Dante watched the scene below him for long minutes. Children were sledding down a snowy incline; even from up here, he could see the bright flash of their snowsuits.
Would the little girl in the toy store find a sled under the tree Christmas morning?
Would Taylor’s daughter?
A muscle knotted in his jaw.
No. The plan running through his head was clearly insane. She’d made a fool of him, wounded him in the worst way a woman can hurt a man.
But the child was innocent.
It was wrong, that children seemed always to pay for the sins of those who’d given them life.
The muscle in his jaw knotted again. Dante went to the breakfront, took out a bottle of brandy and poured an inch into a snifter. He warmed the glass between his palms, stared sightlessly into the rich depths of the swirling liquid.
And put it down, untouched.
Instead, he went to his desk. Picked up the phone. Made calls to his attorney, to his accountant, to the same private investigator who’d found Taylor for him.
If any of them thought his instructions were unusual, they knew better than to say so.
When he’d finished, Dante picked up his snifter of brandy and went up the spiral staircase to his suite.
The view was even better here. Three walls of glass gave him a vantage point a peregrine falcon would have as it swooped over the city.
Lights glimmered, diamonds sparkling against the pall of encroaching darkness, and he recalled the first time he’d stood here, gazing out into the night, the fierce swell of pride he’d felt at knowing all this was his, that his sweat, his struggles, his fight to get to the top had all been worth it.
Taylor had never seen this view. She’d come here for drinks, for dinner, but he’d never carried her up the stairs to this room.
To his bed.
Dante sipped the brandy.
What if he had? If he’d made love to her while the lights of the city challenged the stars in the night sky? If he’d taken her to these windows, naked. Stood with her as she looked out on his world. Stepped behind her. Cupped her breasts. Bent his head and kissed the skin behind her ear.
She’d always trembled when he kissed her there.
Trembled when he entered her.
He closed his eyes. Imagined entering her now, right now, here, as she looked into the night. Imagined holding her hips, pressing against her, the urgency of his erection seeking the heat, the silken dampness that was for him.
Only for him…
His eyes flew open.
The hell it was.
She’d been with another man, even while she’d been his because, damn it, she had belonged
to him no matter what she said.
He turned from the window, turned from the images that assailed him.
What he’d just done had nothing to do with Taylor. It was simply an act of charity. This was the season for charity, after all. What he’d done was for a child. An innocent little girl, trapped in a game played by adults.
That the plan he’d set in motion would also bring Taylor back into his life was secondary. Whatever had happened between him and his once-upon-a-time lover was over.
Dante tossed back the rest of the brandy. The liquid burned its way down his throat and, as it did, burned him, as well, with the ugly truth.