‘Is that in the interests of making our engagement believable or out of a genuine need to know more about the mother of your child?’ He’d caught her off-guard with his callous disregard for her feelings and she’d risen to the challenge he’d inadvertently given. They would never be a real couple, but he would always be her child’s father, and she intended to remind him of that duty as often as possible.
‘Such attention to detail is necessary whatever the reason.’ He slowed the car and turned off the main road onto a narrower road which twisted through a small and sleepy village before heading out into the countryside once more. ‘This weekend will be make or break after months of negotiations between myself and D’Antonio. He has also invited Gianni Paolini, my rival in this deal, so I fully intend to use our newly announced engagement and the baby to maximum benefit.’
The tension of several hours in the car with Dante, being excruciatingly aware of every move he made, got the better of her and she couldn’t help but continue to aim for irritation. ‘And by that you mean I shouldn’t elaborate on what I know about you, but paint a very different picture?’
‘It is what we agreed, Piper.’
He swung the car into a driveway lined with mature cypress trees and, knowing he was right, she looked away just in time to see a large villa come into view.
‘That’s so beautiful...’ she breathed, more to herself than to Dante.
‘It pleases me to hear you say that,’ he said as he stopped the car outside the old stone villa. ‘This is where I come to get away from everything. Except for this weekend, it is the one place I am able to completely relax. Bettino D’Antonio has recently bought a villa in the next village, which he intends to use during the winter months, and despite the fact I’d rather not conduct business from here, it suits me well.’
Dante got out of the car and she watched him walk around the front of its sleek black bonnet. He looked up at the villa as he did so and briefly she thought she saw his face relax, as if this was a place where he truly was at home.
When he opened her door she slid round in the seat and tried to get out in as elegant a fashion as the tight-fitting skirt would allow. She failed miserably, if the raising of his brows was anything to go by, as her skirt rucked up, exposing her legs. With a wicked and suggestive expression on his face he held out his hand to her and helped her out of the low car.
‘I have arranged for lunch to be served on the terrace. We can talk further on things we should know about each other, and after that you should rest before this evening’s dinner.’
Piper didn’t know if she wanted to talk to Dante at all. She had no wish to share her past with a man who cared for nothing other than getting the next deal. But if he did get that deal she would have honoured her side of their bargain. Would he then keep his promise and be there for his child? She was in no doubt that her son or daughter would not have the kind of relationship she’d had with her own father—the kind that had driven her to board a plane for Rome, convinced she was doing the right thing to seek Dante out. She hadn’t wanted to deny her child the chance to have what she’d had, but as each day passed she was more certain than ever that Dante was nothing like her father.
‘If we are going to convince people that we are engaged for real then I suppose we do have to at least know a little of each other.’
She followed him into the villa, taking in the luxurious interior. It looked far more like a home than the sleek modern style of his Rome apartment, and her curiosity was aroused by the paintings and antiques she glimpsed.
Dante opened two doors which led out onto a terrace covered in wisteria that would be beautiful in the summer. ‘We are engaged for real, no?’
The tone of his voice left her in no doubt that he was taunting her—and enjoying it.
No, they weren’t. If it was for real she would be helplessly in love with him, and he would definitely be in love with her. She couldn’t deny there was an attraction, but it wasn’t love. Was it?
‘Not in the true sense of the word, no. We are not in love.’
‘But to look as if we are in love is what we have agreed on, cara, is it not?’
‘For very different reasons, yes, it is.’
‘Then I suggest we relax and enjoy our meal and the winter sunshine Tuscany has to offer before making sure it does appear to anyone we meet that ours is very much a real engagement.’
He sat at the table, looking far too relaxed and comfortable with the whole situation, whereas she was nothing but jumbled nerves. Was that the deal she’d struck with Dante, or the man himself? She couldn’t even consider the answer to that question.
* * *
‘You look tired,’ Dante said as he sat back.
The sought-after calm that usually settled over him after arriving in Tuscany wasn’t quite so easy to come by today, but then he’d never been here to do business before—and that business had never been so important or so wanted. He had to win this contract, and it was that sentiment, together with the way the charity would view him, that had forced him to accept that Benjamin’s suggestion of settling down was the answer to many issues—including, it seemed, a night of amazing but careless sex with a gorgeous redhead he hadn’t even bothered exchanging names with.
‘I am a little tired. Can we sort these things out now, so I can rest before taking a shower?’ She pushed her hair behind her ear and looked at him, the vivid green of her eyes holding a hint of unease.
He pushed aside the guilt that he was making her uncomfortable and tried to banish the image which had suddenly sprung to mind of her in the shower. It wouldn’t do to think of her naked beneath jets of water—not when he knew just how amazing she looked naked.
‘When and where we met will remain the same—at least there is little chance of getting that wrong. However, we will say we have been seeing each other secretly since.’ Briskness crept into his voice as he set out all that was supposed to have happened between them.
‘Why secretly?’ Her delicate brows furrowed in genuine confusion, making her look every bit as innocent as she had been—unknown to him—before he took her to his hotel room in London.
‘To protect you from press attention, of course—except that it didn’t go according to plan, as the Celebrity Spy! article will prove, giving me the perfect opportunity to refute its claims.’
‘And where will these meetings have taken place?’ She spoke in an efficient manner and might have been conducting a business meeting.
‘London and Rome. What do you like doing? Where would you have wanted to go?
She looked at him, the hardness in her eyes softening slightly. ‘Art galleries.’
‘Art? I had no idea.’ He was genuinely surprised, but couldn’t allow himself to get sidetracked now.
‘Why should you have? Neither of us expected the night we shared to become anything more than one night. We didn’t even exchange names.’
She strolled across the terrace, folding her arms about her as if trying to keep every detail about herself protected from him. He watched as she stood and looked out across the rise and fall of
