Nadia tried her best to give the woman a friendly smile. “Thank you …”
“Lila.”
“Thanks, Lila,” she repeated the helpful woman’s name. Then Lila finally left her to it with a smile.
Nadia headed to the “head” first, needing a nice, warm shower after today’s events. First, she took off her jacket that had become plastered to her when she suddenly remembered …
The check!
Pulling out the now extremely wet rectangle piece of paper, she carefully placed it on the counter. The ink had bled a little, but it was still legible, right? She would let it air dry and find out later. If it wasn’t, she’d get Dante to write her another one. Hell, he might even add another zero after this disastrous meeting that had turned into a weekend.
She quickly undressed then showered in the small but luxurious bathroom before throwing on a bathrobe. She managed to find a blow dryer and a round brush to give herself her usual sleek blowout. It didn’t take long until her shiny, black hair was placed perfectly in her long bob that barely grazed her shoulders.
Shockingly, there was even makeup, but she decided against her usual cat eyeliner and nude lipstick, only putting on a tinted SPF she found to protect her skin from the harsh Florida sun. She supposed the perfect business look she always displayed could take a break for a few days while she was forced to be here.
Finally leaving the bathroom, she headed toward the dreaded closet. She gingerly looked through the brightly colored clothes to find them all of the skimpy variety. Hell, she was better off wearing her robe than those.
Deciding there was no way in hell, she went to the chest, praying for something that would cover her big ass around the man who had just given her a hundred thousand dollars for her charity, but when she opened the top drawer, then the next, then the next, she practically screamed when she opened the last.
Slamming the drawer closed, it was decided …
She would stay in her fucking room all weekend.
Dante sat with his son and Amo in the outdoor living area, catching the last few sunrays left in the day. They had all already changed into their vacation attire and had been resting, waiting for Nadia to join them. It wasn’t until the sun was beginning to set that worry started to set in.
“I’m going to go check on Nadia.”
“Good idea,” Amo told him, picking up an hors d’oeuvre from the plate Lila held. “I thought I heard her scream.”
“What?” Dante quickly got to his feet. “When?”
Amo plopped the little dish in his mouth. “When I went to go change.”
“That was hours ago!” It was everything he could do not to slap Amo on his big-ass head. “And you didn’t fucking think to check on her?”
“It wasn’t like a screech of terror,” Amo explained dumbly for him to calm down. “It was like one of those screams a girl makes when you get them white chocolate instead of dark chocolate when they’re on their periods.”
Leo, who looked like he might’ve been asleep, raised his sunglasses, revealing his bandaged eye underneath to give Amo a speculative look.
“Is that so?” Dante asked through gritted fucking teeth. It was no fucking wonder Amo was one of his last men who was still happily single.
“Yeah.” He shrugged his big shoulder, clearly not reading the room. “You know they do it for … dramatic effect.”
Dramatic effect this—
“Ow!” Amo yelped, rubbing the back of his head where Dante had just slapped the shit out of him as he passed. “What did you fucking hit me for?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he told him from over his shoulder as he headed toward the stairs.
He saw the tug on his son’s lips when he put his shades back down and went back to pretending to be asleep.
Fuck. He thought going on vacation was supposed to be relaxing. Instead, it was anything but. Now he had One-Shot finally targeting him, and what was worse was that now Nadia was involved. She wasn’t meant to have been thrown into his shit. He regretted ever calling her back to give her the check. He should have just fucking mailed it to her, but his ego wanted him to do it in person.
He had made a mistake by letting his instincts throw Nadia into his car because now One-Shot could interpret it as him caring for her. Hell, she wasn’t under-aged; he could just let her go and let One-Shot handle the rest, but his conscience wasn’t letting him, and now he was playing babysitter.
At least, if he got her out of here alive, she was going to be easy to keep quiet. Handing money over to her little charity was going to serve as more than just a tax write-off now.
Finding her room was easy once he took the final step. It was the only door down here that was closed. Raising his knuckles, he gently raked them on the door. “Nadia?” he called out when she didn’t answer.
He was just about to knock the door down when he heard a stir …
Nadia cracked open the door to see a sliver of Dante’s face on the other side. She couldn’t help but notice his ice-blue gaze drift down to what he could see of her robe.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb your sleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“You’ve been sitting in here this whole time?” He began to slightly narrow his eyes now, as his hand started to lightly push against the door. “Is something wrong?”
“Excuse me!” Nadia quickly lost the battle as he barged in. “This is my room!”
“Amo thought he heard a scream earlier,” he said, giving the room a quick look around.
“I may or may not have screamed,” she said, pulling her robe closer together. “But that was a while ago. A little too late now to be worried.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t tell me till about a minute ago.” Dante let his disappointment show clearly in his tone as he went to give the bathroom a check now. Returning to the bedroom, he asked the question she was hoping he wouldn’t. “Why did you scream, then?”
“I was just being …” Nadia couldn’t think of the right word to describe why she had screamed after seeing the clothing options.
“Dramatic?” he asked with a raised brow.
“No”—you freaking prick—“silly.” Yep, that was a much better word.
“Okay, then, what were you being silly about?”
Nadia went to open her mouth but couldn’t think of what to say.
“I’ll wait here all day ‘til you tell me,” he threatened, crossing his arms.
Clearly, there was no getting out of it. He wanted to know what caused her distress.
Shit, the crossing of his arms drew attention to what he was wearing now. Dante had changed into a looser white button-up shirt that revealed the top of his tanned chest. His black slacks were now a navy pair of … khakis? No one in Kansas City would ever believe Dante Caruso would be on a yacht in khakis, yet here he stood, and Nadia had to admit the casual look made him appear somehow younger, fresher and, regretfully, even hotter.
When he was about to take a seat on the bed, she gave in to his relentlessness.
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes with a sigh, heading over to open the closet door. “I didn’t scream out of fear. I screamed in frustration because the only clothes available to me this weekend belong to”—she pulled out a yellow see-through dress—“Sherry”—she then revealed a red dress with the sides cut out—“Cherry”—now she headed toward the chest to open the forbidden drawer, grabbing a handful of string bikinis that she let rain back down into the chest—“and Missy!”