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.
‘I don’t have one.’
‘Everyone has one.’
‘Blue... You dressed in blue,’ Dante said teasingly, highly amused by her interest in trivia like his birthdate, his favourite foods and sports, none of which he considered remotely important or likely to be of use to her. ‘Blue brings out your eyes. I’m going to have to buy you some jewellery. Don’t men who live with women buy them jewellery as gifts?’
Belle wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, don’t spend any more, for goodness’ sake! I’ll only be leaving it behind me. I couldn’t possibly accept jewellery as part of the deal...unless you could buy fakes,’ she suggested, looking at him with sudden hope. ‘There are very good fakes around now.’
‘I’m not putting you in fakes!’ Dante told her, studying her with incredulous dark golden eyes. ‘Madre di Dio... You haven’t got the sense you were born with, have you?’
Her brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Because a woman wanting to feather her nest would never ever suggest that I buy her fake diamonds. She would want and expect the real thing, even if it was just to sell it at a later date,’ he pointed out drily.
‘But I’m not out to feather my own nest,’ Belle argued, her colour heightening. ‘I’ll be more than content to be paid at the end of this. Anything more than giving me the means to go home and get my life started again would be excessive.’
‘Allow me to decide what is excessive.’ Dante surveyed her with mounting hunger, his attention lingering on the smooth satiny skin below her throat while he imagined putting his mouth there before toying at his leisure with the sultry curve to her lower lip. He marvelled at how misleading that pouty pink sultriness was.
She was a sensual, sexy woman in denial of her nature and she was saving herself up for some no doubt imaginary and perfect hero, who would disappoint her. The idea of Belle being disappointed galled Dante and he asked himself why when he deemed disappointment to be one of life’s certainties. Like his current desire for her, he ruminated sardonically. He imagined that once he had her, he would no longer want her. And wasn’t that exactly why he should leave her alone and untouched? He frowned because that little moral question reminded him very much of his brother, who had always been kinder and less ruthless than Dante. When had he ever had anything in common with Cristiano apart from the blood in their veins?
‘I’M PLANNING TO have a drink,’ Dante announced when they walked back into the hotel suite. ‘Do you want one?’
‘No, thanks.’ Belle wandered restively round the room. ‘I wonder how Charlie’s doing.’
‘He’s doing fine. I got a text and a photo earlier. He’s eaten and settled in for the night. I meant to mention it,’ Dante asserted, tugging out his phone.
Belle darted over to him and stared down at the photo of Charlie in what looked like a very comfortable dog run. He was snuggled up, nose to tail, in a well-padded dog bed. ‘He looks sad,’ she sighed. ‘Have you any photos of your brother’s dogs?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Why didn’t you try to find them a new home?’ Belle asked ruefully.
‘Cristiano left me a letter. He wanted me to keep them.’
‘Yes, but he probably assumed you’d keep them at home with you,’ Belle pointed out and then winced. ‘Sorry, forget I said that. It was totally tactless.’
‘But spot on,’ Dante fielded, pouring himself what he imagined would only be his first hard drink of the night. ‘Go to bed. I feel like drowning my sorrows.’
‘I can’t leave you down here alone when you’re feeling bad!’ Belle protested with a troubled look in her eyes.
‘Of course, you can,’ Dante asserted. ‘I’m not a child you have to worry about.’
She wondered if he had ever got to be a child secure in the love of his parents. They hadn’t sounded very loving towards him and his brother. It made her look back on all the years that she had felt sorry for herself because she had neither a father nor a mother who loved her. Yet all along she had had her grandparents loving and supporting her, making up in every way they could for her parents’ lack of interest.
‘From what you’ve said about him, I don’t think your brother would’ve wanted you feeling this way,’ she murmured uncertainly, fearful of intruding too much.
‘And what would you know about it?’ Dante derided.
‘Nothing,’ she agreed apologetically. ‘But if he was a kind person, he wouldn’t have wanted you beating yourself up about what can’t be changed.’
And that was perfectly true, Dante acknowledged grudgingly. Cristiano had always been an optimist who hated dwelling on the darker elements of life. He had made the best of situations, had even tried to make the best he could of the parents he had been born to, tolerating and forgiving their biting scorn and continual demands.
Dante strode forward. ‘Stop looking at me with those big sad eyes,’ he breathed hoarsely.
‘I’m not sad. I just wanted to make you feel better.’ Belle sighed.
‘Come to bed with me, then. That would be guaranteed to make me feel better, amante,’ Dante growled soft and low, the dark roughened vowel sounds in his voice snaking down her spine like a rough caress.
Belle clashed in consternation with glittering dark golden eyes that made the breath hitch in her tight throat. ‘No, that would be a bad idea.’
‘Not to my mind,’ Dante intoned, catching both her hands in his and tugging her closer. ‘You should’ve got away while you had the chance.’
Her face flamed because she knew that she hadn’t wanted to leave him alone. He tempted her as no one ever had and his confession about his brother had made him seem treacherously human and vulnerable, chipping away at her original dislike. It had taught her a lesson too, taught her not to make assumptions about people and assume that wealth cushioned them from the tragedies of life. Going straight to bed, steering clear of spending more time with Dante Lucarelli, would have been the sensible thing to do, but seeing him standing by the windows with a drink in his hand and looking so very alone had bothered her even though there was nothing she could do or say to change anything.
Belle lifted her chin and looked up at him. ‘I know you’ll let me go if I ask you to.’
‘And you won’t ask me because you don’t want me to let you go,’ Dante murmured in silken challenge as he trailed a reproving fingertip across a pink cheek, down to the incredibly inviting lush pink of her mouth. ‘Well, don’t say you weren’t warned...’
He leant down and captured her mouth with his, driving her lips apart with the power of his hungry kiss, and she shivered as heat darted through her chilled body, warming every inch of her. She wanted more, she knew she wanted more, knowing that if nothing else when she made no objection to being scooped off her feet and carried over to an armchair where he draped her across his lap without once freeing her mouth again. A quivering intensity of response gripped her as his tongue stroked between her lips to explore.
‘The taste of you is sublime,’ Dante husked against her throat, his breath see-sawing in and out of his chest. ‘But it is also dangerously addictive.’
Belle was amazingly aware of his hand on her thigh, his fingers smoothing below the hem of her dress and