Page 65 of The Village Inn of Secret Dream

She was so busy concentrating, however, that she didn’t see Pete staring at them in shock from the doorway.

36

Pete felt as if his feet had been nailed to the floor. The shock continued to run through him as he watched Andre, of all people, do some kind of sexy Latin dance with Belle in the restaurant.

It had been a busy morning and he had felt relieved to get back to what he had thought would be the peace and quiet of the inn. He was finding being around Belle more and more calming.

Except for right at that moment. Right now he could quite easily punch his hand through the brick fireplace, such was the unexpected anger surging through him.

‘Hey,’ said Josh, crashing to a breathless halt in front of him, holding a giggling Amber in his arms.

‘Is this some kind of village initiation?’ drawled Pete to his brother. But his eyes never left Belle as he spoke. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you.’

‘It’s just a bit of fun,’ he heard Josh say. ‘You do remember how to have fun, don’t you, bro?’

‘Of course,’ snapped Pete. But he had lost all sense of humour and his world had decreased to where he could only see Belle still being spun around in Andre’s arms.

Her long dark hair whipped around her face as if in some kind of tornado. Her eyes were lit up as she laughed.

She looked both gorgeous and sexy. And she was dancing with another man.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Amber, staring up at him.

Pete finally blinked back to life and turned to look at her. ‘I’m fine,’ he replied.

Next to Amber, Josh was frowning at him. ‘You’re grinding your teeth,’ he said.

‘I missed my last dentist appointment,’ replied Pete automatically.

‘Uh-huh,’ he heard Josh say.

But Pete’s eyes had been drawn back to Belle again. He was completely mesmerised. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were flashing. She was laughing. She was magnificent.

He slowly became aware that he was gnashing his teeth together. He had known that Andre had some kind of Mediterranean blood coursing through his veins, but this was really going too far. He ought to be professional and not be dancing with Belle.

But Pete was feeling distinctly unprofessional himself and was currently running through various daydreams, all of which resulted in Andre lying on the floor and Pete dragging Belle away like some kind of caveman.

None of these were thoughts or feelings that Pete had ever encountered before now. It was pure rage, pure jealousy.

He was jealous? Of Andre?

Pete couldn’t believe it. It was obviously just some kind of reaction to Andre flirting outrageously with his friend. He and Josh had always been very protective of Belle over the years. That was it. He grasped onto the thought like a man drowning hangs on to a lifebuoy. He just needed to protect her, that was all.

But when Andre suddenly pulled Belle into him and they were joined groin to groin, Pete had reached the limit as to what he could endure. He strode over to where the radio was and switched it off, fighting against the urge to fling the damn thing into the fireplace.

The dancing abruptly stopped as Belle turned around in surprise at the sudden silence.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, still breathless and laughing.

Pete stared down at her. Her face was lit up, glowing almost and Pete had a horrified thought. What if she had fallen in love with Andre? What if he were her dream man?

The pain that suddenly struck him was so awful that he could barely breathe.

He just about managed to gather himself together long enough to say, ‘Shouldn’t we all be getting back to work? I was under the impression we had an inn to open in a few days’ time.’

Belle stopped laughing and stared up at him with wide eyes. ‘What on earth’s the matter with you today?’ she asked.

He honestly had no idea at that moment, so found himself pretty much speechless.