was always very cagey about giving me any details about him. His name was on my birth certificate though. She told my grandparents that he was a deadbeat dad. She visited us when I was thirteen and she was in a real rage about Alastair refusing to pay for something and accidentally dropped a few details about where he worked,’ Belle divulged. ‘I faked being sick at school so that I could get out and I caught the train into London to track him down. I was curious...’ Her voice died away, her face shuttering.
‘Of course you were. And?’
‘I’ll explain his side of the story, which I only got tonight, because I don’t want you thinking too badly of him,’ Belle continued and, while she washed her hair, she told him about her mother’s greedy con tricks and threats and her father’s marriage.
‘I get that he would be hostile after she put him through all that,’ Dante conceded grimly. ‘But how did he treat you when you first met him?’
‘He seemed to think that I was there looking for money from him, which I couldn’t understand because I didn’t know then that the money Tracy gave my grandparents came from him and, of course, she was only giving them a tiny part of it. He said he didn’t want a daughter, that I was a...a mistake who had cost him a fortune and that he had no interest in having a relationship with me,’ Belle told him shakily as Dante urged her back to the bedroom where the late supper he had ordered for them already awaited them.
‘You were a thirteen-year-old,’ Dante remarked curtly. ‘That was inexcusable.’
‘I was devastated.’ Belle shook her head in troubled recollection, her eyes hollow. ‘I’d worked out by then that my mother had no natural affection for me, but for my father to be even colder and reject me completely was even worse.’
‘I’m beginning to wish I had punched him hard,’ Dante confessed grittily. ‘I don’t care how rough a time he had dealing with your mother. You were still his daughter and once he had first-hand knowledge of what a horror your mother was, he should’ve been checking up on your welfare, not putting his wife first, not keeping you a dirty secret, not blaming you for your mother’s greed.’
‘What does it matter? It’s all water under the bridge now,’ Belle reasoned ruefully. ‘I’m willing to give him a chance. I don’t have any other family, Dante...’
‘And if you can give me a second chance,’ Dante contended reluctantly, ‘I can scarcely argue about you giving him one as well. At least he’s finally got around to telling his wife about you.’
‘Yes, that was a relief,’ Belle agreed sleepily, setting down her empty cup and snuggling into him.
She was a snuggler. That was not Dante’s style.
He let her sleep before peeling her out of her towelling robe and setting her back below the sheets on her own side of the bed. Ten minutes later she was back snuggling against him and he heaved a sigh, finally and grudgingly acknowledging that he had begun to slide superfast into a relationship of the kind he had always avoided and that he still didn’t know how that had happened.
On the other hand, he had Belle back in his bed and wasn’t that enough? It was the best sex he had ever had, and clearly, it had brought out a possessive, jealous streak in him that he also hadn’t known he had. She wouldn’t want him to tell her that, but it was the truth, he reflected as he took stock. He liked her, which was more than he could say for most of his former lovers. She made him laugh. He was even learning to tolerate Charlie, currently stretched out and dead to the world below the bed.
But he didn’t do love and he was never going to do love and yet love, he sensed, was what she would want from him. Did she even grasp that love wasn’t something he could pull out of a hat and flourish like a white rabbit? He didn’t have that capacity any more. That ability had died in him. He had loved his parents when he was very young. He had loved nannies who’d departed without even saying goodbye. And with the single exception of his brother, Cristiano, he had taught himself not to become emotionally invested in anything or anybody because loving always, always led to betrayal or bitter disillusionment.
* * *
The following morning, Belle awaited her father’s arrival, full of nervous tension.
‘So, what do I say to him if he asks about us?’ she pressed Dante uncertainly over the breakfast table. ‘I mean, he’s almost certain to ask. How do I describe us? What do I tell him?’
Black hair gleaming in the sunshine, Dante gave one of his fatalistic shrugs, a flawless fluid movement. ‘There isn’t a label, a definitive word. Whirlwind romance? Casual? That you’ll be back in London and easily able to see more of him soon enough?’ he suggested lazily.
Belle dropped her attention to the pristine tablecloth, her complexion slowly turning the same shade of white. Her stomach lurched with nausea. In a handful of words, he had crushed her expectations and she felt as though he had removed an entire layer of skin from her shrinking body. Casual? Even after he had said that they would be exploring where their relationship took them? Evidently, it wasn’t going to take them very far.
He saw her returning to London, exiting his home and his life much faster than she had naïvely envisaged. He saw no sort of a future for them. She had seriously misinterpreted his words the night before, had read into them so much more than he intended. Her heart sank.
DANTE PACED THE elegant waiting room like a caged tiger while Belle averted her attention from him. It didn’t help that he looked hauntingly beautiful, even in a blue shirt and jeans, smooth and sleek and sexy enough to attract the eye of every woman they came into contact with, from passers-by on the street to the receptionist who greeted them, to the nurse who dealt with them.
She was praying that the test would come back negative and that she would not be pregnant. When her life felt as though it was on the edge of falling apart, what else could she hope for? Certainly, she didn’t feel she had the right to want to be carrying Dante’s child when he so obviously didn’t want her to be.
Her period was only two days late, she reminded herself, but she knew the basic symptoms of pregnancy and her breasts were unusually tender and swollen. She linked her hands tightly together on her lap, wishing that Dante would quell his apprehension and sit down.
A week had passed since her father had visited her at the palazzo. Father and daughter had got on very well, but Alastair Stevenson had admitted his concern that she was living in an uncommitted relationship. His questions had made it impossible to avoid telling him the truth. He had also agreed that she was an adult and that it was really none of his business, but it had been obvious that his conviction that she was likely to be hurt had overcome his tact. He had said nothing to her, however, that Belle had not already said to herself.
Belle was painfully aware that when it came to Dante, she had been naïve, impulsive and far too keen to believe what she wanted to believe. Over the past seven days, however, she had coped simply by ignoring the situation. Dante had made his intentions clear and she had to handle that as best she could. It was ironic that he had been incredibly considerate and attentive since he had demolished the ground beneath her feet. Of course, he was probably practising the couple pretence for his guests, Eddie and Krystal, due to arrive that very evening for dinner. Belle was dreading their arrival because she would have to monitor
