Chapter Two
Dante glanced at the time on his phone. It was already midnight.
Where had the day gone?
He hadn’t even had dinner, yet there he was, sitting in a police station again for the second time in less than twelve hours.
It definitely wasn’t a typical day for a corporate law attorney and partner in one of the most prestigious firms in Los Angeles.
That’s not to say he was in unfamiliar territory, either. Usually it was his volunteer work with the L.A. Defense Foundation that sent him on a trip to the county jail or local police station. Like earlier, when he’d tried to help the youngest son of the Park family, who’d been picked up in a black-market cell phone sting. He’d gone to visit the eighteen-year-old at the Rampart Station. He winced again at the memory of seeing the poor scared kid behind bars.
But he wasn’t at the LAPD’s Hollywood division because of another pro bono case. No, he was here in the middle of the night because of Alexa Montoya.
Dante leaned his head back against the wall. He was exhausted and, truth be told, in no mood for another fight. But he wasn’t thinking about the legal system.
Lately, every encounter with Alexa left him feeling frustrated. Damn frustrated. As the attorney for the restaurant she co-owned, their main interaction usually consisted of brief conversations over the phone or via email regarding staffing or operational issues. But it was their in-person exchanges that usually had him on edge. And not in a good way.
It hadn’t always been like that between them. There was a time when they’d been real friends. Even a time when they were more.
Dante squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to force the memory from his thoughts. Then a low buzzing noise made them fly open again. He shook his head and stood up to get the blood flowing back in his legs.
But the blood shot straight to another part of his anatomy once he saw Alexa walk out of the station’s holding area.
She wore one of those retro-style dresses made famous by 1950s bombshells like Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. In fact, “bombshell” was the perfect word to describe the way she looked in the tight, formfitting black dress, sheer black stockings, and heels. Every delicious curve of hers was amplified, and so was the desire that usually enflamed every nerve of his when she was around.
Head down, Alexa walked to the station’s only counter. She hadn’t glanced up, so he figured she was oblivious to him standing there. As she talked with the officer, Dante took a few seconds to enjoy the view of her perfect, peach-shaped ass. A line about her being arrested for looking so sinful popped into his head, but he decided it was way too corny. Instead, he walked up behind her, just as the officer handed her a very big black bag.
He lowered his head near the side of her neck. Fuck, she smelled sweet and decadent—like an expensive wine or gourmet chocolate truffle. He’d bet good money that she tasted better than both. After successfully fighting the urge to lick the smooth skin just below her right ear to confirm his suspicion, he stole one more quick inhale of her intoxicating scent and then murmured, “So have you had enough of jail for one night or do you want to knock off a liquor store on your way home?”
She gasped in response, and for a second, he wondered if she was reacting to his voice or the fact that he was standing so close. Either way, it emboldened him.
“Well, someone’s a little jumpy,” he teased in a low voice.
Alexa gave him a quick glance over her shoulder before signing the paper the officer handed her. “Hello? I was in jail.”
“For an hour,” he reminded her in a deadpan voice.
She finally turned all the way around to face him. His breath swooshed from his lungs. This was the closest he’d been to her in months. It would’ve taken only a split second to pull her against him. Only an instant to claim those full red lips. Only a wisp of a moment to get lost in the feel of her all over again. As if sensing what he was thinking, she took a step back and started searching through her large dome-shaped bag.
This time the words came out before he could stop them. “Did you vandalize a restaurant or a bowling alley?”
Ignoring him, she pulled out her cell phone and looked at it. “Great. Just great. It’s dead. Can I use yours?”
He arched his eyebrow.
“Pretty please with sugar on it,” she said, the sarcasm as obvious as his amusement.
He gave it to her. “Who are you going to call now?”
“Uber or a cab, I guess. Whatever will get here the fastest.”
He took the phone out of her hand. The slight brush against her fingers sent a shock of heat up his arm and across his chest. Her wide eyes met his as if she’d felt it, too. Moments passed with neither of them saying a word. The air crackled with electricity. Or was it uncertainty? The sound of a telephone ringing behind the counter eventually cut through the silence. The air thinned, allowing him to find his voice. “You don’t need to call anyone. I’ll take you home.”
She grabbed the phone again. This time, there was no contact. “You live all the way out in the burbs,” she protested. “It’s late and you need to get some sleep. You look like crap.”
He laughed. Alexa always called things as she saw them. “Yes, it’s been a long day, but I’m not about to send you away in a taxi or some stranger’s station wagon. I’m taking you home, and that’s final.” Dante seized the phone and stuck it in his pants pocket. He silently dared her to grab at it again.
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but a commotion at the station’s front door stopped her. A man with a dirty face and dressed in tattered and soiled clothes stumbled inside, dragging a very large suitcase behind him. A dark brown liquid oozed from the corner of the suitcase, leaving a trail as the man walked past them toward the counter.
He reeked of liquor. The stuff on the ground reeked of something worse.
Dante leaned over and whispered, “On second thought, looks like you’ll have company while you wait, so…”
“Okay, you can take me home,” Alexa blurted and rushed past him toward the exit.
Dante laughed again and followed her outside.
Once inside the safety of his car, her body sank into the seat. Even her demeanor seemed to deflate. “This night has been the absolute worst,” she said after a long sigh.
An uneasiness swirled inside him. This wasn’t the Alexa he was used to seeing. He’d expected at least a few more rounds of their usual back-and-forth banter during their drive to her home in West Los Angeles. She usually seemed to relish every opportunity to practice her sharp wit and smart mouth on him. And despite his obligatory eye rolls, the truth was, he enjoyed that she kept him on his toes. Intellectually and in other ways. In fact, it was the reason he first became drawn to her all those years ago. And he wasn’t the only one. Normally buoyant and brash, Alexa was someone who could lift up every person in her presence with just her vibrant spirit. He’d never seen her mope or pout or look so…defeated. This Alexa threw him for a loop. An aggressive need to fix the situation, to chase the darkness away and bring back the light behind those beautiful brown eyes of hers, overwhelmed him.
He reached out and touched her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
She turned away to look out the passenger side window and took a breath. If it weren’t for the slight quiver underneath his fingers, he might have pulled back his hand. The surprise response to his touch only made him want more from her. He brushed the tips of his fingers along the soft skin just beyond the fabric covering her shoulder blade. “I promise it’s going to be okay. I’ll fix this.”
Finally, she looked at him. Shadows hid her body, but her face was illuminated by the moonlight. Her eyes shone with worry, and it took everything he had not to wrap her in his arms and try to soothe it away. “How do you know that it can be fixed?” she whispered.
He didn’t know, of course. But he couldn’t tell her the truth. Not when she looked at him like that. It did something to his insides to see the need etched across her face. A sense of satisfaction swelled. For once, Alexa wasn’t pushing him away.
Maybe this was his chance to finally get her to admit that she needed him in other ways, too?
Dante smiled. “I know it because that’s my job. And I’m fucking good at it.”
She nodded and offered him a weak smile back. “Ah, no wonder Brandon pays you the big bucks. Seems like I always need to be bailed out of some kind of mess, don’t I?” Her tone was bitter. Rough. The muscle in her shoulder tensed, so he let go and turned the ignition to start the car.
And just like that, the line of unspoken uneasiness was drawn between them again.
A couple of minutes after pulling away from the curb, he stole another glance at her. “I didn’t technically bail you out this time. At least, not the way you think I did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, because you called me while you were still at the restaurant, I was able to get to the station before they even had a chance to officially book you. Your friends explained to me what had happened and I convinced the sergeant to let you go with a notice to appear. Just give me a few days and you won’t even have to go to court.”
She let out a big breath. “Thank you, Dante.”
The sincerity of her gratitude and the sound of his name on her lips spread across his skin, instantly warming him from the chest down. But he caught himself before she could see just how much she was affecting him tonight.
He had to get a grip on the situation.
This wasn’t him. He wasn’t some lovesick schoolboy who waited on the sidelines for his crush to toss him scraps of affection. The women he wanted always wanted him back. Maybe that was a little conceited to admit, but it was the truth.
When he was younger, it wasn’t unusual for him to have a different date every weekend. Lately, though, he’d become disenchanted with the whole game. His last relationship fizzled out after only two weeks. The one before that endured barely three. It had gotten to the point where he preferred spending his Saturday nights in the office or working at a table in L.A. Cuchara. He hadn’t slept with a woman in months.
Maybe because the only woman he’d been interested in during that time was the one sitting next to him in his car. But she didn’t want anything from him except legal counsel. And since he’d rather take a thousand cold showers than risk rejection, legal counsel was the only thing she’d get from him.
They drove in silence for a few more minutes before she spoke again. “I can’t believe he called the police on me.”
“Who? The owner? Well, it sounds like you did do some damage to a wine display. But I don’t understand why he called the cops, either. Did he even try to work out the situation with you?”
“Work it out how? It was an accident and mainly his fault. If he hadn’t grabbed my purse, none of this would’ve happened. And Nick didn’t call the police because of a few broken wine bottles. Nick called the police because he’s an asshole.”
“Nick? You know this guy personally?” He tried not to sound so surprised. Or irritated.
She sighed. “I knew him a long time ago. We used to live together. Kind of.”
Irritation turned to uneasiness. “Oh,” he gritted through clenched teeth. He thought better of saying anything else and concentrated on the traffic in front of him.
“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything, but I know what you want to say.”
His shoulders tensed. “And what’s that?”
“That the messes I get in because of my exes are basically financing your dream vacation to some Caribbean island.”
Shame forced him to keep looking ahead. He had thought that exact thing.
The ghosts of her boyfriends past were more than simple nuisances he tried not to think about. Instead, they tended to inflict some real damage in her life. Earlier this year, one of them tried to sue Brandon. When he failed, the slimeball took racy photos of her brother and his fiancée, Daisy, and sold them to a tabloid.
Before that, there was the dirtbag who disappeared with her car for three days and then left it abandoned in Vegas after he eloped with a stripper. And before him, there was the “musician” who conned her out of some jewelry and a couple thousand dollars.
This Nick guy must have preceded them all, since Dante had never heard of him before now.
“So tell me about the asshole,” he said finally. Not because he was jealous or anything but because, as her attorney, he needed to know the whole story.
She sighed and leaned her head against the seat. “There’s not much to tell. We met about three years ago while working at the same restaurant. After a few months together, he was basically living at my place. One day I came home early from my shift because I had cut my finger pretty bad and caught him in bed with the chick who lived across the hall. I kicked him out on his ass and never saw him again until tonight.”
He gripped the steering wheel until his fingers hurt. The pain distracted him from the overwhelming urge to yell every curse word he knew. She talked like it had been no big deal, but he knew better. He knew Alexa better. She had a huge, trusting heart. And the thought of her being hurt by this jerk enraged him to no end. Luckily, she kept on talking and gave him a chance to calm down.
“Anyway, I knew he owned this restaurant, but my friends really wanted to go there and I figured I wouldn’t even see him. And if I did? Then fine. But I so didn’t expect to see everything else.”
“Like what?”
“Nick’s restaurant is basically the restaurant I had always talked about opening. From the menu right down to the kitschy lamps on the tables.”
“He stole your idea?”
“Apparently.”
“What a son of a bitch.” The rage began building again.
She sighed. “Anyway, I lost it and confronted him in the kitchen. Of course, he denied it, so I kind of dumped a jug of olive oil on his head and headed for the door. But he tried to stop me, and before I knew it, I was swinging my new bowling bag purse into a wall of wine bottles.”
Before he could stop himself, he started laughing. Hard.
“I’m glad you find this so funny,” she said, her irritation loud and clear.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t stop imagining the whole scene in my head. Olive oil? On his head?” He roared all over again.
When the chuckles finally settled, he glanced over in her direction. She was looking out the window with her arms folded tightly against her chest. Guilt needled at him. She’d been through quite an ordeal and he’d just laughed at her for it.
With his eyes still on the road, he reached over with his right hand and touched her thigh. It was meant to be an innocent gesture to show his regret. But just then the car rolled over a bump in the road and his hand ended up sliding over the top of her thigh and came dangerously close to the forbidden valley between her legs. The realization of where he was touching ignited every nerve in his body. Fuck. What was it about her tonight that made him crash through his self-imposed boundaries? He had to control himself better. He mumbled a quick apology and moved his hand back to the steering wheel.
The fact that she didn’t even acknowledge the slip of his hand told him she was still pissed about him laughing at her story.
A few minutes later, he parked his car on the street in front of her bungalow-style house. But she didn’t move to get out.
He turned to her. “I’m really sorry I laughed, Alexa. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. That wasn’t fair. You didn’t deserve what Nick did to you, then or now. If I had been there tonight, I probably would’ve been the one arrested.”
She nodded and exhaled a deep breath. Then she finally faced him. “Do you want to come inside for a drink?”
A handful of reasons why he shouldn’t go in raced through his head. He was exhausted. She was exhausted. He had a meeting early in the morning. She had just seen the guy who had broken her heart three years ago.
When he didn’t answer right away, she touched his hand. “Please? I don’t think I want to be alone right now.”
And with those words, his control crumbled into a million tiny pieces.
He turned off the car. “Sure. Why not?”