Page 29 of Reckless Sinner

My girlfriend, dickhead. I hadn’t been able to hear anything Vincent had said on the other end of the line, but the response made it pretty clear he’d been asking who was with Dante. And Dante had snapped at him, been protective of me.

He’d called me his girlfriend.

Did he mean that? Did he really like me that much?

Between my task and my own insecurities, I felt like I might throw up by the time the clock ticked over to five in the afternoon. I got home, changed into a cute outfit, and texted my father to confirm from him that Dante had left the office.

Then I went to his apartment.

My heart thundered in my chest as I rode the elevator up. Was this a mistake? The doorman had smiled and winked at me as he’d let me in, and I wondered if the apartment staff were rooting for Dante to finally bring a girl home. He struck me as someone who was very lonely. He’d admitted he had no friends, after all.

But would he consider this to be… presumptuous of me?

The elevator dinged open and I stepped out, heading toward his door. He had one of those apartments that was nice enough that it only had one other apartment on the floor—one on each side of the hallway.

My hand shook as I knocked on his front door.

The door opened almost at once, and I saw Dante look at me with wariness for a split-second before his face cleared. “Delaney.”

“You were expecting someone else?” I teased with a confidence I didn’t feel.

Dante’s gaze glanced towards the elevator. “Yes,” he said simply. “Come in.”

I entered and held out the cookies as he closed the door behind me. “I thought you might need a pick-me-up, so I made you cookies.”

A small, incredulous smile spread across his face as he took the cookies. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Although today wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

I followed him into the kitchen. Now that it was daytime and I wasn’t either occupied with sex or rushing out the door, I could pay attention to the actual décor. It was the sort of place I would expect for a corporate lawyer—all shiny white and silver, in a very sleek and modern style—but it didn’t quite fit what I now knew of Dante’s personality.

Where were the history books, the cozy reading area, the softer aspects of him?

“I never said you couldn’t handle it,” I corrected him. “But just because you can handle something doesn’t mean that you might not need a little something nice at the end of the day.”

Dante smiled again, almost to himself, and grabbed a plate to put the cookies on. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“I made them myself,” I added quickly.

“I didn’t know you baked.” Dante sounded a bit surprised.

“I don’t like to,” I admitted. It felt like the right thing to do, to be honest. Besides if I was honest with him where I could be, it would help my lies be believed. “But men like women who can cook and it’s one of the few things I’m good at.”

Dante turned and looked at me, his brow furrowed and his mouth pulled tight in a small frown. It was like I was a computer that had just given him an error message.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

“The fact that that’s your instant response concerns me,” Dante admitted. His voice was quiet, puzzled.

“What do you mean?” I put on a smile. “Look, you’ve had a hard day so let’s…”

Dante shook his head and took my hand, leading me to sit down at the kitchen table. Or rather the fancy white granite countertop island that had chairs around it. “Delaney. If you hate cooking, why did you make me cookies?”

“…because I wanted to cheer you up?”

“Okay. But you could’ve bought me cookies, or a gift basket or something. Why did youmakethem when you don’t like doing that?”

“People like homemade things,” I said feebly. I felt like I was taking a test and failing it.

Dante looked at me for a long moment. “Last night you said that you liked feeling like you were doing good. Do you often feel like you’re doing things wrong?”

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