Page 35 of The Scandal Behind The Italian’s Wedding

And now, shirtless and with cake, she couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t deny it.

Couldn’t help but identify the sharp, reckless heat that had cut through her seventeen-year-old body the moment he’d taken her up into his arms to shield her from censure, to shield her from the world, had been...

Desire.

She snatched the cake from his hand and then looked down at it resolutely.

“Something wrong, Minerva?”

“Nothing is wrong,” she said.

He approached her, and tilted her face up. “Nothing is wrong?”

He had touched her before. He had touched her many times, and this time it burned. Because this time she knew. Knew that that little prickling sensation he left all over her skin when his fingers made contact with her wouldn’t happen with any man. Knew that it wasn’t static electricity or something else that she could easily dismiss.

It was Dante.

But more than that, it was her feelings for him.

“I’m fine,” she repeated.

But he was far too close to her.

“Good to know.”

And then he moved away from her, and she realized, with stunning humiliation, that he was playing with her.

That he had known that she had been powerless in the face—or rather, the chest—of his magnetism.

She gritted her teeth and dug into the cake with ferocity. “I am fine. And I don’t need you to eat dinner with me. After all, you ate already. You clearly didn’t want to share a meal with me, so why hang around pretending? Go wash your shirt.”

But he didn’t obey. Rather, he stood there, watching her eat cake. And she refused to get up. Refused to let him win. So she ate every last bite, and then cleaned up each remaining crumb. Then defiantly rose, carrying Isabella in one arm, and the plate in the other hand, and deposited it in the sink before going back up the stairs. “I think I will get Isabella and me set up to have a date on the beach tomorrow. I know that you’re very busy and have lots of work to see to. But it’s fine. We will be just fine without you.”

She was grateful that her hands didn’t start shaking until she got back to the bedroom and closed the door firmly behind her.

Because she didn’t want him to see just what he did to her.

It was beyond a cruel joke.

Because as Dante had said more than once, she was not the kind of woman who would ever turn the head of a man like him.

She was much happier when her brain had understood that, and buried her feelings for him, sparing her from any disappointment.

Now she just felt deflated and frightened and uncertain of how she was going to get through the next chunk of time.

---