Page 30 of The Scandal Behind The Italian’s Wedding

CHAPTER SIX

ALREADYTHINGSWERE not going according to Dante’s plan. And Dante had very little experience of things not going according to his plans. He was not a man who often had to deal with defiance, whether it came from another person, or life. Not a man who had been put in a position where another human being might come into his sphere and create disorder.

Chaos.

His life had been utter and complete chaos when he was a child. From the time he was born until he had been swept off the streets, half-feral, and put into a private school by Robert King.

Dante had been in possession of some concerns about Robert. Mostly, he had been convinced that a man who offered such things to a boy must have nefarious intent for him.

Dante had done a lot of thinking about whether or not he cared.

Because the streets had visited vast amounts of atrocities onto him. And when you were lean, and hungry, you tended to have a very flexible idea of what you might be willing to do for your next meal.

With that in mind, he had decided to take Robert’s deal, and he had come to the conclusion that depending on what the man might ask of him, he would either comply and take the education, take the money for the time being, or he would follow through with what he had originally intended to do. Robert had given the gun back, after all.

All of those thoughts seemed so wildly removed from who he was now, and the kind of life he lived.

But it all came back when the baby had been wailing wildly, and he hadn’t known what to do.

And then, he had gone looking for Minerva, only to find her standing there in a towel.

Her shoulders were enticing.

Her hair had been up, falling damply around her face, and he had found it disconcerting in the extreme. And resentment had burned in his chest. For what he and Minerva both new was that Isabella was not his child.

And if she cried, she was not his responsibility. The responsibility was Minerva’s.

And he would also like to speak to her about her responsibility when it came to not being an enticement.

Of course, he had no desire to admit to her that she was an enticement.

He ate dinner, and found himself at loose ends.

There was little work to be done, simply because he was not a man who was ever behind.

He took on work. More than he could handle, many would say, but he always managed to get it finished. And he was constantly being lectured on the fact that he should find a way to have more leisure time.

But for what?

He could never figure it out.

He went out when he felt like it. Oftentimes, there were business reasons to go out, connections to be made when he did. And then, if he managed to meet a woman in whose company he wished to spend the night, it was a pleasant diversion. But he didn’t need more recreation time for that.

Often, words like that were spoken by those who didn’t know what it meant to be hungry.

Who had never once had to entertain the idea that it might be preferable to endure the physical abuse of an older man in order to feed oneself.

No, in Dante’s world, work and money were king.

It was a wall that he was building between himself and what he had come from so high and so thick that nothing would ever be able to cross it.

Safety.

He suddenly heard a soft voice, and the sound of a baby, and he turned and saw Minerva, wearing pants and a top that showed her stomach, coming down the stairs. “I’m starving,” she said. “What’s for dinner?”

“I ate,” he said.

The look of thunderous fury that crossed her delicate features would have been amusing if it hadn’t been quite so dark. “You ate? Without me?”

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