Billionaire Makeover, page 11
Siri read his message back to him and then sent it.
Dante felt better having reached out. He needed to see her again and he was going to tell her the truth of their shared past so that they could move forward from it. Because tonight had clarified that he did know what he wanted for his future. His beer empire to keep growing and for Olive to be by his side.
Eleven
The text from Dante had changed everything, and Olive had gone from not being sure to the confident woman she’d once been. It was tempered with her new perspective on the world and her place in it. But she really liked Dante. There was a part of her that was still unsure, of course, because it was hard to trust her instincts when she’d never really been able to.
As she got out of her Uber in front of the large mansion, which by the way wasn’t in the suburb she lived in but on Lake Michigan’s most prestigious address, she took a deep breath. She was wearing a mini sundress with a deep vee in the front and the back, and the skirt ended midthigh. Olive had paired the blue floral dress with a pair of wedged heels and was carrying her large workbag as she’d come from the office.
She hit the doorbell and heard it play the jingle for Inferno Brewing. It made her smile because it was so Dante to have it here. He seemed grounded in remembering where his money had come from. The door opened and Dante stood in front of her, wearing a pair of plaid shorts and a blue polo shirt that made his green eyes pop. His feet were bare.
She must have seen men dressed this way all her life and thought it was boring...but damn. Dante made everything he wore hot. So much so that she wanted to jump into his arms and plant a long, wet kiss on him.
He smiled when he saw her and stepped back so she could enter. The foyer was cream marble with an inlay in the middle of it that showed the nine circles of hell. She found the wall décor to be tasteful, and there were two large tables on either side. He closed the door behind her and took her bag before putting it on one of the tables.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Hi. Good,” she said. “So this doesn’t look like Westmont to me.”
Dang it. She was nervous now that she was standing next to him. There was no way to pretend this was normal. It wasn’t. He stirred something inside her that was making it hard for her to breathe. She was so happy to see him and to be there.
That felt ridiculous, if she was honest. And scary. She didn’t want to be this happy to see a man...to see Dante. She still wasn’t sure if she liked him because of him—
Stop, she ordered herself. Stop looking for reasons not to like this man. Sometimes it was okay to just take a man at face value.
“It’s not. I bought it for my parents but they refused to move into the city,” he said.
“Where do they live?”
“Schaumburg,” he said. “You said you’re from Texas...what part?”
“Dallas area. Southlake. I went to college at Northwestern.”
She noticed something cross over his face, but it was gone so quickly she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it.
“I figured dinner here would be more private than a restaurant. I want the chance to talk to you tonight,” he said quietly.
“Oh?”
“Well, we kind of changed things up last weekend and I know you said you had no regrets... It’s always better to have those kinds of conversations alone,” he said. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a glass of wine,” she said with a smile. “Sorry if that’s sacrilege to you.”
“It’s not. I was planning to grill us some steaks for dinner and have a couple of wines to go with it.”
“A couple?”
“Wasn’t sure if you were a red, white or rosé gal. I know it’s not proper, but I really like rosé in summer,” he said, leading the way down the hall to a large kitchen. It was modern and sunny.
She saw obvious prep work had been done for their meal. “This is a big house for one guy.”
“It is,” he admitted. “I hope to have a family someday. The wine fridge is there if you want to check out the whites and rosés. If you prefer red—”
“Rosé sounds good. I’ll pick out a bottle. Do you need my help with anything else?” she asked, trying not to think about the fact that he wanted a family someday. She was trying not to read too much into that.
“No,” he said. “I had my housekeeper make a salad to go with the steak, and I’m going to grill some artichoke hearts when I do the steaks.”
“Sounds delicious. Do you cook a lot?”
“No,” he replied. “I grill in the summer pretty much all my meals. I can fry an egg and eat a lot of microwave oatmeal. Otherwise, Mrs. Flanders preps dinner for me and I heat it up when I get home.”
She poured them both a glass of wine and turned to him. “Why did you say you lived in the suburbs?”
“Sorry about that. I figured you wouldn’t trust me to be a good guy and see you safely home otherwise,” he said.
Those words sparked something inside her. Dante was a decent man, and the fact that he had told a little white lie to make her feel safer just made her like him even more. She had to admit it was getting harder and harder to find a reason not to let herself care for him.
“Thank you.”
He shrugged. “It was nothing. I couldn’t have left you there waiting for an Uber, just didn’t seem the gentlemanly thing to do. I mean, I know it’s not trendy to do that stuff, but that’s just me.”
“I’m glad. I liked it,” she said softly.
She followed him out into his backyard, which had a large outdoor kitchen and eating area that overlooked a huge pool with a waterfall at one end. He cooked their food while they talked about everything and nothing. And her heart started to melt a little bit. Here was the man she’d never thought she’d find for herself. A man who was nice and sexy and normal. And accepted her for exactly who she was.
Her gut was leery of trusting him, and her soul so heavy from the karmic ledger that she was still working to clear wasn’t sure either. But even so, as they took their second glass of wine with them and walked through his manicured garden as the lights came on, she knew she was falling for him.
* * *
Dante kept looking for an opportunity to tell Olive about their past. That she was the mean girl who’d hurt him. He almost had when she’d said Northwestern. That was the perfect opening. But he’d rationalized it was too early in the evening...then come up with a million other excuses.
Like as soon as he’d seen her standing in his house, he’d realized how much he’d missed her. How was that even possible?
It had only been three days since he’d been with her. But he’d felt a bit lost without her. Then she’d smiled at him and his instincts had sprung to life. Demanding he do everything in his power to keep her here with him, which he knew wasn’t good. That meant he already knew that once he told her the truth, she was going to leave. She was going to be mad as hell at him.
Rightly so.
That did nothing to explain why he had said nothing during dinner or when he’d offered to take her on a tour of his garden.
She looked so beautiful during the golden hour as the sun was setting. She had always been the one woman he couldn’t take his eyes off, but knowing her now made that ache more keen.
He wanted to touch her as they strolled side by side, but with the secret he had to tell hanging over him, he knew that he couldn’t. He could maybe justify sleeping with her once without saying anything, but twice...there was no way.
“This is a really nice place. How long have you wanted a big family?” she asked.
He choked on the sip of wine he’d just taken.
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” she said with a note of amusement in her voice. “It seemed like a normal thing to ask.”
He nodded. “I haven’t thought much about a family. I’ve been busy making beer and selling it. But yeah, someday, I think I’d like one. What about you?”
She moved closer to the willow trellis that had night-blooming jasmine interwoven with lights. He watched her standing there underneath it, looking like a being from another world, and he wondered how he was ever going to tell her the truth.
Once he did, nothing would be the same between them.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have a lot of red in my karmic ledger and I’m working to clear it, but I don’t think I should have a family until that’s taken care of.”
He. Had. To. Tell. Her.
Right now.
This woman was really trying to make amends for her past and he had the key to closure for her on one count.
She shrugged and wrinkled her nose at him. “Probably not the answer you were expecting.”
“No, it wasn’t, but it seems right somehow. I have never met anyone who has owned their past the way you have,” he stated gruffly.
She tipped her head to the side and then leaned over to sniff one of the blossoms. “You have.”
But he hadn’t. Not really. Dante walked over to her and took a moment to realize that once he told her, he was going to have to give her space. He wasn’t sure he could do it. Be that selfless. Give up this woman who was somehow everything he would have said he wanted if someone had asked him. Olive fucking Hayes.
He put his hand on her head, let the silky-soft red strands run through his fingers and leaned down to kiss her. She turned and their lips met. That electric tingle shot through him and he wasn’t sure he could do it.
He had told himself all the “right” things to do. All the things he should say and the way he should behave, but now that she was here...
He broke the kiss. She looked startled.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I want to show you something,” he said. Taking her hand in his, he led her through the willow trellis to the other side, where the garden sloped upward until they were about fifteen feet above it on a patio with a seating area that looked back toward the house over the garden and the pool.
“This is gorgeous,” she breathed.
“It’s why I bought the house,” he said.
“So not just for your parents?”
“No. I mean, I hoped they’d retire and just let me take care of them,” he said. “They didn’t like that at all.”
She laughed. “You really care about people, don’t you?”
“No more than others,” he said.
“I’m not sure that’s true. I saw you with your staff. And how you really know what’s going on in their lives. Not everyone is like that.”
He tried to be a good man. It wasn’t really that hard to stay present and, for the most part, until Olive had come back into his life, he’d known where he was going. But now, confronted with her...everything he’d thought he’d known about himself had been thrown into a complete tailspin.
“Well, thanks... I guess. But I’m not always selfless.”
“Really?” she asked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and looking up at him from under eyelashes.
He decided then that he wasn’t going to tell her the truth tonight. That he didn’t want anything to ruin this night.
Dante knew that wasn’t a good enough reason but he didn’t care. He wanted this. He wanted a perfect night with Olive in this house that he had bought for his future family. And, for some reason, the only woman he could see with him was standing beside him right now.
He knew that wasn’t going to happen. That once she knew the truth, she’d be out the door and then out of his life. That she’d look at her karmic ledger and maybe think she’d erased some of the debt there. But she’d never forgive him, and he wouldn’t blame her.
He was going to hurt her the way she had hurt him even though that hadn’t been his intention.
* * *
It started raining, cold and surprising. Olive yelped and Dante grabbed her hand, leading her to the pool house. They stood under the cover of the overhang. She turned to look up at him. His thick curly hair clung to his head and his green eyes were troubled. She could tell he had something on his mind and she guessed it was more than this casual evening had netted.
He started to speak but she went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. That one kiss under the trellis hadn’t been enough. She’d missed him. Missed the feel of his body against her and his mouth moving over hers.
He took control of the kiss, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her fully into his body.
She shivered but knew that was from his mouth on hers and not the air. She had wanted him since she’d left him in Milwaukee.
He lifted his head, looked down into her eyes with an intensity that almost frightened her. “I don’t have a condom.”
“It’s okay. I’m on the pill, remember?”
Her wet clothes clung to her body. The dress she wore was damp. She shuddered as he pulled her back against his body. Olive felt his erection as he rubbed it against her butt, and glanced over her shoulder at him. But he didn’t say anything. She lowered his head and bit the side of his neck.
She turned in his arms, shoving his shirt up so she could push her hands underneath the fabric. He was warm and the hair on his chest abraded her fingers as she stroked her hands over him.
She swallowed hard as he found her nipples through the fabric of her dress and tweaked them. Olive was aching and needed him inside of her again. He led her to the lounger on the porch and sat down, then drew her left leg up on the bench near his hips. She straddled him, threading her hands through his hair as she found his mouth.
Thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth, she rocked against his cock. She reached between their bodies and found his hands there. He pushed his hand into her panties, and his fingers separated her until he was rubbing her clit.
The scent of his expensive cologne and the summer rain and the flowers were all around her and she felt transported out of her life. Out of the mistakes she’d made in the past. This felt like a step toward a future she’d never allowed herself to want.
Olive arched against him, ripping her mouth from his. God, she’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted him inside her. Now.
Finding the zipper on his shorts, she undid it, reaching inside his pants to stroke the ridge of his cock until he groaned and pulled away from her so he could free himself from his briefs.
“Take your panties off,” he commanded.
She didn’t hesitate and stood up to take them off. Glancing over at him, she noticed he was watching her. She lifted the skirt of her dress, and the realization that he was staring at her exposed body with heated desire in his eyes emboldened her even more. She hiked the skirt up further and he groaned again.
Power coursed through her as she took another step closer to him. Olive let the hem of her dress fall back into place and he murmured an objection, but she turned and bent over to undo the strap of her sandal.
She felt the brush of his fingers against the back of her thigh, and then he pushed her dress up to her hips. The feel of his fingers on her skin made her tremble and she was so swept up in the moment she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to get her shoes off. But then it didn’t matter because she felt his mouth on her, moving from her back to her side, his hands urging her to turn for him. She did and then she closed her eyes as he parted her gently. He tickled her clit with his tongue and then pushed one finger up inside her. Her knees buckled and she braced herself with her hands on his shoulders. He kept his mouth moving over her as his finger thrust in and out of her body until she arched in his arms and cried his name as her orgasm washed over her.
He shifted under her as she sank down on his lap. His cock slid inside her and she moaned again. He clutched her buttocks with his hands, drove himself up into her harder and harder until she was shaking and desperate for another climax. He thrust up into her one more time as he spilled himself inside her. She held him until he was spent and then both stared into each other’s eyes.
“I...” Love you, she thought. But something stopped her from saying it.
“I have something to tell you, Olive.”
“What is it?” she asked. Not sure what it could be, there was a gravity in his voice that warned her it wasn’t going to be more about his favorite foods or movies. “Should we get dressed before you tell me?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. Let’s go up to the house and talk,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, turning away to search for her panties. His hand appeared with them and she took them with a murmured thanks.
“I really like you and don’t want to screw this up,” he said at last.
She nodded. “I like you too, Dante.”
He opened his arms and she stepped into him. He hugged her as if he never wanted to let her go, and she felt as if maybe whatever it was might just be something hard for him to say. Nothing too bad.
But there was a lump in her stomach that she couldn’t quite ignore as they walked back to his house.
Twelve
I went to Northwestern. I was one of the people you publicly humiliated... He just said those words in his head over and over as they walked back to the house. Olive had to use the bathroom and had taken her bag in with her. He washed up in a guest bathroom and put on jeans and a button-down before heading for the living room to wait for her.
He shoved his hands through his hair and then realized that this cut Pietro had given him was pretty much everything proof as it fell back into place, and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror in the hallway.
As he saw his reflection, he realized that if he’d looked like this in college, Olive wouldn’t have treated him the way she had. What did that mean?
He leaned to look into his eyes. As usual, they looked the same as they always did except when he was hungover. Fuck him. He didn’t have to feel bad that he’d slept with her again and not told her. He just didn’t.
