Dante’s eyes went black. “No,” he said coldly, “we are not. I told you that weeks ago,”
“Oh, but everyone knows how you tend to change your mind, DanteDarling. How fickle you are, well, not about business but about, you know, other things.”
There was no mistaking what “things” she meant. Heads swiveled from Charlotte to Tally to Dante, who snarled a word no one had to speak Sicilian to comprehend.
Charlotte turned red. Everyone else gasped. And Tally pushed her chair back from the table.
“Tally! Damn it, Tally…”
Luck was with her. The band was playing and the dance floor was crowded with couples. Tally wove through the mob, pulled open the door to the ladies’ room and slammed it behind her. A sob burst from her throat.
How could she have been so stupid? He’d been with that woman. With Charlotte. He’d been with God only knew how many women these last three years. She’d dreamed of him, yearned for him, wanted only him despite all the lies she’d told herself, but Dante…
“Tally!”
His fist slammed against the door.
“Tally! Open this door or I’m coming in.”
One of the stall doors swung open. A woman stepped out and stared at her.
“Tally, do you hear me? Open this goddamned door!”
Tally went to the sink, splashed cold water on her face. She would have ignored the hammering on the door but the woman who’d come out of the stall was looking at her as if she’d somehow wandered into the sort of situation that ended in bloodshed.
There was nothing for it but to square her shoulders and walk out of the ladies’ room, straight into a muscled wall of male fury.
“Dante,” she said quietly, “please, step aside.”
He answered by clasping her shoulders and hauling her to her toes.
“If I’d known that bitch would be at our table,” he demanded, “do you really think I’d have brought you here tonight?”
“It doesn’t matter. Step aside, please.”
“Of course it matters! Damn it, she means nothing to me!”
“Dante. Get out of my—”
“Are you deaf?” His hands bit hard into her flesh as he lowered his face to hers. “She doesn’t matter.”
“She matters enough so you were going to take her to Aspen.”
“She suggested it. I said no. In fact, I never saw her after that evening. We were finished and she knew it.”
Tally looked into his eyes. They were the color of smoke, and without warning, the pain inside her burst free.
“You slept with her,” she whispered.
His mouth twisted. “Tally. Bellissima…”
“You should have told me. So I—I could have been prepared to see the way she looked at you. To know you’d been with her, made love to her—”
“It was sex,” he said roughly. “Only sex. Never anything more.”
She stared into his eyes again. And what is it with me? she longed to say, but her heart knew better than to ask.
“How many were there?” Her voice trembled and she hated herself for it. She’d known a man virile as Dante wouldn’t live like a monk but to see the proof for herself… “How many women after me?”