Page 85 of Ivory Crown

A dark chuckle escaped Dante’s lips, and he looked at me, a glint of something unrecognizable flickering in his eyes. “You think it’s that easy, huh? Just erase what’s been done?”

“Not erase,” I corrected him, a scientist to the core, clinging to facts like a lifeline. “But clean. Remove the evidence from the surface. Well, from denim. I don’t know about anything else.”

“Ah, beautiful,” he murmured, the affectionate term rolling off his tongue like a caress. “If only our souls could be as easily cleansed.”

“Speak for yourself. My soul is squeaky clean.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

His words hung in the air, as tangible and unnerving as the body sprawled across the room. Love. A simple word, heavy with unspoken promises and inherent dangers—especially for a woman like me, caught in Dante Moretti’s magnetic pull.

For a long moment, I could do nothing more than stare at him—this tall, dark, gorgeous, killer standing before me, his expression inscrutable.

And then he smiled.

I reached out then, compelled by a force I couldn’t name, and touched the stain on his jeans. My fingers brushed against the rough fabric, against the remnants of violence that had become an all-too-familiar part of our lives. It wasn’t just Dante’s life; it was mine now too. This mess, this chaos—we were in it together, whether I liked it or not.

“Jade,” Dante breathed, his voice a low rumble that resonated within the caverns of my heart. “What are you doing?”

“Facing reality,” I replied, my touch lingering, tracing the outline of the stain as if I could map out the path we’d taken to get here, to this moment of truth and consequence.

“Does that include cleaning this stain?” he asked, a smile in his voice.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, take off your jeans.”

Dante laughed, the sound echoing off the stained marble walls and trickling down my spine like a cold bead of sweat. It was a darkly amused laugh, as if he had never heard anything so absurd and yet so endearing. “You’re serious,” he stated rather than asked, his expression borderline incredulous.

I nodded, feeling the corners of my mouth twitch into an involuntary smile. “Yes, Dante. I am serious.”

His eyes, those merciless stormy orbs that held the capability of striking fear and inciting desire simultaneously, softened at my determined insistence. He removed his belt with one swift tug and unbuttoned his jeans, sliding them down his muscular legs before stepping out of them.

“Thank you,” I murmured, picking up the discarded clothing with more care than necessary. The blood had dried into a crusty discoloration against the dark denim—an ugly blight that seemed to sully everything it came into contact with.

“You’re welcome,” Dante replied, his tone as casual as if we were discussing mundane household chores. He followed me as I moved towards the lavish bathroom attached to the penthouse suite —the bathroom that seemed grotesquely pristine in comparison to the blood-soaked reality on the other side of the mahogany door.

I filled the sink with cold water and poured in a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide, watching as the clear liquid fizzed upon contact with the stained fabric. Dante stood silently at the doorway, his lean form outlined against the bright corridor light, watching me with an unreadable expression.

His shirt was untucked now, billowing slightly around his waist, and it hung open at his chest, revealing finely-toned muscles beneath. There was a raw, primal beauty to him that was impossible to ignore. It was as if he held an inherent power—an intensity—that demanded attention.

I scrubbed at the stain silently, focusing on the repetitive motion, on the feel of denim against my skin. Each stroke seemed to scrub away a bit of the turmoil churning inside me. A strange calmness washed over me—a reprieve from the chaos of Dante’s world—that lasted until I felt his hand close gently around my wrist.

“Enough,” he said softly. “I don’t care about the jeans.”

“But I care,” I retorted, meeting his gaze head-on. The steely hardness in his eyes wavered as he looked at me, and for a fleeting moment, I thought I saw something else—pain perhaps, or regret. It was gone before I could identify it, replaced again by the impenetrable facade he wore like a suit of armor.

“Jade…” His voice trailed off, uncertain and hesitant. The grip on my wrist loosened, then tightened again, like he was torn between letting go and holding on. His other hand came up to palm my cheek, his thumb tracing the curve of my lip before he took a deep breath.

“I’ve dragged you into this mess,” he admitted in a hushed whisper, as if saying it louder would make it more real. “And for that, I’m sorry.”

I stilled at his words, my heart pounding against my ribcage. Dante Moretti was many things—dangerous, unpredictable, captivating—but apologetic wasn’t one of them. This was new territory for both of us.

“You never pushed back,” he said. “It’s no excuse, but I thought you wanted this.”

“You were never supposed to be anything other than someone I was fucking for fun,” I replied, surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. I had been holding it back for so long, trying to stay safe and alive for so long…but with everything that had happened, it was time to tell him the truth. “I didn’t push back because I never thought I would get dragged into this. I was never supposed to get pregnant. You were meant to be a fuckbuddy, Dante.”

His hand fell away from my face as if my words had struck him physically. He stepped back, a glance of pure shock crossing his features before it was quickly replaced with his usual controlled mask.

“A fuckbuddy…” he echoed flatly, the word sounding foreign and harsh coming from his mouth. “And now? What am I to you now, Jade?”

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