VITTORIO'S MISTRESS (The Vittorio Series) (5 page)

What he really wanted to do was
pull
over to the side of the road and lay her back over the hood of his car so he could take her in a most uncivilized manner.
 
Just the thought of hiking Paige’s dress up and plunging deep inside of her made his body temperature spike several degrees.
 
He wanted to watch her face as he drove himself into her and witness the moment when she let go and allowed him to bring her to a shuddering climax.
 
He’d never experienced anything as intensely passionate and mind blowing as making love to Paige and one way or another he was going to get her back into his bed.

“This doesn’t look like a restaurant,” Paige said with trepidation as she peered out the window at the monstrous mansion they’d pulled in front of.

“Trust me,
mia bella
, the food here is mouth watering.”
 
Dante climbed out of his car and tossed his keys to the man who seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
 
“I will let you know when it is needed again,” he told the man as Dante strolled around to Paige’s door and helped her out.

“You said you were taking me some place exclusive,” Paige said in an accusatory tone because she was certain this was not a restaurant at all but some sort of private hotel.

“It
is
exclusive,” Dante insisted as he propelled her towards the door where an older gentleman was waiting to let them in.
 

Paige’s eyes widened at the lavish interior of the foyer and could only imagine the kind of wealth it took to build a place like this.
 
When Dante asked if she liked it, all she could do was nod as her eyes bounced from one ornate piece of furniture to the next.
 
She let him lead her down a marble tiled floor to a set of double doors that opened up into a cozy room where a small round table adorned with the finest china and gleaming silverware had been set for two.
 
A dimly lit crystal chandelier hung overhead and there was soft music playing in the background.
 

Butterflies fluttered wildly in her stomach as she gazed around because theirs was the only table in the room and she still wasn’t entirely convinced this was a restaurant.
 
Anxiety was riding high when Dante took the small purse she was clutching and tossed it aside before gathering her in his arms and giving her a slow, lazy kiss.
 

“You are the only woman I have ever brought here,” Dante told her once he’d given up possession of her lips.
 
“I wanted you to know that so you understood just how special you are to me.”

Paige gazed up into those dark eyes, her head still reeling from his tender kiss.
 
“
Wh-
where are we?”

“You have not guessed?”
 

“No,” she replied in a hoarse whisper, though she had her suspicions.

Dante smiled at the tremor that raced through her slender body when he pulled her more snugly against him.
 
“
Benvenuti a casa Signore Vittorio
,” he said in a low, seductive voice.

Paige squeezed her eyes shut, praying for strength and silently thanking God for giving her the good sense to follow
Chantel’s
advice.
 
Beneath the pricy dress she wore was
a pair of faded cotton underwear that she’d rather die than let Dante see
her in.
 
She
didn’t know much Italian and what she did know she’d learned from him, but she’d understood enough to interpret what he’d just said.

Welcome to the home of Mr. Vittorio.
 

This magnificent mansion, filled with exquisite furnishings and art pieces by some of the greatest masters who’d ever lived, belonged to Dante.
 
Paige understood something else too; she was in big, big trouble.

As seductions went, Dante thought he was pretty much at the top of his game.
 
Oh, he hadn’t done much more than lavish
her
with compliments and an occasional feathery touch but Paige was as wired as a junkie priming to get a fix.
 
Unfortunately, his little blue-eyed beauty was going to be left wanting when he took her home tonight.
 
Regretfully, the same could be said of him but there were plenty of other women who were more than willing to alleviate his…tension if it became necessary.

“You do not like the
Merluzzo
in
Umido
?”
 
He asked after watching her pick at her dinner for nearly ten minutes.

“Of course I do,” she took a bite to appease him.

Merluzzo
in
Umido
was an Italian dish consisting of Cod fish stewed with wine, tomatoes, and black olives.
 
As silly as it sounded, she’d been deliriously happy when Dante told her he’d chosen it because he remembered it was one of her favorites.
 
The problem wasn’t the food, it was her jittery nerves.
 
In all honesty, Dante hadn’t done a thing that would lead her to believe he was trying to get her into bed, which should have alleviated her anxiety but had just the opposite effect.
 

She felt like a mouse that was being toyed with and couldn’t help thinking that any minute now he was going to pounce on her.
 
Not that she wouldn’t have loved to find the nearest flat surface and let him have his wicked way with her, but that was an impulse she couldn’t allow herself to give into no matter how tempting it was.
 
And Lord, was it tempting, she thought as her eyes swept over the pure perfection of Dante Vittorio.
 
 
 

Dante smiled to himself.
 
Paige was doing her best to play it prim and proper but he’d always been able to read her body language even when she thought she wasn’t giving off any signals.
 
Right now she was undressing him with her eyes, remembering the feel of his skin against hers and the sheer ecstasy that rippled through her as their bodies moved together in flawless rhythm.
 

Dante remembered it too, but for him it was a memory that brought a bitter taste to his mouth because he’d never been able to reach that state of utter euphoria with any other woman.
 
Not that he hadn’t tried,
and not that sex with other woman hadn’t been good, it just wasn’t the same.
 
With Paige it had been like soaring to the heavens when they’d made love, but it wasn’t just the act of sex that had taken him there.
 
He’d held a piece of heaven merely by being with her.
 

Even something as seemingly insignificant as holding her hand or listening to the melodious sound of her laughter had brought joy to his heart.
 
He hated it that he no longer found pleasure in those simple things, and he hated it that he wanted to reach across the table and take her hand to find out if that soft warm glow would still pulse
through him just as it used to.
 
Dante mentally shook himself.
 
He had to get her out of his
system,
and the sooner the better.

“Tell me about your daycare center,” he said as their dinner dishes were taken away and replaced with dessert.

Paige dipped her spoon into the
bonèt
, a pudding made with
amaretti
and cocoa which was another favorite of hers.
 
“I started thinking about it a few years ago and liked the idea of being my own boss and running the center the way
I
wanted it to be run.
 
Too many daycare centers are simply glorified babysitters but I wanted something more for my child…children.”
 
Paige glanced at Dante and breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t noticed her blunder.
 

“What is so different about your center,
cara
?”

“There’s a lot more structure for one thing.
 
Children need to learn how to follow rules so they’re prepared when they enter the school system.
 
A certain portion of the day is dedicated to learning, mostly in the form of games because with kids that young their attention span is pretty short.
 
And they get a lot of personal attention, which is so important at this stage in their lives.”

“How do you manage that?”

Paige shrugged.
 
“I keep the groups small.
 
It helps to eliminate stress on my assistants and the children don’t feel like they’re lost in a crowd.
 
In today’s society it’s almost necessary for both parents to work in order to survive which means they’re away from their children more than
they’re
with them.
 
And once they do get home in the evenings, there’s dinner to cook and baths to take, household chores, grocery shopping, basically a million and one
things
that rob the children of even more time with their parents.”

“That is not something you can resolve no matter how much you want to, Paige.”

“I know.
 
But what I
can
do is make sure my children get a lot of love and attention while they’re in my care.
 
I also have what’s called
special time
which both the children and parents simply love.
 
I recognize that most of the parents have very little time to spare during the work day but all I ask for is three minutes.”

Dante was genuinely engrossed.
 
“And what happens during
this
three minutes of special time?”

“The parents get to talk to their children through the use of a web cam.
 
You should see the children, Dante.
 
Their little faces light up when their mommy or daddy miraculously appear on the screen, and the parents are just thrilled to take a few minutes of their day to see their babies.”

“As much as you love children, I’m surprised you haven’t married and had a few of your own by now.”

Her chest tightened and for a few minutes all she could do was feign interest in the pudding which suddenly tasted like sawdust.
 
What would he say if she told him she
did
have a child, a little girl who looked just like him?
 
How she wished she could tell him, but of course she couldn’t.
 

At one time their lives hadn’t been so very different but now they were worlds apart.
 
She lived in a modest little house in a quiet little neighborhood while Dante lived in a house big enough to earn its own zip code.
 
He even had servants to make his meals and wait on him while she ran herself ragged just trying to keep the house picked up and the laundry done.

“You have gone so quiet,” Dante broke into her thoughts.
 
“Does that mean that you
have
been married?”

“No.
 
I’ve been too busy trying to get the center established to even date anyone.”

“So you have not been deeply involved with anyone since me.”

It was more of a statement than a question, though he seemed to want an answer.
 
“Define deeply,” she said because she knew what he was digging for and wasn’t about to hand it to him on a silver platter.

Dante’s eyes narrowed.
 
“Do not play games with me,
carissima
,
you know exactly what I mean when I say deeply involved.”

Paige set her spoon down and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with the napkin before answering.
 
“There’s been no one since you.”

“And yet you say I cannot kiss you as I did in the park because there is someone in your life now.
 
I find that very interesting.”

“Just because I haven’t slept with him yet, doesn’t mean I have no intention of doing it,” she said, hoping to wipe the arrogant smile off his face.

Dante’s nostrils flared in anger but his voice was as calm as a summer breeze.
 
“You will not sleep with this man.”

Paige arched a brow.
 
“Oh, really?
 
You seem awful sure of that for someone who knows absolutely nothing about my relationship with…with this man.”
 
Oh God, she was getting deep!

“I
am
sure,
cara
mia
, and for more than one reason.”

Don’t do it, she told herself, he’s setting you up and you know it.
 
She took a sip of wine to keep her mouth occupied and would have eaten more pudding if she wasn’t so sure she’d choke on it.
 
Paige bit her lip, idly looking around the room but even without making eye contact there was no doubt in her mind that the wretched man was smiling because, damn him, he
knew
she couldn’t keep from taking the bait.

“What reasons?”

“I thought you would never ask,” he mocked.
 
“I think you will not sleep with this man because you obviously do not have strong feelings for him.
 
If you did, you would not have kissed me in the park the way you did and you would not be having dinner with me now.”

“So I had a few moments of insanity in the park,” Paige brushed his reasoning aside.
 
“As for having dinner with you, I was practically blackmailed so you can hardly consider that as indication I don’t intend to sleep with…him.”

Dante’s lip quirked.
 
“You cannot even say his name, why is that?”

“Maybe I don’t want you to know his name,” she shot back.

“It is of little importance,” he shrugged, “since you will be rid of him soon anyway.”

Paige laughed.
 
Did his arrogance know no bounds?
 
“Enlighten me, Dante.
 
Why will I be rid of him soon?”

He leaned forward, his eyes dark and seductive.
 
“Because he does not make you feel the way I make you feel,
mio
bello
.
 
His touch does not make your heart race and his kisses do not make you go wild in his arms.”

Paige’s throat constricted.
 
“You don’t know that,” she croaked.

“I
do
know that,” he said with a wicked grin.
 
“Just as I know you are not the type of woman to have more than one lover at a time.”

“Wh-what is that supposed to mean?”

“Simply put, it means that once you and I become lovers again, this man will be out of your life.”

Her pulse jumped, and even as she shook her head, the ache deep down in her abdomen began to throb.
 
“I told you…”

“You can tell me a thousand times,” Dante said as he rose from the table, “but while your lovely mouth says no, your trembling body says yes.”

How he managed to make it around the table before Paige was even halfway out of her chair was beyond her, but suddenly he was just
there,
towering over her like an avenging angel.
 
She had just enough time to let out one breathy protest before she was in his arms.
 

Dante murmured something in Italian as his lips lightly brushed against hers, the gentleness of his kiss almost as devastating as the passionate one she’d been expecting.
 
It was slow and provocative; gradually stoking the fire that was burning inside of her and making her yearn for more.

“
Madre di Dio
, the things I want to do to you,” Dante whispered as he feathered kisses along her jaw and down the side of her neck.

There was a husk in his voice that sent a shiver up her spine, while the tingling sensation his warm breathe left on her skin was busy doing a number on her heart.
 
It was pounding at such a furious pace she could hear the roar of it in her ears, and if Dante had started kissing her again, Paige was fairly certain she would have fallen into a dead faint.