Читать книгу His Cinderella's One-Night Heir - Линн Грэхем, LYNNE GRAHAM - Страница 10

IN THE CONFINEMENT of her bunk bed, Belle lay awake well into the early hours, pondering her choices, which only got fewer the more she thought about them. As always, she made lists. A long list of important questions that she should have asked but which Dante might not have answered. A list of pros and cons, again full of blanks, owing to her lack of facts on his situation.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Charlie ruefully as he cuddled up to her. ‘We don’t like or trust people who dislike dogs, do we? Do you think that’s being too judgemental? Unfair? I mean, Steve’s a lovely person and he’s friends with Dante, which says something in his favour.’

Armed with her lists and clad in denim shorts and a light floral top, she walked up to the bar in the morning sunshine. The restaurant was being cleaned and it was time to prepare the tables for lunch. Hips twitching to the beat of the music playing, Belle set out place mats and glasses while she wondered if Dante was even capable of understanding how she felt about her dog.

Charlie hadn’t started out as hers, but necessity had made him hers and they had been together since shortly after her arrival in France. She didn’t have any family. She couldn’t count the father she had only met once in her life or Tracy, who hadn’t stayed in touch once her own parents were both gone. Charlie, silly and scruffy as he was, had become Belle’s family. He wasn’t the brightest of dogs, but he was always cheerful and loving and a wonderful comfort when the world seemed dark and she felt alone.

* * *

Dante, fresh from a late breakfast of kids and toddler tantrums, was in the mood to be charmed and the first thing he saw as he mounted the steps was Belle’s bottom swaying in rhythmic time to the music. She had a gorgeous derrière, curvy and firm, and when she was dancing it was a work of art in the making, exactly what the average male wanted to see and take advantage of. Even so, he didn’t intend to take advantage, Dante reminded himself doggedly, because as her potential employer, he would naturally be immune to her appeal. Sex didn’t come into his dealings with employees. No matter how tempted he was, he would never ever make that mistake, he assured himself squarely.

‘Sit down with me,’ he told Belle as he strode past her.

‘I can’t. This is work time,’ she pointed out, her gaze locking on him as though magnetised. ‘I should’ve told you that last night.’

‘I arranged it with your boss. You’ve got an hour off to be with me,’ Dante informed her smoothly.

‘But this is one of the busiest times of the day!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’m paying for your time off the clock,’ Dante told her without hesitation.

Her face burned, hot as hellfire as she settled down at the table he had chosen. Money talked, she knew that, had long accepted it as an unpleasant fact of life. When people paid, they got to break the rules and call the shots. It turned normal into abnormal and deprived her of personal choice. She sat down opposite but her chin came up in challenge. ‘I thought you’d come in earlier than this.’

‘I slept in,’ Dante declared without embarrassment. ‘I travelled all day yesterday to get here.’

Belle was tempted to remark that he had undoubtedly travelled in luxury and could have no idea of the exhausting rigours of cheaper modes of travel, but she swallowed back the cheeky comment, accepting that she wasn’t in a strong enough position to make it. She knew how to keep her lips sealed when she had to, knew all about serving in respectful silence regardless of how rude or provocative people were. That was one advantage of lowly labour, she acknowledged ruefully: it taught humility.

‘I assume that you’re considering taking the job?’ Dante lifted his level black brows in question as Belle’s colleague delivered coffee to the table.

‘Yes,’ Belle confirmed, throwing sugar into the espresso because there was no milk available, and stirring it in haste. ‘But you have to explain it first.’

Dante dragged in a deep breath and his T-shirt stretched taut as the strong muscles beneath the fine cotton flexed. Determined not to stare at his muscular chest, Belle looked at his face instead for the first time since they had sat down. Dazzling dark golden eyes gripped hers and her tummy lurched as if she had been plunged downward on a fairground ride. ‘In two weeks’ time I have a married couple coming to stay at my home for the weekend—Eddie and Krystal Shriner. I have a very important business deal that I hope to make with Eddie. The fly in the ointment is Krystal, whom I was fleetingly involved with four years ago. She’s been trying to get back with me ever since,’ he admitted stonily. ‘And I don’t want her flirting with me in front of her husband because that would destroy any hope I have of making a deal with him. He’s a possessive man.’

Involuntarily, Belle’s interest was caught. ‘Is Krystal the stage-five clinger you mentioned last night?’

Dante nodded grim confirmation. ‘Another woman living in my home with me would be a safeguard and the only possible precaution I can take. Your presence would infuriate her, but I will seem a much less attractive option if I appear to have already found a woman to settle down with. Krystal won’t risk losing Eddie until she has a viable replacement in her sights.’

Belle grimaced at such calculation and settled back less tensely into her seat. ‘Am I allowed to ask how long you were with this woman when you were involved with her?’ she asked curiously.

His black brows pleated and his shapely mouth compressed into a flat hard line. ‘One weekend...’

‘One weekend?’ Belle gasped in disbelief. ‘And you’ve had all this trouble with her after that?’

‘I didn’t say she was normal,’ Dante fielded drily.

‘And they’re going to be staying with you in London?’

‘No, not in London,’ Dante cut in. ‘They’ll be staying in my home in Italy.’

Belle was nonplussed. ‘But I thought you were offering to take me back to London.’

‘After the job’s done my private jet will take you anywhere you want in the world, but we won’t be travelling to London over the next couple of weeks,’ Dante warned her. ‘If you accept the job, I’ll be taking you to Paris for new clothes. You can’t possibly pass yourself off as my girlfriend with your current wardrobe. We will then fly to Italy, where you will familiarise yourself with my home and lifestyle. As soon as Eddie and Krystal have departed, the job will be over and you will be free to leave.’

Belle cringed at the prospect of Dante buying her clothes because that reminded her too much of her mother’s financially lucrative and rather sordid relationships with men. Tracy was pretty much a professional mistress whose lovers paid for her expensive clothes, jewellery and cruises. Belle had been ashamed when she’d finally worked out the truth of how her mother afforded to live so well without ever apparently having to work and she was no longer surprised that her birth father had spoken with such derision about her mother, referring to her simply as ‘the gold-digger’. Evidently even when she had been much younger Tracy had been busier bedding wealthy men than she had been modelling for a living. Belle was merely grateful that her grandparents had never grasped the truth about their daughter.

‘So,’ Belle said a little desperately as she trailed herself back out of those unpleasant memories and thoughts. ‘The job as such would only last for a couple of weeks?’

‘Sì... Yes,’ Dante translated for her when she looked at him blankly.

Digging hurriedly into her pocket, Belle extracted the lists she’d drawn up the night before. ‘I have some other questions for you, if that’s all right.’

‘I suppose it has to be,’ Dante conceded, watching her tiny tongue slide out to moisten her full lower lip with a fascination the exercise should not have commanded. Instantly he was imagining that tongue working a spell on his all too ready body and he gritted his teeth hard, furious with his failing self-discipline. He was spoilt when it came to women, he acknowledged, because it was rare for him to meet a woman he wanted that he couldn’t have. But she would be working for him. He would be paying her. Adding sex to that arrangement would make it dubious in the extreme.

Belle painstakingly read her first question. ‘“Why do you not have a female friend willing to do this for you?”’

‘I did. She changed her mind and decided it was a matter of pride that she have an engagement ring on her finger before facing Krystal. I wasn’t prepared to take the pretence that far,’ Dante admitted flatly.

‘My goodness, you’re so much in demand with the women in your life, you must feel positively hunted!’ Belle trilled back as sweet as sugar.

Dante played safe by taking the comment at face value and shrugged a broad shoulder in dismissal. ‘Next question?’

‘Charlie’s a big deal.’

Dante frowned. ‘Charlie? Who’s Charlie?’

Belle bridled. ‘My dog. You met him last night.’

‘He’s a dog, not a person. I didn’t meet him,’ Dante told her drily. ‘The kennels I mentioned are not far from my home and I can assure you that they offer the very best of care because they’ve been looking after my late brother’s two dogs for me for over a year.’

Belle studied him, aghast. ‘You’ve left your brother’s dogs in kennels for over a year?’ she gasped in horror. ‘Why haven’t you brought them home with you?’

‘I’m not a dog-oriented person,’ Dante reminded her impatiently. ‘Look, I can’t even believe we’re having this stupid conversation about animals. If you must bring the dog, bring it, but it will be sent ahead of us to Italy. It’s not coming to Paris with us!’

Belle decided to quit while she was ahead. The arrangement wasn’t perfect, but she could see that he thought he was being very generous with that concession and she didn’t want to be so demanding that she talked herself out of the job.

‘You still haven’t said what you’re prepared to pay me,’ Belle remarked uncomfortably.

‘What did you earn working last year?’ Dante shot back at her, annoyed that he was going to have to live with a dog under his feet, no matter how briefly. She was an odd little creature, he decided, and far too attached to the dog, but such human quirks and his apparent acceptance of them could well make her seem more convincing in the role he was giving her.

Taken aback by that blunt demand, Belle blinked and told him before she could think better of such honesty.

‘Seriously...that’s all?’ Dante checked in apparent disbelief.

Belle reddened. ‘That’s all but it was a live-in position and those always pay less.’

‘Multiply that sum by fifty and that’s what you’ll walk away with in a few weeks’ time,’ Dante assured her without skipping a beat.

‘By fifty? You can’t pay me that much and buy me clothes into the bargain!’ Belle objected in amazement. ‘That’s an outrageous sum.’

‘Deal with it. It’s not an outrageous sum to me,’ Dante declared. ‘And if you make a genuine effort to meet the demands of the role, I’ll give you a bonus as well.’

Belle was almost white with shock at the thought of so much money coming her way. Even frantic on-the-spot calculations screamed that that much cash would turn her life around and give her options for the first time ever. She would be able to come up with the deposit to rent a flat in London and organise some sort of educational course to make herself more employable. In fact, the sky would be the limit with a financial nest egg that decent behind her. She was ashamed of the truth, that his offer had made her mentally tear up her pros and cons list because a risk that would improve her life so radically seemed well worth taking. It was not as though she had anything to lose aside from Charlie.

‘It’ll be like winning the lottery,’ she whispered helplessly.

‘No, I’m the lottery you have apparently won,’ Dante contradicted. ‘Start getting into that role. What I’m willing to pay you will merely be pocket change when compared to the life you would lead living with me.’

‘The pocket change wins though,’ Belle told him. ‘I think living with you will be a real challenge.’

Dante ignored that comment, rising above the temptation to inform her that having any woman living below his roof and invading his cherished privacy would be a punishment for him. ‘I’ll have travelling arrangements made for the dog and I’ll pick you up tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ she echoed, blinking in surprise. ‘That soon?’

‘We haven’t got time to waste and you can’t have much to pack. Give me your phone number,’ Dante instructed. ‘I’ll text you to let you know when we’re leaving.’

As Dante cleared the steps down into the car park in a couple of strides to head back to his motorbike, Belle was left in a total daze. She went back to setting tables because she couldn’t quite accept that she was leaving the restaurant and that her life could change so suddenly. On the score of packing, Dante had hit the nail on the head because she had very few possessions and an even smaller collection of clothing, she conceded. Though she would give Charlie a bath and a good brush to ensure that he looked his smartest and that he wasn’t mistaken for some unloved and neglected stray. She would also have to thoroughly clean the campervan and pass the key back to her boss.

* * *

When Dante arrived to collect Belle the following morning she was in floods of tears over parting with the dog and the pet transporters his PA had organised were hovering beside their van, reluctant to step in and hurry matters along. Fortunately, Dante had no such inhibitions.

‘Say goodbye to the dog, Belle,’ Dante told her. ‘It’s only for a few days.’

‘He’s scared,’ Belle whispered shakily. ‘He’s never been in a cage before.’

‘Put him in the cage. How are you planning to get him into the UK?’ Dante enquired. ‘Presumably at some point of the journey he will have to tolerate a cage. This will be good practice for him.’

Charlie went into the cage and cowered at the back of it like a dog expecting to be beaten. Stifling a sob, Belle handed over the paperwork Charlie had arrived in France with two years earlier. ‘He looks so pathetic,’ she muttered wretchedly.

‘Yes, he’s feeling very sorry for himself,’ Dante agreed, thinking that Charlie should be onstage because he certainly knew how to work an audience. ‘But you’ll be reunited very soon. Pull yourself together.’

Belatedly, Belle registered that Dante looked very different. No longer casually clad in jeans, he sported an exquisitely tailored dark grey business suit that showcased his tall broad, narrow-hipped physique to perfection. Staring for a moment longer than she was comfortable with, she hurriedly twisted her head away. ‘I am perfectly together. I was just upset,’ she proclaimed defensively.

‘Crying in public is not acceptable unless you’re attending a funeral or a wedding. Saying goodbye momentarily to a dog is not a good enough excuse,’ Dante informed her as her single bag was dropped in the capacious boot of the car and the driver yanked open the passenger door for them.

‘S-sorry,’ Belle said in a wobbly voice, turning her tear-stained face away from him as she climbed into the opulent car.

The car ferried them at speed to Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, where they were rushed through the VIP channel at speed to board Dante’s private jet. Eyes wide from her first glimpse of the opulent oyster-coloured leather seating and the sumptuous interior, Belle accepted the pile of high-fashion magazines the stewardess brought to her and tried not to stare while the same woman flirted madly with Dante with loads of hair flicking, smiles and a provocative wriggle in her too-tight pencil skirt that would’ve caught the attention of a dead man. Dante, however, remained remarkably untouched by the display and flipped open a laptop to work. Belle wondered if women always vied for his attention so blatantly and then asked herself why she was even interested.

He was a breathtakingly handsome guy, rich and sophisticated, as alien to her as snow in the summer heat. Her hormones went all out of kilter around him and she felt uncomfortable in her own body as it betrayed her in ways she hadn’t expected. It had never occurred to her before that she could be attracted to someone she didn’t like, that a mere flashing glance from tigerish dark golden eyes could make her breasts swell and her nipples tighten and a hot dull ache blossom at the junction of her thighs. That weakness was a revelation because it was new to her, but it wasn’t something that particularly worried her.

She was convinced that she would never give way to that kind of temptation because she was painfully aware that sex meant very little unless it was accompanied by genuine feelings. None of her mother’s many affairs had lasted or cured Tracy’s essential dissatisfaction with her life. And Belle wanted much more for herself than a fleeting sexual thrill or a luxurious lifestyle. She wanted love, a man who would make her feel whole and safe, and when she finally found him, she would have a family with him, recreating the family she had both lost and never really had, she thought fondly. He wouldn’t be a commitment-phobe like Dante, who saw women as clingy and probably didn’t like children much more than he liked dogs. He would be an ordinary guy, willing to settle down when he met someone who made him happy.

‘Have you ever been to Paris before?’ Dante asked, watching Belle peer out of the limo windows like a child on a school trip, afraid of missing out on a single sight.

‘No.’

‘And yet you’ve been in France for...how long?’

‘Almost three years.’

‘Why didn’t you travel around?’

‘I couldn’t leave Mrs Devenish or Charlie to look after themselves and, to be honest, I never really had enough money to go off exploring.’

‘Then why did you lumber yourself with a dog into the bargain?’ Dante enquired drily.

‘He wasn’t mine initially. Mrs Devenish’s niece brought Charlie out here as a gift for her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t well enough to look after a puppy, but she did enjoy seeing him round the house,’ Belle confided ruefully. ‘She was a lovely old lady but her relatives didn’t want to accept that she was ill. They liked coming out here in the summer for their holidays and they insisted that I was exaggerating her condition. It took the doctor to convince them otherwise and by that stage, as it turned out, she only had a few more weeks to live.’

‘You need to learn how to stand up for yourself more effectively,’ Dante censured.

Belle shrugged. ‘Only if you can afford to take the consequences and I had neither another job to go to nor anywhere else to live.’

‘You shouldn’t have put yourself in that position.’

‘Haven’t I just done the same thing again with you?’

Dante frowned at her in bemusement. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Well, I don’t have an employment contract or any safeguards with you either...and you’ve now got Charlie to hold over me,’ she pointed out, lifting her chin.

‘You can’t think I’m likely to hold Charlie hostage? Or ditch you in Paris without money?’ Dante breathed in a raw undertone, insulted beyond belief by her suspicions.

‘Isn’t that what I’m saying?’ Belle murmured gently. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. I’ve had to take the risk of trusting you.’

Dante released his breath in a pent-up hiss of displeasure and said nothing, his lean dark face grim. He didn’t enjoy being taxed with the truth.

Belle stepped out of the limousine onto one of the most exclusive streets in Paris and stared wide-eyed at the even more exclusive hotel that Dante was striding towards. Her strained face flushed, and she smoothed down her floral skirt and studied her scuffed boots with embarrassment. She followed him into the foyer, careful to stay behind him and out of sight, almost skidding on the highly polished floor tiles and horribly conscious of the plush silence and the dulled murmur of well-bred voices. She looked up above the atrium entrance to the serried ranks of colonnaded floors above. Never had she been so aware of her shabby appearance and at any moment, if she wasn’t careful enough and drew the wrong person’s attention, she expected a hand to fall on her shoulder and someone to ask her what she was doing there, because she felt like an intruder.

‘You’ve got very quiet,’ Dante remarked as she shot into the lift on his heels and immersed herself in a corner. ‘You have a busy schedule this afternoon.’

Belle looked up at him in bewilderment. ‘Doing what?’

‘Visiting the spa for beauty treatments. Don’t ask me what’s included,’ Dante advised. ‘I told my PA you needed a makeover, especially in the defective nail department. I’m afraid that perfect grooming goes with the territory.’

‘I’m afraid you’re stuck with my defective nails,’ Belle countered snidely. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do with them.’

‘Belle...if I was willing to pay the surcharge,’ Dante murmured silkily, ‘they’d cut off your hands and give you new ones!’

Belle paled and linked her hands together tightly, wanting to nibble nervously but afraid of the reaction she might ignite if she succumbed to temptation. The lift doors whirred silently back and a man in a white jacket began to bow and scrape.

‘Our butler. Anything you want or need, you ask him,’ Dante informed her, walking out into the vast space awaiting them.

Dumbstruck, Belle wandered across the floor and straight out onto the balcony to lean against the elaborate wrought-iron balustrade and stare in awe at the superlative view of the slender silhouette of the Eiffel Tower, the glass roofs of the Grand Palais and the bell tower of Notre Dame Cathedral.

‘Madam...?’

She swivelled to register that the butler held a silver tray and was offering her a glass of champagne. She swallowed hard, only just resisting an urge to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming and grasped the champagne. Her glass in her hand, she was ushered back inside and up the swirling staircase to her bedroom, which was the last word in over-the-top glamour, from its brocaded walls to its soft and inviting velvet seating and subtle eau-de-Nil colouring. Far above her, ornate lace mouldings decorated the ceiling. She hastened into the bathroom and was disappointed to discover that it contained only a shower, although it was a vast wet-room affair that could have coped with a party and took up a good half of the room.

When she came downstairs again, lunch was being served and a young woman in a very stylish suit was using a tablet at Dante’s elbow. ‘Belle...this is my executive PA, Caterina. She will be scheduling your appointments here because I have meetings to attend.’

Belle sat down opposite Dante to have lunch. Not having eaten since breakfast, she was starving. Dante and his PA talked in Italian while she ate, and she watched Dante’s eyes shimmer pure gold in the sunlight before his ridiculously long black lashes skimmed down to shade them. Her mouth ran dry, her throat tightening, sudden nerves assailing her. Her fingers lifted to her mouth and at the exact same moment, Dante flashed a warning look at her. ‘Try it and I’ll plunge your hands into bowls of ice water!’ he threatened impatiently.

Her colour rising, Belle dropped her hand back to her lap. ‘Stop threatening me!’ she snapped back at him.

‘You have to learn sometime,’ Dante told her while Caterina watched the byplay in seeming fascination. ‘I’ll take you out to dine somewhere tonight...’ He turned back to his PA. ‘Make sure she’s camera-ready.’

‘Why would I need to be camera-ready?’ Belle demanded.

‘Because I expect that we will be papped at some stage of the evening.’

‘Papped?’

‘The paparazzi,’ Caterina explained. ‘Dante’s social life is always hot news in Italy.’

Caterina escorted her downstairs to the spa facilities. Belle endured one treatment after another, finally relaxing into the procedures when the less pleasant experiences were behind her. She flexed her fake nails, now long and shaped and a pale, barely noticeable pink. She reckoned not a single hair now existed anywhere on her body aside from her brows and her head. The facial and the massage that followed were soothing and the treatments concluded with an appointment with a hair stylist, who lamented at length over the sun damage to her bountiful tresses and then quietly and efficiently transformed her unmanageable mane into a sleek fall as smooth and straight as silk.

Back in her bedroom she was greeted by three women with mobile racks of clothing and cases of other items. Her size established, she didn’t get away with being shy. She donned elaborate silky lingerie while the most senior woman muttered about a good foundation for clothing being very important to an elegant appearance. Then she had to model outfit after outfit while the women argued amongst themselves about which colours and designs best suited her. She had never seen such beautiful, expensive material before or garments put together with so exceptional a finish and fit. But considering that Dante only required her to play his girlfriend for one weekend, she couldn’t credit the sheer size and diversity of the wardrobe that he evidently deemed necessary. She recalled that she would have to live her role in his home for a few days beforehand but still rolled her eyes at his extravagance. Only when she saw her unfamiliar reflection in a mirror did she stop rolling her eyes and stop worrying about what he had chosen to spend.

There she was garbed in a very slightly sparkly blue dress that might have been specially designed for her, shoestring straps adorning her shoulders, a superbly designed backless bra restraining her exuberant breasts, the hemline swirling well above her knees, her feet shod in perilously high sandals. She looked taller, slimmer, less overwhelmingly busty and she breathed a little easier, grabbing up the clutch that toned with the shoes to go down the stairs.

* * *

‘Very classy...’ Dante pronounced approvingly, watching her descent from below, and yet there was the strangest kernel of disappointment at the heart of his reaction. He realised in surprise that on some level he had liked the untamed curls, the youthful eccentric clothes, and that truth shook him. Indisputably, Belle looked more gorgeous than the first time he had seen her but somehow, inexplicably, she had been hotter and sexier in her own natural style.

‘You’re getting what you paid for,’ Belle fielded with an awkward shrug.

His dark deep-set eyes flared with golden highlights. ‘Don’t dwell on that aspect. It’s not important.’

Dante studied her long shapely legs and imagined lifting the skirt and running his hands up those slim, smooth thighs. A very faint shudder ran through him as he stamped down hard on that lusty image and attempted to quell the heat at his groin while reminding himself that he wasn’t going to go there, wasn’t going to yield to that kind of dangerous impulse. Of course, he would have to touch her. In the roles they were playing, a certain amount of physical contact was unavoidable, but he would ensure that it was only enough to give a superficial if convincing impression.

In the lift, the lustrous glow of Dante’s stunning eyes sent tiny little tremors travelling up through Belle’s legs. She felt weak, dizzy, and the lift felt claustrophobic. At the very heart of her she could feel a pulse pounding out her tension like a drum while her breasts ached beneath her clothing. Attraction, just stupid body chemistry, she told herself dismissively as she climbed into the back of the glossy limousine awaiting them.

The silence hummed as she gazed back at him, every nerve ending in her body tight with tension. His eyes were brilliant gold, striking, utterly compelling and she swallowed hard. Dante succumbed to a ‘what the hell?’ prompt, because he had never been into self-denial. How the blazes could they hope to pretend to be lovers if he had yet to even touch her? he asked himself. That was nonsense. That decision forged, he reached out a hand and she clasped it, allowing him to propel her across the seat into his arms. She went without even having to think about it, her heart pounding so fast she felt light-headed.