Vivian

Chapter 11 :

I couldn't sleep.

I'd collapsed into bed three hours ago, my body

exhausted but my mind racing like I'd injected it with a dozen

shots of espresso.

I'd tried counting sheep, fantasizing about Asher Donovan, and

listening to my alarm clock's built-in white noise feature, but none

of it worked.

Every time I closed my eyes, images from the engagement

party played on a broken loop.

Dante's hand around my wrist.

The graze of his fingers along my spine.

The low rumble of his voice in my ear.

Welcome to the truce, mia cara.

Tingles erupted over every inch of my body.

I groaned and turned on my side, hoping the change in

position would shake the persistent memory of Dante's touch and

rough velvet voice.

It didn't.

Honestly, I was surprised he'd agreed so readily to the truce.

We hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words since I left him on

the sidewalk bench after our engagement shoot, but actively

ignoring him was more draining than I'd expected.

The penthouse was massive, yet we somehow ran into each

other multiple times a day—him coming out of his bedroom while I

walked to mine, me catching a breath of fresh air while he took a

call on the balcony, us sneaking into the screening room for a late-

night movie at the same time.

One of us always left when we saw the other, but I couldn't

turn the corner without my heart rate jumping in anticipation of

colliding with Dante.

The truce was the best option for my sanity and blood

pressure.

Plus, the one unguarded conversation we'd had so far had

been…nice. Unexpected, but nice. There was a heart somewhere

beneath Dante's grumpy, scowly exterior. It may be black and

shriveled, but it was there.

The numbers on my clock flipped from 12:02 a.m. to 12:03

a.m. My stomach emitted an angry growl at the same time.

After subsisting on nothing except a handful of hors d'oeuvres

and champagne all day, it was finally rebelling.

I groaned again.

It was technically too late to eat, but…

What the hell. I couldn't sleep anyway.

After a moment's hesitation, I tossed my covers off and tiptoed

out of my room and down the hall.

I hadn't had a midnight snack in years, but I was suddenly

craving an old favorite food combo.

I flipped on the kitchen lights, opened the fridge, and scanned

the contents until I located a jar of sliced pickles and a bowl of

chocolate pudding on the bottom shelf.

A-ha!

I set my bounty on the kitchen island before I hunted for the

last ingredient.

Dried pasta, condiments, cookies, seaweed crisps…I opened

and closed the endless row of cabinets, searching for a distinctive cardboard tube.

The cabinets were so high I had to stand on tiptoes to see into

the back, and my arms and thighs were starting to ache. Why did

Dante have so much storage space? Who needed an entire

cabinet of cooking oils?

If I didn't—

"What are you doing?"

I jumped and stifled a scream at the unexpected voice. My hip

banged against the counter when I whipped around, sparking a

jolt of pain whose reverberations matched the suddenly frantic

beats of my heart.

Dante stood in the doorway, his gaze bemused as it traveled

between me and the open cabinet.

For once, he wasn't wearing a suit and tie. Instead, a white T-

shirt stretched across his shoulders, emphasizing the sculpted

planes of his muscles and the deep bronze of his skin. Black

sweatpants hung just low enough to elicit dirty thoughts before I

quashed them.

"You scared me." My voice came out breathier than intended.

"What are you doing up?"

It was a stupid question. Obviously, he was up for the same

reason I was, but I couldn't think straight through the fog of

adrenaline.

"Couldn't sleep." The rough drawl drifted toward me and

settled low between my legs. "Guess I'm not the only one."

His eyes held mine for a brief moment before they flicked over

me.

A sense of deja vu spilled down the length of my spine, but

unlike at our first meeting, I detected a crack in Dante's indifference.

It was tiny, just a shadow of a flame, but it was enough to fill my stomach with flutters.

His perusal paused at my midsection. The shadow expanded,

darkening his eyes from rich brown to near obsidian.

I looked down, and my heart stumbled when I saw what caught

his attention.

I slept hot, so I usually wore some variation of a silk camisole

and boy shorts to bed. It was fine for the privacy of my bedroom

but completely inappropriate when faced with company.

The shorts stopped an inch above mid-thigh, and my top had

ridden up sometime during my cabinet foraging, revealing a

generous expanse of bare skin.

When I looked up again, Dante's gaze had returned to my

face.

I held still, afraid to breathe as he moved toward me with the

languid, powerful grace of a predator stalking its prey.

Every soft footfall was another lit flame in the space between

us.

He stopped when his body heat enveloped mine. Inches away,

so close I could count the individual stubble shadowing his jaw.

"What are you looking for?"

His casual tone clashed with the tension brewing in the air, but

I simply said the first thing that came to mind.

"Pringles. Classic."

There was no answer like the truth.

I discreetly tugged my top down while Dante reached into the

cabinet above my head. The tiny breeze from his movement

brushed my skin.

Goosebumps pebbled, and something hot coiled in my

stomach.

He retrieved an unopened can of chips and handed it to me

without a word.

"Thank you." I clutched the tube, unsure what to do next.

Part of me wanted to escape to the safety of my room. The

other part wanted to stay and see how long I could play with fire without getting burned.

"Pringles, pickles, and pudding." Dante saved me from a

decision. "Interesting combination."

Relief loosened the knot in my chest. My breath came out

easier now that I had something to focus on other than my body's

unwilling reaction to his.

"They taste good together. Don't knock it till you've tried it." I

took control of my limbs again and sidestepped him on my way to

the island.

The touch of his gaze followed me, an insistent pressure on

the small of my back.

I opened the can of Pringles. Don't turn around.

"Apologies. Far be it from me to question your snack choices."

A trace of dry amusement ran through his voice.

I heard the fridge open behind me, followed by the clink of

silverware and the click of a shutting cabinet door.

A minute later, Dante slid onto the stool beside me.

My mouth parted when he began assembling his snack.

"You make fun of me for my food choices but you're pouring

soy sauce over ice cream?"

The earlier tension retreated in the face of my shock.

Forget the way his muscles flexed with each movement or the

way his shirt hugged his torso.

He was committing a crime against humanity right before my

eyes.

"Drizzling, not pouring. And don't knock it till you've tried it,"

Dante mocked, throwing my earlier words back at me. "I bet it

tastes better than the abomination you put together."

His brow hitched at the chip in my hand, which I'd dipped in

pudding and topped with a pickle.

My eyes narrowed at the silent challenge.

"I doubt it." I lifted his hand and dropped my lovingly

assembled snack in his open palm. He stared at it like it was a piece of old gum stuck to his shoe. "Let's swap and see who's

wrong and who's right."

I pulled his bowl toward me with a small grimace.

I loved ice cream and I loved soy sauce…separately. Some

things weren't meant to mix, but I was willing to choke it down to

make my point.

Namely, I was right, and he was wrong.

"I'm always right," Dante said. He eyed me and then my snack

with a hint of intrigue. "Fine. I'll bite. On the count of three."

I almost asked if the pun was on purpose before I remembered

his sense of humor was more underdeveloped than a toddler's

vocabulary.

"One," I said.

"Two." His grimace matched mine.

"Three."

I spooned a serving of ice cream into my mouth at the same

time he bit into my chip.

Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the crunch of food

and the hum of the fridge.

I'd braced myself for a wave of revulsion, but the combination

of French vanilla and soy sauce was…

That can't be right. Maybe my taste buds were broken.

I helped myself to another scoop just to make sure.

Dante's mouth curled into a knowing grin. "Going back for

seconds already?"

"Don't act so smug. It's not that good," I lied.

"In that case, I'll take the ice cream back—"

"No!" I pulled the bowl closer to my chest. "I've already eaten

from it. It's…unhygienic to share food. Get your own bowl."

Dante's grin widened.

I let out a sigh. "Fine. It tastes good. Are you happy?" I shot a

pointed look at the island top. "I'm not the only one who was

wrong. You've finished half the chips in the past five minutes."

"That's an exaggeration." He dipped another pickle and chip

combo in the pudding. "But this isn't as terrible as I thought."

"See? I'll never steer you wrong when it comes to food." I dug

my spoon into a fresh scoop of vanilla and relaxed into the

unfamiliar but not unpleasant ease between us. Maybe the truce

had been a good idea after all. "How did you come up with this

combo, anyway?"

I couldn't imagine Dante sampling different food pairings in his

free time until he found a winner like I had. From what I saw, he

barely had time to eat.

He was silent for a long moment before he said, "Luca and I

hung out in the kitchen a lot as kids. We had a game room, pool,

all the latest toys…pretty much everything anyone under the age

of twelve could want. But sometimes, we wanted company other

than each other, and the chef was one of the few people in the

household who treated us like actual people. He let us play

around in there when he wasn't cooking." Dante shrugged. "We

were kids. We experimented."

My insides warmed at the mental image of little Dante running

around the kitchen with his brother.

"You two must be close."

I'd met Luca at the engagement party. He'd been polite

enough, though I got the sense he wasn't thrilled about my

marriage to his brother. We'd only talked for a few minutes before

he abruptly excused himself.

Dante's face shuttered. "Not as close as we used to be."

I paused at the strange note in his voice. For some reason, his

brother was a sore subject.

"Does he work for the company?" I ventured when he didn't

offer any more information.

I didn't want to push Dante too hard and have him shut down

when we were finally making progress, but I couldn't contain my curiosity. I didn't know much about him beyond what was public

knowledge.

He came from a very old, very wealthy family that made its

fortune in textiles before his grandfather founded the Russo Group

and expanded the family empire into what it was today. He'd

graduated top of his class from Harvard Business School and

increased his company's market value fivefold since taking over

as CEO. He eliminated his competition with shocking

effectiveness, either by crushing or acquiring them, and the

ruthlessness of his security team had catapulted him to mythical

status.

I may have read up on Dante while he was in Europe.

"He does now." Dante's tone suggested the change had not

been Luca's choice. "He interned at the company in college. It

was a disaster, so our grandfather allowed him to 'pursue his

passions' instead of taking on a corporate role. He already had

me as an heir; he didn't need Luca. But giving my brother too

much freedom was a mistake. Luca bounced around from job to

job for a decade. He was a DJ one day, an actor the next. He

sank half his trust fund into a nightclub that folded within eight

months of opening. He needs stability and structure, not more

time and money to burn."

It was the most words I'd heard come out of Dante's mouth

since we met.

"So you gave him a job," I surmised. "What does he do now?"

"Salesman." The corner of Dante's mouth kicked up when I

gave him a skeptical look. "He doesn't get special treatment

because he's my brother. When I started at the Russo Group, I

worked as a stock clerk. It was one of the greatest lessons my

grandfather taught me. In order to lead a company, you have to

know the company. Every facet, every position, every detail.

Leaders who are out of touch are leaders who fail."

Somehow, Dante managed to surprise me every time we

talked.

I'd expected him to run his company from the top down with no

care for his employees and blatant abuse of nepotism the way

many of his peers did, but his philosophy made sense.

Since I couldn't say that without offending him, I stuck to the

topic of his brother.

"I get the sense Luca doesn't like me," I admitted. "Every time I

tried to talk to him at the party, he made an excuse and left."

Dante paused. Tension dampened the air for a second before

his shoulders relaxed and the clouds disappeared.

"Don't take it personally. He gets moody at those types of

things." He smoothly switched subjects. "Speaking of the party,

you never told me who's on your dream husband list."

Oh, for God's sake.

I'd mentioned the list as a joke. I didn't know why he was so

fixated on it. But since he was…I might as well have some fun.

"I'll tell you if you promise not to get an inferiority complex," I

said sweetly. I ticked off the names of my favorite celebrities.

"Nate Reynolds, Asher Donovan, Rafael Pessoa…"

Dante looked unimpressed. "I didn't realize you were such a

big soccer fan."

Asher Donovan and Rafael Pessoa both played for Holchester

United in the UK.

"I'm a soccer player fan," I corrected. "There's a difference."

I'd watched a total of three sports games in my life. I'd only

mentioned Asher and Rafael because I saw them in an ad

campaign yesterday and they were fresh on my mind.

"Reynolds is married, and Donovan and Pessoa live in

Europe," Dante said silkily. "I'm afraid you're out of luck, mia cara."

"True." I heaved a long-suffering sigh. "In that case, I guess you'll have to do."

A laugh bubbled in my throat when he narrowed his eyes.

"You're baiting me."

"Just a little."

My laugh finally spilled out at his scowl. I could practically see

the bruises forming on his ego.

I didn't have any romantic notions about him being interested

in the list because he liked me. He probably hated the idea of not

being number one on anyone's list.

We didn't talk much after that, but the silence between us was

less jagged than those from the early days of our engagement.

I snuck a glance at Dante as he methodically spread a layer of

pudding on the last chip, his brow wrinkled in concentration. It was

strangely adorable.

I almost laughed again when I pictured how he'd react if he

found out anyone described him as adorable.

I hid my smile as I swirled my spoon through my melting ice

cream.

I was suddenly glad I couldn't sleep earlier.