Page 16 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

Dante studied me too keenly, bracing himself on his forearms to lean familiarly over the counter as if we were two close friends having a tête-à-tête. “You know, it is the contrast between two opposites that heightens them both to keener glory. You shouldn’t be afraid to be coarse, just as I shouldn’t be afraid to be gentle. Too much of one thing is boring, Elena.”

“I’ve been accused of much worse,” I retorted acerbically.

I’d never been good at the unflappable act. It was one of the qualities I’d admired most about Daniel, his ability to remain physically unfazed even in the face of utter chaos. There was too much Latin in my blood, no matter how I tried to curb it, to rid myself of the wild extremity of my emotions.

Dante could have very well been teasing me in the way I knew many people did to build a rapport, but however well-intentioned, I wasn’t good at taking criticism.

I felt red-faced and slightly ashamed, then angry with myself for feeling that way. The complicated knot of my own raw emotions was too difficult for me to unravel. Suddenly, I was tired of myself. So exhausted by the simple act of being me.

It wasn’t an unusual sensation these days, but it made me weary to the bone.

Dante seemed to sense the shift in me, his ink-dark eyes tracing the softening line of my shoulders and the swell of my chest beneath the silk blouse as I let out a deep breath and raked in a new one.

“There,” he said, almost gently, averting his eyes as if to give me privacy while he collected my plates, glasses, and the food to move to my small round dining room table. “It is the end of a long day, Elena. Why don’t you sit down and help me eat all this food, hmm?”

I blinked as the large Made Man folded himself almost comically into a chair at my tiny table and then spread his thick thighs until barely any space remained for me to pull out the other chair. He proceeded to dish out food from various containers onto his plate, humming a vaguely familiar song under his breath as he did.

I blinked again.

It perturbed me how easily he could throw me off even though I reminded myself this was extremelybizarrebehavior. The man had broken into my house to invite himself to dinner he’d bought, and somehow, he made me feel unhospitable and ungracious.

“Seduta,” Dante ordered mildly.

Instantly and without thought, I sat.

Anger spiked through me, chased by humiliation.

It had been a long time since I’d accepted any orders from any man in any language, let alone one I’d banished from my mind.

When I went to stand again, vibrating with anger, Dante lashed out and grabbed my wrist in a light but unyielding hold, making me flinch. Our eyes caught, snagged on each other for a long, disquieting moment where he looked too deep inside me.

“We will speak only English, okay?” he promised solemnly.

I stared at him, finally pinpointing what it was exactly about Dante Salvatore that put me so ill at ease.

He was utterly genuine.

In his dominance, in his charm, in his concern.

He committed himself entirely to the moment, to that which was at the center of his attention. To be in his spotlight felt like being naked, razed of every defense I’d spent twenty-seven years meticulously forging.

“Fine, I’m sitting,” I offered stiffly, crossing my legs. Dante’s eyes immediately went to the edge of the opaque band at the top of my thigh-high stockings. I uncrossed them and tugged my black cashmere skirt down farther. “What did you break into my house to tell me?”

“We do not do business at the dinner table,” he admonished even though he shot me that wicked grin.

It was an age-old rule, one that even I knew as a civilian outside of the mafia.

“I’d rather we get on with it. You’re encroaching on my plans for this evening.” I arched a chilly brow at him as I reached for the tuna sashimi, my stomach rumbling quietly, reminding me I’d only eaten half an apple since breakfast.

“Oh?” The word was swallowed up in a chuckle. “Hot date?”

I looked down my nose at him as I popped a piece of silken fish into my mouth and hummed lightly as I swallowed it. There was no reason he had to know the closest I’d been to a hot date since Daniel left me was a glass of wine, a box of my favorite French chocolates, and an episode ofTrue Blood. “Perhaps.”

Dante’s hands, the palms thick with plump muscle, looked faintly ridiculous holding the slim chopsticks, but he maneuvered them like a pro as he picked through a spicy salmon roll. “Then I insist we talk about this. Cosima implied you were… not interested in men.”

I choked on a piece of sushi, inhaling the wasabi painfully. Calmly, eyes dancing, Dante handed me my untouched glass of Italian red wine.

I glared at him as I swallowed it down, breathing with relief when the burning in my throat eased.