Page 19 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

His brain just sort of shorted out at that one. Because who in their right fucking mind didn’t want Aurora LeMonde? The woman was pure, walking sin. Sex in the body of Aphrodite.

A small knock on the door of their office interrupted their meeting, and not a moment too soon. Dante was about ten seconds away from leaning across the table and smacking the handsome right off Gio’s face. Just for being whatever the hell it was that attracted Aurora.

The men turned to see Rose standing shyly in the doorway of the office.

Gio stood up so fast that the papers they’d been studying fluttered to the ground. “Rose!”

Dante raised an eyebrow and watched Gio fumble for the papers and then hurry around the desk to Rose. Was this what he was like with Aurora? Yikes.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Dante said. “Nice to see you again, Rose.”

“You too,” she replied, but she obviously only had eyes for Gio.

Apparently every woman in the world only had eyes for Gio.

Dante left Gio’s office and closed the door behind him. He eyed Aurora’s closed office door. So that was it. She was in love with someone else.

But then a thought started uncurling in his head. He assumed that she’d been in love with Gio when they’d slept together before, so apparently it wasn’t too much of a problem for her. It made his blood pump and his fists clench to think about her longing after Gio, but in a way, it also relieved him.

Finally, Dante had the missing piece of the puzzle. He had all the information. He could finally make a good game plan here. He’d been flying blind before. He considered his options, and as the extremely shrewd businessman he was, a plan started to form.

He knocked once on Aurora’s door before he strode into her office, closing the door behind him and sitting down in the chair across from her desk. She sat behind her desk, looking good enough to eat in that clingy silk blouse. She raised her eyebrow at him.

“Can I help you?” Her voice had its usual dose of disdain for him, but there was something else there, too. Nerves.

“Now that you mention it, yes,” he said, giving her an exaggerated lascivious grin, hoping to make her smile, and it almost worked.

She bit back her smile and rolled her eyes. “I’m actually glad you’re here,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I was wondering if you’d want to collaborate with me on the Sydney expansion project. I can do it on my own, of course, but it’s a lot of man-hours, and I was thinking—”

“How long have you been in love with Gio?” He asked the question casually, his body reclined in his chair like he was a lion eyeing a gazelle from across the prairie.

“I… what?” Her face had gone white, just like it had before when she’d almost fainted last week.

“I just wondered. Has it been weeks? Months? Years? No wonder you slept with me the night of the party. It was the first night he ever brought Rose around.” The words were like gravel in his mouth but he spit them out anyway.

She stared at him, her pupils dilated and her breath coming fast. “I…”

“Look, actually, never mind.” He held up a hand to stop her. “None of my business. I just figured that you might want someone to talk to about it. It must be hard, being in love with a man who loves someone else.”

Her eyes dropped down and for a moment, Dante wanted to drink poison. He was such a fucking dick. But he’d had to land that blow to be able to propose something that would be good for both of them. Mutually beneficial.

She cleared her throat, raising her eyes up again, although they didn’t quite meet his. “Do you have a point, Callaghan?”

“Yeah, actually. I think I can help.”

She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

He eyed her. “You find it hard to believe that I would want to help you, Aurora? You think so little of me?”

Her expression softened just a little. “No, of course not.”

He nodded. “Because what I have to propose would be very beneficial to both of us.”

She raised an eyebrow, then gestured for him to go on.

“Use me.”

She let out a surprised, exasperated laugh. “Excuse me?”

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