Dante’s Girl (21 page)

Dimitri comes to visit often, obviously.  And if he is curious or concerned that I am here so often, he doesn’t say anything.  He is his usual pleasant, charming self.  He’s not angry that Dante wrecked his fancy Jaguar. He’s just happy that Dante is alright.  And that’s how a father should be, I decide.

“Why were you driving your father’s car, anyway?” I ask Dante as I’m helping him put his things in a bag.  He gets to come home today and my heart sings at the thought.  And then I smile because I just thought of Giliberti House as home.

“My car was being serviced,” he explains as he carefully pulls a soft t-shirt over his head.  His chest and ribs and shoulders are still mottled with bruises, marring what is otherwise perfection.  His body could truly be a marble sculpture. It’s just that perfect.  Except now the perfection is bruised.  I gulp and look away.  His near-miss still terrifies me.

“You’ve got to be more careful,” I announce.  “You drive too fast on those curves.”

“I thought you weren’t afraid?” Dante asks, with his blue eyes sparkling again.  “You grew up on farm trucks sliding around dirt corners.”

I glare at him. “Don’t turn my words around on me.  That’s true. I did.  And I wasn’t scared. But that was back when I thought you were a better driver.  Now I know the truth, so now I’m scared.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Have you heard from Becca?”

He’s very good at changing the subject. That’s something that I have learned this past week.  And we’ve learned a lot about each other over these last few days.  We’ve had nothing to do but talk in this hospital room. I told him all about Becca and Quinn and Connor and home. 

He told me all about Elena, his father, Caberra, and growing up as a Giliberti. 

It’s been fascinating.

And now I feel like I truly understand him.

He’s a really good person who just happens to have been born in a gilded cage.

“Yes,” I answer.  “I spoke with her again this morning.  She wishes you the best and can’t wait to meet you.”

Dante suggested yesterday that Becca fly here for a week or two at the end of the summer.  I thought it was a brilliant idea and so did Becca. She’s currently working on hounding her mom until she agrees to let her make the trip. I briefly wonder if Dimitri would call to help our cause, but then I am distracted when Dante wobbles just slightly as he picks his suitcase up and puts it on the bed.

“Are you alright?” I ask in concern as I rush to steady his elbow.

“I’m not an invalid,” he tells me. “I just haven’t gotten out of bed for a week.   Ooh- now there’s a thought.”  And then he waggles his eyebrows suggestively and with huge exaggeration and I laugh.  His pain meds are loosening his normally gentlemanly tongue. 

“Normally, that would be an interesting thought, but right now, not so much,” I tell him.  “Hospital tubes and a drugged up guy don’t really do it for me.”

“No?” he looks disappointed.

“No,” I confirm.  “And I’m not thinking about anything of the sort right now.  I’m too worried about you for that kind of nonsense.”

Lie.

Five hundred times.

That’s how many times I’ve thought about Dante’s hands on my body over the past week.  He’s been lying in a hospital bed and I’ve been thinking impure thoughts.  His ancestors’ paintings would surely be glaring at me now.  If they could see me. Which they can’t. 

 “Are you ready?” I ask, fighting the blush that is sweeping my cheeks at my ridiculous and impure thoughts.

“Yes.  Are you?”

Boy, am I.  But that is a loaded question. And now is not the time to think about it.

“I’ll have your car pulled around, okay?”

He nods and I leave to ask them to bring his car out of the garage.  At his direction, I’ve been driving it back and forth to the hospital this week.  At first I was terrified to drive such an expensive piece of machinery, but now it feels normal. And I can see now how he is so casual about his luxurious things.  I’m almost ashamed to say that I’ve become accustomed to them, too.  It’s weird. I guess it’s human nature.  You become accustomed to what is around you.

I help Dante into the passenger’s seat and he still seems pale to me.  But he’s all hopped up on pain medicine so I doubt he’s feeling any pain.  And because of the pain medicine, he’s very talkative on the way to Giliberti House.

“Are you sure that you aren’t into Connor?” he asks me for the third time since we left the hospital.  I have to smile and shake my head while I concentrate on navigating the curves outside of Valese.

“Yes, I’m very sure,” I assure him again.  “He’s like my brother.  He’s always been like my brother.  He used to pull my pigtails and hide my Barbies.”

“I’m jealous of that,” Dante announces.  “He knew you when I didn’t.”

And now I’m grateful for the pain medicine that makes Dante talkative.  It’s revealing a side of him that I’ve never seen before.  A very human, less than perfectly self-assured side.  And I like it.  It tells me that Dante Giliberti isn’t quite perfect. 

It makes me love him even more.

The curves and sways of the road combined with the pain meds make Dante sleepy and so he falls asleep, snoring slightly, long before we reach the house.  I pull up in front and wake him up and then I help him through the house.

Marionette scampers ahead of us, surprisingly spy for an old woman, and opens the door to Dante’s bedroom so that I can help him through it.  He’s leaning on me and I’m lugging his stuff and helping him walk, all at the same time.  The pain medicine makes him groggy and out of it.  He’d never let me shoulder all of this weight normally.

But it’s okay with me because it makes me feel like I’m finally doing something to help him.  I thank Marionette and she leaves me alone with Dante.

In his room. 

Alone.

As I help him onto his bed, I realize that this is the first time I’ve seen his room. I was never in his room at the Old Palace and that’s okay. Because I know as I look around, that
this
is his true room, his true space. The place where he is truly himself.  

It’s navy blue.  And that’s so like him. When I think of Dante, I think blue.  Like his eyes.

The bed is huge and comfy, filled with dark blue throws and cushions and pillows.  There is a handful of photo prints and a camera lying on the foot of the bed, presumably exactly how Dante left them before he left for the Old Palace over a week ago.  I glance through them and find that they are pictures of the olive groves and a sunset.  Romantic and dreamy.  And he is really good at capturing beautiful pictures. I set them down.

The furniture here is heavy and there is a sitting area filled with photos in stacks on the end tables.  I can see photos of me from here.  And I’m not mad about it anymore.  It’s clearly something that he loves to do.  It’s not stalkerish.  It’s just….him.  And he’s really good at it. 

There is an old picture of his mother smiling from an end-table. She is framed with ornate silver and she is glamorous and beautiful.  There is another framed picture of Dante and his father. They are both standing on the edge of a boat, and the name of the boat is beneath them.  The
Daniella.
  I wonder if that is Dante’s mother’s name, but I can’t ask Dante because he’s already snoring from the bed.  He’s still fully clothed and on top of the covers.

I decide that it is surely his mother’s name.

And goshdangit.  I said surely again.

“Reece,” Dante says softly.  He’s sleepy and warm and curled up on the bed.  He stretches out and reaches for me.  He doesn’t wince this time when he moves, so he’s either doing better or the pain meds are working. Probably a mixture of both.

I cross the room quickly and sit next to him.

“Thank you,” he whispers and reaches for my hand.  “For staying with me.”

His hands are warm and have calluses from working with Darius.  I stroke his thumb with mine.  And just the mere touch of his skin sets mine on fire.  It’s pathetic, because he’s broken and sore and sleepy.  But the emotional toll of the past week has built up and now I’m aching for him to touch me. 

His touch is real.

It means that he’s fine.

It’s a tangible thing.

And I need it.

He needs it too. 

I know this because he pulls me down to him and I snuggle next to him, trying to make sure that I don’t bump his bruised ribs.  He leans into me and kisses me, his lips soft on my own and I sigh into his mouth.

He groans, but not a painful groan. 

A groan that tells me that he likes it.

Fire shoots through my stomach and into my heart and my hands start to roam. 

They drift lightly over his shoulders, his back, his hips, his butt.  He rolls carefully to his side now, facing me and his hands are moving too.  

They’re everywhere.

And he’s kissing me.

And I can’t think.

 He whispers my name and now I really can’t think.  I love the sound of my name on his lips. It’s surreal.  Like a dream.

But Dante’s hands are very real and the weight of them tells me that this is definitely not a dream.

And then he moves slightly and winces. 

And that reminds me that this is
definitely
not a dream.  And he is still injured.  We shouldn’t be doing this.

I tell him that softly.

“Dante, you need to rest.  You’re still injured.  The doctor said you have to rest.”

He looks at me, his eyes all soft and liquid and my heart melts.  Because he seems so vulnerable and his fragility in this moment makes him seem even more beautiful than usual. Even more beautiful than the tanned and handsome and confident Dante that he normally is.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to me.  And I startle.

“Sorry for that?” I ask in surprise. 

“For taking advantage of you.  You’re trying to help me and I’m taking advantage of that.”

He is so serious and I can’t help but laugh.

“You’re the cripple,” I point out.  “Aren’t I the one taking advantage of
you?”

He laughs quietly and I laugh, because it’s sort of true. 

But then again, it’s not.  

Because he wants me just as much as I want him.

And he tells me so.

And his voice is husky and sexy and I almost melt into a puddle.

“I’ll be rested up soon,” he tells me.  And his voice contains a promise.

A soft and silky promise.

The fire shoots up through my belly again and I nod.

“I know,” I answer.  I lean down and kiss his forehead and pull the coverlet up over him.  “Sleep tight,” I tell him. 

“Dream about me,” he answers as he closes his eyes.

Always
, I think.

“Maybe,” I say. 

He smiles with his eyes still closed and I decide that I could stand and watch him sleep forever. Then I decide that that’s creepy and stalkerish.  So I quietly walk back to my room.

And I do dream about Dante.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Holy cow.  Would you
look
at him?” Mia breathes. 

Our noses are practically pressed against the window of the shop and we’re staring into the olive groves.  There are tons of sweaty men out there but we’re focused on only one.

And sadly, it’s not Dante.

It’s a guy named Vincent.  A summer field hand who Mia has decided that she cannot live without. 

As I watch him sweating in the sun with his biceps bulging in the heat as he works, I have to hand it to Mia. If you’re going to decide that you can’t live without someone, it should definitely be someone as sexy as Vincent.

“What do you know about him?” I ask absently.  Because honestly, with looks like his, it doesn’t matter.  He’s tall, sandy-haired, brown-eyed, muscular and has a smile that girls would kill for.  He also fills out his jeans like nobody’s business. 

“Not much,” Mia admits.  “His parents live out in the valley, apparently. They’re farmers.  And so he’s an experienced field hand.  As you can see,” and she motions toward him.  “He makes an
excellent and amazing
field hand.”

I giggle and so does she. 

Coincidentally, he looks in our direction and grins. 

And we both sigh.

He’s completely sexy.

And Mia has a date with him tonight. 

“I wonder how experienced his hands actually are?” Mia wonders aloud. 

I know that she’s not talking about field-work now and we examine him again.  The muscles in his back ripple as he twists on a cherry-picker to prune the trees back.  His muscles flex and his hands are deft.  We both sigh again.

“Experienced, I’m betting,” I finally answer. 

“That’s alright,” Mia replies confidently.  “It’s just as well.  I’m not worried.  I can handle anything.”

“So says the girl who’s never had a boyfriend,” I say.

She rolls her eyes and then the next group of tourists come in.  We get busy and then I’m even busier watching for Dante, so we stop talking about it.  But I know Mia is excited. 

And I’m excited too, but for a different reason. Dante was finally released by the doctor to come back to work today, just two short weeks after his accident.  His ribs have healed up and his bruises are almost gone.  He feels great and I have to say, he looks great too. 

Right this moment, he’s in the fields too, working with Darius.  I find myself hoping that he doesn’t over-do it trying to prove himself.  I watch as he bends over an olive branch and Darius shows him something on the bark.  I have no idea what they’re doing or what they’re looking at, but Dante looks interested in it. 

I hand out a few more cheese samples and look back for Dante.

He’s not there. 

I sigh and turn back around.

“Looking for someone?”

He’s so cocky sometimes. I love that.  I smile and fight the urge to drop the tray of samples and launch myself into his arms and wrap my legs around his waist.  But I don’t want to re-crack his poor ribs.  So instead, I smile.

“No one in particular.  You here to get a sample?”

“Yep.”

I start to hand him a cracker, but he reaches around the tray and wraps his sweaty arm around my shoulders, pulling me to him for a kiss.