‘It’ll be like winning the lottery,’ she whispered helplessly.
‘No, I’m the lottery you have apparently won,’ Dante contradicted. ‘Start getting into that role. What I’m willing to pay you will merely be pocket change when compared to the life you would lead living with me.’
‘The pocket change wins though,’ Belle told him. ‘I think living with you will be a real challenge.’
Dante ignored that comment, rising above the temptation to inform her that having any woman living below his roof and invading his cherished privacy would be a punishment for him. ‘I’ll have travelling arrangements made for the dog and I’ll pick you up tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ she echoed, blinking in surprise. ‘That soon?’
‘We haven’t got time to waste and you can’t have much to pack. Give me your phone number,’ Dante instructed. ‘I’ll text you to let you know when we’re leaving.’
As Dante cleared the steps down into the car park in a couple of strides to head back to his motorbike, Belle was left in a total daze. She went back to setting tables because she couldn’t quite accept that she was leaving the restaurant and that her life could change so suddenly. On the score of packing, Dante had hit the nail on the head because she had very few possessions and an even smaller collection of clothing, she conceded. Though she would give Charlie a bath and a good brush to ensure that he looked his smartest and that he wasn’t mistaken for some unloved and neglected stray. She would also have to thoroughly clean the campervan and pass the key back to her boss.
* * *
When Dante arrived to collect Belle the following morning she was in floods of tears over parting with the dog and the pet transporters his PA had organised were hovering beside their van, reluctant to step in and hurry matters along. Fortunately, Dante had no such inhibitions.
‘Say goodbye to the dog, Belle,’ Dante told her. ‘It’s only for a few days.’
‘He’s scared,’ Belle whispered shakily. ‘He’s never been in a cage before.’
‘Put him in the cage. How are you planning to get him into the UK?’ Dante enquired. ‘Presumably at some point of the journey he will have to tolerate a cage. This will be good practice for him.’
Charlie went into the cage and cowered at the back of it like a dog expecting to be beaten. Stifling a sob, Belle handed over the paperwork Charlie had arrived in France with two years earlier. ‘He looks so pathetic,’ she muttered wretchedly.
‘Yes, he’s feeling very sorry for himself,’ Dante agreed, thinking that Charlie should be onstage because he certainly knew how to work an audience. ‘But you’ll be reunited very soon. Pull yourself together.’
Belatedly, Belle registered that Dante looked very different. No longer casually clad in jeans, he sported an exquisitely tailored dark grey business suit that showcased his tall broad, narrow-hipped physique to perfection. Staring for a moment longer than she was comfortable with, she hurriedly twisted her head away. ‘I am perfectly together. I was just upset,’ she proclaimed defensively.
‘Crying in public is not acceptable unless you’re attending a funeral or a wedding. Saying goodbye momentarily to a dog is not a good enough excuse,’ Dante informed her as her single bag was dropped in the capacious boot of the car and the driver yanked open the passenger door for them.
‘S-sorry,’ Belle said in a wobbly voice, turning her tear-stained face away from him as she climbed into the opulent car.
The car ferried them at speed to Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, where they were rushed through the VIP channel at speed to board Dante’s private jet. Eyes wide from her first glimpse of the opulent oyster-coloured leather seating and the sumptuous interior, Belle accepted the pile of high-fashion magazines the stewardess brought to her and tried not to stare while the same woman flirted madly with Dante with loads of hair flicking, smiles and a provocative wriggle in her too-tight pencil skirt that would’ve caught the attention of a dead man. Dante, however, remained remarkably untouched by the display and flipped open a laptop to work. Belle wondered if women always vied for his attention so blatantly and then asked herself why she was even interested.
He was a breathtakingly handsome guy, rich and sophisticated, as alien to her as snow in the summer heat. Her hormones went all out of kilter around him and she felt uncomfortable in her own body as it betrayed her in ways she hadn’t expected. It had never occurred to her before that she could be attracted to someone she didn’t like, that a mere flashing glance from tigerish dark golden eyes could make her breasts swell and her nipples tighten and a hot dull ache blossom at the junction of her thighs. That weakness was a revelation because it was new to her, but it wasn’t something that particularly worried her.
She was convinced that she would never give way to that kind of temptation because she was painfully aware that sex meant very little unless it was accompanied by genuine feelings. None of her mother’s many affairs had lasted or cured Tracy’s essential dissatisfaction with her life. And Belle wanted much more for herself than a fleeting sexual thrill or a luxurious lifestyle. She wanted love, a man who would make her feel whole and safe, and when she finally found him, she would have a family with him, recreating the family she had both lost and never really had, she thought fondly. He wouldn’t be a commitment-phobe like Dante, who saw women as clingy and probably didn’t like children much more than he liked dogs. He would be an ordinary guy, willing to settle down when he met someone who made him happy.
‘Have you ever been to Paris before?’ Dante asked, watching Belle peer out of the limo windows like a child on a school trip, afraid of missing out on a single sight.
‘No.’
‘And yet you’ve been in France for...how long?’
‘Almost three years.’
‘Why didn’t you travel around?’
‘I couldn’t leave Mrs Devenish or Charlie to look after themselves and, to be honest, I never really had enough money to go off exploring.’
‘Then why did you lumber yourself with a dog into the bargain?’ Dante enquired drily.
‘He wasn’t mine initially. Mrs Devenish’s niece brought Charlie out here as a gift for her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t well enough to look after a puppy, but she did enjoy seeing him round the house,’ Belle confided ruefully. ‘She was a lovely old lady but her relatives didn’t want to accept that she was ill. They liked coming out here in the summer for their holidays and they insisted that I was exaggerating her condition. It took the doctor to convince them otherwise and by that stage, as it turned out, she only had a few more weeks to live.’
‘You need to learn how to stand up for yourself more effectively,’ Dante censured.
Belle shrugged. ‘Only if you can afford to take the consequences and I had neither another job to go to nor anywhere else to live.’
‘You shouldn’t have put yourself in that position.’
‘Haven’t I just done the same thing again with you?’
Dante frowned at her in bemusement. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, I don’t have an employment contract or any safeguards with you either...and you’ve now got Charlie to hold over me,’ she pointed out, lifting her chin.
‘You can’t think I’m likely to hold Charlie hostage? Or ditch you in Paris without money?’ Dante breathed in a raw undertone, insulted beyond belief by her suspicions.
‘Isn’t that what I’m saying?’ Belle murmured gently. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. I’ve had to take the risk of trusting you.’
Dante