Maisey Yates - Mistresses - After Hours With The Boss - Her Little White Lie / Their Most Forbidden Fling / An Inescapable Temptation

It didn’t matter. He closed the door on the yawning, empty well inside of him. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need obvious displays of emotion. Far from it, he avoided them if at all possible. And being around Paige didn’t seem to allow for that. She was constant bubbling energy, and emotion. And glitter.

“Thank you,” she said, her blue eyes bright.

“Don’t thank me,” he said, trying to find some way to loosen the knot in his chest. “You’re here under false pretenses, due to a situation of your own making. And it’s hardly permanent, so don’t get too attached.”

She blinked, a flash of genuine pain visible on her face. So open. So real. Did the woman have no sense? Had she no defenses at all? “Okay, I … I mean I know that, but this is beautiful and I just got really excited and I didn’t mean anything by it.” All of her words ran together, coming faster as she rambled, the tension she was feeling palpable. She projected her feelings. So strongly he felt like he was being hit with a wall.

“Relax, Paige,” he said. “Take a breath.”

She snapped her mouth closed, her eyes still pooling with confused emotion.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the word foreign on his tongue.

Almost instantly, the tension left her, her face brightening. “It’s awkward. For everyone. I know. I’m not picking out china patterns or anything, I’m just … making the best of things. Making the best of living in a mansion by the sea, which, I admit, is not so hard.”

“You may not be so optimistic when you hear what I have to say next,” he said.

“You’re putting me on a hide-a-bed. No, my window has an ocean view, but the beach is a nude beach. Or maybe …”

“You’re going to have to at least appear to be sharing a room with me.”

“Say what?”

“Come now, Paige, are you so naive? If we’ve moved in together, we’ll obviously be sharing a room. A bed.”

Paige bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know about that. What about good, traditional values?”

“Does anyone have them these days?”

“My social worker, it seems. Since she was so concerned about Ana having a mom and dad.”

“Which means she needs to be confident that that is indeed what Ana is getting. And my staff needs to believe it, as well. The last thing I need is for someone to slip up and make a comment that winds up in the paper. I’m not being dragged into a public farce. A private farce, it seems, is unavoidable, but I will not be humiliated in a public forum.”

“That’s not my intent,” she said. “But hey, as long as I don’t actually have to sleep with you, I’m okay with having to dig through your closet to find my clothes.”

He wasn’t. He’d never lived with a woman before, had never had feminine things mingling in with his suits. His space was highly prized and this element of their arrangement didn’t sit well with him.

But while she was comfortable with her things being put anywhere, there was clearly one area that made her uncomfortable. And he had the uncontrollable urge to push at her, just a little.

“You’re the first woman I’ve ever encountered who was so opposed to sleeping with me she had to remark on it every couple of days.”

He was rewarded by the flood of color that bled into her cheeks. “That’s not … I’m just clarifying …”

“One might think,” he said, taking a step closer to her, “that you protest too much.”

She pulled Ana in tighter to her chest, a tiny, living shield. “Hey now, that is not true. I protest just enough for a woman who isn’t interested in having a … a fling with a playboy.”

“Playboy,” he said. “Such a strange label, and not one I’ve ever felt applied to me.”

“You change lovers often enough.”

“The dates I go to events with are not my lovers. I am very discreet with my lovers. And selective.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, then, I doubt I have anything to worry about. If you’re as selective as you say, I mean.”

Paige felt like melting beneath Dante’s intense, dark gaze. She didn’t know what had possessed her to bait him like that. To tempt him to say something derogatory about her appeal. She was aware of how far short she fell when it came to sexual allure.

The problem was, it wasn’t looks, not specifically. It wasn’t the way she dressed. She’d actually managed to score dates since moving to San Diego; it was just that … when they got that serious look, like they might miss her, she sort of freaked out. The idea of failing again, with someone new, was too painful. The thought of wanting someone who wouldn’t really end up wanting her … she hadn’t been willing to take the risk.

Which was why she really hadn’t bothered with dates for a long time. Getting herself sorted out was her top priority after all. Finding her way. And anyway, she didn’t need a hundred guys. She only needed the one right guy. And she was certain that one right guy would look nothing like Dante Romani.

Which was fine. Looks weren’t everything after all. The guy didn’t have to have a square jaw, and golden skin. Or a broad chest with incredible muscles that could not be hidden by the dress shirts he wore. He didn’t have to look like the essence of temptation wrapped in a custom suit. No. There were much more important things than that.

Like … way more.

She was sure of it.

“Is that what you think?” he asked.

Something in his eyes changed, the look becoming hungry, wild almost, as far from cool, calm, stuffed shirt Dante Romani as she could possibly imagine.

“I … obviously,” she said, her throat suddenly dry.

“What is obvious about it?” he asked.

“I’m … I’m …”

“Attractive,” he said.

She blinked. “Even with the pink stripe?”

“It’s growing on me.”

“Maybe I will get it colored over next time. In that case.”

“You just like to be difficult.”

She shrugged. “I’m a contrary beast, on occasion, I admit it.” She was doing it again, deflecting with humor, so he couldn’t see how much it had meant for him to call her attractive.

“I like a challenge.”

“I’m not a challenge,” she said, nerves skittering through her, making her feel shaky and off-kilter.

“You aren’t?”

“No. That makes it sound like I’m some sort of a … a game and I don’t like that. I don’t play games. What you see is what you get.”

“I’ve noticed. But I didn’t mean that I intended to play a game with you.”

“You didn’t?”

He shook his head, his dark eyes intent on hers. “I don’t play.”

She tried to swallow again. Her throat felt like it was coated in sand. “Right. Neither do I.”

He chuckled, dark and rich like chocolate. “I got the impression that you did very little besides playing.”

She looked down at the top of Ana’s fuzzy head. “And where did you get that idea? Between working for Colson’s and taking care of Ana, I don’t have a lot of playtime.”

He frowned. “I suppose that’s true. But it’s more the way you are. The things you say. You’re … happy.”

She laughed, the sound bursting from her with no decorum or volume control, as always. “I guess so. I mean, there’s plenty of crap I’m unhappy about. Like losing my best friend and having to contend with the adoption stuff. But I suppose … I mean in general I suppose that’s true.” She studied Dante’s face for a moment, the lines that feathered out from the corners of his eyes, the brackets by his mouth. “Are you happy?”

He shrugged. “I’m not really sure what that means. I’m content.”

“Content,” she repeated. She smoothed her hands over Ana’s back and a rush of love, or pure joy and pain filled her. “How can that be enough?” It wasn’t for her. Not now. It never would be again.