Dante's Twins

“No,” he lied, spinning her around with more energy than style so that he could keep an eye on the accountant with the roving hands. ‘“Suffering from jet lag, that’s all. I got back from Italy only a couple of days before flying down here and seem to be caught in some sort of mid-Atlantic time warp.”

“You work too hard, dear.” Rita patted his arm sympathetically. “I sometimes wonder how you manage to stay abreast of things in the office, given the amount of time you spend on the road.”

“It’s as much a part of the job as making a point of dancing at least once with every woman in the room tonight.” He steered her back to their table. “You’ll forgive me, Rita, if I hand you over to Gavin now?”

“Of course.” She smiled and waved him away. “Do your duty by the rest of the ladies waiting to take a spin around the floor with you, then sneak away. You deserve a little quiet time away from the spotlight once in a while.”

And he intended to take it—although not alone.

Conscientiously, he danced with Meg, his superefficient P.A., with the head warehouseman’s pregnant wife, with a junior payroll clerk who was so nervous at finding herself boogying with the top brass that he thought she might wet herself.

Finally, as the moon slid down toward the horizon, he’d danced with every woman in the room except the one he most wanted to hold in his arms. Straightening his bow tie, he scanned the room, hunting her out.

Just as she’d known from the moment the music had begun that eventually he’d ask her to dance, so she knew to the moment when he decided the time had come. A sharp stab of expectation struck, puckering the skin of her bare shoulders mere seconds before he came up behind her, rested his hand lightly at her back and murmured with amused formality, “Would you care to dance, Ms. Connors-Lee?”

She inclined her head. “I’d be delighted, Mr. Rossi.”

He led the way, threading between the tables to a spot where the polished wooden floor gave way to the tiled surface of the terrace beyond. She followed, aware as she had been all evening, of Carl Newbury’s unremitting observation. How happy he must be that, at last, he had something worth watching!

Turning a deaf ear to the voice of caution that warned there’d be a price for the self-indulgence, she slipped into Dante’s arms and let him draw her closer than was strictly proper.

“It’s about time I had you back where you belong,” he murmured.

But before they’d taken more than a step or two, the music stopped. Other dancers drifted apart, wandered back to their tables or chatted quietly with each other, and she knew she and Dante ought to do the same. Vice president Newbury wasn’t alone in his scrutiny; they were all watching, those people who were his cronies and who thought she had no business being there, and she was fueling their resentment by remaining within the circle of Dante’s arm, her gaze locked with his.

“I think we’ve left it too late,” she said, reluctantly dropping her hand from his shoulder. “The band’s packed it in for the night.”

Refusing to let her go, he shook his head. “No. They’ll play ‘til dawn if we ask them to.”

Then please let them start soon, she prayed, unable to slow her racing heart. Please distract me from losing myself in his eyes, from leaning into his strength and finding heaven in his arms here, in full view of such a judgmental audience.

The gods heard and responded kindly. The first bars of “Begin the Beguine” filled the night. Couples came together and picked up the rhythm. But Dante remained still, the message in his glance luring her ever deeper under his spell.

“Have you changed your mind about dancing?” she practically stammered, desperation threading her voice. Didn’t he see the attention they were attracting? Couldn’t he feel the curiosity, the undercurrents of hostility?

“Not in the least, Leila,” he said.

She gave a little shrug to reassure herself that she still retained some measure of control over her body. “Then what are we waiting for?”

“Not a thing,” he assured her, moving smoothly out of range of the watchers and into the tropical night. He drew her closer, steering her with a nudge of his thigh, directing her with the subtle pressure of his hand in the small of her back and, as the deep shadows at the edge of the terrace swallowed them up, inching his arm so far around her that she could feel the tips of his fingers brushing the side swell of her breast. “In fact,” he murmured against her hair, “I think I’ve displayed amazing patience in waiting this long.”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. She knew, and once again she marveled at the sense of rightness, of certainty, that swept over her, silencing her reservations. This was what her mother had been talking about the time she’d described meeting Leila’s father.

“I knew the moment I set eyes on him,” she’d said. “There was never the least doubt in my mind that he would be the love of my life. People were shocked, of course. I was the private governess to one of Singapore’s most prominent families, expected to be respectable and, at forty-two, supposedly past the age to behave so recklessly. Falling in love with a man eight years younger, and of mixed racial origin, as well, created quite a scandal in those days, I can tell you, but that was a minor sin compared to my becoming pregnant within two months of meeting him.”

“How dreadful that must have been for you,” the seventeen-year-old she’d been at the time had said. “Were you terribly unhappy and embarrassed?”

Her mother had laughed. “You’ve yet to give your heart or you wouldn’t ask me that! When a woman loves a man as I loved your father, Leila, nothing they share makes her ashamed or afraid. Finding him was the best thing that ever happened to me. Having his baby was a miracle, a gift beyond price. If there is one wish I have for you, my darling daughter, it is that the right man will someday come along and fill your life with the same kind of happiness that I found with your father.”

“Even if I should be that lucky, how can I be sure I‘ ll recognize him?” Leila had asked doubtfully. “How will I know he’s the one?”

Her mother had touched a hand to her breast. “You will know here,” she’d said. “And you will be as sure he is the one as you are that the sun will rise in the morning. He will be the sun in your morning, the moon in your night.”

Yes, Leila thought now, recognition binding her ever more securely to Dante with an inevitability that defied time or place or reason. That’s it exactly! Now I understand.

The question was, did he? A sliver of uncertainty laid a chill over her bare shoulders.

Oh, he had made love to her with tenderness and passion, and he seemed not to care what others might make of their association. But when she had told him she loved him, he had not returned the sentiment. Was she naive to think that mattered? Didn’t actions speak louder than words?

She looked up at him, seeking assurance that she wasn’t in the grip of some self-indulgent fantasy. In the flame of the kerosene torches dotted among the palm trees, she saw the same awareness in his eyes, and heard it when he spoke.

“Perhaps I should have asked this before, Leila,” he said, the words drifting over her face like a caress, “but there isn’t anyone waiting for you back home in Vancouver, is there?”

“No,” she told him, glad that she’d brought things to such a definitive end with Anthony Fletcher just before he left for Croatia well over two months ago. The one letter she’d received, a few weeks after his arrival in Europe, suggested he bore no scars from her rejection.

“No special man in your life?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“There is now,” he said, and this time the words touched her mouth a millisecond before his lips closed over hers to seal the promise.

Misgivings forgotten, she drowned in his kiss, reveled in the urgent straining of his body against hers. In the darkness of the balmy night, time stopped briefly and that other world, of ordinary people leading ordinary lives, faded into nothingness.

But not for long. Soon the steel band, the voices too close to go ignored, the hushed sigh of the surf rolling ashore, flowed over her, reminding her that, however much she wished it, she and Dante were not alone on this exquisite island. She remembered the suspicion of her associates which had dogged her from her first day at Classic Collections; worse still, she recalled the conversation she’d overheard only a few hours ago.

“Is this wise, Dante?” she whispered, pulling back and dispelling the enchantment with a stab at sound common sense.

“No,” he said hoarsely, “but what the hell has wisdom to do with anything?”

It had to do with returning to the office when this magical week was over; with being able to stand proud and unashamed when he was away, conducting business on the other side of the world as he so frequently did, and she was left alone to face her critics.

She had come to Poinciana not just to learn more about the company but to show herself as a dedicated career woman, one deserving of the responsibilities inherent in her new job. Falling for the boss did not exactly strengthen her credibility in the eyes of those she was most anxious to impress.

Yet here she was regardless, helplessly in love with a man she hadn’t known a week ago, and try though she might to negate the fact, it remained as fundamentally right as rain being wet or blood being red.

She could tell herself it was illogical, it was untenable, it was inexplicable. But the fact remained, it simply was. And to try to explain it was as pointless as telling a curious child the sky was up. There was no reasonable explanation.

Still, if she could not vindicate herself in the eyes of his employees, she could minimize the extent to which his reputation might be held up to scorn. Summoning up what little willpower she still retained, she said, “Anyone could see us here and if they do, they’re bound to gossip.”

“Let them,” he said, trailing his hand down her throat, across her shoulder, down the length of her arm. “Let them,” he said again, catching her fingers in his and drawing her down the steps at the end of the terrace, away from that other world.

Below, a path connecting the house proper to the beach found daytime shade under the scarlet poinciana trees for which the island was named. At night, their black umbrella shape cloaked the area in secrecy.

“Dante, wait,” she whispered, slowing in their shadow. Her high heels were sinking in the sand, impeding her escape. Disappearing with him was illadvised enough, without being caught in the act. “My shoes weren’t designed for sprinting.”

He stopped and knelt at her feet. Like a perfect gentleman he removed her sandals and set them aside. Like a perfect lover he lifted each of her feet in turn and kissed the instep. And then, without warning, he raised the hem of her dress and, cupping one of her calves in his other hand, he kissed her knees.

The erotic audacity of such a move started the tremors again, shooting them from the soles of her feet to end in shocking dampness between her thighs. She let out a soft whimper, half pleasure, half fear.