Her Little White Lie by Maisey Yates Read Free Book Online

really marry them, either, though that was now in her future. All because her stupid, impulsive brain had spit out the most ridiculous lie at the worst time.
    Desperation wasn’t her best state. She more or less had a handle on the blurting these days. When she’d been a kid, all the way up into high school, it had been really bad. She was always saying stupid things and embarrassing herself, which was one reason she’d opted for class clown rather than trying to be sexy or cool or anything like that. Letting it go, instead of wishing she could be something she wasn’t, had been much easier.
    Or rather, as the case had been, she’d had one incredibly defining, humiliating moment that never let her forget that there were certain guys, who liked certain kinds of girls. And she was not one of them.
    There was a heavy knock at her door and she scrambled up out of the chair, grabbing her handbag and wrap. She scurried into the living room and bent down, dropping a kiss onto Ana’s soft, fuzzy head.
    “I won’t be too late,” she said to Genevieve.
    “I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” Genevieve said.
    Paige’s cheeks got hot and she was sure they were a lovely shade of red. “I … we won’t be late.” She had to get a handle on the blushing, too. There was no reason to blush. Dante Romani was hardly going to ravish her in the back of his car.
    She straightened and draped her bright purple wrap over her bare shoulders, giving herself a little look in the small mirror that hung in her living room on her way to the door of her apartment.
    The door opened just as she reached it.
    “Were you going to leave me freezing on the front step?”
    “It’s San Diego. It’s not freezing. And you’re in the temperature-controlled hallway.”
    “It’s the principle,” he said.
    “I had to say goodbye to Ana. Do you want to see her?”
    A strange look crossed his face. Confusion, fear, then boredom. “No.”
    “Oh, sorry. Most people like babies, you know,” she said, stepping out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
    “I have no interest in having any of my own. I’m not certain why it would be important for me to like babies.”
    “They’re cute.”
    “Yes, so are puppies but I don’t want one.”
    “A baby isn’t a puppy,” she said.
    He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me for the reason previously stated.”
    She rolled her eyes and pushed the button on the elevator. “Right. Well. I hope Ana and I don’t disturb you too much when we live in your home, as you don’t want a wife or a child.”
    “It’s a large house,” he said, his words carrying a stiff undertone, as if he didn’t believe it would be large enough.
    The doors to the elevator slid open and they both stepped inside. She’d never noticed how small elevators really were before she’d taken to riding in them with Dante Romani. He made everything feel smaller. Tighter. Because he filled the space he was in so absolutely.
    It wasn’t just because he was well over six feet tall and broad, either. It was his charisma, the dark energy that radiated from him. He was so unobtainable, so uninterested in what was happening around him. It made you want to go and grab his attention. Made you want to be in his sphere. To make him seem interested. To make him smile.
    To make him laugh.
    At least she did, but she was good at that. Making people laugh and smile. Defusing tension with antics and jokes. And she had, apparently, not learned her lesson about unobtainable men.
    She nearly opened her mouth to make one when her eyes locked with his and the breath leached from her body.
    His dark eyes roamed over her curves, taking in everyinch of her. And she was reminded again of their exchange last night.
    What else will you teach me to like?
    Oh, no, no, no. She wasn’t going there. She never had before, no reason to start now.
    Besides, Dante could have any woman he wanted, on the terms he chose. He had no reason to start lusting after her