For a moment, Dante wonders whether she’s a high class escort, sent here by Alex or Isabella. He pushes the thought away. No-one knows he’s here apart from his driver, and if he wanted to, he could have arranged that himself. Perhaps she’s not meant for him at all, but someone else. Someone that’s stood her up, and now she’s seen him and zeroed in just to make up the difference. It’d make sense if it was that part of town. She doesn’t look like she belongs here, but then neither does he.
“Making conversation”, she says. “I thought we’d already covered that.”
Dante watches her turn the glass around. Twisting it clockwise, a quarter turn at a time. Suddenly he feels the urge to impress her. To show her his worth.
“You want to go somewhere, Katy?” he asks.
She lets the question hang for a moment while she composes herself.
“You want to take me somewhere?” she says finally.
“Yeah”, Dante says, that hungry look in his eyes again. “I do.”
When Sash came back to him, after three years of leaving him out in the wilderness, to sit there in his office in floods of tears, and admit that she needed his money and not just him, he knew she was giving him the perfect opportunity to finally get what he wanted, and deserve what ever she got as a result of that too. He exploited her completely, it’s true. He played her, but only because she let her guard down and allowed him to do it.
He wanted to finally take what she had denied him, and put a big, fat, full stop on the feelings he’d carried with him for over three years. The feelings she had made him carry in the first place. After that night, after that amazing, incredible, earth shattering fuck, the plan was to never see her again. The plan was to fuck her and disappear, to wipe her completely from his life, much like she had to him all those years ago. To forget about her completely. The problem was, it just didn’t work that way, and as much as Dante hated himself for it, he didn’t seem able to stop thinking about her. He hated that. He hated the hold she still had over him.
She’d got into him again, she’d brought memories of their time together flooding back to the surface of his mind, and the more he tried to push them away, the stronger they came back at him.
Needing her made Dante feel weak, and there was absolutely no way he’d let his guard down and show Sash he felt that way. It was why he’d let a week slip past already without contacting her. It was too long a time based on the way he felt, but not long enough to make a decision either way. It was why he’d buried himself in work, why he was getting drunk more and more often, and why now, as he headed to one of his clubs, he wasn’t doing it alone.
She’d be mad at him for leaving in the first place. Enraged he hadn’t returned her calls. He’d have to figure something out. She’d forgive him, whatever he did, as long as he went back to her. He knew that. He knew where she was after all, there was only one place she had left to turn, and it was exactly the place where Dante had wanted her to go. It had started there, so if it was going to continue at all, it seemed fitting that at least once, it should be there. Dante was impressed by how he was able to control her, but what he wasn’t impressed with, was how little he was able to control his own feelings.
Chapter 4
Sash watches Abbey snoop around Dante’s room, as though looking for clues to a murder mystery.
“Dante’s bedroom”, she says. “I thought I’d never make it in here.”
“Knock yourself out.” Sash says.
She’s sat up on the bed, her knees pulled protectively up to her chest. She looks worn out, like she’s spent the whole week crying. “You know everyone was in love with your bother.”
“He’s an ass-hole”, Sash says. “And he’s my stepbrother anyway.”
“Yeah but he’s hot”, Abbey says, opening a drawer and finding the picture of Dante that Sash had purposely hidden. “And he’s loaded.”
“So what?”
“So, duh, he’s totally Mr eligible bachelor 2015. Look.” she says, holding the photo up for Sash to see, as though she hasn’t spent hours and hours pouring over it already. “You’ve got to admit he’s cute.”
“You have a boyfriend already”, Sash says, standing up to grab the photo from Abbey’s clutches and hide it away again in the back of the drawer. “And I didn’t bring you over here to perv over my stepbrother.”
She gets behind Abbey and pushes her to the bed. “Seriously, Sash, you don’t know how long I spent idolizing your brother.”
“Stepbrother”, Sash confirms. “And I do, remember, you told me about it every day for about two years.”
Abbey flops onto the bed and Sash sits alongside her.
“He never looked at me”, Abbey complains. “He was always too interested in other girls. I was never popular enough.”
“Your not missing out on much”, Sash says.
“No, of course not. Only private jets, penthouse suites, fantastic abs, perfect ass, that smile, those arms-.” She counts them out on her fingers.
“It isn’t everything”, Sash says.
“Duh, Sash, what else is there?”
“Love”, Sash says.
“Please”, Abbey laughs. “It’s overrated.”
“Why are you with Shaun then?” Sash wants to know.
“Because Shaun’s got a big dick, baby, and he knows how to use it.”
Sash laughs. It’s the first time for a week she’s felt able to do that. Abbey twists on the bed so the two girls are facing each other.
At one point growing up, Sash and Abbey were inseparable. Born only a few months apart, they played together as little girls, moving through elementary and high school together as best friends, eventually separating out into different social circles when they were old enough to realize their interests were taking them on vastly different paths. While Sash moved into the city, desperate to grow up and find a life of her own, Abbey decided to stay put.
Although they spent less time together through college, they still maintained contact, treating each other like sisters, each with their own separate lives. If there was anyone she felt she was close enough to, to confess how she felt about Dante, Abbey would be the girl. The fact that they’d known each other so long and she still hadn’t done it, went some way to explaining just how important a secret it was to keep.
“So who is he?” Abbey asks.
“Just some douche-bag”, Sash says.
“They’re all just some douche-bag”, Abbey agrees. “This one really hurt you though, huh?”
Sash can feel herself welling up again. “It’s not just that”, Sash says. “It’s this, all of this, having to be back here again.”
“Oh, fuck that”, Abbey says dismissively. “At least you get your washing done for you and your meals cooked.”
“Tracy has the unique ability to suck flavor out of anything she prepares, and she won’t let me into the kitchen to help her.”
“What I mean is it could be worse.”
“I have no money, Abbey. Zero, zilch, zip, nada de nada.”
“That’s why I’m here”, Abbey says proudly, with a smile that beams across her face. “I’m going to take you out.”
“No, Abbey”, Sash says, shaking her head. “That’s not a good idea.”
Abbey wriggles herself closer to Sash. “I know you didn’t call me up to sit here and
be miserable all night.”, she says.
“That’s exactly what I called you here for”, Sash says. “To look after me in my time of need. To stop me from going crazy.”
“When was the last time you went out?”
“I went running today.”
“That’s not what I meant. Out out”, Abbey says. “Drunk, dancing, flirting with boys out.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Yes you do”, Abbey says, taking her by the hand. “It’s exactly what you need, and tonight is on me.”
She guides her to the full length mirror, standing behind so Sash can see herself.
“Don’t let yourself get down, Sash. See how beautiful you are?”
Sash looks at herself briefly, before looking away again.