‘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 ve
ry 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.