CHAPTER SIX
DANTE HAD BEEN up working since the crack of dawn when Belle finally showed.
She gave him a huge smile from the top of the stairs when their eyes met. It was fake as hell and he liked that he could tell that it was fake because she had a highly expressive face. Faint shadows highlighted her violet eyes and proved that she had not slept much better than he had. Served her right for leaving his bed the way she had, he reflected, dark golden eyes simmering. Dante wasn’t used to women taking him by surprise or making moves on their own, and Belle had done both when he had found her gone when he’d got out of the shower the night before. Well, she wouldn’t be doing that tonight, he thought with innate satisfaction, because she would only be sleeping in his bed while she was in Italy.
‘You have about thirty minutes to get breakfast,’ Dante murmured softly, watching the sunlight make a fiery halo of her hair and add sparkle to her eyes. Her outfit—striped cropped trousers and a white top, teamed with canvas sneakers—had a nautical air that gave her the look of a sexy sailor. His keen gaze roamed over her shapely figure and he remembered that she had felt like liquid silk and he hardened instantly.
‘I’m starving,’ Belle admitted unselfconsciously as she dropped down into a seat and the butler appeared to take her order. ‘I can hardly wait to be reunited with Charlie.’
‘We’ll pick him up on the way home. By the way, I’ve arranged for your packing to be done.’
Belle nodded and smiled as a pot of tea arrived. She was disturbingly aware of the lingering scrutiny of Dante’s stunning dark golden eyes. What was he watching and waiting for? She had agreed with his wait-and-see outlook and she wasn’t about to freak out over something that might never happen. At the same time, she had had thoughts during the night that would probably horrify Dante because she had tried to imagine herself becoming a mother. For someone who had never had a mother as such that had been a scary prospect, but she had decided that she would cope, somehow, she would cope the way she always had when life threw up unexpected developments.
And the more she had thought about how different a parent she would be in comparison to her own parents, the more she had warmed to the vague image of a baby she could love. A little boy, a little girl, she didn’t care, but she did like children and the idea of finally having her own family could only warm her heart. That was the right attitude to have, she told herself firmly: turn any negative aspect into a positive so that she was prepared for whatever happened.
‘When will we know?’ Dante asked levelly.
Belle registered that his mind was in exactly the same place as her own and she coloured. ‘In about ten days—’
‘We’ll have a test done as soon as possible,’ Dante told her in the same measured tone.
Belle demolished a croissant in record time, unnerved by Dante’s calm and slightly irritated that he was hiding how he really felt from her, acting all distant and businesslike in the aftermath of the passionate encounter they had shared the night before. Of course, it would be neither civil nor kind of him to admit that he was horrified by their situation, she allowed grudgingly. Really, she was being unreasonable in expecting any more from him than a polite pretence.
Dante watched Belle’s lips curl round a shred of croissant, the tip of her tongue peeking out as she savoured the pastry with unconcealed pleasure, her head tipping back slightly, lashes lowering, her white throat exposed, her slim body momentarily stretching, the fabric pulling tight across the full firm swell of her breasts. He was fiercely aroused by her sensual enjoyment of her food and he marvelled at the way she could make the simplest things seem impossibly sexy. Thoroughly disconcerted by his reaction, Dante attempted to work out why having Belle once had only whetted his appetite for her and stoked it higher, instead of at least partially cooling his immediate interest.
Glancing curiously across the table at Dante, who had gone very still, his attention locked to her, his lean, strong jawline clenching hard, Belle muttered, ‘What’s up?’
‘I still want you,’ Dante breathed in a driven undertone. ‘In fact, if we had the time I’d be hauling you back upstairs right now!’
Eyes widening in astonishment at that bold admission, Belle stared at him and a piece of croissant went down the wrong way. Choking, she gasped and coughed, eyes streaming as she took a drink to clear her tight throat. Well, she guessed she had just got her answer about what happened next, but she hadn’t expected to receive it quite so directly.
‘I’m a passionate guy. I can’t change what I am,’ Dante murmured huskily. ‘But I’m hoping you feel the same way.’
Belle chewed tautly at the soft fullness of her lower lip and could feel the flames breaking out below her skin, an anticipatory warm dampness flowering between her thighs while her nipples tightened in response. ‘Er...yes.’
‘You see,’ Dante pronounced with satisfaction. ‘Nothing between us has to be complicated.’
And she thought, He can’t possibly be so clever and yet so stupid at the same time, can he? Because their relationship had become extremely complicated, not least because of the contraceptive mishap the day before and his desire to continue their intimacy undeterred by that development.
‘You think I’ll be more convincing playing your lover if I actually am?’ Belle queried.
‘If I didn’t want you I wouldn’t be with you,’ Dante said drily. ‘And I wanted you the instant I saw you.’
Belle shifted in her seat, helplessly gratified by that admission.
‘There had to be chemistry for us to do this,’ Dante pointed out. ‘I could hardly pretend to be living with a woman who didn’t attract me.’
‘Obviously not.’ Belle squashed down the urge to ask him how often he saw a woman he immediately wanted in the way he had evidently wanted her. Probably ten or more times a day, she scolded herself ruefully. It bothered her that in his radius she jumped like a fish at a hook, overanalysing his every word, quite unable to re-establish the cool, calm outlook that usually guided her around men.
It was different with Dante; she was different with Dante. He was more in every way than every other man she had ever met, better looking, smarter, more sophisticated and unarguably richer. She recognised her subconscious wish that she was something more special to him than a passing fancy and she almost grimaced with self-loathing. There was no future in their arrangement and the last thing she needed to do was start getting attached to him or developing unrealistic expectations. Cinderella rarely got her prince in the real world.
‘Those who know me will be surprised enough that I have moved a woman into my home with me,’ Dante admitted, raking impatient fingers through his unruly black hair. ‘I have always been very forthright about my lack of interest in marriage and my desire to retain my freedom. So, as a couple, we do have to put on a convincing show.’
‘You’re making me more and more curious about this business deal that is so important to you,’ Belle confided. ‘It must be something pretty special to make you go to these lengths to attain it.’
‘Krystal’s husband, Eddie, owns a piece of land that I hope to reclaim.’
Belle frowned. ‘Reclaim?’ She questioned his choice of that word.
‘The land used to belong to my brother and he was very attached to it. My parents sold it off when I was abroad on business because they’re not sentimental people.’
‘Couldn’t you have bought the land direct from them?’ she asked.
‘No, they would have made other demands of me. I don’t put myself in a vulnerable position with them,’ he replied in a guarded tone, glancing across the room in relief as a collection of suitcases on a trolley were wheeled towards the lift. ‘I believe it’s time for us to leave.’
* * *
Dante worked during the flight, barely lifting his head from his laptop. Belle pondered the situation she was about to enter, the ‘snake pit?
? as Dante had referred to it as. An array of unappealing characters awaited her, it seemed, the nasty parents, the clingy troublemaking ex from hell. But no, when he didn’t get on well with his parents, she would hardly be dragged out to meet them, she reasoned, striking his titled parents from the list of challenges ahead. Instead she concentrated on her reunion with Charlie.