Page 89 of Powerful Deception

Alessandra must have felt my presence because her little head pops up and a smile forms on her face. She dislodges herself from Arianna before getting off the couch and coming over to me. Her little hand grabs mine and drags me over to the couch and pushes me down where she was just sitting. Right next to Arianna.

There’s a good six inches between us.

Happy with where I am, Allie climbs up onto my lap and situates herself between me and her nanny before moving to lay down. She lays her head on Arianna’s lap and extends the rest of her body over mine.

Arianna looks at me with wide eyes before turning her attention to my daughter.

“I think maybe I should let you have a movie night with just you and your dad.” She says to Allie, brushing her hair back.

Allie shakes her head and situates herself deeper into Arianna.

I guess she’s staying.

“Don’t want to spend time with me?” I say jokingly, an instant blush covering her cheeks.

“What? No, that’s not—,” she stops to collect herself. “I just thought you would want to spend some time with just your kids.”

“I was joking.”

“Oh right. Yeah I knew that.” She says, before turning back to watch the movie.

Wanting to see how deeper I can make that blush of hers go, I decide to play with her some more.

“I mean it’s okay if you don’t want to spend time with me. You didn’t want to spend time with me all week, why would tonight be any different?” I shrug, throwing an arm on the back of the couch, letting my fingers fall inches away from her hair.

She turns back to me and I see it

Deep red, her blush gets to a deep red.

“I-I,” she stutters, before turning back to the tv. “I’m just trying to put distance between us, Mr. Rosetti.”

There she goes with the mister crap again. And distance? If I remember correctly, she was enjoying what we were doing. Why the fuck would she want distance?

Instead of giving her a response, I follow her lead and turn to watch the movie.

For a good twenty minutes, I watch the movie I’m sure Alessandra picked out, trying my best to ignore the woman next to me.

But as much as I want to ignore her, I can’t. What happened between the morning when I kissed her goodbye and when I got home? What happened that she would want to distance herself from me and go back to acting as just my employee?

Maybe it was the kiss that shifted things. Maybe by me doing that triggered something within her that made her realize that we were moving in a different course. One that she may not be completely comfortable with.

Is that it?

“She fell asleep.” Arianna says her voice almost at a whisper.

I look over to her and watch as she looks down at the little girl adoringly, pushing the dark hair away from her little face.

“Good.” I say, not even to stop to think about my words. “Now me and you, sweet Arianna, can have a conversation.”

Her eyes leave Alessandra and meet mine. The blush from earlier is still there and I can’t help but think that she looks beautiful like this.

Eyes slightly wide, color on her cheeks, hair down in an untamed fashion and lips slightly parted.

I’m concentrating on taking in every detail of her face that her question takes me by surprise.

“Why do you call me Arianna?”

A bit confused by the question I answer. “Because that’s your name.”