Mistresses: After Hours With The Boss. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ thought of a motherless child. A mother the child had lost to death. He tightened his jaw. “Your friend’s parents?”

      “Shyla’s mother has never been around. Her father is still alive as far as I know, but he wouldn’t be able to care for a child. He wouldn’t want to, either.”

      “And you can’t adopt unless you’re married.”

      She let out a long breath and started pacing. “It’s not that simple. I mean, she didn’t say that absolutely. There’s no … law, or anything. I mean, obviously. But from the moment Rebecca Addler, the caseworker, came to my apartment it was clear that she wasn’t thrilled with it.”

      “What’s wrong with your apartment?”

      “It’s small. I mean, it’s nice—it’s in a good area, but it’s small.”

      “Housing is expensive in San Diego.”

      “Yes. Exactly. Expensive. So I have a small apartment, and right now Ana shares a room with me. And I admit that a fifth-floor apartment isn’t ideal for raising a child, but plenty of people do it.”

      “Then why can’t you do it?” he asked, frustration starting to grow in his chest, making it feel tight. Making him feel short-tempered.

      “I don’t know why. But it was really obvious by the way she said … by how she was saying that Ana would be better off with a mother and a father, and didn’t I want her to have that? Well, that made it pretty obvious that she really doesn’t want me to get custody. And … I panicked.”

      “And somehow my name came into this? And into the paper?”

      Her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. “I don’t know how that happened. The paper. I can’t imagine Rebecca … If you could have met her, you would know she didn’t do it. Maybe whoever handled the paperwork because I know she made a note.”

      “A note?”

      Paige winced. “Yeah. A note.”

      “Saying?”

      “Your name. That we’d just gotten engaged. She said it was possible it would make a difference.”

      “You don’t think it has more to do with the fact that I’m a billionaire than it has to do with the fact that you’re getting married.”

      He was under no illusion about his charm, or lack of it. And neither was the world in general. The thing that attracted women to him was money. The thing that made him acceptable in the eyes of the social worker would be the same thing. Monetarily, he would be able to provide for a child. Several children, and that did matter. A sorry way to decide parentage in his opinion.

      But that was the way the world worked. Coming from having none, to having more than he could ever spend, had taught him that in a very effective way.

      “Possibly,” she said, sucking her bright pink bottom lip into her mouth and worrying it with her teeth.

      His phone rang and he punched the speaker button. “Dante Romani.”

      His assistant’s nervous voice filled the room. “Mr. Romani,” he said, “the press have been calling all afternoon looking for a statement … about your engagement.”

      Dante shot Paige his deadliest glare. She didn’t shrink. She hardly seemed to notice. She was looking past him, out the window, at the harbor, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, her knees shaking back and forth. She was the most … haphazard creature he’d ever seen.

      “What about it?” Dante asked, still unsure how he was going to play it.

      As far as the press was concerned, he was marrying Paige and he was adopting a child with her. To go back on that a day later would kill the last vestiges of speculation that he might possess honor or human decency. That wasn’t exactly a goal of his. Yes, by the standards of some, he lacked charm. Really, he just wasn’t inclined to kiss ass, and he never had been. But it didn’t mean he was angling for a complete character assassination by the media, either.

      If things got too bad, and they were headed that way, it might affect business. And that was completely unacceptable to him. Don and Mary Colson had adopted an heir to their fortune, to their department store empire, for a reason. It was not so he could let it fail.

      And then there was Ana. Dante didn’t like children. Didn’t want them. But the memories from his own childhood, memories of foster care, of going from home to home, sometimes good, sometimes not, were strong.

      Perhaps Ana would be adopted right away. But would they care for her? Would they love her? Paige did; that much even he could recognize.

      This concern, for another human being, was unusual for him. It was foreign. But he couldn’t deny that it was there. Very real, very strong. The need to spare an innocent child from some of the potential horrors of life. Horrors he knew far too well.

      “They want details,” Trevor said.

      Dante’s eyes locked with Paige’s. “Of course they do.” So do I. “But they’ll have to wait. I have no statement at this time.” He punched the off button on the phone’s intercom. “But I will need one,” he said to Paige. A plan was forming in his mind, a way to take this potential PR disaster and turn it into something that would benefit him. But first, he wanted to hear an explanation. “What do you propose we do?”

      Paige stopped jiggling her leg. “Get married?” Her expression was so hopeless, so utterly lost looking. “Or … at least let the engagement go on for a while?” The desperation, coming from her in waves, was palpable.

      No one had ever cared for him with so much passion, not in the years since he’d lost his birth mother. He didn’t regret it. It was far too late in life for that.

      But it isn’t too late for Ana.

      He looked back down at the newspaper. It wouldn’t only be for Ana anyway. It was a strange thought … the idea of being able to manipulate the image he’d always had in the press.

      He’d grown from sullen teenage boy to feared man all in the eye of the public. For years he’d been painted as an unloving, ungrateful adopted child who had no place in the Colson family. As he’d grown up, his image had changed to that of a hard boss, a heartless lover who drew women in with sexual promises, sensual corruption and money before discarding them. It colored the way people saw him. The way they talked to him. The way they did business with him.

      What would it be like to have it change? It wouldn’t last, of course. He wouldn’t stay with her. Wouldn’t pursue anything remotely resembling a real marriage. An engagement though, at least for a while, had interesting possibilities.

      But to be seen as the angel rather than the devil … it was an interesting thought. It might make certain transactions easier. Smoother.

      Dante was past the point where negative character assessments bothered him. Unless they affected a business. And in the past, he knew people had shied away from dealings with him thanks to his reputation.

      A womanizer. Heartless. Cutthroat. Dangerous. It had all been said and then some, most of it spun from speculation and created stories. Would it change things if he were considered settled? СКАЧАТЬ