Page 4 of Dante
"Maybe. Maybe not." Courtney's smile grew, warming her features. "I think I'm allowed a few disasters, aren't I? That's half the adventure."
He reached over and gave her hand a quick squeeze, his callused palm swallowing her fingers in reassurance. "Just promise me you'll call when you need. For anything."
She nodded, the gesture small but sure. "I promise." The words felt both heavy and light, a contract inked in trust.
A comfortable hush spun around them, the last drops of rain ticking faintly against the window. Courtney found herself looking out, heart thumping with wary anticipation, but this time the fear was tempered by something fiercer, a quiet confidence, sharpened by love and the relentless faith of family.
"We've come a long way," she murmured, almost to herself.
He smiled, the kind that softened his whole face. "We're just getting started, sis." He looked around the tiny living room with its comfortable throws and gaily colored quilt rugs on pine floors that shone with loving care and remembered threadbare carpets, bed bugs, leaking faucets and mold they had had to endure for years. He had worked his ass off before getting into the academy and would have done it ten times over. Three jobs, with his bones singing with exhaustion, but his sister had had food in her belly and clothes on her back. They had indeed come a very long way.
His mouth tightened at the predicament she found herself in. Knocked up by some unconscionable bastard and forced to do this on her own. They had both been abandoned by their single mother when she decided that she could not take care of two kids on her own. Caleb had been ten, two years older than his sister, when the woman had left them outside the door of the children's home and fled. To this day, he had no idea where she had taken off to and frankly did not care. His only thought had been to take care of Courtney and see to her needs.
Several times during their stay in the group home, they had tried to separate them, explaining that a family would never be able to take them both, and he had fought tooth and nail. His sister stays with him. After a time, they had been left alone.
Taking her slender hand in his, he squeezed. "I'm here."
Chapter 2
Magda Deloitte had hopes, ones that she had been nurturing for the past three months. Her light blue eyes centered on the source of that hope. Dante Livingston was not an easy man. An incredible lover and a very inventive one, but out of bed, he was aloof, arrogant and rude.
The press labeled him ruthless, something she was inclined to agree with. They had been seeing each other whenever she was in town, and she had a feeling that he did not miss her when she was gone. Or was even jealous that she had been paired with some very hot and successful movie stars. It irked her that the man was so impenetrable and difficult to read.
She was not vain, well maybe a little bit. But she knew what she could see in the mirror. Her dark hair was shimmering, reaching to her waist and her body was supple and curvy. She was five years older than he was and she worried about the age difference.
She worked hard to maintain the shape and had used the famous plastic surgeon to the stars to tighten a few places here and there. She often thought it was unfair of the good Lord to allow women to age rapidly, while men, well, they just keep going, don't they?
At thirty-two Dante Livingston was a prime example of a magnificent male specimen. He was tall, topping six foot three, his body tanned all the way through with long and muscular joints. His shoulders were broad, stomach as flat as a pancake. There was a dusting of dark hair on that spectacular chest.
Not to mention the thick denseness of his dark hair and those eyes. She sighed softly. Tawny gold as it had been described in several magazines and could see right through you.
His mouth was stern, because he rarely smiled, but full and the man could kiss. Even now, she could feel her heart picking up speed at the thought of what those lips could reduce her to.
"Problems?" she asked softly as he hung up the phone.
He had left the bed to take a phone call, and she was hoping fervently that it was not one that was going to take him out of her apartment. Her heart took a dive when he looked over at her as if he was just now remembering that she was there.
"A glitch in China," he told her briefly.
He was still naked and comfortable with it. His golden eyes reminded her too uncomfortably of a wolf on the prowl, flickered over her bared breasts without the slightest emotion on his face.
"Do you have to leave?" It was Saturday and she was fervently hoping he would take her to dinner.
"Shortly." He rose gracefully, approaching the bed in that loping animal grace of his, eyes holding hers. "I'm going to the club." He sat on the edge of the bed. Lifting one hand, he trailed long fingers over her bare skin, noticing absently that she was shivering. "We can entertain each other until then."
"I was thinking we could go to dinner." Her juices were already churning.
"Rain check." He slid in and turned her to face him. The kiss knocked her back several steps and had her senses reeling. It did not take long for her to be completely lost in his embrace.
Later, when the room had quietened and only the city's distant pulse came through the windows, Magda watched him dress with the same intent complexity she reserved for a new script. Dante moved with unhurried purpose, his movements betraying none of the storm that sometimes flickered behind those golden eyes. She knew better than to expect him to linger. Still, hope curled in her chest, stubborn as ever.
He buttoned his shirt, the fabric crisp against bronze skin, then paused to look at her, unreadable.
"Don't wait up."
"Will you call?" she asked and hated the way her voice sounded too soft, too vulnerable.
He gave a half-smile, the kind that could be mistaken for a promise but never was.
