Page 41 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

chapter eleven

“Lunch,” Dante said a minute later, taking her hand and dragging her from the office.

Aurora couldn’t help but glance back at his desk, all cluttered and messy from where he’d just bent her over it. She couldn’t believe she’d just stormed into his office and devoured him. And with Gio on the other end of the line! It somehow made her feel both proud and horrified.

“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, Dante.”

“Happy hour drinks, then. I just don’t want you to go yet. Come out with me, Aurora. We don’t even have to call it a date.”

Her stomach flipped, as it so often did these days. She wasn’t sure if it was from the baby growing inside her or from the idea of going on a real date with Dante.

“Coffee,” she finally said.

Ten minutes later, they settled themselves at a small cafe a few blocks from Dante’s office.

“Want to play a game?” he asked.

“Um, I thought we already did,” she said with a smile.

He laughed. “You’re right. And it’s my favorite game of all. But for the sake of variety, let’s play a different kind this time. One I used to do with Michelle all the time.”

“What is it?”

“It was something we did when she wanted to be a detective. I called up this guy I knew in college who ended up being a P.I. and he told me the best way to train to be a detective was to observe as much as you could about every person you were with and every place you went. So everywhere she and I went, we played the observation game. For like a full year. By the end, it sort of became second nature. But then she got into her Harry Potter phase and it all went down the drain.”

“You didn’t call up a wizard you knew in college to give her some tips on harnessing magic?” Aurora asked dryly. Although inside she was quaking, stunned at the sweetness inside him. He’d called up a P.I. for career tips because his little sister wanted to be a detective. It was almost painful it was so cute.

Dante shrugged. “So you wanna play?”

“The observation game?” Aurora looked around, taking in the doilies on the tables and the geriatric clientele. “Sure.”

“Not about the place though, just about one another.”

“Oh. You want me to tell you what I observe about you?”

“And vice versa. I’m pretty sure I already know what you think about me, but let’s give it a shot.”

“Alright.” She smoothed her hair back in a nervous gesture. “You go first.”

“There are two Aurora LeMondes.”

“What?”

He leaned back in his chair, his large hands spread on the delicate table cloth, his coffee cooling in front of him. His eyes were so blue in that moment, Aurora swore they made her thirsty. “There’s the woman that I’ve known for years. The version of you that works at the Esposito Group. Polished, calm, never misses a deadline. Deadly beautiful, of course, but you keep it behind a glass case. Like the rose in Beauty and the Beast. I didn’t know why, but I knew that the polished version of you wasn’t the whole picture. And I thought, why is she hiding? But now I get it.”

Aurora took a sip of tea, trying to keep her hand from quaking on the cup. He was freakishly accurate so far. She didn’t trust her voice so she said nothing.

“It’s because you have to keep the other part of you under wraps. I got a glimpse of her every time I would flirt with you and it would annoy you. I’d see just a little bit of the spice. The temper. The flare of heat. But I wasn’t prepared. I had no idea what it would be like when you finally raised the gates and let it loose. The night you asked me to take you home? I’ll never forget it. Part of me is still recovering. It was like pressing my tongue to a battery. The other part of you, the other version, is so passionate, so fiery, so free and wild, that you have to keep her in the cage. Or else nobody will ever get any work done.”

She took another sip of tea. “I don’t know if that’s true. But…my first year of college, I had not one, but two married professors try to hook up with me.”

Dante’s brow instantly furrowed. She didn’t miss the way his hand balled on the table.

She shrugged it off though. “My body, my nature, it all worked against me. No matter how smart I was or the grades I got or the ideas I had, it was all liable to go down the drain the second I got labeled a slut. I realized that the only way to rise in the business world was to become an ice queen. Untouchable, as you called it.”

“Except for your crooked teeth,” he quipped, making her smile just as he intended.

“Right. I knew I should have sprung for the Invisalign.” She sighed and looked out the window for a second. “The ambition I have to survive in the business world isn’t just for personal satisfaction. It isn’t a game. For me and my mother, my job is a matter of survival.”

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