it taught humility.
‘I assume that you’re considering taking the job?’ Dante lifted his level black brows in question as Belle’s colleague delivered coffee to the table.
‘Yes,’ Belle confirmed, throwing sugar into the espresso because there was no milk available, and stirring it in haste. ‘But you have to explain it first.’
Dante dragged in a deep breath and his T-shirt stretched taut as the strong muscles beneath the fine cotton flexed. Determined not to stare at his muscular chest, Belle looked at his face instead for the first time since they had sat down. Dazzling dark golden eyes gripped hers and her tummy lurched as if she had been plunged downward on a fairground ride. ‘In two weeks’ time I have a married couple coming to stay at my home for the weekend—Eddie and Krystal Shriner. I have a very important business deal that I hope to make with Eddie. The fly in the ointment is Krystal, whom I was fleetingly involved with four years ago. She’s been trying to get back with me ever since,’ he admitted stonily. ‘And I don’t want her flirting with me in front of her husband because that would destroy any hope I have of making a deal with him. He’s a possessive man.’
Involuntarily, Belle’s interest was caught. ‘Is Krystal the stage-five clinger you mentioned last night?’
Dante nodded grim confirmation. ‘Another woman living in my home with me would be a safeguard and the only possible precaution I can take. Your presence would infuriate her, but I will seem a much less attractive option if I appear to have already found a woman to settle down with. Krystal won’t risk losing Eddie until she has a viable replacement in her sights.’
Belle grimaced at such calculation and settled back less tensely into her seat. ‘Am I allowed to ask how long you were with this woman when you were involved with her?’ she asked curiously.
His black brows pleated and his shapely mouth compressed into a flat hard line. ‘One weekend...’
‘One weekend?’ Belle gasped in disbelief. ‘And you’ve had all this trouble with her after that?’
‘I didn’t say she was normal,’ Dante fielded drily.
‘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