Page 32 of Depraved
“Men like me? Men like your family? Tell me about them.”
The waiter approaches with a plate and sets it in front of me, and I blink at Dante.
Of course he ordered for me.That’s a fight for another day.
I place my napkin in my lap and close my eyes, taking in the delicious smell of the dish in front of me. “I already told Matteo their names. Their rap sheets will say it all.”
“I know you did, but I want to hear it from your lips.”
I take a bite of my salad and hum in appreciation around my fork before sliding it out from between my lips.
“I’m jealous of a fork.” He teases, and I laugh.
Dammit. He got a real laugh out of me.
“If everything here is this delicious, my mouth will be making sweet love to this fork all night long.” I grin and take another bite.
“I like you,” he states low and deep, dripped in the gravel his voice takes on when he’s turned on as he leans in.
“I’m likeable,” I agree, enjoying the way he’s surveying me way too much.
“How do I get you to give in?” he croons, grabbing the fork as it pops from my lips and putting it in his mouth.
Goddamn him for being so sexy.
“Let’s make a deal.” I half smile. “If you find my family in the next forty-eight hours, I’ll drop to my goddamn knees and let you do your worst.”
He pulls the fork from his lips and offers it back to my smiling face. “Gorgeous and devious. You’re trying to make me fall in love with you, aren’t you?”
Dante relaxes back and shakes his head. His expression makes my face drop. A cold shiver runs up my neck as my stomach flips because he isn’t amused. He’s validated.
The look on his face tells me that whatever I just said told him more than I wanted him to know.
His voice drops low as his smile fades more, giving way to the face of a man who knows he’s been misled.
“So sneaky. See, you’re cheating because I need their real names to find them. Don’t I, Sarah?” I start to counter, to tell him I gave their real names, but he holds up a hand to stop me. “Do you think I believe that you’re operating under your real name? I had you checked out, and you’re too clean. Not even as much as a traffic ticket. I don’t trust anyone who’s never done anything left of right.”
I don’t even open my mouth because it’s the only way to clamp down another lie that will fall out in an attempt to cover my ass.
“Are you going to tell me what I want to hear, or am I going to have to drag it out of you, gorgeous? And before you say no, just know that your silence makes me want to dig even more…because you’re hiding for a reason.”
My eyes drop to the table, needing a minute before I look up and say what I should’ve said from the beginning.
It’s hard when you come from my life to ever really trust, but it’s easy to know when to fold and not dig yourself in deeper. I lift my head and ready myself for his reaction to what I’m about to say.
“You’re right. I’ve been playing you. Withholding their names. But Dante, you having me here, in your house, acting like some kind of dark knight…that’s for you, not for me. I’m just biding my time. In two weeks, once you’ve played this out, I’ll slip away, nobody the wiser,” I admit without a hint of apology even though I feel guilty.
His hazel eyes take in my features, and I watch him as he does. Fuck. He’s so unreadable. I can’t tell if he’s pissed or impressed.
“Do you play chess?” he questions nonchalantly as the waiter clears our plates and sets down bowls of pasta in front of us.
“No,” I answer, peering down at my food and wondering where he’s going with this.
“The job of every piece on the board is to protect the queen because she’s so powerful.” His first two fingers run along the top of the wineglass. “Only people who are brazen, calculated, and willing to lose something important in order to win use her as a pawn to suck the other player’s pieces in, so that they can eventually take down the other player’s king.”
My chest starts to rise quickly, seeing exactly where he’s going. He wouldn’t. No way.
“You would use me as bait…to lure them in?”
