Dante's Way (33 page)

“I was out here talking to Theresa,” she said, watching the play of emotions that passed over his face. “She told me a lot of interesting things.”

“Hmmm...what did you tell you?” His eyes became flat and as unreadable as stone as Dante took a step towards her.

“She told me that Liam sent her a letter saying that he was okay and back home with his parents.”

Dante’s face lit right up like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. “That’s wonderful. I knew you were worried about your friend. I bet you’re happy that he’s safe and sound.”

She nodded her head in agreement. “Yes, I know. I always wanted Liam to reconnect with his family. However, that isn’t the only thing she told me.”

“What else did you tell you?” he asked with a staid calmness.

“Were you ever going to tell me that you went to see Mr. Lee and how you also knew our dear friend Theresa?”

Dante looked around them and then took a step towards her and she took one back. “Amara, this isn’t the time or place to get into this. I was going to tell you about Mr. Lee when we got home today, so how about we get out of here and you will know everything. Also, I don’t know Theresa the way you think.”

Amara looked at Dante with disbelief. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You can go home by yourself and I’ll stay here. I know how to handle myself quite well without your help.”

“The hell I am,” Dante growled right before he grabbed her by the arm pulling her towards his truck. Opening the door, he maneuvered her in and then leaned in close to her face. “You aren’t about to stay out here and go off somewhere so I won’t be able to find you.

“When I told you that I wouldn’t ever let you leave me, I wasn’t kidding with you, sweetheart. I love you and I’ll be damned if Theresa not telling you the whole story will make me lose you. We have worked too hard to get where we are.” Dante gave her one last look before he slammed the door shut and locked it with his key ring.

Coming around the truck, he unlocked it and got right inside then drove off so fast that she didn’t even have a chance to try to escape. Dante had a lot of explaining to do and she wasn’t sure if she was interested in hearing anything he had to tell her.

Chapter Forty-One

An apology was right on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get the words out. Amara hadn’t done anything wrong by getting upset about Theresa and Mr. Lee. She had taken him by surprise asking how he knew Theresa and that’s why he flew off the handle the way he had.

He couldn’t let their day continue with this tension between them. Taking his right hand off the wheel, he placed it on Amara’s leg hoping to break through the wall she had put up between them. He continued driving hoping she would say something to him, but not one word came from her. He knew better than to think a single touch would get her to acknowledge him again. He had to do a lot better than that.

“Baby, I apologize for blowing up and dragging you to the truck. I should have told you about going to see Mr. Lee and my connection with Theresa, but things kept coming up, like my brother’s accident and you agreeing to move in with me.

“I want you to know that I’ve never slept with Theresa before or after she became an escort. I would never keep a secret like that from you. I dated her sister about three years ago and that’s how we know each other. We’re only friends. I’ve been trying to get her away from Ike, but she doesn’t want to leave him.”

Taking his eyes off the road, Dante glanced at Amara but she wasn’t looking back at him. He cursed under his breath and moved his hand off her leg placing it back on the steering wheel. He hated the way the truth came out, but he couldn’t do anything to change it now. All he could do was finish telling her everything and let the cards fall where they may.

“Yes, I did go to see Mr. Lee. I went to see him the same night you cooked the romantic dinner for us. I was tired of hearing how much he had done for you. I didn’t trust the man and I wanted him out of our lives. You had me now and I saw no reason to still have him around.”

From the corner of his eye, Dante noticed Amara slowly turn her head in his direction and he was glad for that bit of acknowledgement from her. “I have to admit, Mr. Lee was a whole lot older than I imagined him to be, but I didn’t let his age stand in my way. I told him what I came there to do.”

“What did you actually say?” she asked in a low voice.

Dante swallowed a few times before answering. “I let him know that since you were my woman now there was no longer a need for him in your life. He could focus his attention on someone else in his family like his own child or something.”

“Mr. Lee doesn’t have any children.”

“Yes he does...did,” he corrected. “His daughter’s name was Jennifer and she got hooked on drugs in middle school and then ended up being an escort for Ike before dying from a drug overdose.”

Amara gasped. “What! Why didn’t he tell me anything of this instead of you?” she asked, hurt.

“I honestly don’t know,” Dante answered. “He just told me to tell you that he had to leave because he wanted you to move on with your life. I believe he had been planning on leaving for a while, but stayed here to keep a watch over you.”

“How could you not tell me any of this?” Amara questioned. “Were you that jealous of an old man?”

Jealousy wasn’t the word he would have used. He just didn’t like the idea of another man who wasn’t him being in Amara’s life. She still didn’t understand how deeply his love ran for her. She had taken him to places he never ever saw in his parents’ marriage or even in Jim’s relationship with Keira. When he went back to Texas, Amara had his back. She proved her loyalty by standing up to his brothers without blinking an eye.

She made him see what it was like to have a true partner...a woman on whose finger you wouldn’t think twice about putting a ring.

“I saw Mr. Lee as the last part of your past you had to let go, so I could have your entire heart without a piece of it belonging to someone else, even an old man,” he admitted. “If my feelings make me selfish then I accept it, but I’m man enough to admit I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Dante, you have to understand my love for you is unconditional. I’m not like your family and expect you to do certain things to gain my love. It’s here for you just like I am,” Amara said, touching him on the arm.

“I understand why you went to see Mr. Lee then kept it from me as much as it hurts. I do get it. Yet, you could have told me about Theresa. It would have saved us from this fight. She told me to ask you the truth and I should have instead of jumping to the end of the book before reading the first page. So, I’ll take the blame for that one.”

Tell her the rest...tell her now
! His mind hollered at him. Now was the time to get everything out in the open while they were clearing the air. She was in a forgiving mood.

Turning down his street, Dante drove a little further before pulling into his circular driveway. He parked and turned off his truck. “I have something else to tell you,” he confessed.

Her dark eyes never left his for an instant. “What is it?” she asked.

“I know you’re going to be upset and I can handle it. I saw how much you needed my help and I couldn’t sit back without doing something to help my girlfriend.”

“Dante, tell me what you did,” Amara said with a slight tinge of anger in her voice. “I don’t want to make a guess.”

“Pastor Allen wasn’t the one who got you the interview at the community center, I was,” he admitted. “Finding a job was so important to you that I couldn’t let you wait any longer to have one.”

Amara slid her hand away from him and scooted back in her seat until her back touched the door. She looked at him like she had never seen him before in her life and it wasn’t an expression that he liked on bit.

He waited for her to say something, anything, as the seconds ticked by and an unwelcome tension stretched ever tighter between them. Something cautioned him not to ask, but he foolishly did anyway.

“Amara, say something to me,” Dante uttered. “I would rather have your anger than your silence any day.

Reaching behind her, Amara opened the truck door and get out closing it behind her. Dante watched as she walked up to the house, unlocked the front door and went inside closing it behind her.

“Fuck,” he cursed, slamming the palm of his hand against the steering wheel.

It took every ounce of his self-control not to get out of his truck and run into the house after her. The crushed look on her face put a cold knot in his stomach. Despite his fears, he knew he would have to give Amara time to process everything he just confessed to her.

Dante took a deep breath and tried to relax as his heart pounded madly away inside of his chest. The way Amara was feeling right now; she wouldn’t probably look him in the eye. Yet he had gotten too far with her to just go inside the house and shut the door.

Taking the key out of the ignition, Dante reached across the seat and opened up the glove compartment. He stared at the item before taking it out, shoving into his jeans and then he got out of the car.

Chapter Forty-Two

Inside the house, Dante reached down and petted Bear thinking about what he was going to tell Amara. He didn’t think any of the things he had done or kept from her were that earth-shattering, but to her they were a big deal and that was the only thing that mattered. He was crazy about her and wanted her to look at him with love in her eyes again.

Standing up, Dante wiped his hands down the front of his jeans then made his way towards the kitchen. Pausing in the doorway, he glanced around the room, but didn’t see Amara anywhere.

Where in the hell was she
?

She couldn’t have gone back out the front door because he was right outside. She didn’t have any way to get back into town. Just as Dante turned around to leave, he spotted the patio door open and breathed a sigh of relief.

Making his way across the kitchen, he pushed the door opened and spotted Amara standing at the other end of the patio staring off into the distance. Dante kept walking until he was only a few feet behind her.

“Can we talk?” he asked, softly.

“I honestly don’t know what we need to discuss,” Amara replied. “You pretended like you were listening to the words coming out of my mouth and then you did the complete opposite.” She turned to face him and the pain on her face hurt him.

“Baby, I—”

“No, you have no right to call me that, Dante. You wanted to have ultimate control over me even when I asked you to step back a little and allow me to do one thing for myself.”

“I’m sorry for the way I behaved, but you have to understand something. I never wanted control over you. All I was trying to do was make all of your dreams come true. I watched you day after day get doors slammed in your face,” Dante said. “It pissed me off no one else could see the same amazingly strong woman I did. It took courage and guts to survive on the streets as long as you did.”

“Yes, it did and that should have proved to you how strong I was, but it didn’t. Did I ever come off as too weak to handle anything while we were dating?” Amara questioned.

He shook his head. “No, you were very confident and strong, but I wasn’t thinking about what you could do for yourself. Every time you talked about another rejection, I heard the pain in your voice and saw the disappointment in your eyes. How could I let that continue when I knew I had the means to help you?”

“I’m touched you wanted to help me, but I’m more hurt your confidence in me wasn’t strong enough to wait and see what would happen.”

Dante took a step towards Amara until they were almost close enough to touch. “We belong together no matter what I’ve done. You can’t deny that, can you?”

Amara paused. He closed his eyes blowing out a long sigh; worried things were so far gone nothing could fix them. He never thought his ‘hero complex’, as Caleb called it, might actually cost him the woman he loved.

“No, I can’t deny that,” she answered in a low voice making his eyes snap back open. “But, I won’t be able to accept the job at the community center. I hope you know that because I would never know for sure if I got it on my own or through your connections.”

“Amara, I’m not going to make any more decisions for you behind your back,” Dante promised as he reached into his jeans and pulled out a tiny box. “However, I do have one more confession to make. I did something else without asking you, but I hope you won’t mind once I come clean.”

“Dante, what did you do?” she asked, watching him closely.

Bending down on one knee, he flipped open the velvet box in his hand. “Sweetheart, you showed me how unconditional love could be when you went to Texas with me. I stood outside in the hallway listening to how you stood up to them for me. Right then I knew if a woman I threatened to toss in jail, not only could forgive me but fall in love with me so deeply to speak her mind so freely, I had to make her my wife. Will you marry me?”

“I—”

“Amara, I love you. When you got out of the truck earlier and walked away leaving me there, I had never felt so alone in my life. I’ve came off as cocky and self-assured for so many years that I was starting to believe I wasn’t interested in a wife and kids until I saw you.

“I promise to you love even more after we are married then I do right now,” he swore. “Baby, you complete me in ways I never thought was possible. I can’t imagine me moving on without you there with me. Will you marry me...love me...and grow old with me?”

Tears poured down Amara’s face as she reached down and pulled him up to his feet. “I want to grow old with you too, but I want to have lots of kids to fill this huge house. So, if you can handle that I would want more than anything to become Mrs. Dante Braden.”

“Yes,” Dante yelled. He removed the five carat diamond ring from the box then slid it on Amara’s finger.

He gathered Amara into his arms and planted kisses down the side of her neck. “If you had told me no, I’d have done everything in my power to change your mind. Sweetheart, I love everything about you even the way your forehead wrinkles when you’re thinking too hard,” he said, staring down into her eyes. “I can even overlook how you ate the last bite of German Chocolate cake when we shared it.”