Page 10 of Reckless Sinner
Dante chuckled as our food arrived. “You’re absolutely right, it is.”
He thanked the server and then turned back to me. “But seriously, Delaney. If you put in a good word with your father and that’s why he’s decided to take our relationship a step further, I appreciate it.”
“It was my father’s idea entirely,” I said, which thankfully wasn’t a lie. The next part was, though. “From what he told me I think he just wanted to give you a trial period and see if you could put your money where your mouth is. And you have. You’ve been amazing for the firm, Dante, really. I don’t see how you could fail to get promoted at some point.”
“And the fact that I’ll also look good as a symbol for your father’s campaign is just a side benefit.” He said this with a wink as if to let me know that he didn’t really mind.
If only you knew. “I think it’s a side benefit. It means I’ll get to see a lot more of you.”
“You don’t need my assistance with your father’s campaign for an excuse to see me.”
“I don’t?” I asked, challenging him.
Dante shook his head. “You really don’t.”
There was an earnestness to what he said that started up butterflies in my stomach.
God, I wished I wasn’t lying to him.
CHAPTER5
Dante
There was something intriguing about Delaney that made me want to take her apart like a puzzle piece.
Part of that was just my nature. You fell into the habit as a lawyer, picking people apart, learning what their secrets were, their vices and virtues, what made them tick. You had to know a person’s weaknesses in order to use it to your advantage.
But the other part of it was the sense I got that there was something… more to Delaney.
She looked darling in her outfit, cute but in a teasing, sophisticated kind of way. A way that looked calculated. I would’ve pegged her to be every inch the confident woman she looked like. But when she spoke to me… I got this sense, instead, of anxiety and a lack of surety.
How did the daughter of Alan Weston, of all people, have so little confidence?
She instinctively ordered the same thing I was drinking as if it was expected of her. She said that sophisticated women drank wine—which was a damn weird thing to say, but she didn’t seem to realize how weird it was. And I’d seen the flicker of panic in her eyes when she’d ordered the happy hour mini sliders for her food instead of something light and airy like a salad. As if she thought I would think ordering a damn good burger wasn’t becoming of a woman.
There was a story here. Something going on under the surface. And you could ask anyone in my family—I knew what it was like to be the odd man out and to play a role. I was playing it now, pretending that I’d chosen to become a lawyer, pretending that I didn’t know someday soon, the hammer would fall and my father would find some way to force me to help him. To be the ‘associate’ he’d always said I would be.
What role was Delaney playing? What was giving her such anxiety, making her so unsure of herself? A beautiful woman like her, with a powerful father and money to spare, what could she possibly have to be unsure about?
I needed to know.
When she as good as told me that she thought she needed an excuse to see me, my course was set. I was going to show this woman she was damn alluring enough on her own that she didn’t need her father’s connections to date her.
“Do you get that a lot?” I asked. “Men trying to date you just to get closer to your father?”
Delaney shrugged in a way I knew well—it was the kind of shrug that people gave when they were trying to look casual about something that was actually quite serious to them. “It’s been a bit of a thing. I never let it get past the first date. Sometimes it didn’t even get that far. You get good at sniffing out when men want to use you instead of being with you.”
“Then they’re the idiots,” I replied. Who wouldn’t want to walk into a room with this stunning woman on their arm? “I think you’re plenty intriguing on your own.”
“Intriguing?” Delaney laughed in surprise. “I’ve never gotten that one before.”
“Let me guess, they stuck to complimenting your looks.”
“No, actually.”
“So they’re double idiots. Good to know.”
She blushed. She was absolutely adorable when she blushed, I loved it. “Usually they would talk about how smart and confident I was, how accomplished I was. But they were really talking about how smart and confident and accomplished my father is.”
