“Let’s go,” he growled, stepping aside and allowing her to precede him.
For one glorious moment, that look helped her push aside her insecurities and made her feel powerful and feminine enough to add a deliberate little shimmy to her walk as she sidled past him.
Dante bit back the stream of profanity threatening to escape his lips and focused instead on internalizing his annoyance. A resurgence of sexual tension was the last thing he needed right now. He’d believed he had successfully put the whole incident firmly behind him, but the way that no-nonsense skirt clung to her pert little ass was more than a little distracting. Especially now that he knew she was probably wearing cute little cotton cartoon-character panties-similar to the ones she’d worn last night-beneath the pin-striped twill. He ground his teeth as he followed her out, forcing his eyes up from the tight curve of her butt to her narrow back, and tried to regain his focus. He was only marginally successful, distracted by the light, fresh scent of her shampoo as it wafted back toward him, and the sassy bounce of her silky hair.
He battled with his hormones all the way down to the car, where the stifling humidity and heat outside displaced his infuriating horniness with discomfort of a different kind.
“Wow, this humidity is crazy,” his distracting little assistant said as they settled into the air-conditioned black luxury sedan.
Dante grunted noncommittally and yanked out his tablet to check his notes for the meeting.
“Is it always like this in Tokyo?”
Why the hell was she still prattling on? She rarely made small talk with him, and he preferred it that way. When they did speak, it was strictly work related.
“I’ve never been to Japan before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Weatherwise, I mean. I knew it was summer and knew it would be hot, but I really wasn’t expecting this humidity. I mean, it’s like a sauna out there.”
He sighed before putting his tablet aside. “Chloe,” he said, keeping his voice low so the driver couldn’t hear them. “Last night was just to relieve some of the stress of the day; you know that, right? I don’t usually fuck my employees. Too damned messy.” And quite frankly, he didn’t relish the potential sexual-harassment lawsuits from disgruntled sexual partners in the workplace, but he didn’t tell her that. God knows he didn’t need to plant that idea in her head. And then, of course, there was the fact this had happened so unexpectedly he hadn’t gone to the usual legal lengths to protect himself. He was generally a hell of a lot more careful and more discreet when it came to choosing his sexual partners. He cleared his throat before continuing.
“We were both tense and in need of some stress relief. It’s not necessary to make this awkward.”
She muttered something beneath her breath, and he frowned.
“What?”
“Cleo. It’s Cleo,” she said, meeting his gaze head-on, her ridiculously beautiful green eyes brimming with defiance. “My name’s Cleo, not Chloe.”
Shit.
“Right. Of course.” He cleared his throat. Of course he knew her name was Cleo. He even remembered thinking Cleopatra Pandora Knight was a damned stupid name. But for some reason, after months of calling her nothing but Miss Knight, that pertinent fact had completely slipped his mind. He felt his cheeks heat up as he recalled using “Chloe” during and immediately after sex the night before. What kind of asshole forgets a woman’s name while he’s naked in bed with her?
“And don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of making anything awkward for you. I’m just curious about the country. I’m not fantasizing about some happily-ever-after love affair with you or anything. The thought of that is as distasteful to me as it probably is to you.”
Distasteful? Who the hell did she think she was? Better women than she would kill for the chance of a love affair with him . . . and why the hell was he even offended? She was nothing more than his employee. His very annoying and very temporary employee. So they’d had a little lapse in judgment. So what? Shit like that happened all the time. Not to him, but there was a first time for everything.
“Let’s just keep our focus on work,” he stipulated. “The sooner we get this delay sorted out, the sooner we get out of here and on with our lives.”
“Amen to that.”
Cleo was proud of herself. Proud that she had managed to keep her temper in check and her mouth shut. And definitely proud that she had managed to curb the impulse to slap the stupid man right across his handsome, smug face.
Just do the job, Cleo. Keep doing the job, and when something more interesting comes along, you can move on with your head held high.
This wasn’t going to be another one of her failures. Another lost opportunity because she couldn’t hold her tongue or restrain her impulsive nature and uncertain temper. Working for Dante Damaso had tested her to her limits, even though-thankfully-she’d rarely had to deal directly with him until this trip. She wasn’t going to let him ruin this career opportunity for her. The potential for growth in this company was huge; Dante had hired her as a temporary replacement for his pregnant assistant, with the assurance that after Donna returned, they would find a permanent position for Cleo within the company. And while Cleo still wasn’t entirely sure this was the kind of work she wanted to do for the rest of her life, it was what she’d fallen back on when her true vocation had slipped beyond her reach. It didn’t light up all the empty spaces in her soul the way dance did, didn’t inspire her or make her want to leap out of bed in the mornings even when every muscle in her body protested the slightest of movements, but it was something. And she was relatively good at it. So it would have to do.
Up until this job she’d been drifting from one temp position to the next, but this was the first one offering job security, benefits, and all the other good stuff grown-ups aspired to. Cleo, who had felt like a total failure up until that point, had jumped at the opportunity. God knows she had to stop depending on her big brother to help her out every time she failed at something.
Luc was getting married soon, and while his fianc?e, Blue, was a sweetheart, Cleo couldn’t keep staying with him every time she lost an apartment because she was unable to pay the rent. Luc had never minded; he insisted that the house, which had once belonged to their grandparents, was half hers anyway and she had as much right to stay there as he did. But with Luc probably starting a family soon, Cleo just wouldn’t feel right running to him every time life dumped an obstacle on her path. She already felt like a loser. And sleeping with the boss-just another thing in a long line of really bad decisions-intensified that feeling times infinity.
Cleo had been good at only one thing in her life: dancing. And after years of hard work and countless personal and physical sacrifices, she had been well on her way to establishing herself as a talent of note before an accident just after her twenty-fourth birthday had robbed her of that career path. Doctors told her she would never dance professionally again, and it was a fact Cleo had difficulty accepting. She still felt like she could dance; it was still there in her heart and soul. How could they tell her she couldn’t do the one thing she loved above all else? Without dance in her life, she had found herself rudderless and devastatingly average. Now all she had left were her brain and a sharp tongue that kept getting her into trouble at the worst possible times. That tongue had been responsible for most of her past workplace failures, but her intelligence was what kept her constantly employed, even if she couldn’t quite keep the jobs.
She glanced at Dante, who was poring over his iPad again, and managed, barely, to keep from rolling her eyes in derision. She watched him covertly and tried to keep her appraisal objective. He was sickeningly good-looking. Dante Damaso was all gorgeous golden skin, topped with black-as-night wavy hair he kept clipped ruthlessly short and combed back with a conservative side part. There was barely enough of the luxurious, thick and silky mass for a woman to run her fingers through. His honey-brown eyes were framed by lush, long lashes that curled slightly at the ends and stern, straight eyebrows. His mouth had a full, curved bottom lip and a thin, perfectly bow-shaped upper lip, and it would have been beautiful if not for the cynical sneer perpetually twisting his lips whenever she was in his general vicinity. And, of course, he had the straight nose and high cheekbones to go with his perfect looks.
It was nauseating, really; a crooked nose would have made him more approachable, more human. It was almost obnoxious for him to be this good-looking! And now that she knew what he looked like beneath his expensive, bespoke dark-gray suit, it was even worse. At thirty-three he was in his prime. He had washboard abs, a butt you could bounce a coin off, gorgeously muscled arms, and-her personal weakness-killer thighs and calves. And he certainly knew exactly how to use that perfect body to please a woman. No wonder his gorgeous lady friends were always hanging around even after he ended things with them-mind-blowing sex and multiple orgasms could become dangerously addicting.
While Cleo could definitely empathize with those women, amazing sex wasn’t enough to make her moon over a guy or she’d be in serious trouble right now. Dante Damaso epitomized masculine perfection; it was a damned crying shame such good looks were wasted on a nasty specimen like him.
To distract herself from the awkward situation with her boss, Cleo turned her attention to the city just a window’s breadth away. She couldn’t remember ever seeing this many pedestrians in one place, hustling and bustling and going about their daily lives. She craned her neck and couldn’t prevent a giggle from escaping when she spotted a guy in a panda suit crossing the intersection in front of their car. She scrambled for her phone and managed to catch his back as he walked away, his gigantic panda head towering above the other, completely unconcerned pedestrians. Nobody even stared. She absently started taking a few more pics and then several selfies, trying to get as much of the city in the background as possible and adding the really good ones to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She positioned herself with her back to the window and took a few duckface selfies while they were stopped at a particularly busy intersection.
Dante was so engrossed in his reading that it took a while before the annoying clicking sound penetrated the heavy fog of statistics eddying in his brain. When he finally became aware of it, the click that followed was almost jarring as it jerked him fully aware of his surroundings. He looked over to where Chl-Cleo-was sitting on the far end of the backseat and blinked when he saw her sucking in her cheeks, plumping up her lips, and lowering her chin as she held her phone slightly above face level and snapped a photograph. Well, that explained the annoying clicking. She shifted her chin slightly to the left and took another picture. Then another and another.
“I hate to interrupt this narcissistic little lovefest you’ve got going on with your phone, Miss Knight, but surely you have something a little more productive to do with your time?”
She jumped and dropped her phone, which bounced off the seat and landed right between his shoes. She swore beneath her breath and bent over to retrieve it. He gaped as she squirmed her way between the front passenger seat and his knee, her round butt sticking up and wriggling temptingly right within cupping range of his hands. He held said hands up and away from her body in case they were tempted to do something stupid, like explore the silky smooth skin of her thighs, which was being revealed one tantalizing millimeter at a time as she maneuvered her way a little farther down.
He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the provocative, twisting bundle of femininity half draped over his lap, but when one sharp little elbow missed his groin by just an inch, he cursed and took hold of that same elbow and dragged her up onto the seat beside him.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.