VITTORIO'S MISTRESS (The Vittorio Series) (2 page)

“I am sorry if I frightened you,
cara
mia
,” Dante said, genuinely concerned with how pale she was.

“What are you doing here?”
 
She managed to squeak out.

“I was just stretching my legs a bit after an excruciatingly long board meeting when I saw you from across the park.
 
I wasn’t even sure it was really you until you turned around.”
 

Dante was every bit as shaken as she was by the unexpected encounter.
 
The difference was that while his turbulent emotions were hidden behind a mask of apathy, Paige was trembling like a leaf and looked as if she was about a heartbeat away from crumbling into a heap at his feet.
 
She seemed so fragile, so vulnerable, and it was all he could do not to gather her in his arms and swear on his life he’d take care of her.
 
But Dante staunchly resisted the temptation by reminding himself that he’d already been stung once and only a fool would invite that kind of pain again.

“I noticed the group of children,” he told her.
 
“Does that mean you got your degree in teaching?”

At the mention of the children, Paige’s stomach churned.
 
Thank God Daniella had been so intent on getting her snack that she hadn’t tried to climb onto Paige’s lap or demand a hug because Dante was far too astute not to figure out there was a special bond between them if he’d seen them together.
 
Panic began to well up inside of her.
 
What if he found out Daniella was his daughter?
 
It was a double edged sword, Paige realized, because as much as she dreaded the thought of him demanding visitation, she’d be utterly crushed if he only showed cold indifference and didn’t want any part of
Daniella’s
life.

“I…uh…did get my degree but decided to start a daycare center instead of teaching.”
 

“You always did have a soft spot for the younger children,” he recalled.

“Yes, well…” she licked her lips nervously, “I should be getting back.
 
It…it was nice seeing you again, Dante.”

She was going to be seeing a whole lot more of him, Dante thought as his eyes zeroed in on her moist lips.
 
He wasn’t any more immune to Paige now than he’d been four years ago but it wasn’t just her body he wanted.
 
He wanted revenge.
 
Revenge for all the sleepless nights he’d spent wondering what he’d done wrong and for the rage of jealously that swept through him every time he thought of her in the arms of another man.
 
He wanted to make her pay for the way he’d suffered all these years without her because she’d not only left him incapable of loving someone else, she’d left him with the inability to feel anything but the slightest pleasure in taking another woman bed.

“I would like very much to see you again,
cara
,” he said softly.

His seductively deep voice moved over her in a soft caress and brought back that old familiar ache.
 
She shook her head vehemently.
 
“I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”

His expression hardened.
 
“You are involved with someone?”

“No!
 
There hasn’t been…” Paige bit down on her lip.
 
Had she lost her mind?
 
She’d nearly admitted there had been no other man in her life since him.

“Then you are free to see who you wish?”

“Yes, but…”

“Good,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
 
“Tell me your address and I will pick you up tonight, say seven o’clock?
 
We will have dinner and then perhaps take a drive.”

Paige’s stomach did a whole gymnastic routine in a span of ten seconds.
 
“I…no, Dante.
 
I have a prior engagement that I can’t get out of.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“I’m sorry, but…”

“Saturday night would be better?”
 

She let out an exasperated sigh.
 
“You haven’t changed a bit have you?”

“Because I am relentless when it comes to something I want?
 
I am merely asking to have dinner with you,
carissima
.”

“Why?”

Dante let his hands glide slowly down her arms and back up again.
 
“I have missed you, Paige.
 
It was always so easy to talk to you and I would enjoy an evening out with a beautiful woman who wants nothing from me but conversation.”

An insane jealousy curled around her heart and squeezed.
 
How many women had there been since they’d parted that demanded more than conversation?
 
Just looking at him took her breath away so it wasn’t any wonder that he had women panting after him.
 
She knew from personal experience how one seductive smile from Dante Vittorio could touch a woman in secret places she’d never known existed and make her forget everything but the desire to lay beneath him.
 

Paige drew in a ragged breath, the memory of the passion they’d shared almost as overwhelming as the realization that she’d somehow gotten a few inches closer to him.
 
She could smell the spicy aftershave he wore and it was as heady to her as a glass of wine.
 
His dark eyes held hers as he waited for her to respond and though everything in her wanted to say yes, she had to consider Daniella and the complications that would arise if he found out about her.
 
No, the best thing she could do for all of them
was
to steer clear of Dante.
 
But even as she was shaking her head, his arrogant smile told Paige it was a losing battle to try and deny him.

“You have missed me too,” he said softly, “and you are remembering how good it was between us.”
 
He dipped his head and nibbled at her lips.
 
“You want me to kiss you as I once did…”

“No,” Paige whispered as her traitorous body leaned into him.

His mouth came down over hers, hard and hungry and she could have cried for how good it felt.
 
It stirred up emotions that she’d foolishly thought had been locked away, and when Dante’s arms slid to her waist and curved around her back to pull her tighter against his body, it opened a floodgate of feelings and sensations and a yearning for things that could never be hers.
 
 
He was like a drug, as potent as any narcotic and just as addictive.
 
If the sound of children laughing hadn’t penetrated the hazy fog clouding her mind, Paige probably would have gone on kissing him for as long as he’d let her.

Tearing her mouth away from his only solved half the problem because she couldn’t seem to catch her breath and her heart was thundering so loud it made her head spin.
 
That and the fact her knees had turned into rubber kept Paige from trying to escape the strong arms that held her so snuggly to his chest.
 
It didn’t help that his lips were still dangerously close to hers or that the flame of desire burned like molten lava in his eyes.
 

“I have to go,” she rasped out.

Dante’s voice was as thick as hers.
 
“Not until you promise to have dinner with me,
cara
.”

Desire warred with common sense but the need to protect Daniella overrode her own need to be with him.
 
“I can’t,” Paige said in strangled whisper.
 
“There’s no going back, Dante.
 
Too much time has passed…”

“Would you change it if you could?”
 

Paige stared blankly at him. “Would I change it?”

“Time,” Dante said.
 
“If you could turn back
time
and change whatever it was that made you leave, would you?”

“Yes,” Paige said without hesitation, then twisted away from him and all but ran back the way she’d come.

Dante didn’t try to stop her.
 
“Flee while you can, my angel,” he said as she disappeared around a bend in the path.
 
“Soon I will clip your wings and you will not be able to fly away from me again.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
***

Kelly was conducting a game of
Simon Says
when she rejoined them.
 
Once she was sure Dante wasn’t following her, Paige had slowed her pace so she could talk herself down off the precarious ledge she’d stepped out on when she’d let him kiss her.
 
She was still feeling a little intoxicated and her insides had turned to mush but at least she hadn’t folded and agreed to have dinner with him.
 
It hadn’t taken Dante two minutes to get her in his arms.
 
At that rate, she’d last ten minutes tops before toppling into bed with him!

When the game finally ended, Paige had the children pair up for the walk back across the park.
 
One of the first rules of an outing was that each child had to hold hands with a buddy anytime they moved from one location to another.
 
If their partner let go before they reached their destination, they’d been taught to stop and alert either Paige or one of the assistants.
 
She was terrified by the idea that a child would get lost on her watch so her safety rules were strictly enforced.

There were almost fifty children enrolled in her daycare center and the number was quickly growing.
 
Ideally, she liked to have no more than twelve children to one assistant, that way she could organize an outing to the park four days a week, taking a different group each day.
 
It was just her luck to have opened the daycare center across from the same park Dante used for his afternoon walk.
 
She could only hope it wasn’t something he did on a regular basis because her nerves couldn’t take another encounter like the one they’d had today.

As it was, Paige was jittery for the rest of the afternoon because she couldn’t seem to drive him from her mind.
 
Not that Dante was ever far from her thoughts, but now his image was much sharper.
 
Her lips were still tender from his amorous kiss and as crazy as it sounded, she’d skipped dinner because the taste of him lingered in her mouth and in some small way it allowed her to hang onto him for just a little while longer.
 
It was stupid, dangerous even, to keep reliving those few precious minutes when she’d belonged to him again.
 

Paige leaned over the crib and brushed a light kiss to her sleeping daughter’s forehead.
 
She had to think of Daniella now because nothing mattered more than her little girl’s happiness.
 
Dante would disrupt both their lives if he demanded visitation rights, and she couldn’t allow that to happen no matter how much she ached to be with him.
 
Daniella wasn’t a shy child by any means, but she wasn’t any more prepared to spend the weekends with a virtual stranger than Paige was to let her go for that long.
 

The solution was as simple as it was heartbreaking.
 
She could never see Dante again.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
***

Dante drummed his fingers on the desk, grim determination lining his face.
 
It had taken precisely one phone call and an agonizing two hour wait to find out where Paige was living and the current state of her financial status.
 
Now all he had to do was figure out how to use that information to his advantage.
 

The modest sized house she rented was located in a decent enough
neighborhood
, but he couldn’t help thinking that a woman like Paige Spencer should be living in a mansion and wearing designer originals with jewel encrusted accessories instead.
 
Dante could have given her that, but she’d run out on him because she thought it would take him years to amass the kind of wealth necessary to provide those things.

He still had the brief note she’d left him tucked away in the top drawer of his desk though he didn’t have to pull it out to know what she’d written.
 
God knew he’d read it enough times over the years that it was permanently etched in his head.