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.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FRESHENING UP AND doing a little deep breathing to put the dizziness to flight helped to return Belle to normal.
It had been shock that made her feel ill like that, the sheer shock value of seeing her father after so many years, she reasoned ruefully as she walked back through the entrance hall to thread her passage through the knots of chattering people. And then she stopped dead, in disbelief, seeing the man she had hoped to avoid standing directly ahead of her. Dropping her head, she sidestepped in haste and then froze as a hand fell on her arm.
‘Belle?’ that almost forgotten deep voice prompted.
Her eyes flashed up into eyes identical to her own and she froze like a woman in front of a steep drop, fearing a fall. ‘Er...Mr Stevenson?’ she said stiffly.
‘Do you know how many years I’ve been trying to track you down?’ the older man asked in a pained undertone. ‘How long I’ve been searching for you? And with the first words out of your mouth, you crucify me with guilt. And I deserve it. Yes, I fully deserve it, but I am here to ask you for a few minutes of your time. Will you give me that much?’
Belle was stunned that Alastair Stevenson had approached her, stunned by his claim to have searched for her and even more stunned by the emotional charge he was emanating, for the man she remembered had been cold and bitter and hostile.
‘Please...’ he added with emphasis as the silence between them stretched and stretched.
Dante was restless because Belle had been away longer than he had expected and there was something wrong. He knew in his gut that there was something wrong. Was she ill? Or had something upset her? Steve and Sancha reappeared and Steve bent down and said, ‘When did Belle get friendly with Alastair Stevenson?’
That vaguely familiar name rang into Dante’s inner computer chip of contacts and spat out a designation: high-flying hedge-fund manager, well known in the UK. ‘Alastair Stevenson? What are you talking about?’
And Steve angled his head in the direction of the dance floor and Dante was dumbfounded to see Belle with the older man. Neither could
be said to be actually dancing. They were swaying opposite each other, heads leaning forward as they tried to talk over the noise of the music, and even as Dante watched the couple with frank incredulity Alastair Stevenson reached for Belle’s hand, said something in her ear and walked her off the floor.
Dante swore long and low and inventively in Italian.