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CHAPTER THREE
THE SENSATIONAL STANTON SISTERS
“Gabriella.” His voice was soft but his eyes were ice. “What’s it going to be? Do we do this my way—or the hard way?”
He watched her face, saw the play of emotions across it. She was shivering. From the cool of the night or from anger? He didn’t give a damn. And if it was all he could do to keep from hauling her into his arms again and kissing her until she sighed his name and trembled not with cold or rage but with need, what did that prove—except that she was a woman, an incredibly beautiful woman, he’d never stopped wanting? And, damnit, what did that have to do with anything?
“For the last time,” he said sharply. “Is Daniel mine?”
Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was acceptance of the inevitable. Or perhaps, Gabriella thought, perhaps it was hearing her son’s name on the lips of the man who had planted his seed deep in her womb thirteen long months ago.
Whatever the reason, she knew it was time to stop fighting.
“Yes,” she said wearily. “He is. So what?”
Of all the night’s questions, that was the only one that mattered. And Dante knew, in that instant, his world would never be the same again.
DANTE Orsini was in the prime of his life.
He was rich, powerful and as ruggedly good-looking as a man could hope to be. He worked hard, played hard, and on those rare nights he went to bed alone, he slept soundly until morning.
But not tonight.
Tonight he was dreaming.
In his dream he walked slowly along a narrow road. It led to a house. He could hardly see it because of the heavy mist that hung over everything, but it was there.
