Chapter Fifteen
Two weeks later, Dante stared down at a marketing spreadsheet, the numbers swimming in front of his eyes. He was knee-deep in reports. They came in from everywhere. Everyone in Dellacorp it seemed had a fucking report. Marketing. Financial. Business Management. Project Management. Human Resources just had to chime in. They were all placed on his desk by his lovely, somewhat airheaded assistant, and then, he would swear to the gods that the little fuckers bred and made more reports with more numbers.
His head was going to pound if he spent another second behind his desk.
The door to his office opened, and Sandy, the hot blonde, stuck her head in with a grin. Dante wanted to groan but managed to keep himself professional. Sandy had been his “assistant” for over a year now. He’d hired her when he was head of Dellacorp’s Green Division. He’d hired her because she had nice tits and didn’t mind screwing her boss.
“Hey, boss man, your sister’s here,” she said with a little wink. “You want me to tell her you’re out or something?”
Susan pushed past her with a frown on her face. “I’ll just let myself in. You—go do something.”
His big sister, the CEO of the company, stood in front of his desk. She wore a designer suit, killer heels, and a frown that would chill the warmest heart. Her green eyes narrowed as she gestured toward the now closed door. “Is she capable of doing anything besides her nails?”
Dante declined to tell his sister that Sandy was double-jointed and that made her capable of a lot of things, none of which helped him out now that he was serious. At the time, Sandy had been practically perfect. Now, he constantly worried that he was missing something important. But his sister might be able to help him with that. “How much do you love me, Susie?”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “More since you brought Kaja home.”
Susan had loved Kaja on sight. They had spent a lot of time together in the last few weeks. Dante had been grateful for it. He’d had very little time to spend with his bride, and it showed in their intimacy. Kaja needed him, and he was hiding in his office behind a mountain of paperwork. He was fucking everything up, but he didn’t know how to stop. He had the job he wanted, and people were finally taking him seriously. He was more miserable than he’d ever been in his life because he had no idea what to do with his wife.
She should be attending charity functions and having teas with other consorts, but that wasn’t Kaja, and Dante wasn’t sure how she was ever going to fit. He thought about it all the time, and it was driving him crazy.
Kaja scared him. Kaja tempted him. If he didn’t watch it, Kaja would become his whole world.
And he didn’t want that. This was what he wanted. He wanted his big corner office and his enormous paycheck and the respect of those around him. It was what he’d trained for. He’d spent years in school so he could take over a big part of the family business. It was the very reason he’d gotten married. It had to be his focus now.
Fucking coward.
He ignored that voice in his head and dealt with the problem at hand. “I need a real admin, Susie. I need someone who understands the company. Don’t we have a beauty division Sandy would fit into?”
Susan crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at him. “We have a consumer product panel that she would love. Why? Do you have someone in mind, and please tell me she’s at least of age?”
He didn’t give in to the urge to needle his sister. “Yes, I was thinking about bringing in Mack. He’s smart and organized, and he knows this company like the back of his hand. He’s being wasted in reception.”
His sister’s eyes got wide. “You want a male secretary? A fifty-year-old male secretary?”
He couldn’t argue with her. He’d made that bed. “Admin, Susie. Secretary is a little dismissive. And yes, I would like to hire Mack. Mack’s been around forever. He knows what he’s doing. Hell, he can do half this paperwork himself.”
His sister’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Holy shit, you’re serious about this. You’re really serious. I was coming in here to bitch at you about ignoring your wife, but you’re actually working.”
Yeah, he deserved that, too. All of it. “I’m not a kid anymore. I have a consort. I have to take care of her.”
“I can see that,” Susan said, her voice softer than before. She walked to his ultraexpensive leather sofa and sat down. “Come and sit with me, Dante.”
He got up because she was his sister and his boss. And because it had been a long time since he’d just sat with her. It was so obvious now that he’d been drifting. He could remember with crystal clarity that moment in the forest when he’d been sure he was going to die. The fact that his sister could be a ball-busting bitch hadn’t mattered then. The fact that she’d been a damn good sister to him had.
“The sunscreen project is showing some remarkable results,” Dante began. “We should be ready to take it to the FDA in a week or two.”
She held up a perfectly manicured hand. “I don’t want to talk business, Dante. You’re doing a great job. I can tell from the reports. I want to talk about Kaja.”
His stomach took a turn. Kaja. Guilt gnawed at him. He couldn’t even pretend to not have noticed her unhappiness. He felt it every time they made love. She longed for a forest, for grass beneath her feet. She felt trapped here.
Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? She wasn’t suited for life in a high-rise penthouse. He could find someplace nice for her and keep his cushy job and get on with his life. Except it would seem empty without Kaja in it.
“What about Kaj?” Dante asked, trying to sound unconcerned.
Susan smiled, her eyes lighting up. “She’s a sweetheart. I don’t think you could have found a better consort, but I have my concerns. She’s never lived in a society like this.”
“She’s smart,” Dante said before thinking it. “She’ll adapt. She just needs time.”
Time to forget that she was connected to nature and now all she had were vampire-made structures around her? Everything was fake. Even the trees on the balcony were fake. They even faked photosynthesis.
“Of course,” Susan said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “She is very smart and quick. She’s really funny, too. I deeply enjoy having her in our family, Dante. I’m not worried about that at all. I’m worried about the press. My office has fielded about a hundred calls about your new consort.”
He’d known that would happen. Fuck. At the time he’d come up with what he now thought of as the stupidest plan ever, he’d counted on it. The press would be the thing that pushed his father to allow him to live apart from her. Now he would do just about anything to keep the vultures off his consort. He couldn’t stand the thought that people were talking about her, judging her. “Tell them to mind their own business. I’ve just been saying ‘no comment.’”
“Yes, I know, and that’s a problem,” Susan replied. “It’s making them curious. There are some people saying there’s something wrong with her. They’re wondering if she isn’t a little slow, if you know what I mean. It’s come up that if someone like Dante Dellacourt had to settle for a damaged consort, we should consider making a deal with Torin.”
Dante felt his fangs come out. “She isn’t damaged.”
Susan held her hands up in a conciliatory fashion. “I know that. She’s wonderful. But she is outside the norm, Dante. She changes into a wolf, for gods’ sakes. We have to reconsider the hardwoods in the penthouse because her little paws go four different directions when she tries to walk on them in her wolf form. And we need to talk to her about hanging her head out of the window in the hovercar.”
“She says it feels nice.” Kaja liked the wind in her hair. It was the only thing she liked about being up so high. He’d caught her trying to see the ground more than once. If she made it to the ground, she would be terribly disappointed. It was noxious down there.
“And I think it’s charming, but the press is going to eat her alive over it. I hate it, but we’re a society that thrives on conformity. The occasional oddball can be celebrated, but only when said oddball makes a ton of money. Kaja is going to be seen as a cautionary tale if we don’t fix her.”
“She doesn’t need to be fixed.” This was exactly what he’d been avoiding. This confrontation. He knew Kaja didn’t fit in. He knew she was miserable.
Not always, that voice said. When you’re inside her and you open up, she’s happy.
But it wasn’t enough.
Susan stared out the window. It was a rainy day. Gray clouds rolled by, making the world seem foggy. “Mom thinks bringing in a tutor would help. Kaja can learn to read and how our society works. I’ve already ordered a wardrobe fit for a princess, and I can have Dellacorp’s media advisor train her on how to deal with the press.”
“No,” he said as fast as he could get the word out of his mouth. Jana was a shark. She’d eat Kaja up and spit her out. And he’d slept with Jana. She was such a bitch she would probably throw it in Kaja’s face just to spite her.
Susan rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll try to find someone you didn’t sleep with, though that makes my job really damn hard.”
Maybe Susan was right. Maybe all Kaja needed was a little time and a little training to adjust to her new home. A little kindness from you wouldn’t hurt, asshole. Dante ignored that increasingly loud voice. A present. He’d get her a present, and that would pacify her.
He had work to do. Work he didn’t care about.
“Do what you need to do, Susie. I’m up to my eyeballs in this sunscreen project.” His eyes trailed back to the desk and his mountain of paperwork, but his brain went to a different place. His mind thought about the forest and how Kaja looked naked on the grass.
Susan considered him carefully. “Yes, I can see that. It surprises me.”
“Because you’re shocked I can be professional?” There was that bitterness that was always lurking under the surface.
“No,” Susan replied with a tired smile. “That’s not what surprises me. I’m a little anxious about this turn in your behavior because I always believed you would leave this plane entirely and join Beck and Ci and fight for their cause. I don’t know how I feel about this, Dante. Part of me is utterly thrilled that I don’t have to worry about you dying in their war. And part of me aches because I don’t think this is who you are.”
Tears threatened. He bit them back. He’d never once imagined his sister knew him so well. He would have told anyone who asked that his sister rarely thought of him at all outside of how obnoxious he could be. Had that all been his perception? “This is who I was raised to be.”
She shook her head. “Oh, you’re more, little brother. I always knew that. You’re the kid who took on the older, bigger boys because they made fun of a girl you liked.”
He remembered her. Fourth grade. Trista. A very nice peasant girl on scholarship. He’d had no intentions toward her. She was just funny and sweet. She didn’t deserve to be picked on by sixth graders. He’d nearly gotten suspended for the fight he’d started. “I was very young then.”
Susan’s hair shook as she leaned forward. “You think I don’t know some of the things you’ve done? How about paying for our old nanny’s nursing home? You did that out of your own pocket.”
“The state-run places are terrible. I couldn’t send her there. You would have done the same thing.”
She sighed. “I didn’t keep in touch with her. You give a damn, Dante. You just don’t like to show it. You’re a crusader who’s hidden himself away as a playboy. I’ve always thought of it as you trying to reconcile Dad’s world with the one in your heart.”
“That’s a bit dramatic. I think I’ve always just been trying to live up to Dad’s expectations and failing spectacularly.”
“Only because you never understood what Dad really wanted. He wanted you to find something you were passionate about. He wanted you to be happy. I don’t think you’re happy, Dante. I don’t think you were happy when you were partying, and I don’t think you’re happy behind a desk.”
He wasn’t. And it was awful that someone saw it. He had everything a person could want, and he wasn’t happy. But you were. You were happy with Kaja in the woods. You were complete. “Maybe some people just aren’t smart enough to be happy.”
She huffed, a frustrated sound. “You are so slow sometimes. You are happy when you’re fighting for Beck and Ci. When you’re talking politics and how to help the masses, your eyes light up and you become this different person altogether. That’s your passion, Dante. Not numbers and spreadsheets. And I saw you the other night with Kaja. When you thought no one was looking, I saw your fangs and your eyes bleeding out. It was primal, something we try to hide. But you were happy, brother. And that made me happy.”
He tried to hide that. “If the press caught me like that, we would all be in trouble.”
“You think I don’t go a little crazy around Colin?” Susan asked. “I know royals try to hide the way consorts make them feel, but it’s stupid. It’s love. It’s how we love. The sharing of emotions and sensations is how we love. They don’t prepare you for it.”
Dante let a beat of silence slip by before he said, “I can see Kaja’s memories.”
Susan leaned forward, surprise clear on her face. “Seriously?”
He’d known he shouldn’t talk about it, but the temptation was too great. He didn’t have Beck and Ci to talk to. And he didn’t trust anyone else. “It’s like I’m there. It’s like I’m her. I live out her memories when we’re connected.”
“Wow. That must be her power.” Susan contemplated the situation for a moment. “It must be because she’s different. I don’t get anything like that from Colin. I get a lot of thoughts about how hot I am and how much he loves me, but I don’t ever become him. I’m kind of glad about that. I don’t think working on a farm would be an experience I’d look forward to reliving.”
Dante sat back, inexplicably tired. “Yeah, well, being an outcast in a wolf pack hasn’t been awesome.”
“Outcast?”
He hoped he wasn’t telling his sister something Kaja wouldn’t share, but he felt like Susan should know. They were getting close. “Her parents are dead, her siblings killed because her father tried and failed to be the leader of the pack. She was spared because she was a baby, but they treated her like shit. The pack’s leader’s son raped her and then threw her out of the pack when he was done with her. They expected her to die alone.”
“Gods, Dante, I had no idea. She’s so open.” His sister’s hand was over her heart. She wouldn’t think less of Kaja. Susan would love her all the more for how resilient she was.
“Yes, she’s strong,” Dante said. “She didn’t let it kill her heart. That’s why I cringe at the thought that she needs to be fixed. She could teach the people of this plane a thing or two.”
Susan nodded. “I understand. Just let me work with her. You’ll see. She’ll settle in. She’ll learn our ways.”
Dante had to hope so. “Just make sure the tutor is a kind woman.”
“I actually was thinking about a man,” Susan began.
“No.” He wasn’t leaving his lovely, strong, interesting consort alone with some man.
Susan smiled as though she’d been testing him and he’d passed. “Fine. I’ll find a very nice woman to teach our Kaja. Colin can help, too. He likes her. And mother wants to throw a big party for her next month. She’s inviting everyone, including the press. We’ll polish her up, show her off, and then she can go back to being herself.” Susan leaned over and hugged him. “But you should think about slowing down and really thinking about what you want. You know damn well Beck and Ci won’t run. I’ll do anything I can to help, but I’m strictly financial, brother. You could help them in other ways. Mom and Dad will try to tell you to be safe, but you’ve never been safe. It’s who you are. It’s why I love you.”
He was shocked at the tears in his sister’s eyes when she kissed his cheek and stood to go.
“And I need those reports tonight, Dante.”
The doors closed behind her, and Dante knew he had a lot to think about.