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‘Don’t kid yourself. When you said we had to know stuff about each other, that is definitely something a man would need to know,’ Dante fielded grimly.
‘Not in our situation, it’s not,’ Belle argued. ‘We’re only faking it.’
‘What would you know about faking it?’ Dante enquired witheringly.
‘Stop it!’ Belle hissed between clenched teeth in a sharp aside before she took a seat. ‘If you don’t stop embarrassing me, I’ll look like a tomato all evening!’
‘You could’ve told me the truth upfront!’ Dante replied, still pointed in tone as he spread open the wine list, signalled the hovering maître d’ and ordered wines in fluent French.
Belle pressed the cool backs of her hands to her cheeks in an effort to ratchet down her inner heat source. ‘Why should I have told you?’
‘I feel short-changed and like I’m about to throw a baby into a snake pit!’ Dante groaned in frustration, wondering if he had chosen the wrong woman entirely for the role. ‘You are manifestly unsuited to pretending to be my sexy lover. How on earth are you going to pull that off?’
‘You don’t have to have sex to be sexy,’ Belle whispered vehemently across the table. ‘Not five minutes ago you were all over me!’
‘If I’d been all over you, we’d still have been in the limo and I wouldn’t be in need of a cold shower,’ Dante parried drily. ‘I kissed you. Let’s not get lost in virginal exaggeration.’
‘Just lose that word from your vocabulary!’ Belle tossed, taking refuge behind her menu and making hasty selections, desperate to change the subject. ‘It embarrasses me. I wish I’d lied now.’
Dante ordered the food and lounged back in his chair, narrowed sardonic dark eyes welding to her still-flushed face. ‘So, tell me why... Religious scruples?’
‘My grandparents didn’t encourage me to go out and about when I was younger because we lived in a rough area and they were worried about my safety. Then I was restricted by having to stay home as a carer. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but lack of opportunity is certainly part of it,’ Belle acknowledged, gratefully sipping the water poured for her, soothing her tight vocal cords. ‘And that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject.’
‘I’m still not satisfied,’ Dante admitted, tasting the wine and indicating that it could be poured.
‘It’s absolutely none of your business,’ she told him quietly when they were alone again.
‘You made it my business when you made me want you,’ Dante contradicted ruefully. ‘Now it seems clear that you’re one of those women who decides to stay as pure as the driven snow until she marries.’
‘I didn’t say that I was saving myself for marriage,’ Belle pointed out. ‘And I’m not. But I only want intimacy if it comes with a serious relationship.’
‘I won’t offer you a serious relationship.’
‘Of course not,’ Belle conceded. ‘Anyway, I’m working for you, so there won’t be anything of that nature to worry about.’
Dante reminded himself that he too had believed at the outset of their agreement that there was no room for sex in it. But from the minute he had touched her, something had indisputably changed for him. He had acknowledged that he wanted her, and all his reservations had vanished at the same moment, which he supposed made him a fairly typical male, driven by his libido. He didn’t want her to be out of reach, he didn’t want to hear that she would only share a bed with a man if she was in a serious relationship and he was still wondering how she would stand up to Krystal, who oozed sex appeal.
‘I’m just waiting to meet the right person,’ Belle extended quietly, hoping to defuse the tension with that admission.
‘And what is that right person going to be like?’ Dante asked with helpless curiosity.
‘Someone who matches me. Look, I don’t want to talk about this any more. It’s too private and personal,’ Belle told him abruptly. ‘Subject closed.’
Frustration gusted through Dante. ‘I suppose you mean someone crazy about dogs.’
‘That wouldn’t be the most important thing, no,’ she countered uncomfortably. ‘I accept that I’ll have to compromise, and that one person can’t possibly meet all my expectations.’
‘I suppose you have a list drawn up for that too,’ Dante guessed. ‘A shopping list of requirements.’
‘I’m not shopping.’ Belle lifted her chin.
Silence fell. The first course arrived and they ate. By the arrival of the next, Belle had relaxed again, refusing to think about what Dante thought of her because it wasn’t important. Like a shooting star, he would only be in her life for a very short space of time and it would be foolish to start worrying about his opinion of her because ultimately it didn’t matter, she told herself firmly. No doubt she sounded old-fashioned and naïve to him, but she knew what she wanted and needed and she wasn’t about to apologise for it.
‘You haven’t told me a thing about yourself yet,’ she reminded him quietly.
‘Background...’ Dante shifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. ‘I’m twenty-eight. My family made their fortune in banking. My father married my mother because she is the daughter of a prince and he was born a prince. They set a very high value on their titles even though the Italian Republic no longer recognises those titles. They had two children because they wanted a son to inherit the title—the heir and the spare. I was the spare,’ Dante explained tightly, his sensual mouth twisting at the designation. ‘There was a lot of pressure on my brother, Cristiano, to be exactly what my parents wanted him to be. So he went into the bank because they demanded it of him even though it wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life.’
‘And what about you?’ Belle whispered. ‘What did they want from you?’
‘They barely took notice of my existence. I was simply insurance in case anything ever happened to my older brother,’ Dante admitted. ‘And tragically, the worst happened. Cristiano messed up an investment fund at the bank. Instead of coming to me for advice and help, and feeling unable to face our parents’ criticism, he took an overdose...and then he was gone.’
Belle had paled. His pain at that admission had tightened every muscle in his lean, darkly handsome face and his strain was painfully evident. ‘I’m so sorry, Dante.’
‘Do you know what my parents said to me at his funeral?’ Dante breathed in a raw undertone. ‘That he was never meant to be the elder son, that he was utterly unsuited to the responsibility and that I would be much stronger in the role. They didn’t grieve for him because as far as they were concerned he was a social embarrassment and a screw-up.’
‘That’s awful,’ Belle murmured urgently, reaching for his hand, which had clenched into a fist on the tabletop, and smoothing her fingers gently over his. ‘They can’t possibly have meant it!’
‘Oh, they meant it all right,’ Dante contradicted with hard conviction as he pushed his plate away with his free hand. ‘I wasn’t surprised but I’ll never get over the guilt because I could’ve saved him.’
‘How?’ she exclaimed in surprise at the claim.
‘I could have stepped in and taken over at the bank. I was better qualified. I could have made the socially acceptable marriage and provided the next generation. Instead I did what I wanted to do and left him to sink or swim. The best advice I had to offer was for him to walk away but he didn’t have the heart to do that because he was desperate, always desperate, for our parents’ approval,’ he completed gruffly.
‘That’s not your fault. He did what he had to do, and you did what you had to do. Whatever happened, one of you was going to be unhappy, and as your older brother he chose to take the hit,’ she reasoned ruefully.
‘Let’s move on to something less contentious,’ Dante murmured, taken aback that he had told her so much and disconcerted by the shimmer of sympathetic tears in her big violet eyes. She was the touchy-feely type just as Cri
stiano had been and being that way inclined, being vulnerable, was like sticking your head up above the parapet to invite a punch in the face.
‘Yes, tell me about where you went to school...and I suppose you went to university,’ Belle said, unsurprised by his nod of confirmation. ‘We’ll just stick to easy facts, the sort of stuff I should know about you.’
The rest of the meal went surprisingly well and by the time they were climbing back into the limo, Belle felt calm enough to ignore the single lingering paparazzo with a camera, who stole another shot of them together.
‘Your favourite colour?’ she pressed Dante again.
