Page 104 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

He blinked at me, and for a moment, I thought he was unmoved, but then he reached out and patted me—hard—on the shoulder in agreement. I watched him turn on his heel and walk back out of the building, where he leaned against the glass wall beside the doors and lit up a smoke.

I sighed, knowing that was as good as it was going to get.

But as I moved through security and into the elevator, a little smile crept over my face.

Because apparently, not only did Dante care about my safety but the guys did too.

And that felt better than it should have.

I was eating lunch in the conference room while I tried to figure out what to do about Dante’s illegal gambling and racketeering charges when movement at the door caught my eye.

“Hi, Elena,” Bambi said almost bashfully, a curtain of thick blond hair sweeping over her shoulder to partially hide her face. “I’m sorry for disturbing you at work, but I-I wanted to continue the rest of that conversation we never got to have.”

“Of course,” I offered immediately, shifting my papers and the plastic bowl of salad around on the table to make room for her to sit opposite me. “I thought I gave you my number?”

“You did, but I thought I should talk to you in person.” She sat down with her back to the door and then peered over her shoulder through the glass at the lawyers walking through the hall and got up to shift to a chair on my side so she could see the hall without turning.

Huh.

My interest piqued, I crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap. “I’m all yours.”

She chewed her lip almost frantically as she looked down at her hands. “I’m not married, and I’m not a widow. Did you know that? That’s why Dante takes care of Aurora and me. When I had her out of wedlock, my parents…they weren’t happy.”

No, I could imagine they wouldn’t have been.

When I was briefly pregnant with Daniel’s baby before I lost it to an ectopic episode, Mama had been kind about the fact we weren’t married. I wondered if that was because I’d always assumed it was just a matter of time until I became Daniel’s wife or if Mama was less rigidly traditional than I might have given her credit for.

I knew women in Napoli who had been cast out of their family homes for having sex before matrimony, let alone giving birth to a baby out of wedlock.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Bambi even though the words felt trite.

It made me furious that women were held to such impossible standards, and I ached for the sweet blue-eyed woman who’d had to go through it all alone.

“Grazie,” she said graciously. “Aurora was two when we met Dante. My own brother wasn’t talking to me, but he let me clean his house for some extra money, and Dante was there one day. He saw Aurora first playing pretend with a feather duster, and he crouched down to play with her.” There was a dreamy quality to her gaze, a soft smile pressed between her lips. I wondered if Bambi was in love with Dante and hoped very much, for reasons I didn’t want to delve into, that she was not. “Later, he found me in the bathroom cleaning a toilet, and he was so big he barely fit in the doorframe. At first, I thought maybe he was going to yell at me for bringing Aurora to work, but he only asked me for my name and if I was available on Thursdays to clean his place.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I had no idea what to make of his mixed accent, of his authority and his charm. It was such an alien combination. But I agreed. He was a capo. What else was I going to do?”

I sympathized, having been put into a similar but much more intense situation by Dante before when he forced me to move in with him.

“One day of the week became two and then three, and then suddenly, he was employing me full time to take care of his home. He found Aurora and me a better apartment close by and insisted I pay rent to him at a very obviously reduced price. It was a dream come true, really.”

It sounded like it, the start of a fairy tale where the pauper fell in love with the dark prince.

I was startled as I realized that in a sense, that was very much like my own story with the mafioso. I’d been born poor in the slums of Naples; Dante was a duke’s son in the moors of England. Even though I had raised myself up independent of him, his case would still bring me the money and success I’d always wanted, and that was its own kind of happily ever after.

Wasn’t it?

I didn’t dare hope for anything more.

Though by the stain on Bambi’s cheeks, it was obvious she did. “My brother even started talking to me again because of Dante. I owe him everything, really. Which is why I’m here.” She fixed me with those enormous blue eyes filled with stern resolve. “I need a lawyer.”

“Okay,” I agreed easily, wanting to help her. “Why?”

“My…There’s a man in my life, and lately, he’s been scaring me.” Her voice quavered. “Scaring Aurora.”

Anger roared through me. “Has he hurt you?”

“Only once,” she admitted, chewing her lip so hard it bled. “But I went to the hospital and everything, so they have it on record. He punched me in the gut, and I couldn’t stand straight for two days.”