Chapter 3

Dante took a look around the deserted house, then his green eyes focused on the two twins and he smiled that white smile of his. That captivating, charming smile that he once used to seduce girls and that now only cooed with babies.

Babies, babies everywhere, he thought, and threw his muscular arms in the air, rolling his eyes. He was truly amused and, beyond that shield of goofy grins and jokes, sincerely touched by Shane and Carmen’s attitude towards the babies.

Aidan Morales McCutcheon was studying him from his 400 bucks Bloom Fresco highchair. Olivia was busy, banging a pink rubber rabbit against her plastic tray, and wasn’t paying him any attention at all.

Aidan was one of the coolest little babies Dante had ever met. He was broody and calm practically all the time, and seemed a philosopher ready to speak out his best aphorism about the human race. Dante wondered what exactly was catching his attention, and realized how much he acted like Shane.

It was a paradox, somehow.

From a merely physical point of view, Aidan was Carmen’s carbon copy. Same enormous brown eyes, same dark hair, thick and wavy, same tanned complexion. Same pout, same smile – well, with the exception of the teeth -, almost the same laughter. But his personality… oh, Aidan’s personality was growing more and more similar to Shane. Tranquil and pensive, one of those kids that never bother you, and already equipped with a killer smile that, by the way, he didn’t show often or to everyone. Aidan was selective and Dante smiled at him.

Little Olivia looked a bit Nordic. She had brown hair, a pale skin and a pout to die for. Her emerald green eyes seemed to have been cloned by Shane’s.

And by mine, Dante thought and smiled gently, innocently.

He had had to work hard on himself to realize that those two kids weren’t his. It didn’t matter if he was their biological father. Olivia wasn’t his daughter and Aidan wasn’t his son.

At first it hadn’t been easy, but now something had clicked into his mind and he seemed to have figured out how to be simply happy for the McCutcheon-Morales family.