‘Now there’s a thought,’ he said softly.
The wicked glint in Dante’s eyes caused a flush of rosy colour to spread across Rebekah’s cheeks and the atmosphere in the dining room prickled with an inexplicable tension. Her breath caught in her throat and she unconsciously moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. She watched Dante’s eyes narrow and, to her shock, she felt a spark of electricity sizzle between them.
Startled, she dropped her gaze, and when she looked at Dante again his expression was shuttered and she wondered if she had imagined the flash of sexual awareness in his eyes. She shoved her hands under the table to hide the fact that they were trembling. ‘Anyway, I do socialise,’ she told him, annoyed by his accusation that she spent her free time moping about the house.
‘You’re hardly likely to meet a new man at an evening class in pottery,’ he said sardonically.
‘I don’t recall saying I wanted to meet a new man.’
‘So are you going to allow one failed relationship to affect the rest of your life?’
‘No … but …’
‘You can’t live in the past, Rebekah. You need to move on.’
She frowned. ‘Are you speaking from experience?’
He gave her a bland smile, but she noticed that his eyes had hardened. ‘I’m a playboy, remember?’ he mocked her. ‘I don’t have a problem moving on to the next affair. Seriously, though, I’m sure it can’t be easy to move to a big city and make new friends. I could introduce you to a few people. In fact I’m attending the first night of the new musical that’s opening in the West End tomorrow, and the after-show party. Why don’t you come with me?’
It made sense to help Rebekah feel more settled in London, Dante told himself. She was a fantastic chef and he did not want her to be tempted to return to Wales. Maybe if he took her out a couple of times she would find her feet on the social scene.
Rebekah swallowed. Perhaps that flash of sexual awareness had been in his eyes after all.
‘You’re inviting me to spend the evening with you?’ She wanted to make sure she had not misunderstood him.
‘It will do you good to get out,’ he said briskly, as if he thought she needed to be encouraged to buck her ideas up.
Her stomach swooped as the realisation dawned that he had asked her out because he felt sorry for her. The words hovered on her lips to decline his invitation, but a spark of pride made her reconsider. She was not moping over Gareth and she was certainly not the pathetic victim of a failed relationship that Dante seemed to think. There was no reason not to go to the theatre with him. Her only plan for tomorrow night was to wash her hair. It was true that her social life was unexciting. She had kept in touch with a couple of friends she had made when she had worked for the catering company but they led busy lives and she’d only met up with them twice since she had started working for Dante.
‘All right, I’d like to go with you,’ she said quickly, before she could change her mind. ‘I’ve never been to a first night before. What do you think I should wear?’
‘These events are usually formal affairs and I imagine most women will wear full-length evening dresses.’
Rebekah ran her mind through the contents of her wardrobe and realised she had nothing suitable. ‘In that case I’ll have to go shopping.’
Dante took his wallet from his pocket, pulled out a credit card and pushed it across the table. ‘Take this and buy whatever you need.’
‘Certainly not,’ she said frostily, and pushed the card back to him. ‘I’m not a charity case and I can afford to buy my own clothes.’
He had never met such a proud and prickly woman, Dante mused as he returned the card to his wallet. All the women he knew would have seized the credit card and bought a dozen designer dresses with it, but Rebekah was looking at him with an outraged expression, as if he had suggested selling her grandmother. He felt a flare of irritation but also a grudging respect for her.
She stood up from the table and, as she leaned forwards to pick up his empty plate, his eyes were drawn to the sway of her breasts. His body tautened and, to his surprise, he felt a heady sense of anticipation at the prospect of taking her out tomorrow evening that he had not experienced for a long time.
If her mother knew how much she had paid for the dress she would have a fit, Rebekah thought guiltily the following evening as she got ready to go out with Dante. She still couldn’t quite believe herself that she had spent so much money on an impractical slither of silk that she would probably never have the opportunity to wear again. But she did not regret buying it. She had spent all morning traipsing up and down Oxford Street and had tried on dozens of evening gowns that hadn’t suited her. It had made her realise how much she relied on her chef’s uniform to disguise her unfashionably curvaceous figure.
Finally, as she had been on the brink of giving up and phoning Dante to say she had changed her mind about going to the theatre, a dress displayed in the window of an exclusive boutique in Bond Street had caught her eye. Initially the price tag had put her off, but the shop assistant had persuaded her to try it on.
‘The colour is the exact shade of your eyes,’ the woman had enthused. And so Rebekah had pulled off her jeans in the changing cubicle and stepped into the dress. The assistant had run the zip up her spine, and they had both stared at her reflection in the mirror.
‘It looks quite nice,’ Rebekah had ventured at last, finding it hard to believe that the person in the mirror was actually her.
‘You look absolutely stunning,’ the assistant had assured her. ‘The dress fits so perfectly it could have been made for you.’
It was the first time in her life that she had ever been called stunning, Rebekah had thought wryly, but to her amazement the dress really did suit her. The bodice had some sort of built-in support so that it was not necessary to wear a bra and the low-cut neckline was more daring than anything she had ever worn before. The delicate shoulder straps were decorated with sparkling crystals but, other than that, the dress was a simple sheath of violet silk that caressed her curves like a lover’s hands. Her cheeks had flushed hotly as she had imagined Dante’s hands sliding over the silky dress. But the sensuous material made her feel like a beautiful and sensual woman.
She had bought the dress, and also the silver stiletto sandals and matching purse that had been displayed with it. And, having spent so much money, she had decided to go completely mad, and had visited the beauty salon at Harrods and had an array of treatments that had left her looking and feeling as though she had discarded the dull, tired Rebekah Evans she had been for the last two years and transformed into a new Rebekah who was seductive and self-confident.
Perhaps, when he saw her in the dress, Dante would realise he did not need to feel sorry for her, she thought, remembering her humiliation the previous evening. She made her way carefully up the stairs from the staff apartment in the basement of the house, discovering that walking elegantly in high heels and a long skirt was an art she needed to learn quickly. Her new-found confidence wavered slightly and she hesitated outside the sitting room while she took a deep breath before she opened the door and walked into the room.
Dante was in the process of pouring himself a drink. He had told Rebekah to be ready for seven p.m., but it was only five to and he assumed she would not appear for at least another fifteen minutes. In his experience, women were rarely ready for a date on time.
He glanced round in surprise when he heard the door open and was so astonished at the sight of her that he froze with his glass midway to his lips.
‘Rebekah …?’ His voice deserted him as, for one crazy second, he wondered if the exquisite creature standing across the room was really his chef, who he had only ever seen wearing an unflattering uniform that made her appear as shapeless as a sack of potatoes. She walked towards him, moving with a fluid grace that held him mesmerised. As she came closer he noted that