Читать книгу Modern Romance September Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Julia James - Страница 17

DANTE STUDIED BELLE at breakfast and almost smiled.

She was half-asleep because he had kept her awake half the night. A tinge of guilt infiltrated him as he noticed the shadows below her eyes, the faint slump of her small shoulders. He was a demanding bastard and he knew it but every time he looked at her, he got hungry again. It had never been like that for Dante before. Usually after several encounters he was cooling off and on the way to the exit, but inexplicably Belle kept him coming back for more. He wasn’t going to worry about it though, because in another couple of weeks even her originality would have worn off. He liked his own space, hugged his privacy and would, undoubtedly, be glad to reclaim it, which put him in mind of the room he had had prepared for her.

He brushed aside the newspapers he had yet to open. ‘Belle?’ he murmured. ‘I want to show you something.’

Belle blinked and set down her tea, rising slowly by dint of bracing her hands on the arms of her chair. He was probably about to give her that tour of the palazzo he had promised, which they hadn’t got around to the night before. She ached all over as if she had overdone it at the gym and she had a love bite on her neck. She had toyed with the idea of covering it up with a silky scarf and then had wondered if that uncool bruise was yet another deliberate part of his act to make them look like a more convincing couple.

Dante threw wide a door, and she stepped in and understood then. This was to be her room, furnished with the antiques he had bought and still a little bare, but the seat and the books and the promise of privacy were inviting. A wall of glass doors overlooked the internal courtyard, which was an ordered but highly attractive Italianate garden with box-hedged beds. Most of the plants were evergreen and the only colour of flower was white.

‘This was once my uncle’s office. He liked to be able to walk round the garden when he was working,’ Dante told her.

And it was a beautiful room and an even more beautiful garden but it daunted her that she was only to be in his life for a couple of weeks and yet he still apparently felt the need to give her a room of her own. Strikingly, not her own bedroom but a room to which she could retreat when...when what? Maybe it was just a room she was to use as part of their couple pretence, she told herself urgently. Even so, it was hard to ignore the message he was giving her. He had to be a man who set a high value on his own privacy, had possibly even worried that she would be under his feet all the time when he was around. She would use the room as much as she could, she promised herself, flinching at the idea of being seen as an intruder, a nuisance, possibly even a clingy nuisance.

‘This is lovely,’ she said a shade uncomfortably after the thoughts she had had, and she wandered over to the armchair, smoothing an admiring hand over its soft rich upholstery. ‘You never did tell me why you and the dealer were laughing about this chair...’

A slashing smile curved his wide sensual mouth, lighting up his whole darkly handsome face. ‘Reputedly the chair is from a maison close...’

‘A...what?’

‘A brothel,’ Dante translated gently. ‘And the chair was specially designed for ladies to get into more interesting positions for their clients...’

‘Oh...’ Belle said, dumbfounded by the explanation, studying those swivelling arms, trying to imagine and then reddening fiercely.

‘Yes...oh!’ Dante laughed, teasing her. ‘But don’t worry, I’m not about to ask you to pose for me. I get quite excited enough simply seeing you in my bed...in my shower. You don’t need to pose or do anything special to turn me on.’

‘Just as well,’ Belle fielded with a little snorting giggle as she stared at the chair in wonderment, thinking about its potential history and then laughing more heartily because she really couldn’t imagine the sort of stuff that chair might have witnessed. ‘Thank heaven I was born into the modern world.’

‘I’ll organise some more furniture and pictures for in here.’

Belle laughed. ‘Don’t waste your time. I’ll be gone soon enough. It’s not worth the upheaval it would cause. Anyway, you said you didn’t like making changes to the house.’

The slam of a door and a raised female voice attracted Dante’s attention to the entrance hall and he grimaced. ‘I think you’d better stay in here. That sounds like my mother is paying one of her uninvited visits.’

Belle, however, was too curious about Dante’s mother to take his advice and stay hidden. She moved into the doorway, listening to a female voice ranting in irate Italian and Dante’s short clipped responses. She took another step forward and saw a tall woman as thin as a toothpick with ice-blonde hair. She was elegantly garbed in an ivory dress, diamonds flashing at her throat and ears, and in her gesticulating hand she held a newspaper.

‘Is this she?’ the blonde demanded abruptly, switching to English as she stared at Belle standing at the back of the hall. ‘Don’t be shy. Shy women don’t latch on to men they meet in bars!’

Dante’s proud dark head turned, and he extended a hand. ‘Belle...’

Belle moved stiffly forward to grasp that lean brown hand and lifted her head high.

‘Allow me to introduce you to my mother, Sofia Lucarelli... Belle Forrester.’

Belle didn’t bother to offer her hand in greeting because the enraged distaste that made a mask of Sofia’s still-lovely face was self-explanatory. She would not be receiving a welcome to Italy from Dante’s mother.

‘Her Excellency, Princess Sofia,’ the blonde corrected her son thinly, and then in a dramatic gesture she flung the newspaper in her hand at Belle’s feet. ‘A waitress living in a campervan? Your uncle would turn in his grave if he knew the kind of woman you brought into this house.’

Dante’s hand spread in support across Belle’s rigid spine. ‘No, I rather think that Jacopo would have cheered. If that’s all you have to say, Mamma...I suggest you leave.’

‘When I think of the women I introduced you to and you have chosen this creature!’ she flung at him furiously before spinning on her heel and stalking back out again, heading for the red sports car parked at a slant outside.

‘And the woman who just insulted your morals has enjoyed a hair-raising number of extra-marital affairs,’ Dante told her as he walked them into an elegant drawing room. His lean, strong face was forbiddingly hard. ‘My father seems to turn a blind eye. Maybe he doesn’t care or maybe he plays away too. I don’t know and I haven’t sufficient interest in either of them to find out.’

Absorbing that admission of his mother’s infidelities without comment, because she could see by the darkness of his expression that it was a sensitive topic, Belle murmured, ‘You don’t mention your father much.’

‘My mother is the dominant partner and he supports her in everything she does. She once beat Cristiano so badly that he needed medical treatment,’ he said flatly. ‘My father stood by and made no attempt to intervene. That’s one of my earliest memories.’

‘I didn’t realise there was physical abuse as well,’ Belle whispered with a shudder. ‘Didn’t anyone ever report her? You said there were nannies.’

‘Never underestimate the ability of the very rich to hide their sins and keep their secrets,’ Dante said drily.

‘Were you beaten?’ she asked hesitantly.

He jerked his chin in silent confirmation.

She wanted to express sympathy, but he stood there so tall and tense that she regretted asking the question and she simply nodded and turned her head away. ‘I think I’ll go and have a look at some of my new books,’ she muttered ruefully.

The door opened while she was down on her knees doing exactly that and she spun round so suddenly that she lost her balance and tumbled sideways. As she righted herself with a flailing hand, Dante caught her other hand in his and pulled her upright. ‘It’s past time you told me something about you,’ he informed her levelly. ‘Or hasn’t it occurred to you that, for someone as interested as you are in my backstory, I still know virtually nothing about you? And that’s not likely to persuade anybody that we’re a couple.’

Belle reddened with discomfiture and linked her hands together. ‘I was brought up by my grandparents.’

‘I know that. What I don’t know is why,’ Dante pointed out. ‘What happened to your parents? Are they dead?’

‘No, both are still alive...as far as I know.’ Belle tensed even more and walked over towards the glass doors, half turning her back to him because she wasn’t prepared to tell him all the facts. ‘My mother was a model and she travelled a lot. That’s why my grandparents took over. My parents broke up before I was born and my father didn’t want the responsibility of a child,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘Perhaps because my mother and I spent so little time with each other, no attachment formed on her side and, once I grew up, she had no desire to stay in touch. I don’t even know where she is.’

As he’d listened, Dante’s lean dark features had lost their brooding tension. ‘Do you want to know?’

‘Not really,’ Belle confided tightly. ‘When I was a child I used to be full of anticipation if Tracy was coming to visit but her lack of interest in me hurt. You have this image, this dream, and the reality never even came close to the dream, so I suppose I learned to accept that that was just how she was.’

‘Did you ever live with her?’

‘She asked me to live with her when I was fourteen and I was so excited about it. She was living with this guy who had young kids.’ Belle grimaced. ‘Later I worked out that she only wanted me there to take care of the kids for her but I didn’t want to face that at the time. I’d only been there a fortnight when her boyfriend made a pass at me and she saw him doing it. She packed me up and drove me back to my grandparents the same day.’

‘And what happened to the boyfriend?’ Dante prompted.

‘She blamed me for it, not him, said I must’ve been flirting for him to behave like that...but they didn’t last anyway,’ Belle told him wryly. ‘I’m sure I got the blame for that too.’

‘Sounds like a charmer,’ Dante commented. ‘Much like my own. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent. I don’t think I am either.’

Belle paled, tucking away that unwelcome admission for more private consideration. At least he was being honest about his feelings, she told herself, and she didn’t want him to lie. Obviously, if she did conceive he would be an absent father, rather than a parent.

On his way back out through the door again, Dante paused. ‘I’m attending an international charity benefit tomorrow evening and I’ll be taking you with me. Steve and his wife, Sancha, are flying in for it. It’s formal, so you may want to visit one of those salon places.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Not if you don’t want to... I like your hair fine as it is.’ He reached out and lifted one of her hands and then the other. ‘But you will have to have these done. They’re all chipped.’

Belle swallowed hard and contemplated lying before deciding that that was beneath her. ‘I peeled bits off to get at my nails but the extensions are glued on and not very palatable,’ she admitted grudgingly.

Dante grinned wickedly down at her, relaxed for the first time since his mother’s departure. ‘I’ll have someone come here to fix them for you. Good to know my solution is working. I haven’t seen you try to nibble for at least twenty-four hours.’

‘But what am I supposed to do when I’m nervous?’

‘Kiss me instead,’ Dante suggested lazily, tracing her full lower lip with his forefinger so that prickling sexual awareness spread through every sensitive area of her body. ‘I guarantee that that will take your mind off your nails.’

But Belle backed away in haste and sat down on the brothel chair to reach for the Jane Austen she hadn’t read in years. The way Dante could make her feel with the smallest touch was terrifying and a frightening reminder that she wasn’t in control with him. Boundaries, there had to be boundaries, she told herself urgently, and she needed to impose some on herself quickly. This might not feel like casual sex because she was living in Dante’s home, but it was casual sex and she had to stop forgetting that and coming over all warm and willing and melting every time he got close. And that was not to try to stoke his interest either, that was just to preserve her sanity and her self-esteem. Belle was determined not to be hurt when she was no longer useful to Dante and he sent her back to the UK.

Dante sent her a wary appraisal, wondering what was wrong, missing the sparkle, the teasing, the warmth she usually emanated. He strode out of the room, reminding himself that he had work piling up.

‘Dante?’

He spun back to see Belle peering out at him. ‘Is it all right with you if I visit your brother’s dogs again?’

Dante lost his half-smile and shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘My driver is there to be used. He’ll take you wherever you like.’

Belle spent the rest of the morning reading and throwing a ball to exercise Charlie in the courtyard.

Dante joined her for lunch in the dining room. She spoke when he spoke but was otherwise quiet. Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer and he said drily, ‘Look, I get that you’re in a mood but if it’s over something I’ve done I would rather you just told me what the problem is.’

‘I’m just uncomfortable with how you’re treating me,’ Belle confessed.

‘In what way?’

‘Surely we only have to behave like a couple when we’re in public? It’s sort of spilling over into private times as well and it’s...confusing.’ Belle settled for the word stiffly. ‘We’re not in a relationship as such.’

‘Aren’t we? I thought we were having an affair,’ Dante countered, disconcerted by her criticism and her evasive gaze. ‘If we’re not or you don’t want that, I will back off.’

And there it was, bang, flung right in her face, the absolute truth that she meant nothing to him. Pale as milk, Belle nodded. ‘I think that might be best for both of us.’

Dante gritted his teeth. Rejection was new to him and the shock of it hit him hard. He breathed in deep and slow. What was so confusing about an affair? But ego insisted he did not ask for further clarification. She was entitled to her space if she wanted it. Sex had never been part of their agreement. But how could she simply switch off like that? What had he done or said that had led to the change in her? Last night, she had been perfectly happy to be in his arms. But possibly he had always wanted her more than she wanted him, he told himself grimly. And possibly she wanted a peaceful night of sleep. Had he been too demanding? Too rough?

Belle shook away tears as she climbed into an SUV to go and visit Cristiano’s dogs. Well, he hadn’t argued with her, hadn’t tried to persuade her to change her mind, which merely proved what she had most feared: she was little more than a convenient sexual outlet on Dante’s terms. And she was worth more than that, ex-waitress, formerly living in a campervan, or not, she had to set a higher value on herself.

Tito and Carina were ecstatic to see her again and she took them out to the exercise yard and began trying to teach them to sit and stay, rewarding them with treats if they got it right, but they didn’t get it right very often.

‘Too old and spoilt to learn,’ the proprietor declared in broken English from where she was watching outside the fence.

* * *

Charlie ambled into Dante’s office without being noticed and strayed into a patch of sunlight where he promptly lay down and stretched on a priceless Persian rug. When he saw him there, Dante ignored him. Charlie ignored Dante, well trained by the experience of the restaurant, where non-dog-loving customers had also ignored him. Dante’s afternoon coffee arrived and the minute the tray arrived on his desk and he lifted a biscuit, Charlie shot back to life immediately to assume a surprisingly dainty begging position.

‘You’re clever,’ Dante registered as the terrier fixed imploring eyes on the biscuit.

Rewarded with a tiny piece, Charlie gave him a terrier grin and ambled back, satisfied, to his patch of sunlight.

A knock sounded on the door and Belle glanced in and saw Charlie. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been looking everywhere for him. I was going to ask you if you’d seen him.’

‘He’s a quiet little animal.’ Dante believed in giving honour where it was due and watched Charlie bounce up to greet his mistress to be lifted and hugged. ‘How were the terrible two?’

‘OK. I gave them some exercise.’

‘Shouldn’t think they would’ve liked that.’

‘No, they did. When they get tired they stop being so frantic.’

Dante studied her. Her hair tumbling round her shoulders, framing the perfect oval of her face, she wore a filmy green top and cropped jeans that were complete with paw prints he doubted that she had even noticed. And she still took his breath away. Her pouting pink mouth, buoyant breasts and curvy bottom inspired instant lust in him and the pulsing swell of arousal at his groin filled him with angry frustration. ‘Always the optimist. You like to take a positive approach to problems, don’t you?’

‘Usually,’ she agreed.

‘But not to me,’ Dante derided. ‘I’ve been judged and found wanting without a hearing.’

Belle flushed. ‘I’m sorry you feel like that. I was trying to be sensible.’

‘Clarify that,’ Dante urged, springing up from behind his desk to move forward.

Belle winced. ‘Living like this—the clothes, the jewellery, this gorgeous house—it would turn any ordinary girl’s head but it’s all a bit like the emperor’s clothes in the fairy tale. It’s not real and it’s not mine and it’s not going to last,’ she reasoned uncomfortably, staring at him, drinking in the effect of all that devastating dark male beauty before bolstering her nerve and biting the bullet of the unlovely truth. ‘And I don’t want to fall in love with you and get hurt.’

A sizzling silence fell. A woman had never been that honest with Dante before and he was knocked for six by that blunt confession. ‘I can’t believe you said that.’

‘Well, no point in lying about it, is there? After all, you can’t want me getting attached to you either,’ Belle quipped. ‘And what you call an affair is very intense for me because I’ve never been in a serious relationship...and yes, I know this isn’t serious for you, but for me, it is.’

‘OK...’ Dante spread expressive brown hands, taking a step back as if she had mentioned something dangerously contagious. He had even paled a little. ‘But it’s not love, it’s infatuation because I was your first lover. You’ll shake it off fast enough.’

‘Er...thanks for that sage advice...’ Belle said, eyes wide as she summoned Charlie and walked out again with as much dignity as she could muster.

Dante released his breath in a hiss. He had never been in love. Cristiano had fallen for a long line of users and losers. Cristiano had been on a constant mission to find his one true love, and watching his brother had taught Dante that love was a car crash of insane hope colliding with nasty truths as the loved one revealed one flaw after another. Of course, Belle wasn’t falling for him, but she had played a blinder with that argument because he wasn’t about to try and touch her again. She had frightened him off. Quite deliberately too. For a split second he was amused but that reaction swiftly drained away.

What was wrong with him? He felt as if someone had dropped a giant rock on him. He felt weird. He needed to find another woman to focus on, he told himself fiercely, wipe out the last crazy week and forget about Belle altogether. How hard could that be? Off with the old, on with the new. That had always been his way.

Belle curled back up with her book and wondered how she would face Dante over dinner. She cringed and pressed hot hands to her even hotter face and groaned out loud. How could she have said that to him? How could she have humiliated herself so completely? But it was true that she was developing inappropriate feelings for him and she had to put a stop to that and the only way to stop it was to cut out the intimacy. So what if she was still stuck sharing a bed with him for show?

Belle dined alone and, after a long bath, went to bed early. Dante stalked through his usual club haunts and an exclusive party in Florence, finding something offensive about every woman who paid heed to him until it finally dawned on him that the only woman he actually wanted was, ironically, at home in his bed...and he couldn’t have her. Was that what made her different and so much more desirable? Was it because she had rejected him? Was it his ego playing up?

Or was he more honourable than he had ever realised? He didn’t want to hurt her, he acknowledged over his fifth drink. He checked into a plush city hotel for the night, not trusting himself anywhere near her in the strange introspective mood he was in. He couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about Belle in his bed and remembering how she had made him feel. Weird, she’d made him feel weird, he decided around dawn.

Belle woke up in an empty bed and wondered where Dante had spent the night. She felt guilty because she had clearly made him feel uncomfortable in his own home. As she went downstairs for breakfast she saw Dante mounting the steps, looking rather the worse for wear. His tie was missing, his jacket was crumpled and he was unshaven, a dark growth of stubble darkening his already-forbidding features. She bolted into the dining room at speed.

If she had had the nerve, she would have jibed, ‘Walk of shame, Dante?’ Only, she didn’t have the nerve to confront him with a possibility that tore through her with the slashing pain of a knife...the very real possibility that he had spent the night with another woman.

The manicurist arrived late morning and redid Belle’s nails in a dark blue that she liked much better than pastel pink. Her nails would match the long dress she had selected from her new wardrobe and she promised herself that this time she wouldn’t pick at the gel finish and peel it off because she was willing to admit her hands looked much prettier. She would wear the fancy pendant and earrings he had bought and do her very best to look as though she belonged in a formal setting, even though she would be feeling incredibly nervous. She recoiled from the fear of letting Dante down in public. After all, this was what he had hired her to do: act as if they were a couple. No matter how she felt inside herself, she had to behave like his lover without being off-puttingly clingy.

Fully dressed, she went downstairs and from the top step she saw Dante pacing the big entrance hall, tailored dinner jacket shaping wide shoulders, narrow black trousers delineating long powerful legs, with the white of his dress shirt in stark contrast to the vibrant glow of his bronzed skin. Drop-dead gorgeous from head to toe but she wasn’t allowed to think like that any more or look at him like that, she reminded herself doggedly.

Dante swung round to watch her descent, and something expanded inside his chest because her beauty had never been more obvious than in that stylish simple dress, her glorious hair tumbling round her shoulders just the way he liked it, a sleek split in the skirt momentarily showing a slice of pale perfect leg. And then she looked at him and her eyes didn’t shine any more. He didn’t remember noticing that inner glow she had had when she’d studied him but, on some level, he must have noticed because now it was definitely gone. Just as he had forecast, just as he had wished, she was moving on from him, shaking off those silly feelings she was too naïve to understand. He told himself that he was relieved, but his lean hands clenched into fists because he hadn’t expected her to get over the notion of him quite so fast, and for some reason that only made his mood edgier and darker.

‘Steve and Sancha are saving a table for us. At least with them present, you’ll have friends around you,’ Dante remarked as if he could sense her insecurities about attending an event patronised only by the wealthy.

Belle lifted her chin, tempted to say that Steve and Sancha had never been her friends, only VIP customers she had served at the restaurant. Friendly, pleasant people, but not people she had mixed with in any social way. She said nothing, however, because she didn’t want to draw attention to her nerves.

It was a social gathering way beyond Belle’s experience. The benefit was being held in the splendid ballroom of a public building. Wonderful frescoes decorated the domed ceiling, the whole illuminated by giant crystal chandeliers. And everywhere there were people: dinner-jacketed men standing in cliques, superbly groomed women in fabulous designer gowns and jewellery that flashed under the lights.

Dante closed his hand over hers, startling her, and began to trace a path through the crush. Steve Cranbrook stood up and waved from a table at the edge of the floor, his Spanish wife beaming at them both.

‘Do they know we’re faking it?’ Belle whispered, stretching up to Dante’s ear.

‘Yes, but they’re the only ones who know,’ he confirmed.

Belle relaxed a little more then, knowing she didn’t have to keep up an act with their companions. Sancha chattered as though her tongue had wheels, telling Belle about the international charity and the famine-relief fund. Belle asked the curvy brunette about her children, an adorable mop-headed blonde quartet she had often seen playing on the lake beach with their mother. The crowds thinned as the guests found their seats to listen to the speeches. Belle looked round the room, spotting Dante’s mother, the princess, who would never let anyone forget that she was a princess, seated beside a man with greying hair, who had the same classic profile as Dante and was presumably his father.

Her attention roamed to the tables nearest theirs and then her eyes widened, something akin to a jolt lancing through her chest as she stared in astonishment at the man sitting alone at a table and staring right back at her. It was... No, it couldn’t be... Could it be her father? Nine years, it had been nine years since she had seen Alastair Stevenson. The red hair she had inherited from him had distinguished wings of grey now, but the eyes were no less keen, his face barely lined. He would be in his late forties now, much younger than her mother and time had laid only a light hand on him.

Belle dropped her eyes, suddenly feeling sick and clammy. The father who had bluntly rejected her, who had said he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with ‘Tracy’s daughter’ as if she were not also his daughter. The cruel bite of that rebuff had gone deep, and she had no doubt that he had been staring because he could barely credit that his unacknowledged, unwanted daughter could be present at a high-society charity benefit where he, of all people, had to know she did not belong. It was just one of those truly horrible coincidences, she reflected wretchedly, draining her soft drink, and what was more, after nine years, she should be mature enough to handle an accidental glimpse of the man without getting emotional.

The music started up again and as some couples took to the dance floor, Steve grabbed his wife’s hand and pulled her, laughing, out of her seat.

‘Excuse me,’ Belle said tightly and rose from her chair.

‘What’s wrong? Where are you going?’ Dante demanded, reacting disturbingly like a man who would prefer to keep her chained down beside him.

Belle lifted a questioning brow. ‘Cloakroom...?’

The fingers closing to her wrist dropped away and he politely sprang upright, but the intense hold of the dark golden eyes below his frowning black brows continued. ‘Are you all right?’ he pressed, because he had never before seen her so pale that every freckle stood out in sharp relief.

‘Of course, I am,’ she told him through numb lips as she hurriedly walked away.