He strode downstairs, all business now that he knew what he had to do. He checked the laptop he had given her, scrolled through her past history and smiled at the ease of discovering her travel plans. She had gone back to France. Why France instead of the UK, he had no idea, but he was enormously grateful for that stroke of luck because he believed he knew where she had gone and he could get there faster than she could to await her arrival.
* * *
Late afternoon the following day, Belle staggered out of her taxi outside the restaurant and paid the driver. She was worried about how she was going to eat for the next few days because Dante’s payment had not yet reached her account and the long journey had cost her more than she had expected. She released Charlie from his travel carrier and he went bonkers at having his freedom back, tearing around and then letting out a startled bark and changing direction to go pelting down to the beach. Setting the box and her case to one side, Belle stared to see who had attracted Charlie, and then she noticed the tall dark man poised below the pine trees. The terrier leapt and jumped around him in joyous greeting.
Belle knew only one man who her dog greeted with such enthusiasm. Dante might pay Charlie very little attention, but Charlie was, inexplicably, devoted to Dante. But it couldn’t be Dante, she reasoned, her heart thumping very fast as she walked down to the beach, her shoes crunching in the sand, getting closer and closer. The man moved out of the dappled light into the sunshine and she stopped breathing altogether, disbelieving the evidence of her own eyes. His luxuriant blue-black hair blew back from his bronzed and beautiful face and her throat closed over as he moved towards her.
‘Standing here again takes you back two weeks, doesn’t it?’ Dante intoned. ‘We didn’t know each other then. We didn’t know what was ahead of us.’
‘How the heck did you know where I was?’ she gasped.
‘Looked at your browsing history on the laptop. You should’ve brought it with you, although I am very glad you didn’t because I would’ve wasted time trying to track you back to England. Why did you come here?’
‘I have to make arrangements for Charlie and I don’t have the money yet,’ Belle admitted, turning red.
‘So, only if I keep you as poor as a church mouse can I hang onto you?’
‘You don’t want to hang onto me.’
‘What am I doing here then?’
‘Making this split harder on both of us,’ Belle told him heavily.
‘But I don’t want to let you go. I have absolutely no intention of letting you go and would go to any extreme, no matter how ridiculous, to keep you,’ Dante intoned with fierce determination. ‘I won’t insist that you marry me but I will keep on asking... I’m being frank about my ultimate goal.’
Belle shook her head dizzily. ‘What the heck are you talking about?’
‘You’re looking a touch green again,’ Dante noted, urging her over to the concrete bench below the trees. ‘Sit down. Take a deep breath, and while you’re doing that, listen to me.’
As she sat, Dante dropped down into a crouch in front of her and reached for her hand. Stunning dark golden eyes intercepted hers. ‘I want to marry you because I love you and making that commitment is important to me, but if you can’t face the wedding ring, you can still live with me until the day you die. Nothing less is acceptable...’
Wide-eyed, Belle stared back at him, her colour fluctuating. ‘How on earth are you in love with me?’ she mumbled.
‘Your guess is probably as good as mine. I don’t know how it happened, but it did happen very fast,’ Dante mused reflectively, his lean, strong face serious as he quirked a black brow in self-mockery. ‘One day I was planning to live alone for the rest of my days and the next I’d changed out of all recognition. I wanted you with me. I wanted you with me all the time. When you weren’t immediately in front of me, I had to find you and know what you were doing, which is why you never really got to enjoy that room of yours for very long on your own. You entered my life and became an incredibly precious part of it.’
‘P-precious?’ she stammered.
‘Very,’ Dante confirmed, lifting her fingers to his mouth and kissing them and then checking the nails. ‘You’ve been peeling again.’
‘Yes...when I’m stressed, I slip,’ she said thickly, wondering if she could dare to believe what he was telling her, if it was actually possible for a man like Dante to fall in love with someone ordinary like her. ‘But what if you’re imagining that you’re in love with me?’
‘Why would I do that when I didn’t want to fall in love in the first place?’
‘Maybe...because I’m pregnant?’ she suggested uncomfortably.
‘Yes, that did increase your desirability once I got over the surprise of it,’ Dante admitted. ‘But I was already in love with you and fighting all these emotions I never allowed myself to feel before—’
‘You kept on reminding me that I would be going home to the UK,’ Belle protested.
‘As I said, I was fighting what I was feeling and in denial, but I wouldn’t have gone as far as actually letting you leave me,’ Dante assured her confidently. ‘I was kind of lonely before you came into my life. I’ve always been rather solitary in my habits, but you pull me in, take me out of myself, make me happy. Before you, only Cristiano could achieve that feat. So, obviously I’m going to fight to the last ditch to keep you. You’re mine. I know a good thing when I find it and I’m not letting you go.’
‘Oh, Dante...’ Belle whispered. ‘Walking away cut me in two but I thought it was what we both needed, although if Krystal hadn’t reminded me how anti-marriage you were and my mother hadn’t shown up...’
His brows pleated. ‘Your mother?’
‘Tracy, yes... Yesterday, she was after money,’ Belle confided in discomfiture. ‘I don’t know how she found out I was with you.’
‘A friend called to tell me that a photo of us together appeared in an English tabloid.’
‘Well, Tracy threatened to go and sell some story about me to the newspapers and would probably make up lies to make it sleazy.’
‘She threatened you and tried to blackmail you? That is exactly what she did to your father!’ Dante interrupted angrily. ‘But you don’t deal with her, you don’t need to. That’s my job now. But she can sell whatever stories she wants to the newspapers, it doesn’t bother me. If she tells any lies about you, however, she will find herself dealing with the full weight of the law because I will sue.’
‘But what will your family think about that kind of stuff?’
‘Do you think I care? The truth of what went on in my childhood home behind closed doors is more sordid than anything that could be pinned to you,’ Dante derided. ‘Don’t forget that I grew up with my mother’s constant affairs with other men and her abuse and that soured my view of women from an early age. The casual affairs I indulged in didn’t improve that view...but then, to be fair, I chose women who were content to settle for sex and a good time with a rich man. And then I met you and you taught me that there was another kind of woman out there, one who could be warm and trustworthy and caring and who didn’t care about my money.’
Tears glimmered in Belle’s violet eyes. ‘That’s quite an accolade. Are you sure you’re not seeing me through rose-tinted glasses?’
Dante laughed. ‘No, definitely not. You are much too fond of homeless animals. You bite your nails and you are also very untidy and disorganised.’
‘I’m not...and I’ve stopped biting them!’
‘You are. I keep on tripping over the shoes you leave lying around,’ Dante told her without hesitation. ‘So, I think we needn’t worry about me seeing you through rose-tinted glasses.’
‘It’s all right to retain a touch of a rose tint,’ Belle told him in reproach as he tugged her upright. ‘I’m sure I’ve loads more faults than you’ve noticed yet, but I do love you an awful lot.’
r /> ‘And yet you ran away from me!’ Dante lamented. ‘And you refused to marry me—’