do you want people to say I do not provide for the woman I
adore in the manner she deserves?”
 
His heart had leapt at that brilliance of her smile.
 
“You do understand the lacy undergarments are for my eyes only.”

The devil had danced in her eyes when she replied. “I don’t know why you’re spending so much money on items of clothing that will only be stripped off the moment you see me in them.”

Looking at her now made his blood boil because Dante knew only too well how little she wore beneath her dress.
 
One small scrap of material that barely covered the triangle of curls between her silky thighs, and nothing at all covering her sexy rear end.
 
She was right; it was going to be stripped off the moment he saw her in it.
 

Unfortunately, that was still hours away.
 
Nodding politely to the gentleman who’d just finished speaking, Dante excused himself to
 
join Paige.
 
She’d been absent from him for too long and he was anxious to lock her safely by his side.
 
 

“I am not surprised Dante has kept you hidden from the rest of us,” Gianluca was saying.
 
“If you were mine, I would not want to risk having someone steal you away either.”

“There is no chance of that,” Dante said with a note of warning in his voice.
 
He slipped his arm around Paige’s waist and smiled into her upturned face.
 
“You see the way she looks at me, little brother, as if I am in the only man in the room?”

“You are,” Paige breathed.

And she is the only woman.
 
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight,
cara
mia
?”

She touched the diamond necklace he’d placed around her neck just before they’d left for the party.
 
“If I am, it’s because of you.”

“My brother is already insufferable,” Gianluca grunted.
 
“We will not be able to tolerate him at all if you continue to feed his already over-inflated ego.”

Dante chuckled.
 
“Do not listen to him, Paige.
 
He is envious because I have the most charming woman in the room on my arm while he can only dream of finding someone like you.”

“I cannot disagree,” Gianluca said as his provocative gaze swept over the delicate features of Paige’s face.
 
“It is my misfortune not to have met you first,
bella
donna
.”
 

Gianluca’s
sexy smile might have worked on her if she wasn’t so much in love with Dante.
 
As it was, his open admiration of her made Paige a little uneasy because she could tell by the way Dante’s body tensed that he wasn’t very happy about it.
 
She pressed herself closer to his side and forced out a laugh that was convincingly light hearted.

“I’m flattered you think so, Gianluca, but I don’t think you would have liked it very much when your brother stole me away from you.”
 
She lifted her eyes to Dante’s.
 
“I took one look at Dante and was completely lost.”

Dante’s chest swelled with pride as well as another powerful emotion he didn’t dare put a name to.
 
“Is she not everything I told you she was?”
 
He said to Gianluca, though his eyes were still locked with Paige’s.

“Indeed she is,” Gianluca replied with genuine sincerity.
 
“Now if you will excuse me, my fragile ego has been bruised and I am off to find solace by dancing with one of the lovely ladies at this affair.”

The moment Gianluca left
them,
Dante whisked her towards a pair of open doors that led to a maze of garden paths.
 
“Take a walk with me.
 
There are a few things we need to discuss and I prefer not to have an audience.”

His tone was clipped and Paige’s stomach instantly knotted, especially since he was walking at such a fast pace she was afraid she was going to break an ankle trying to keep up.
 
When she timidly complained that her high heels weren’t meant for hiking on cobblestones, Dante merely swept her up into his arms without even breaking stride.
 
His face was a mask of granite and for the life of
her,
Paige couldn’t imagine why anything she’d said would put him in such a mood.
 
When he finally stopped and lowered her feet to the ground, her stomach was churning with anxiety.

Dante’s voice’s was dangerously low when he spoke.
 
“My brother is lucky I did not take a swing at him for looking at you the way he did.”

“You don’t think I encouraged that?”
 
Paige said in alarm.

“On the contrary, I think you handled the situation very well.”

“Then…why do you sound like you're angry with me?”

Dante’s expression softened.
 
“I am not angry with you,
cara
.
 
It is Gianluca who worked me into a temper.”

Paige’s eyes widened.
 
“You were
jealous
?”

“I was jealous of every man who looked at you tonight.”

In incredible warmth filled her heart.
 
She moved into his arms and planted a kiss on his lips.
 
“I know how you feel; I was starting to get a little predatory myself.
 
Every time one of those femme fatales ogled you, I wanted to scratch their eyes out.”

Dante laughed.
 
“And to think I believed the only place you turned into a wildcat was in my bed.”

“Now you’ve done it,” she wound her arms around his neck.
 
“I won’t be able to think of anything else for the rest of the night except crawling between the sheets with you.”

He studied her face for a moment, his mood sobering.
 
“I need to ask you something, Paige.
 
What you said back there to Gianluca about taking one look at me and being lost.
 
Did you mean it or were you simply trying to make light of his blatant flirting?”

A tremor of fear ran through her.
 
“Dante, I…I know this isn’t what you want to hear but I don’t think I can hide how I feel about you anymore.
 
I wanted you to believe I agreed to be your mistress so I could finally get over you but the truth is…”

“So this is where you’ve run off to,” an icy feminine voice sounded from behind Paige.

Dante’s tone was even colder than the glacial look he leveled at the woman.
 
“This is a private party, Francisca.
 
Forgive me if I do not invite you to join us.”

Francisca shot him a dismissive glance before turning her attention to Paige.
 
“Ah, the lover de jour.
 
She’s quite pretty, Dante, but not exactly your type.
 
You’d better watch yourself, darling, she looks like the marrying kind and we all know how ardently you avoid
that
little trap.”

“That is enough,” Dante’s deep voice shook with anger.
 
“Go find someone else to torture with your waspish tongue and leave Paige out of this.”

“Leave her out of it when I followed you all the way through this wretched garden just so I could warn her about you?
 
Not on your life, Dante darling.”

Paige wasn’t sure what to think.
 
Obviously the woman harbored some very serious hostilities towards Dante and wasn’t about to leave until she made sure Paige knew exactly what they were.
 
Francisca was stunningly beautiful, or at least she would have been if her mouth hadn’t been twisted into a vicious snarl.
 

Her Italian heritage was evident in the flawless olive skin and hair that was dark as midnight.
 
If Paige had to guess what her occupation was she’d have pegged her as a runway model because she was nearly six feet tall with legs that went on for miles and she couldn’t possibly have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds.
 

If Francisca was indicative of the kind of women Dante had been with over the past four years then he really was straying from the norm by taking a curvy blond haired, blue eyed woman for his mistress.
 
Maybe that was the reason he was attracted to her; it was a change of pace from the stick thin Italian beauties he was used to sleeping with.
 
Just the very idea that he’d touched Francisca in the same sensual manner he’d touched her made Paige sick to her stomach.

Dante’s eyes narrowed into slits.
 
“I am sure Paige is not interested in hearing your vile lies…”

“I’m not the one who lies,” she hissed at him.
 
“What is it you said to me that night?
 
You are so beautiful, Francisca,” she imitated Dante’s accent, “I have never wanted any woman the way I want you.”
 
Ignoring the low growl that rumbled in the back of Dante’s throat, Francisca continued her tirade.
 
“You didn’t even have the decency to stay the entire night.
 
You
used
me,” she shrieked.
 
“You used me and then refused to even take my calls and explain yourself.”

“What explanation could I have offered?”
 
Dante said harshly.
 
“Would it have made you feel better to know I left so that I would not wake in the morning and feel obligated to have sex with you again?”