Page 2 of The Chief (Those (Damn!) Texas Dantes #3)

Next was Katrina, who stormed out with a glare sharp enough to slice glass and a flush that didn’t match her usual swagger.

“Did you gut him?” Elise asked.

“He out-snarked me,” Katrina muttered, still visibly bristling. “I went in hot, tried to flirt, threw in a joke, leaned in—and he shut me down like I was offering him a tax audit.”

“Wait, you tried to kiss him?”

“I tried to test the waters,” Katrina snapped. “He handed me a verbal ice bucket.”

“Ouch.”

Katrina crossed her arms. “He’s not charming. He’s a lone wolf. And I’m not his mate.”

Elise couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. “Sounds like Petra’s better suited for him, then.”

Leanora followed last, shoulders hunched, eyes wide, looking like she’d held her breath through the entire meeting. Elise’s smile faltered.

“Hey,” she said gently, reaching for her sister’s hand. “Are you okay?”

Leanora hesitated, then nodded too fast. “He was polite. That’s all.”

But Elise caught the shift in her voice, a quiet steadiness beneath the nerves. Something that didn’t belong in the same emotional universe as her ex.

“How did he compare to Ian?” Elise asked softly, but there was nothing casual in the question.

Her voice had dropped, but her heart was a drumbeat of protectiveness.

Leanora had barely survived Ian. Elise had watched it happen—helpless, furious, and afraid.

She needed to know. Needed to hear the words from Leanora’s own mouth that this man hadn’t hurt her. “Truly. Was he anything like Ian?”

Leanora blinked, surprised. Then she answered with surprising clarity. “He was every bit as hard as Ian, maybe harder. But he treated me like I mattered. Not like a pawn. Or a burden.”

Elise stiffened, her sister’s words sitting in her chest like something molten.

That wasn’t nothing. It was everything. A man like Cade Dante, hard as stone and twice as unflinching, had taken one look at Leanora—the sister most in need of gentleness—and softened.

Not with words, but with silence, respect, and restraint.

And Elise had seen what happened when men didn’t offer those things.

She’d seen it in bruises, in broken trust, in the way Leanora flinched when a door slammed too hard.

Cade hadn’t done any of that. He’d seen the cracks and hadn’t wedged himself into them.

He’d backed off. That kind of power held in check?

That was its own kind of danger. And it stirred in her.

Not fear, not relief. Interest. And something else she wasn’t ready to name.

“Did he try to kiss you?” Elise asked, her voice suddenly flat.

There was steel in it now, quiet, steady, and cold.

Not a trace of teasing. Just lethal interest. “Because if he did, and you didn’t want that, I swear to God, Leanora…

” Her grip on her sister’s hand tightened, the words a promise wrapped in velvet. “You tell me. Exactly. What. He. Did.”

Leanora looked at her like she’d suggested Cade had recited a sonnet. “Nothing. Of course nothing.”

A breath of relief slipped out of Elise before she could stop it. “Okay. Good, good.”

Leanora nodded, a small, almost secret smile tugging at her mouth. “Yeah. It was... different. He’s different. Not someone I could ever love, but for ten minutes, he made me feel safe. That hasn’t happened in a long time. He’s no one I’d want to marry. But I suspect he thinks the same.”

Elise gave her hand a quick squeeze. “We’ll count that as a win.”

And then it was her turn.

Her pulse fluttered rapidly, just beneath the surface, but she kept her steps light, her shoulders loose, her smile just shy of vacant.

This was a performance. It always had been.

Despite her appearance, Elise Severin knew how to vanish in plain sight, how to turn every glance away from her into exactly what she needed it to be: dismissal.

She carried innocence like perfume, just enough to linger, just enough to distract, but never strong enough to cover what simmered beneath.

It wasn’t armor, not exactly. It was camouflage.

And right now, every step she took toward Cade Dante was like threading an electric wire through a needle. She wasn’t just walking toward a man. She was approaching a test. One she wasn’t sure she wanted to pass.

Every step whispered of stakes too big to name, of power wrapped in tailored suits and unreadable eyes.

And somehow, beneath all the practiced indifference, something dangerous and stupid stirred in her chest. Interest. Real interest. The kind that made you forget you were supposed to be playing a part.

Even if it didn’t feel like it.

Still, her feet dragged just a second too long before she reached the door. Her mind flicked back to Leanora, her sweet, soft sister who had just emerged looking whole, steady. That should’ve eased something in her. It didn’t.

If anything, it made the moment heavier. Because if Cade had hurt Leanora—if he had been one more brutal man in a string of them—Elise would’ve bled him dry in that office, right there between the leather chairs and her brother’s expectations.

But he hadn’t. He’d been careful. Controlled. And that, somehow, was worse. Because now she didn’t know which role she needed to play. The protector? Or the one who might just want him for herself.

She hesitated.

Not because she was nervous.

Because she wasn’t.

And that, more than anything, unnerved her.

Cade Dante was dangerous. Not just the usual kind—money, muscle, menace. He was dangerous in that quiet, absolute way that rearranged the space around him. Every word he spoke sounded like it had been edited twice, sharpened once, and aimed directly at the truth.

Elise took a deep breath.

And walked inside.

She plastered on the softest, airiest smile she could find and floated toward him like a happy accident in human form.

Cade Dante waited for her, leaning against the front of Leif’s desk, all storm-cloud eyes and blade-cut jaw, looking like the universe had forged him out of blackmail and bulletproof contracts.

He was tall, at least six-foot-four, maybe more, and built like a man who didn’t rely on bodyguards.

Broad shoulders under tailored charcoal.

Black hair, thick and just unruly enough to tempt fingers.

And his eyes—greenish-blue, unreadable, bottomless—pinned her in place like the lone wolf Katrina had referenced.

There was something brutally still about him, like every movement was a choice, not a reflex.

Contained. Beautiful in a way that wasn’t pretty.

No, it was too sharp for that. Beautiful in a way that hurt to look at for too long.

The kind of man who didn’t need to chase women because gravity did it for him.

And Elise felt it. God, did she feel it. Her mouth went dry. Her skin flushed. Every nerve on alert.

This was the man they wanted her to marry?

This was a man she couldn’t afford to want.

“Mr. Dante,” she sang as she approached, struggling to hide her nerves. “Please tell me you’re not going to quiz me. I only studied for wine pairings and minor social disasters.”

His eyes didn’t flicker. “Sit down.”

So much for charm.

She sat in the chair in front of him, folding her hands in her lap, back straight, eyes wide. Her entire demeanor screamed ornamental and overbred, the kind of girl who wore tiaras to brunch and needed help operating a French press. Every inch the helpless heiress with cotton candy for brains.

“You’re Elise.”

“Allegedly,” she said, tossing it out like it meant nothing, like she didn’t sense his eyes pressing into her, cataloging her every inflection and twitch, weighing her with the same unshakable calm he probably used to dismantle enemies.

He stared.

Maybe she’d been too showy. Too clever with the deflection, too sharp around the edges of a smile that was supposed to be soft and harmless. He watched her like a man trained to find inconsistencies in a contract, the tone too rehearsed, the pause too designed.

Maybe she should tone things down. After all, the man wasn’t an idiot. He’d spotted the flaw in her act almost immediately. And worse, he hadn’t pounced. He’d just... waited. Like he had all the time in the world to watch her unravel herself.

“Is this all an act?” he asked at last. “If so, cut the bullshit.”

She blinked, a smile hovering at the edge of her lips. “Well, if it is, I hope you’re at least impressed. It’s not easy pretending to be an airhead in heels while you audit my soul with your eyes.”

His dark eyes narrowed, assessing. “You’re not what you pretend to be.”

The shift in his tone made something tighten in her belly.

Not fear, not quite, but a sharp flicker of awareness, like a match flaring to life in the dark.

Elise tilted her head, feigning confusion as easily as breathing.

But her mind was moving at warp speed, analyzing his tone, his posture, the shrewdness in his stare.

This wasn’t a man guessing. He was diagnosing. Unpacking her.

And she wasn’t sure if she wanted to run or lean in closer just to see what he’d do next.

“Pretend to be what exactly? Adorable? Delightfully oblivious?”

He didn’t take the bait. “Inconsequential.”

That one landed harder than she expected. Her smile faltered, just a flicker. “Wow,” she said lightly, “you really know how to charm a girl. Just slap a bow on the insult and call it insight.”

Cade studied her like he was watching something peel apart at the seams. Not just testing for cracks, tracking every subtle shift, every slip in tone, every flicker behind her eyes.

He wasn’t just seeing through her. He was mapping her.

And Elise could sense it. Like pressure building behind glass.

Like he was waiting for the moment her mask would slip so he could see exactly what she was underneath.

“Do you want to be underestimated, or are you just used to it?”