Beneath A Casanova {#1}

Part 14

Part 14

In his human years, Dante was already a Casanova, thus already in contact with his fortunes. After the death of his father, he had been passed down with the large inheritance that Giacomo Casanova had gathered, along with the official family palazzo amongst many other treasures and jewels. It was safe to say that Dante's childhood was smooth sailing, and while he had spent his days studying the fine art of seduction and pleasuring women, never once had he the need to worry about the clothes on his back, the food on his table.

This was not to say that he did not cherish all he had. When he married Marietta, he had gotten into legal problems, for his father's will was for the inheritance to be passed to him -if only he remained single. While he had eventually won the case to reclaim his fortunes, in the three weeks of trial, both he and Marietta had scrimped and saved. Marietta herself came from a middle classed family, which meant that she was often constantly taken in and pleased by Dante's pampering of her with his vast fortunes.

Yet somehow, Dante had never truly seen a woman own such little belongings. The sight he saw in front of him appalled him. Even beggars had more clothes than these, he argued silently in his head.

How could it be that a woman as exotic and amazingly beautiful as this fail to have any proper flattering dresses? Whatever did she wear to official functions? That plain straight cut black dress was most definitely not the way to go. Perhaps the only clothes in the tiny stack that he approved of was only her lingerie and a pair of flowery shorts, paired with a low cut tank top.

"What?" Lexi asked, almost as if offended by his watchful gaze as she bustled around the room. By any rights, she shouldn't even be bustling. She didn't have any cream or makeup that she bothered packing, and Dante could not fathom, by any means, how a woman like her could maintain her flawlessness without any cream. Not even a moisturizing cream could be found anywhere.

"Is this really all you have?" Dante struggled to keep the shock out of his voice, but was apparently unsuccessful at Lexi's confused gaze as she stopped by the bed, turning to face him.

"I wanted to pack light. I doubt we would be attending any black-dress events, but we can't know that for sure and I don't want to risk it coming back here often." Lexi explained, but he shook his head quickly, stepping forwards and picking up the black dress she'd mentioned at the tip of his fingers as if they burned.

"This is your 'black dress'? Do you really want to wear this for the rest of your superstar journey in the competition?" He asked skeptically.

After a short moment of staring, Dante seemed to see some form of revelation that was quickly accompanied with a flush of blood to her face. He took a deep breath, and kept the smell of Lavender and O positive in his nose.

"This isn't much, but I'm not really one to dress up. There isn't anyone much in my life to dress up for." Lexi confessed, embarrassed, but the shock was more in Dante's eyes than hers at his expression.

"You must be kidding." He announced, dropping the dress as if it were an abomination. "Jeans and shirts for the rest of the competition?"

Dante never meant it as an insult, but he could easily see that it was taken the wrong way as Lexi recoiled back in offense and disgust, the anger and indignance showing clearly on her face as she snatched her dress back angrily.

"I'm sorry for startling you with my apparent poverty, Mr. Casanova, but I hope you understand that I don't come from a millionaire environment. The same applies for Alvron, for your descendants -his ancestors -decided that seducing women needed more attention than actually earning money. I am not proud of what I own, but neither am I ashamed." Dante could easily see the angry movements as Lexi slammed the dress in her overnight bag, throwing in her other casual clothes.