Breaking Him

He flinched just the slightest bit, tried to catch himself, smoothed his features into blandness in a blink, but I caught the slip.  “I still want to talk, is what I was trying to say,” he added, voice gone stiff and formal now.

I could tell I’d struck the nerve I’d been going for.  There we go.  Point for me.

I flashed my teeth at him in a snarl thinly disguised as a grin.  “Care for a drink?”

Perverse creature that he was, that made his smile reappear.  “I don’t think so.  Not falling for that again.  Not today.  That was a dirty trick, you know, but I suppose it was my fault.  And as for last night, I’d like to defend myself; obviously I had way too much to drink.”

I eyed him top to bottom, the regard deliberate and insulting.  “That’s what every guy says when he’s past his prime.”

“I had a lot to drink.  You know because you served it to me.”

“Excuses, excuses.”

“Want me to prove it to you?”  His smile was way too self-assured.

“Don’t make me slam this door in your face and call the cops if you don’t leave.”

“Sorry.  That last one just slipped out.  I really meant it about the truce.”

“A truce?” I tasted the word in my mouth, and it tasted as wrong as it felt.  “You call that note you just sent me a truce?”

“The shoes were for the truce.  The note was for that cheap shot you took at me last night,” he tried, smiling again, back to his charm routine.  “But now that I got it out of my system, I’m back to just wanting a truce.”

“I don’t like you coming to my home,” I pointed out.  He knew as much, but it never hurt to point out boundaries when it came to Dante.  There was a time we’d been boundary-less, and the results had been disastrous for us both.

“I know.  That’s why I tried to catch you the first time at work.”

“Work is not better.”

“Okay.  Well.  Noted.  Now we need to talk.  It’s important.  Can I come in?”

I thought about it for a while.  “I’ll give you five minutes, but then you need to leave me the hell alone.”

“It’s important,” he reiterated, face gone solemn again in a way that made me start to panic.

I hid it well; I am an actress after all.

I gave him a long suffering sigh and, knowing it was a terrible idea, knowing I’d regret it now and later, I let in the man that had broken my heart in so many ways that it would never heal again.

CHAPTER TEN

“Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.”

~Laurence J. Peter

“Oh God,” Dante breathed out as I closed the door behind him.  “You’ve been baking?  It’s like you knew I was coming.”  He made a beeline for the kitchen.

“Oh yeah,” I drawled to his back, trailing him slowly.  “I made all those cupcakes just for you, you narcissistic ass.”

“Are those German chocolate?” he asked.  “Like you used to make?”

“Not quite the same recipe.  I tweaked it a bit.  Spoiler alert:  The secret ingredient now is hate.”

He laughed, shooting me a sideways look out of his devastating eyes that made my traitorous knees go weak.  “So you did make them for me.”

I gritted my teeth as he helped himself, but the truth was, though I hadn’t been expecting him, and emphatically did not want him here, I did want him to eat one.  He had a surprisingly sweet tooth for a man with a rock hard body, and he’d always loved it when I’d baked for him.  He and his sweet tooth was actually the whole reason I’d ever learned to bake.

I wanted him to taste and be reminded of one of the many things he’d thrown away when he’d ruined things with me.

Demi was hovering near the hallway that led to her and Leona’s rooms, looking back and forth between the two of us like she didn’t know what to do.

Dante waved at her, mouth full of food.

She glared at him.  Or tried to.  It was a baby lamb glare.  She looked like she meant it, but it came across like a Disney princess trying to make a mean face for the very first time.

It was adorable and ridiculous.  She was a soft-hearted girl, and she had my back, would muster up every meager ounce of hostility inside of her for the sake of me and protecting my notoriously hard heart, and I loved her for it.

“I’m good,” I told her.  “I can handle him.”

“I know you can,” she reassured me, still aiming her princess glare Dante’s way.  “I’ll give you privacy, but you holler if you need anything, Scarlett dear.”

I bit my lip to keep from outright smiling, because who wouldn’t smile at a twenty-two-year-old who called them dear?  God, I liked her.  I’d tried to fight it, but Demi was an irresistible sweetheart, damn her.  “Thanks, hun,” I told her.

She left with one last adorable sneer at Dante.

“She seems nice.  I like her,” Dante said when we were alone.

“She hates you,” I assured him.

His cupcake eating face was not one ounce offended by that.  “I’d imagine she does.  It boggles the mind, the things she must’ve heard about me.  I assume everyone living in this apartment hates my guts?”

“Everyone,” I agreed blandly and unpleasantly.

He finished his first cupcake, grabbed a glass from the cupboard, rummaging around in my kitchen without a qualm, and downed a large cup of water with a few big swallows.  “God, that was amazing.  You haven’t lost your touch.  And by the way, I’m glad to hear I must still be on your mind if your roommates know that much about me.”