Dante's Marriage Pact Read Online Free PDF Page A

that matter now? We’re not at the reception and I promise I won’t tell the rest of my relatives that you crashed the party.”
    She shoved at his chest. “But you’re a Dante.”
    He kept her pinned in place, determined to have this out, suspecting she’d run if he let her go. “I brought you up here in a private elevator. I used a key, for crying out loud. Who the hell would have access to this floor and this suite if not a Dante?”
    â€œYou told me the apartments were reserved for clients. I assumed you were a client of the Dantes.” She thumped his chest with her fist. He reluctantly shifted back. The instant he did she squirmed out from beneath him and snatched the sheet against her chest, putting as much distance between them as the bed allowed. “So, it’s true? You…you’re a Dante? ”
    He glared at her, offended. “You say that as though it were a dirty word. What the hell’s wrong with being a Dante?”
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    Shayla scooped up the wings of her hair and hooked them behind her ears. How could this have happened? How could she not have realized? The one time, the very first time, she allowed passion to override common sense this happened. She’d given her virginity to the one man she should have avoided at all costs, whose family had destroyed her own and left them utterly destitute. The family who, according to her grandmother, were responsible for the death of Shayla’s parents. How was that possible? Why wasn’t Draco on the list? If it had been she’d have instantly made the connection and none of this would have happened.
    She fought to keep from weeping. In a blink of the eye, something so spectacularly right had turned hideously wrong. It was as though the fates were conspiring against her. What next? Would her proposal to the Dantes also end in disaster because of her foolishness this night? Would Derek Algier call and tell her he’d changed his mind about hiring her? Would her precious chance at freedom evaporate with the coming of the morning sun?
    Draco continued to wait for Shayla to answer his question,looking hard and fierce and dangerously male, epitomizing the nature of his name. She moistened her lips, scrambling to come up with an excuse he’d buy.
    â€œI guess there’s nothing wrong with being a Dante,” she conceded. Okay, lied. “I just… I didn’t know and—”
    He slowly relaxed, sliding back into his role of lover. “Got it. You’re intimidated.”
    â€œIntimidated!” More than anything she wanted to escape the bed, but considering she’d be confronting the cocky bastard totally nude, she forced herself to stay put. She struggled to keep any hint of insult from her voice. “I’m not intimidated,” she corrected with a calm she was far from feeling.
    His hazel eyes narrowed, the gold flecks glittering a clear warning. “But for some reason, my being a Dante makes a difference.”
    She faltered, not quite certain how to respond, other than to use one small tidbit her grandmother had mentioned in passing. “The Dante men have something of a…reputation, shall we say?” Based on what just happened, a well-deserved reputation, she grudgingly admitted to herself. So, maybe he wasn’t being cocky so much as honest.
    â€œAnd you think that because I’m a Dante all I’m after is a one-night stand?”
    It was a tad like the pot calling the kettle black, considering she’d been after just that, herself. Even so, she met his gaze unflinchingly. “Yes.”
    He shrugged. “Time will prove otherwise,” he alarmed her by saying.
    Dear heaven. He couldn’t mean that, could he? But searching his expression she realized he meant precisely that. She crouched in a silken nest of rumpled sheets, at a total loss. What did she do now? How did she gracefully extricate herself from the situation? She