“Does that matter if you really care about him?” Emily asked solemnly.
Did it matter? Sarah was wondering the same thing herself. The more she got to know Dante, the less it seemed to matter that they were so different. The only time she was really reminded of his wealth and status was when he did something crazy—like buying her a fortune in clothing. “He does take it well when I beat him at chess,” Sarah joked, but honestly, she was touched by what a good sport he was, and how little his ego played into his actions sometimes. Dante never wanted her to give the game anything but her best, and she did, trouncing him repeatedly. But Dante said it made him think, challenged him to get better. He wasn’t intimidated by her, and it didn’t hurt his male ego to get beat at an intellectual game by a woman. That just made her like him that much more. Of course, he could destroy her at video games, something she’d recently been learning from him. He did crow over every win, which made her determined to get better at the games.
Strange. Maybe he was on to something.
Still, Dante constantly amazed her. For a man who seemed to have an overabundance of testosterone, he was secure in his masculinity all the time. Even when she bested him, he looked at her with pride rather than annoyance.
“You have to appreciate a man who is secure enough to not care if you’re better at something than he is,” Randi commented candidly.
“I appreciate a lot of things about him,” Sarah admitted to both women. In fact, Dante fascinated her.
“Then give him a break and try on some of these clothes. He’ll never miss the money, and he’ll be ecstatic if he thinks they made you happy.” Emily tossed her several outfits, and Sarah caught them reflexively.
Sarah stopped trying to reason out anything that involved her feelings for Dante. He was a good man, and really, that was all that mattered. He was an enigma, so she was trusting feminine instincts that she hadn’t realized even existed until Dante. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt his feelings, and she knew instinctively that rejecting a gift from him would hurt him.
With a deep sigh of resignation, she reached for a pretty coral-colored ensemble and tried it on.
Downstairs, Dante was having a hard time controlling his frustration. “Joe and I haven’t turned up anything significant. It’s like the asshole just disappeared,” he told Jared and Grady as they all sat in the living room having a drink.
Right now he was having a hard time even having Sarah out of his sight. But he wanted her to have her privacy with her friends. He knew she was going stir-crazy, and that she’d been disappointed when he hadn’t wanted her to go out in public to meet her friends at Brew Magic. Dammit, he didn’t want to stifle a growing process that had started before he’d ever met her. But he didn’t want her to be a target, either.
“He’ll turn up,” Jared commented, taking a gulp from his bottle of beer before setting it on the table beside his chair. “He’s obviously not going to just go away.”
Jared was right. Dante knew that someone who had so much rage inside of him was not going to just slip away. He would surface eventually. The only question was . . . when and where?
“How’s Sarah handling all of this?” Grady asked quietly.
“She hates not being able to walk and be outdoors. Otherwise, she’s dealing with it incredibly well.” Dante knew Sarah was scared, but she tried not to show it, doing what she had to do to stay safe. As smart as she was, he knew she’d weighed everything out in her mind and had come to the conclusion that she’d have to live with the situation until her attacker was caught.
“Are you screwing her?” Grady asked bluntly.
Dante turned his furious expression toward his brother. “That’s none of your business, Grady.”
“It is my business. She’s a friend,” Grady answered calmly. “I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“Her? What about me?” Neither of his brothers seemed to get the fact that he was losing his mind over Sarah’s safety right now.
“I appreciate that you want to protect her, and you’re definitely the best qualified to do that right now, but Sarah is . . . different,” Grady replied.
“Fuck! Do you think I don’t know that? She’s lived a life that most people can’t understand. She was never a child; she was a curiosity to be examined by the scientific community. Not one single person has ever cared that she’s a kindhearted, warm woman who wants the same things that other women want. They hear the way she speaks, the way she tries to reason everything out. Or they listen to her talk about something that goes right over their head, and they ignore her, shut her out. Nobody has ever tried to get to know her. They were too goddamn insecure and intimidated to want to befriend her.” Grady raised an eyebrow at Dante and he added, “She’s made friends here, and I know Emily and Randi care about her, but that’s new to her. She’s happy here. She might be a genius, but she’s also still naive and innocent in a lot of ways. She never had a chance to learn normal things. But underneath, there’s a woman who just wants someone to care about her. And dammit, she deserves that.”
“You are fucking her,” Grady stated with a small grin. “You care about her.”
“Hell, yes, I care. I wouldn’t be protecting her if I didn’t. And I haven’t been in shape to get that physical. I have to heal so I can protect her if necessary. But do I want to? Fuck, yeah. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted a woman before.” Dante’s body was tense, and he glared at Grady. “I’m so damn possessive and protective that I can hardly stand myself. She drives me crazy, but she also makes me feel like I can fly. How screwed up is that?”