Page 59 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

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Aurora inwardly groaned as George Junior’s pink hand raised at one end of the room. Oh lord. It was that perv’s dream come true. He could actually use his money to purchase her.

“One hundred thousand dollars,” said a deep, familiar voice.

Aurora didn’t have anything in her mouth to choke on but air, but choke she did. Dante waded through the sea of murmuring, whispering people. His eyes burned into hers like hot coals. She was pinned in place, her mouth dropped right open.

“Yes. Well. That’ll do it, I think. Thank you to Mr. Callaghan, and please, enjoy the rest of the evening.” Gio, grinning like a Cheshire cat, flipped the microphone off right as Dante bounded up onto the stage.

“Dante, you can’t— Are you crazy? That’s too much!”

“Aurora,” Dante said as he grabbed her ice-cold hands. “I have the fucking money, it’s going towards research for the disorder my sister has, and it gets you off the goddamn auction block. You’re insane if you think you can talk me out of this.”

With that, he swept one arm under her knees and lifted her up like she hadn’t gained twenty pounds in the last two months.

Dante turned to Gio, who was still grinning. “And don’t think I don’t realize what you did, auctioning her services instead of yours.”

Gio shrugged and gestured to his swelling lip. “We’re even now.”

Dante grunted and strode off the stage behind the velvet purple curtains at the back. He set Aurora down on a folding chair and immediately fell to his knees in front of her. The bright lights of the ballroom filtered through the cracks in the curtains and painted patterns across both their faces.

“I’ve got shit to say and Michelle says I need to be crystal fucking clear so just don’t talk and let me say it all, okay?”

Aurora, her heart still racing, merely nodded.

“I didn’t know you were pregnant until ten minutes ago.”

Aurora’s brow furrowed, her mouth dropped open and she drew breath to say something. Dante simply clapped a hand over her mouth and bit back the heat that seared through him at the feel of her lips on his palm.

“That day, the thing that I saw? It was you hugging Gio. I opened the door to your office and saw you pressed up against him. I—I knew that you loved him, that you were using me to get him out of your system, and for a while that was alright with me but...”

He stood and began pacing in front of her.

“But seeing the two of you like that… the love all over your face, love that I wanted for myself, it almost destroyed me. So I ended things. I ended things fast. And I did it without telling you how I feel about you.”

He dropped to his knees in front of her again. “It killed me, Aurora. You said ‘us’, you said ‘our lives’, on that phone call, and I thought you were talking about you and Gio as a couple. But earlier, after I got here, I confronted Gio. He said you were already showing that day, but I didn’t see your belly. I didn’t know.”

“If you didn’t know, then why are you here?”

He cupped her face in both his hands. “Because I’m in love with you. So goddamn in love with you. So much that even though I knew that you were with Gio, the love of your life, I still had to tell you. I couldn’t go on without telling you. And then I walk in here, run into Gio, and he just drops the bomb. You’re pregnant. And I know it’s mine. Maybe it’s your witchy mother rubbing off on me, but I can look at you right now and I can feel that baby in there. That baby is mine. But I wouldn’t care if the baby was Gio’s. I wouldn’t care if the baby was George Junior’s. I love you, Aurora. I love you so much. I want both of you. You and the baby.”

Aurora sat perfectly still. He watched as the professional veneer melted away under the heat of her passionate side. He watched in fascination and relief as she rose to stand in front of him, temper sparking over her face.

“You’re saying that you want to be a part of the baby’s life? Just like that? You’re suddenly ready to be a father?”

“No, not just like that.” He rose too, his temper making him pace again. “It’s been four years of having Michelle. Of slowly getting used to the idea of being a parent. It took losing you and realizing that if I had to, I could live without you. Because of Michelle. Brokenhearted or not, I’d have to find a way to go on, even though I’d never be whole again. And, I don’t know, but I think that makes me a father. And I’ll make mistakes, Aurora. I know I will. But I’ll be there.” He stepped toward her. “Please, let me be there.”

She stared at him, energy crackling between them. “I would never keep you from the baby, Dante. Even when I thought you were leaving me because I was pregnant, I couldn’t do that. Don’t you remember the last thing I said?”

“That you would never cut me out of your lives.”

She nodded. “If it’s the baby you want, we’ll figure it out. We’ll make it work together.”

“I want the baby. And no matter what, that’s never going to change. But Aurora, I need to be very, very clear here. I want you too. You love Michelle, I could see that from the beginning. So that won’t be a problem. And you enjoy me. I’ll do everything I can to make that enough. Even if you always love Gio, I’ll try to make you happy—”

Aurora burst out a small, hysterical laugh and slammed a hand over his mouth. “Enough.” She took Dante by the shoulders and shook him hard. “I was thinking of you, you dumbass.”

“What?” he asked.

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