Page 31 of Reckless Sinner

Finally, Dante looked at me. His eyes were so dark and magnetic I thought I would drown in them. “Have you considered… that maybe your father isn’t as supportive as you think he is?”

I shook my head immediately. “No. No. My father wouldn’t… he’s a good person. And he loves me.”

Even as I said it, the words felt a bit hollow. Everyone thought my father was a good man and that he did everything out of his sense of justice and altruism. But that wasn’t true and I knew it. This entire operation he was doing now was to get himself power. He wanted that attorney general position more than just about anything.

But—just because—he was more ambitious, and more about power, than most people realized. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love me. He had always been there for me.

Dante didn’t look at me with pity. I was grateful for that. I think I would’ve lost my mind if he’d tried to pity me. Instead he looked… like he was putting puzzle pieces together.

“It’s your life and your opinions. I’m just an outsider looking in. But I think that you should do some research on… emotional manipulation. And I think, for what it’s worth, you should really consider if your father has your best interests at heart.”

I stared at him, and Dante stared back at me, his face grave but not stern. He looked almost worried about me. And all I’d wanted to do was bring over cookies. Was I really this much of a mess?

“I’ll think about it,” I said, because I had to keep Dante on my side. I had to push him to reconcile with his family so that he would know things and could give me information, and he wouldn’t do any of that if he didn’t trust me.

Dante nodded. I braced for him to press the matter or to be disappointed, but neither happened. If he was disappointed, he did a good job of hiding it.

Instead, he smiled softly at me. “Well, since you did go to all the trouble of making these it would be a shame to let them go to waste. We could… put a movie on, if you wanted?”

It was adorably mundane. Nothing like I would’ve expected from a high-powered lawyer type. “Does this mean I might actually see you wear clothing that’s not a suit?”

“Ha, ha. I’ll have you know I wear jeans and sweatpants like all the rest of us mortals.”

“Sweatpants!” I fanned myself like I might faint. “I wasn’t aware that lawyers wereallowedto wear sweatpants!”

“Don’t let the secret order of all-powerful barristers know.” Dante winked at me and then got up to head into the bedroom.

I wished I’d dressed for something comfy instead of to impress, but oh well. At least I would look cute. I looked around the apartment as I heard Dante changing out of his work suit in the bedroom. It was one of those open-concept apartments. Even the bedroom only had a partial wall blocking it, instead of a proper one that went all the way up to the ceiling.

Honestly? I preferred my father’s home, an old-fashioned brownstone with proper rooms. It was easy to find privacy there, and easier to heat up a room. And if the kitchen was messy, well, at least you didn’t have to look at the mess from anywhere in the house.

I walked over to the pristine white couch and sat down. Everything was so white here. Sterile, almost. That didn’t feel like Dante at all. Did he hire an interior decorator to do this place or something? Dante made me think of warm, dark colors and comfortable, squishy furniture. Big bookshelves, cozy closed-in rooms, rugs and throw pillows and wood.

Dante emerged, sure enough wearing a pair of light gray cotton sweatpants and a white t-shirt that stretched obscenely across his shoulders and chest. I shivered, remembering how last night he had held me down and moved me around so easily for his pleasure, as if I weighed nothing.

Well, maybe that wasn’t so much of an accomplishment seeing as I was tiny, but still. The power and strength in those muscles…

Dante grinned at me as he walked over and sat down. “You see something you like, Ms. Weston?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “The abstract painting on the wall behind you. I think that one part looks like a duck.”

Dante glanced over at it and chuckled. “You have a prickly side. I like it.”

I had been told I was difficult, sometimes, and that I should be demurer and more approachable. I’d worked hard to do that. But Dante liked my… prickliness.

Who had told me about being demure? About being accommodating and friendly and fun to be around? Had it been my father?

These were things that I just thought of as universal, thoughts that I attributed to the world, or to groups of people. Was it all things my father had told me?

I wanted to dismiss what Dante had suggested about emotional manipulation, but an idea, once spoken, couldn’t be erased. It was in my head now.

You can think about that later,I told myself. Right now, I was with Dante. And I wasn’t about to waste any time—with the gorgeous man who made me feel like nobody else ever had, or with my assignment from my father.

“So, Dante Russo, wanting just a quiet night in with cookies and a movie?” I teased him.

Dante threw his arm over the back of the sofa and shrugged. I curled up close to him, a bold move I wouldn’t have had the courage to do if I wasn’t on a mission to get him to trust me and listen to my advice. But it wasn’t about me and what I wanted. It was about something bigger, and that meant my own insecurities had to be shoved aside, for now.

“Hey, I like a good old-fashioned night in as much as anybody,” Dante pointed out. He dropped his arm a little so that it was properly around my shoulders.

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