Page 25 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

He laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”

* * *

Dante slid onto the stool across from her and started eating. He couldn’t get a read on her. She seemed relaxed and sated and obviously very hungry. But he couldn’t tell what the hell else she was feeling.

He wasn’t sure why it was so important. Regardless of what she was feeling, they’d still done something amazing together. He thought of the look in her eyes when she’d come through the door. The way she’d looked when she’d taken him inside her. Yeah. He was pretty much on cloud nine right now. It was ridiculous, but he felt like his bar stool was a helium balloon, floating him up into the stratosphere.

Some of her ravenous hunger taken care of, Aurora took a deep breath and started eating at a more human pace. As she did so, her gaze scanned his home.

He wondered if she was surprised by what she saw.

“You know, your house is cuter than I thought it would be. It’s actually like a house.”

He raised an eyebrow and bit into a samosa. “What were you picturing?”

“I dunno. Lots of chrome and glass. Some condo high above the city where you could look down on everybody. A room designated for your sex swings.”

Dante threw his head back and laughed. Really laughed. “Well, you pretty much described my old condo down to a T. Except for the sex swing part. But yeah, I sold that and moved here when I got custody of my sister. She needed something a little warmer. More homey.”

* * *

Aurora dropped her eyes from him and stared at the food on her plate, hardly seeing it. He’d surprised her again. As if his house hadn’t already done that enough.

It was homey. Colored jars of herbs and spices on the counter, an ugly little handmade something hanging in the window above the sink, mismatched placemats on the big dinner table behind her. And pictures on the walls. Lots of them. Artsy ones and family ones. What the hell?

And what the fuck did he mean ‘custody’. He was raising his little sister? Dante Callaghan was living in a house in suburbia raising a kid? Why the hell hadn’t she known this? She’d known the man for four fucking years.

He narrowed his eyes in confusion as he studied her reaction. “You didn’t know? About my sister?”

Aurora cleared her throat and took a grateful sip of her ice water. “I knew that you two were close. I met her at that company picnic a few years ago. Remember?”

“I remember.” His eyes were dark and inscrutable.

“But I didn’t know you had custody of her. I assumed you brought her in order to…”

Aurora trailed off, appalled at the ugliness of her assumption and appalled that she’d been about to say it out loud.

But Dante merely quirked a smile, dug out more channa masala from a carton to put on his plate. “You assumed I brought her as some sort of pick-up tactic for the women at the picnic? A way to soften up the ladies so I could get a little taste of tail?”

Aurora shrugged, her cheeks flaming with her deep embarrassment. “I guess.”

Dante took it in good humor, chuckling and sighing. “Well, I gotta say, I didn’t expect it—how hot some women found it when I told them I was raising a kid alone.”

Aurora laughed, pushing her food around on her plate. She was still reeling. Both from the discovery that Dante was raising his sister and from the fact that she barely knew him at all.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to assume the worst about you.”

He shrugged. If she’d hurt his feelings, he hid it well. “I think my reputation often precedes me. Whether it’s an earned reputation or not.”

What did that mean? That he wasn’t a total player? Aurora’s head spun. This was a lot of new information all at once. She had about a hundred questions but she found herself snapping her mouth shut. She’d already insulted him enough and was too nervous to say anything else.

Dante scooped more food onto her empty plate, eyeing her. “It’s okay, Aurora. You can ask questions. You want to know more about my situation with Michelle?”

She looked up. It seemed rude to pry, but he was offering and more information was a huge part of the reason she was here in the first place. “Your parents are…”

“Both alive. My mother is flighty, unreliable, rich as chocolate and somewhere in Thailand right now. And she’s not Michelle’s mother. We’re related through our dad. Who is…” He paused, a dark expression coming over his face. “Unfit to be a father. So, when Michelle’s mother passed away when she was five, I knew that it was up to me to make sure she had a good life. It took about a year, but I gained custody over her when she was six.”

“How old is she now?” Aurora asked, looking around the house for more clues that a little girl lived there. She saw a purple article of clothing tossed over a chair in the corner of the living room.

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