Dante's Twins

Disembodied, her voice called to him, begging for something she couldn’t begin to define. “Dante, please...help me...”

At her words, he lowered his head and found her with his tongue, and she forgot to be shocked or modest or restrained. She simply melted like honey.

The tension within her coiled unbearably until, with one last powerful wrench, it burst free of itself, and all she could do was dig her nails into Dante’s shoulders and pray that she would not drop off the edge of the earth and lose him forever.

For a moment he crushed her to him, anchoring her to reality. Then, eyes half closed and chest heaving, he rose above her, all proud masculine strength. Firmly, he nudged apart her knees with one of his own.

He has stolen my soul. I cannot give him more, she thought helplessly.

And was wrong. Because she had not begun to give; she had only received and mistakenly believed that to be the greatest pleasure a woman could experience. But her body knew differently, expanding to accept him and closing around him, sleek and tight with welcome.

The rhythm began again, frenzied and untamed It possessed her, seizing the air in her lungs, paralyzing her heart, and summoning a devastation that would have terrified her had he not held her so securely.

She cried out his name again, wept into his shoulder, struggled to soar with him and suddenly felt herself explode into a million fragments. And through it all he rode with her, welding her with his heat until she was whole again and flooding her with his loving.

For long minutes after that, she heard only the burbling of the spring. Felt only the spongy resilience of the moss beneath her and the weight of him above her. Saw behind her closed eyelids only the muted brightness of the sun spearing through the trees.

Finally, he spoke. “You are beautiful,” he said, in the same passion-charged voice he’d used before. “Beautiful through and through. And you are mine.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I love you, Dante.”

It never occurred to her to doubt the truth of her statement, any more than it occurred to her to question the truth of his. He was her soul mate. He would never lie to her, nor she to him.

“I remember when I used to be assigned to this end of the house. Those were the old days, before the company started going to hell in a handcart.”

With night having fallen swiftly, as it did in the tropics, the only light outside came from the kerosene torches in the courtyard below. But she didn’t need to see the face belonging to the voice to recognize the speaker as Carl Newbury.

For one startled moment after she stepped out of the bathroom, she thought he was actually in her suite and speaking to her. In fact, he was leaning on the veranda railing next door, his words directed at someone in the room behind.

Uncomfortable at finding herself unwitting eavesdropper, Leila crossed to the slatted French doors, intending either to close them or make her presence known, when he spoke again.

“The last person I expected would be taken in by such a blatant come-on is Dante Rossi. I thought he had more smarts than that, but I guess when sex enters the picture...”

“It’s gone that far?” another male voice exclaimed.

“You witnessed the way they went sneaking off after lunch today,” Newbury sneered, pausing to slurp noisily at whatever he was drinking. “And you saw them come back, and the furtive way she scurried around to the back entrance while he strolled along the front terrace, bold as brass, so you tell me.”

Aghast to realize she and Dante were the subject of so unsavory an exchange, Leila froze on the threshold of her own veranda, hidden by the gauzy white curtains fluttering in the breeze from the ceiling fan.

“They were holding hands,” the unseen other party replied, and although she couldn’t identify him, the fact that, like her, he’d been assigned to the back wing of the house suggested he didn’t rate Carl Newbury’s executive status. “Still, to assume that means he got her in the sack within a couple of days of meeting her is a bit far-fetched, surely? Dante’s a good-looking man and women obviously find him attractive, but he doesn’t strike me as a playboy.”

“Normally he isn‘t—at least not when he’s dealing with ladies. But let’s face it, pal, Leila Connors-Lee is no lady, for all her fancy airs. She got herself hired in the first place by flashing her legs and batting her long eyelashes at Gavin Black. But he’s married and old enough to be her father, so she looked around for bigger fish to land and it looks as if she’s hooked Dante.”

“But he never mixes business with pleasure. His private life is just that. Private.”

“It used to be.” Ice clattered against crystal, followed by the gurgle of liquid being poured. “But I’ve thought for a while that his judgment’s been off, and I guess this proves it.”

“He’s got too many brains to be taken in by a pretty face.”

Newbury’s laugh made Leila’s skin crawl. “We both know a man’s brain isn’t what drives him when sex enters the picture, especially not when it’s handed to him on a plate.”

“Ah!” Afraid she might be sick, Leila pressed the palm of her hand to her mouth. She knew she’d alienated Carl Newbury the first week she’d been hired, and she knew it went beyond her having taken over a position he’d earmarked for one of his friends, so she didn’t expect him to regard her with particular favor. But that he was prepared to carry the grudge this far left her reeling.

“Well, there’s not much we can do about it.” To his credit, the other man sounded ill at ease with the tone of the conversation. “It’s up to Dante to put a stop to it if he doesn’t like it.”

“Which he’ll do only if he realizes the mistake he’s making, and I’m not so sure he will. I rather think we’re going to have to save him from himself, Johnny, my man.”

“Save him from himself? Uh...how?” Johnny, whoever he was, sounded more nervous than ever. “Dante’s treated me pretty well, Carl. Not that I don’t appreciate having you in my corner and all, but I’d just as soon not give him reason to regret having taken me on when I needed a job.”

“Relax. I’ve got a vested interest in keeping on his good side, too. We just have to be ready to run interference when the opportunity presents itself, that’s all. Which it will, sooner rather than later, and then you’ll be where you belong—wearing the shoes she was never meant to fill.”

“You seem pretty sure of that.”

“I am. Drink up, pal, it’s getting late. And mark my words. We won’t have to put up with Lady Connors-Lee much longer. She’ll be as stale as yesterday’s news and just as forgettable once Dante’s back on his home turf. Any affair that starts with a bang like this, practically before the introductions are over, tends to burn itself out just as fast. In the meantime, a few well-placed words...” Newbury’s voice faded as he heaved himself away from the railing and ambled back inside the room next door.

Long after the conversation ended and the door slammed behind the two men, Leila stood rooted to the spot, her face flaming. Oh, it was all very well to say that, compared to how she felt about Dante, what other people might think or say didn’t count, but the plain fact was that it did. It hurt to learn that her reputation was being dragged through the mud, and it hurt even more realizing that Dante’s was keeping it company.

And yet, hadn’t she known all along that there would be talk in the ranks? Backing away from the window, she sank onto a wicker chaise, recalling her first meeting with him just three evenings before and the conjecture it had aroused.

She’d been among the last to come down to the cocktail party. Most of the other employees and their spouses were gathered already in small, sociable groups, the women in their elegant bare-backed dresses outshining the flower arrangements, the men unusually formal in bow ties and dinner jackets.

Yet for all that the wide flagged terrace held a near-capacity crowd, he was the one who stood out from the rest. On the horizon, a breathtaking sweep of jungle-clad mountains soared to bare volcanic peaks. Between them and the island, the setting sun cast a flaming swath on a sea of rippled silk. But none of it could steal his thunder.

Close by, a woman had let out a subdued shriek of dismay as someone accidentally spattered a drink down the skirt of her dress. Offshore, a school of bottle-nosed dolphins leaped in graceful arcs to the delight of the audience on the terrace. Still, he’d continued to dominate the scene.

She hadn’t needed an introduction to know who he was. Even in a crowd of sixty, there was no mistaking Dante Rossi. He stood taller than the other men, larger than life.

As if they knew he was different, special, his dinner jacket clung more possessively to his shoulders, his starched shirt gleamed whiter against the warm olive of his skin.

He stood beside the balustrade separating the terrace from the beach, engaged in conversation with Carl Newbury, one of his vice presidents. But as Leila came down the steps from the main house and attempted to merge inconspicuously with everyone else, Dante had lifted his head and lanced her with such a stare that she stopped, as paralyzed as if she’d been caught in the act of stealing the jewels hanging around the neck of the woman standing nearest to her. And just like that, it had begun.

With a dismissive gesture, he cut off Carl Newbury in midsentence. Leila saw his mouth move, could almost lip-read his question Who’s she?

The vice president turned to look. When he saw who it was his boss had expressed interest in, he allowed his face to settle into lines of holier-than-thou disapproval and mouthed, “That’s her!”

Dante’s observation had grown more acute, fastening on her features with an intensity from which she could not detach herself. But the hostility she braced herself to withstand hadn’t materialized. Instead, another kind of awareness knifed through the atmosphere, strange, electric, thrilling. It rippled over her and whether or not she wished to, Leila found herself staring back at him, transfixed.

Where moments before she’d been surrounded by a blaze of color and movement and noise, suddenly Leila felt encased in silence and solitude. Carl Newbury melted into insignificance, too minor a player to merit notice. The women’s gorgeous designer dresses paled. The animated buzz of conversation ebbed to the quiet murmur of waves lapping a distant shore.

In all the world there were only the two of them: Dante and she, potentially opposed from a professional standpoint, but at the same time, trapped in an inexplicable harmony that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with primitive sexual knowledge. A modern Adam and Eve, their association already poisoned by the serpent of resentment which had coiled around her from the moment she’d been hired to replace the ailing Mark Hasborough.

Dante had recovered first and moved, breaking the spell. Without taking his attention from her face, he lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. A waiter bearing a tray of pineapple-garnished drinks had appeared at his side. Indicating to his vice president to take two glasses and follow, Dante had moved with sinuous grace among the throng of employees and spouses to where she waited. Carl Newbury minced along at his heels, as eager to corner her as a mongoose about to dispose of a snake.

“Dante,” he’d bleated, rocking on the balls of his feet and smirking, “allow me to introduce Mark’s replacement and the newest buyer to come on board at Classic Collections. This is—”

“Leila Connors-Lee.” Dante’s voice, as potent in its impact as everything else about him, had washed over her, eliminating Newbury in its undertow. He had unusual, beautiful eyes, their blue-green depths rivaling the clarity of fine aquamarines, and he had learned to use them to powerful effect. Framed in lush black lashes, they assessed her brazenly from head to toe, a cool sweep of appraisal that left her feeling stripped to the bone. “Of course,” he said, relieving Newbury of both drinks and passing one to her. “You couldn’t possibly be anyone else.”

A more naive woman might have thought he was referring to the fact that she didn’t fit the blond corporate wives’ image, but Leila hadn’t been fooled. He’d heard the gossip, the innuendos. Why else was he subjecting her to such thorough observation?