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Many times, he had fucked a woman after his wife’s passing, but this time was different. For one, he had always taken the woman to her room in his hotel and was able to escape shortly after to walk the short distance back up to his penthouse to never have to see her again if he didn’t want. That was why he preferred women who were just visiting the city. Here, with Nadia, there was nowhere for him to go. He not only let her into his bed, but he wasn’t going to be able to escape her until they returned to Kansas City.

Secondly, he had never actually felt comfortable enough to fall asleep by his one-night stands. He had them for one reason, and one reason only—he sought women for sex, not for comfort. Yet he had fallen asleep next to her so easily.

Thirdly, there was no amount of alcohol he had consumed to blame it on. He had always needed a couple of glasses of whiskey to fuck, and even though he had told himself that the only reason he wanted to fuck Nadia so badly was because he broke his cardinal rule of mixing alcohol, now that he had, he was left with nothing but the truth.

He liked her, wanted her, and was starting to crave her after only knowing her for two days. Hell, the smell of her was becoming intoxicating, and that told him all he needed to know, because if he could care for her this much after two silly little days, what could he feel for the beautiful woman next to him after a week? A month? A year?

Suddenly, he got up, desperately in need of space. He was quiet as he threw on some clothes, unable to so much as look at her again, afraid if he did, he might crawl back in bed with her. It wasn’t the regret that made him capable of leaving her; it was the grief and sorrow that had been eating away at him for years since his wife’s passing.

He was going down the steps to find a place to sleep, either on one of the couches or a sun lounger out on the deck. Hell, he didn’t care as long as he was alone—

“Dad?”

Dante stopped in his tracks to see his son coming in from the deck. “Why are you up?”

“Can’t sleep,” Leo told him, closing the sliding glass door. “You?”

“Can’t sleep, either,” Dante agreed.

“Right.” Leo’s face turned slightly suspicious. “Where are you going?”

He wanted to tell his son to stop asking questions and get his ass back to bed, but he knew that would only make him more suspicious. “To see the view at night. Same thing I’m sure you were doing, right?”

“Yes, but … don’t you have a better view than all of us on the balcony?” He pointed up the steps to Dante’s quarters.

Dante flexed his jaw. It was much easier to lie to your kids when they were young. Now, all his kids were too damn smart for their own good.

Thinking quickly, he did the best he could. “Well, I wanted to go for a walk on the deck and see the view.”

It seemed to have worked because he had Leo asking, “Want me to join yo—”

“No,” Dante answered, probably a bit too quickly. “You go get some sleep.”

“All right.” Leo shrugged, passing him.

It had made Dante instantly feel worse than he was already feeling, but he knew if Leo had come with him, then at the end of their walk, he would have had no choice but to go back up to his room with Nadia. And that was something he didn’t think he had the strength to do.

It was already going to be hard to resist her for the remainder of the weekend, with nothing but the smell of sunshine surrounding him. He couldn’t promise he wouldn’t sleep with her again, knowing he would use the excuse that it would be the last time. The fact that he was already envisioning them fucking again before she slipped back down to her room, along with the excuse he needed to do so, told him that it wouldn’t be the last time. Nadia was the kind of woman whom you couldn’t only fuck once. You needed seconds, and thirds … each time tethering yourself to her until there was no escape.

No, his first with Nadia had to be his last.

He knew this, because he had experienced this feeling only one other time in his life. And he planned on keeping his promise to love only one woman for the remainder of his. So, he would have to ignore Nadia from here on out, no matter how much it hurt to do it.

“Oh yeah, Dad?” Leo called out to him before disappearing down the steps.