Her Little White Lie Read Free Page B

they talked to him. The way they did business with him.
    What would it be like to have it change? It wouldn’t last, of course. He wouldn’t stay with her. Wouldn’t pursue anything remotely resembling a real marriage. An engagement though, at least for a while, had interesting possibilities.
    But to be seen as the angel rather than the devil … it was an interesting thought. It might make certain transactions easier. Smoother.
    Dante was past the point where negative character assessments bothered him. Unless they affected a business. And in the past, he knew people had shied away from dealings with him thanks to his reputation.
    A womanizer. Heartless. Cutthroat. Dangerous. It had all been said and then some, most of it spun from speculation and created stories. Would it change things if he were considered settled? A family man? Even if it wasn’t permanent, it could quite possibly shift how people saw him.
    An interesting thought indeed.
    Can she reform him?
The real question was, could he use her to reform his image?
    For a moment, a brief moment, he allowed himself to think of the many ways he could use her. Fantasies that had been on the edge of his consciousness every time she breezed through the office. Fantasies he had not allowed.
    He gave them a moment’s time, and then shut the door on them. It was not her body he needed.
    “All right, Ms. Harper, for the purposes of keeping the facade, I accept your proposal.”
    Her blue eyes widened. “You … what?”
    “I have decided that I will marry you.”

CHAPTER TWO
    P AIGE was pretty sure the floor shook underneath her feet. But Dante didn’t look at all perturbed, and everything appeared to be stable, so maybe the shaking was all internal.
    “You … what?”
    “I accept. At least on a surface level. At least until the furor in the media dies down.”
    “I … Okay,” she said, watching her boss as he stood from his position behind his desk. His movements were methodical, planned and purposeful.
    He was always like that. Smooth and unruffled. She had wondered, more than once, what it took to get him to loosen up. What it took to shake that perfect, well-ordered control.
    She’d wondered, only a couple of times, if a lover ever managed to do it for him. Loosen his tie, run her fingers through his hair.
    Now she knew she had the power to do it. Not in the way a lover would, but by inadvertently leaking a fake engagement to the press.
    “Excellent,” he said, his tone clipped. Decisive. “I see no reason why this can’t work.”
    “I … Why?”
    “Is this not what you want? What you need?”
    Her head was spinning. This morning everything in her world had been on the verge of collapse, and now—now it seemed like she might actually be able to keep it all standing.“Well … yes. But let’s be honest. You aren’t exactly known for your accommodating and helpful nature, sorry, so it seems … out of character.”
    He bent and picked up the paper from his desk, his dark eyes skimming it. “Can you imagine what the media would say if I backed out? They’re already salivating for the chance to rip me to pieces if I would just give it to them. This article is practically a setup for the following piece where they will gleefully report that I have dropped my subordinate fiancée, who I was likely playing power games with, for my own debauched satisfaction, and ruined her chances of adopting her much-loved child. It would have an even darker angle to it, considering I myself am adopted. I can see that headline now.”
    “Well, yes, I can see how that would be … not good. But I’m surprised they just … believed that we were engaged anyway.”
Average woman
. That was what they’d called her in the paper. And Dante Romani would never be linked with a woman who was average.
    In so many ways it was like a bad joke. A cruel high school flashback.
    “Been reading stories about me?” he asked, his lips curving into a half smile.
    “Well, I mean, I