stiffening when she saw the message. It was Tracy, her mother, who had had her number for over three years and hadn’t once used it, nor had she ever replied to the occasional text Belle had sent.
Belle’s soft mouth tightened, and dismay filled her when she read Tracy’s message. Tracy was in Italy and wanted to meet up with her for a catch-up. Belle frowned, unable to imagine anything they would have to catch up on and wondering how the older woman had even found out that her daughter was in Italy as well. Her frown deepened. After what she had learned from her father, she wanted nothing more to do with her mother, but she shrank from meeting up with her just to tell her that. She texted back an apology and said she was just too busy before getting back into bed, troubled by unpleasant memories of her long-absent parent.
While she was trying to sleep Dante was standing in his office with knotted fists. Once again, he had screwed up with Belle because he hadn’t foreseen her reaction. Women were so sensitive, or, at least, Belle was, reading stuff into gestures that wouldn’t even have occurred to him. He had wanted her to have the money, so that she knew she did not need to feel trapped. He hadn’t wanted to give her that choice, but he had known he should. He didn’t think she would wish to rely on her father for financial help. That relationship was still too new and their past history regarding her mother’s greed too delicate. He wondered how on earth he had ended up with a woman who treated his wealth as though it were something toxic. She was way too keen to turn her back on everything he gave her, determined to ask for and accept nothing. It did not bode well for the future.
* * *
Belle woke up in the morning in an empty bed, a slight dent in the pillow next to hers the only evidence that Dante had joined her late and risen before her. Disturbed that he had kept his distance throughout the night, which would surely give him a new record for restraint, she wondered if the discovery that she was pregnant was already encouraging him to step back from her.
She went down to breakfast, garbed in the prettiest dress she could find in her wardrobe because Krystal was one of those ultrafeminine women who made every female in her radius feel overshadowed. She had expected to see Dante already at the table out on the shaded loggia overlooking the magnificent view of the valley below but the only face that greeted her was Krystal’s.
‘I think I threw the staff into a panic when I came down, but I’ve always been a very early riser,’ Krystal remarked in the friendliest tone Belle had yet heard from her.
The blonde watched as Belle was served with tea and reached for a croissant. ‘I gather you’re not suffering from morning sickness.’
‘Probably not far enough along yet for that and then maybe I won’t get it. The doctor told me that not everyone does,’ Belle responded lightly.
‘Are you hoping that Dante will ask you to marry him?’ Krystal asked baldly.
‘No, my mind doesn’t work that way. I’m very independent,’ Belle fielded smoothly.
‘That’s fortunate, with Dante being so anti-marriage. He’s a total commitment-phobe, which is why I moved on,’ Krystal declared with a little shudder of her slight shoulders, implying that her relationship with him had been of a longer duration than it had been. ‘Of course, with his history, what can you expect? His brother was badgered practically from birth to marry and produce an heir for the family, and now that he’s gone, Dante’s expected to take on the responsibility...and he’s always sworn that he will never marry or have a child.’
‘Yes,’ Belle agreed quietly as if nothing the blonde had told her was news to her. But she was faking it because she hadn’t made that connection between Dante’s background, his brother’s passing and Dante’s strong aversion to commitment or having a child. No, she hadn’t put it together for herself even though she had had almost all the facts. After his childhood, the very last thing he would want to do was fulfil his parents’ fondest wish and continue the family gene pool. Luckily for Belle, however, she had not once dreamt of Dante proposing marriage and had not even considered that unlikely event.
‘But couples don’t marry these days simply because there’s a child on the way,’ Belle pointed out, amused when Krystal’s eyes hardened at her lack of reaction.
Dante appeared then with Eddie. Apparently, Eddie had wanted a tour of the palazzo and the estate. A helicopter awaited their trip, and as Dante lifted her into the craft, Belle had cause to regret a choice of clothing that was impractical. Before very long, however, she had something more pressing to worry about. While Eddie was enthusing over the hundreds of unspoilt Tuscan acres he had bought up and urging the two women to properly appreciate the spectacular views, Belle was discovering that the motion of the helicopter made her feel queasy and she was finding it a struggle not to be sick.
Her legs wobbly, Belle got out of the helicopter and merely sought the nearest cover to conceal her weakness. She darted behind a concealing tree and was horribly sick. A supportive hand tugged her hair out of the way and stroked her back.
‘You turned green while we were in the air. I knew you were ill,’ Dante admitted. ‘But I thought it better not to mention it...’
Her head swimming, Belle leant back against his lean, powerful body for momentary support. ‘How’s the deal coming along?’ she whispered, desperate to take his mind off what she had just done.
‘Eddie wants to sell the whole lot to me, not only Cristiano’s piece. I’ve agreed,’ Dante said succinctly. ‘I’ll turn the majority of it into a nature reserve, but I’ll keep my brother’s woods private.’
‘It’s a lovely way to remember him,’ Belle murmured softly.
‘On the way back we’re being dropped off at the cabin. I want you to see it,’ Dante told her. ‘We can drive home from there, so you won’t have to fly again.’
And there he was once more, being considerate when she least expected it, Belle thought painfully, resting her clammy brow against his shirt front, fighting to muster the courage to detach herself from him when she so badly wanted to cling. She breathed in the rich familiar scent of cologne and husky male and the combination made her head swim with longing. Of course, Dante would be in a good mood with Eddie having agreed to sell the land to him. He had got what he wanted out of their arrangement even if he hadn’t got what he wanted when it came to Belle. There was no way Dante could want their unplanned child. He had always been honest with her but now he would feel forced to prevaricate, for he could hardly admit the truth.
And she hadn’t admitted her own truths either, had she? Belle scolded herself as she joined their guests to admire the fabulous landscape from the hilltop. She tried to pinpoint the exact moment when she had fallen headlong in love with Dante. It had begun in Paris, long before she had even seen that her heart was at risk; it had begun when he opened up and told her about his brother and his family. Slowly but surely, she had begun to see that, much like her, Dante had not received the love he’d needed as a child and, because of that, he shied away from any hint of that emotion, automatically distrusting it.
Belle’s grandparents had loved her, but as she’d grown up she had felt increasingly guilty that her mother’s lack of interest had meant that her grandparents were forced to raise a child in their retirement years. Dante had only known his sibling’s love and, without being shown love, it was hard to trust enough to feel love. Yet for Belle, the more she had learned about Dante, the more she had loved him. It had been a slippery slope she’d raced naïvely down at dangerous speed, intimacy making her feel deceptively close to him when she wasn’t because he didn’t return her feelings.
* * *
Krystal
