Page 27 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

“Anytime.” There was something in his voice that wasn’t usually there, but Aurora was currently full up on things to interpret. He followed her to the door and opened it for her, reaching out and clasping her elbow as she passed.

Was he looking for a kiss?

“What are the odds that this happens again, Aurora?”

She shrugged, completely unable to answer that question. “I’ll let you know.” And then, before he could kiss her, before she could kiss him the way she was seriously wanting to, she walked out the door and forced herself not to look back.

* * *

Dante watched her go. He watched her get into the driver’s seat and pull smoothly down his driveway. He watched her taillights disappear. He held onto the doorknob as if it were the only thing holding him to earth. He couldn’t believe that that had just happened. He turned and looked back in his entryway. Well, they’d certainly christened it.

That helium balloon that had been growing underneath him suddenly popped with a vicious, stomach sinking finality. The reason they’d christened his entryway settled over him.

She’d come over to do what he’d propositioned. She’d come over to use him. To exorcise her feelings for Gio.

Had she thought of Gio while they’d been together? Had she left because she’d decided Dante had been a piss poor substitute for the man she really wanted?

Dante frowned and closed the front door behind him. He couldn’t fault her for doing exactly what he’d told her to do. But as he stepped back into the kitchen to box up the rest of the food, he couldn’t ignore the clenching in his gut.

She’d been fucking him, kissing him, sure. But she probably had been thinking of Gio.

And that was something that angered and saddened him in ways he couldn’t comprehend.

His plan had backfired and he had no one to blame but himself.

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