Jenna Black - Resistance

There was a long, companionable silence, until Dante suddenly broke it.

“Do you love him?”

She’d been asked that question by reporters dozens of times, and she’d always refused to answer on the grounds that it was private. However, her refusals had always been phrased in such a way as to make the interviewer believe the answer was yes. It was on the tip of her tongue to answer Dante the same way, but he wasn’t a reporter. He was a friend and a confidant—the only one she had left to her—and he deserved honesty from her, at least when she could afford to give it.

“He’s my best friend,” she said, “and I love him like a brother.” Even as she said it, Nadia wasn’t sure she was being entirely honest after all. There had never been any hope of a romance between her and Nate, but sometimes she suspected she was at least a little in love with him anyway. “But if we were Employees and could marry whom we chose, we never would have ended up with each other.” And that part was entirely true. “Does that answer your question?”

“Yeah. And sorry if that was too personal.”

“If it’d been too personal, I wouldn’t have answered.” She angled her head so she could see his face. Moonlight limned one side of it while leaving the other cloaked in shadows. The freckles over his nose had faded since he’d started working for the Lake family and spent most of his time indoors, but they were still faintly visible, even in the moonlight. They would be considered an unsightly blemish on an Executive, but Nadia found herself fighting the urge to reach out and touch them.

She licked her lips, aware of how close she was to Dante’s sensual mouth. She and Nate had kissed many times, but they had always been sham kisses, meant to help strengthen the illusion that he was into girls. Nadia had no idea what a real kiss felt like, and she suddenly wanted to find out in the worst way. She looked into his eyes and saw the answering spark there, but he didn’t take her up on what she felt certain was a blatant invitation. He smiled at her and stroked one hand lightly over her hair.

“You’ve just had some bad news and are in an altered state of mind,” he said gently. “I’m not the kind of asshole who’d take advantage of that.”

“Oh, now you’re going to turn all gentlemanly on me?” she asked, her cheeks heating at the rejection. He’d worded it nicely enough, but why should she expect a guy who thought Executive girls were akin to pampered poodles to want to kiss someone like her? Sure, he seemed to like her just fine now that he’d decided she wasn’t cut from the same cloth as most of her peers, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten what she was. What she would always be, even though she would live the rest of her life in disgrace.

It was embarrassingly hard for her to stop leaning against him and put some distance between them on the log, but she managed it, wishing she could sink through the ground in her humiliation. Dante’s eyes widened, and he took her hands before she could jump to her feet.

“I’m not saying no,” he told her earnestly. “I’m just saying not now.”

She appreciated his attempt to spare her feelings, but she knew a rejection when she heard one. And it probably served her right, anyway. Kissing Dante as some kind of secret act of rebellion, or just because he was there, didn’t say much about her strength of character. Even if the yearning in her belly suggested there was more to it than that.

“I mean it, Nadia. To tell you the honest truth, I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since the first time I met you.”

She gaped at him. “You thought I was a spoiled, privileged, self-centered Executive bitch, remember?”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy smile that revealed a dimple on his cheek. “No, that’s what I thought of the others. I knew you were different from the moment you ever-so-politely tore Jewel to shreds with your words.”

Nadia smiled a little at the memory. She lost almost as many verbal skirmishes with the Terrible Trio as she won, but the victories were sweet. And she remembered how Dante had visibly fought off a smile when Nadia cut Jewel down to size.

“If you still want to kiss me when I come visit you tomorrow, believe me, I’ll be more than happy to let you.”

Nadia swallowed hard, realizing he meant it. “You really mean to keep showing up here at midnight every night?”

“Of course I do. I told you I would.” Once again, he cupped her face in his hands. “No matter what it feels like, you’re not alone in this. Okay?”

Damn if Nadia’s eyes weren’t stinging again, but for very different reasons. No doubt she should be trying to talk Dante out of coming. There was risk every time they met, and he had to be running himself ragged. But she needed him too much to do the right thing. And besides, she doubted she was capable of talking him out of it anyway.

Words couldn’t express how grateful she felt, so she recklessly threw her arms around him and hugged him.

Nateburied his head in his pillow and willed himself to fall asleep. It didn’t work this time any better than it had worked the last fifty he’d tried. He flopped over onto his side and glared at his clock, which told him it was almost four A.M. His body felt sluggish and heavy with exhaustion, desperately in need of sleep, but his mind had other ideas, circling endlessly around his fears for Nadia and for his own bleak future with Agnes. He had to find his way out of the engagement.

But even if he did, his father could easily find another would-be bride for him, one with as few redeeming features as Agnes. And Nadia’s reputation would still be destroyed.

It was all so unfair he wanted to scream.

Nate forced his eyes closed and took a deep breath, searching for a sense of calm or peace, but there was none to be found.

If his nerves hadn’t been so taut and his mind so hyperactive, he probably never would have heard the very soft creak of his bedroom door opening, or the even softer sound of footsteps on the carpet as someone entered the room.

Adrenaline jolted through his already-wired system, and he sat up with a startled yelp, suddenly convinced his father had decided to dispose of him once and for all instead of forcing him into marriage.

“Easy,” the intruder said, holding up his hands in a calming gesture. “It’s just me.”

At the sound of Kurt’s voice, Nate let out a shuddering breath. His heart was still galloping, and he wondered if maybe he’d been closer to sleep than he’d realized, his mind right on the edge of a nightmare that Kurt had interrupted.

“Sorry to scare you,” Kurt said as he approached the bed.

Nate would have liked to pretend he hadn’t been scared, but Kurt would never buy the act. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he responded instead, making room so that Kurt could sit on the bed beside him.

Kurt snorted. “It’s like this or not at all. Which would you rather?”

“Don’t be a bastard.”

“But I am a bastard.”

Nate sat up and rubbed his bleary eyes. His mind was too slow and his heart too heavy for banter. He turned on the light beside his bed, though he quickly dimmed it to its lowest setting, to keep his eyeballs from searing.

Kurt was dressed in his full Basement regalia, black leather pants hugging every curve of his ass and thighs, a red mesh shirt displaying the tattoos that covered his chest and abdomen. A silver bar pierced his eyebrow, and Nate could tell by the slight lisp that Kurt was wearing the little silver ball in his tongue. His eyes were lined with kohl, and his head was covered in a dark fuzz that suggested he was letting his hair grow back. He looked wild, and sexy, and mouth-wateringly tempting. And yet …