Chapter 186 Conti Approval

Chapter 186 Conti Approval
Dante POV

We stepped inside his office and shut the door, and Conti sat on one of the couches in front of his desk. He had a bottle of scotch on the coffee table along with two glasses. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the spot where he wanted me to sit.

I lowered myself across from him, my hands coming together. It was the first time I’d ever been nervous around him. Any other time, I was fearless, refusing to let any man intimidate me but now, I was scared....scared that this man had so much power over me.

I told him I would leave his daughter if he
asked and I had to keep my word but I just hoped he didn’t ask me to do it.

How could I wake up every morning without Isabella beside me? How could I find another woman to please me and not think about Isabella? How could I live a life without her light, her love?

I’d never been dependent on anyone for anything, but now I’d become dependent on Isabella for my happiness because she was my whole fucking world.

I helped myself to the bottle and poured two glasses. Conti didn’t take his rather he kept staring at me, looking at me like he wasn’t
sure what to say again.

Since this silence could go on forever, I started talking. “Don’t take her away from me. I’m not the kind of man who begs, not even for his life but I’ll beg for her. I wasn’t a good man before we met, but she’s made me into one. She’s my world and I’m not ashamed to say it. I’m not ashamed to admit that I need her.”

Conti was just as stoic as before, looking at me like I hadn’t said anything at all. I preferred his insults to this silence because I couldn’t read him....at all.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands for a moment. “I don’t like you and I’ll never like you. I don’t trust you, especially around my family but…I’m going to try to accept you. I think you really love my daughter, and I.know she loves you. So…let’s have a drink.”

I repeated every single word inside my head, treasuring those words like they were gold. He insulted me at first, but then he said what I wanted to hear.

Conti gave me the chance I’d been working for. He gave me the opportunity to keep Isabella and I knew that was hard for him to do, that his paranoia was warning him this was a terrible idea, but he was putting himself at risk.....for his daughter.

“I’ve never really tried with you. I’ve been too busy insulting you. My brother punched you and the list goes on. So…tell me something about yourself. Something that won’t make me want to kill you.”

Dante grabbed his glass and brought it to his lips for a drink and I didn’t know what changed his mind...and so abruptly.

Isabella and I hadn’t done anything differently but I’d kept my head down and tried to be as
non threatening as possible, and Isabella was still fighting for me nothing.seemed to have changed. “I wasn’t expecting this."

“I said I’m trying to accept you,” he said coldly.

“Never said I already had.” He drank from his glass again. “So, tell me something about yourself.”

There weren’t many topics we could touch. My childhood was off-limits, and my adult life was even worse. “I’m not that interesting. My life only became worth discussing when I met Isabella.”

“Then tell me something about her.”

I grabbed the glass and held it between my fingertips, thinking about all the things I couldn’t say like the way her mouth parted when she came, the way her voice deepened to such a powerful tone when she exploded around my dick, and the way she whispered her love when I was buried deep inside
her.

“When she paints…she has this cute look on her face like, she’s doubting herself through every step of the process. She stops and thinks about the next place she’s gonna rest her brush before she finally commits, because
she knows every move she makes is permanent. She’s not just artistic, but pragmatic.”

“She was always secretive about her artwork. She never allowed us to.watch her process. I’m surprised she allows you to do it.”

It was the first time Conti had said something back to me, a reply that wasn’t hostile. It was just a rebuttal, the second part of the dialogue.
“She doesn’t and I watch her when she thinks I’m not looking.”

Conti drank from his glass, his eyes on me. “In her art room, there’s a large window that stretches from the floor to the ceiling. When I stand in the doorway, I can see her reflection that’s how I see her face when she’s painting, the way she deliberates before placing the
brush in the paint.”

Conti set the glass down then wiped his lips with the back of his forearm. “She’s a very easygoing person, but when it comes to her artwork, she’s very serious and she cares about it deeply, but that’s not surprising considering how talented she is. I don’t know anything about art, but I know her art is…
there are no words.”

When we talked about Isabella, our conversation didn’t seem so tense and forced. “What was she like as a child?”

“Selfish, bratty, a little know-it-all,” her father said bluntly, a faint edge of amusement touching his voice despite the words.

“But adventurous, beautiful, and strong.”

Conti paused, his expression softening as he remembered the girl she had been.

“They say fathers push their sons harder than their daughters because they expect more out of them but that wasn’t true in her case.”

He shook his head slowly. “I spent far more time pushing Isabella to become a strong and capable woman, just like her mother.”

There was something almost proud in the way he said it, as if every difficult lesson had been worth it.

“Fortunately, Varos didn’t seem to care too much,” he continued.

“He was ready to be a man by the time he was fifteen, very ambitious, serious and independent…”

Conti looked down at his glass, his fingers resting loosely around it as his thoughts drifted back to Isabella’s childhood.

“I taught her how to fight, how to handle a gun and how to think critically.” His voice lowered slightly. “Which explains how she escaped that fucker who broke into her house.”

He took a quiet breath, his gaze still fixed on the glass. “I told her never to wait around for a man to save her not even me.”

There was no hesitation in his words. “I taught her to save herself.”

“I see a lot of her in you…and vice versa.”

“Not sure if that’s a compliment.”