Page 25 of Ivory Obsession
“Jesus.”
“Yes, he was there,” Dante said, flashing me a smile. “It wasn’t that bad. He’s gotten less scary as I’ve gotten older.”
“Sounds charming,” I replied, my voice steady despite the fluttering in my chest.
“Charming,” he echoed, his smile waning slightly. “Yeah, it had its moments. But not everything is as sweet as pastry cream, Jade.”
“Including your dad.”
“Yeah,” he replied, shrugging. “Oh well.”
“Maybe you can show me around some time,” I ventured, curious yet cautious.
“Maybe,” Dante said, his gaze locking onto mine. “I’d like that.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the sounds of the coffee shop wrapping around us like a comforting blanket. It was a reprieve from the intensity of our conversation—a chance for me to collect my thoughts and prepare for the inevitable parting of ways.
“Thankfully, lab work doesn’t leave much room for dull moments either,” I said, trying to match his earlier ease. “Sometimes it feels like I’m on the verge of something monumental.”
“Is that right?” Dante’s interest seemed piqued, a flicker of genuine curiosity in his eyes. “And does Dr. Jade Bentley enjoy being on the edge of discovery?”
“Immensely,” I said, allowing myself a small smile. It felt good to talk about my work—my passion—with someone who seemed to understand the drive behind it.
“Then here’s hoping you find what you’re looking for,” Dante said, raising his empty coffee cup in a mock toast.
“Here’s hoping,” I echoed, clinking my cup against his.
The clink of our cups was a soft sound, almost lost amid the hum of conversation and the whirring of espresso machines. Dante’s eyes were still fixed on me, his gaze unwavering, intense in a way that suggested he wasn’t just talking about my research.
“Jade, I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” he began, his voice dropping to a low murmur. The lighthearted air evaporated as if sucked away by his sudden gravity.
I stiffened, my hand tightening around the ceramic cup. This was not a conversation I’d prepared for, not with him. His world was one of shadows and secrets, a place where my scientific mind could find no foothold. And yet, here he was, unmasking a vulnerability I hadn’t known existed within the enigmatic Dante Moretti.
“Us?” The word came out more as a cautious breath than a question, betraying the confusion that knotted inside me.
Just as he leaned forward, perhaps to close the distance between uncertainty and revelation, his phone rang—a sharp, insistent trill that cut through the moment like a warning siren.
“Excuse me,” Dante muttered, irritation flashing across his features as he pulled out his phone. He stood up, stepping away from the table with an apologetic tilt of his head. “This is important.”
I watched his back as he paced away, the phone pressed to his ear, his body language taut with frustration. My heart raced, thumping against my ribs as if trying to keep pace with the myriad thoughts that tumbled through my head. What had he been about to say? Did ‘us’ mean what I thought it did?
In the brief solitude his absence afforded, I fought to steady my breathing, to still the tremor that threatened to take hold of my hands. A part of me wanted to flee, to escape before I got caught up in whatever web Dante wove around his life. But another part—a reckless, daring part—wanted to stay, to hear him out.
“Sorry about that,” Dante said as he returned, sliding his phone back into his pocket. There was no mistaking the apology in his tone, but also a resolve that had not been there before. “Business never sleeps.”
“Seems it doesn’t,” I replied, finding my voice again, though it sounded far too casual for the storm of emotions brewing inside me.
“Let’s have that dinner sometime this week. Just us,” he proposed, his eyes searching mine for an answer. “No business talk. We need to catch up, you know, properly.”
“When?” I asked, my heart jackhammering in my chest.
“Thursday?” he countered, cocking his head. “I’ll pick you up. I did promise to wine and dine you.”
I hesitated, caught between the instinct to guard myself and an unbidden curiosity that urged me to leap into the unknown. The thrill of Dante’s attention was undeniable—there was something about him that pulled at me, a magnetism that was both exciting and terrifying.
“Jade?” he prompted softly, his voice a low rumble that seemed to resonate within the otherwise quiet space of the coffee shop.
I weighed my choice carefully, aware that dinner wasn’t just dinner when it came to someone like Dante Moretti. My life was one of labs and research, of controlled experiments where the variables were known and outcomes predictable. Dante represented an anomaly in my neatly ordered world—one that could either be an astonishing discovery or an uncontrollable reaction. And I remembered Ellie’s warning…but it was hard to think about Ellie when Dante was looking at me the way he was.