about the meeting?’
‘Yes…of course. It’s just that she—’
‘Then she should be here on time, like everyone else.’
His chastising glance encompassed them all, but Dante nonetheless tempered it with a trace of a smile. He heard the door behind him open and turned expectantly. A woman with hair the same hue as a bright russet apple stepped inside, bringing with her the faint but stirring scent of oranges and patchouli.
His thoughts careened to an abrupt halt…like a driver applying the emergency brake before hitting a wall. He stared in shock. Anna…dear God, she still worked here?
‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she breathed, porcelain skin flushing. ‘I was—’
The startled leap in her sherry-brown eyes told Dante she recognised him. His heart—which had all but stalled—pumped a little harder as he realised he’d been genuinely afraid she might have forgotten him. What a blow that would have been to his pride, when out of all the women he’d seen over the years she was the one that haunted him…
‘Mr Romano,’ Grant Cathcart was saying, ‘I’d like to introduce you to our stalwart assistant manager…Anna Bailey.’
Rising automatically to his feet, Dante extended his hand, praying hard that his voice wouldn’t desert him. Anna’s palm was fragile and slightly chilled as it slid into his. Their gazes locked as though magnetized, and though he sensed her tremble, inside he believed that he trembled more.
‘Miss Bailey…I’m very pleased to meet you,’ he heard himself announce.
‘The feeling is mutual, Mr—Mr Romano,’ she replied politely.
Her warm velvet voice bathed his senses in liquid honey. Arresting memories of their unforgettable night together came pouring back in a disturbing heated rush. Realising that his hand still covered hers, Dante reluctantly withdrew it.
‘Why don’t you come and sit down, Anna love? ‘ Anita invited. ‘There’s plenty of coffee in the pot if you’d like some.’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Anna murmured distractedly.
As Dante watched her, she moved like a sleepwalker to a seat at the opposite side of the table, next to Jason, and he didn’t miss the spark of warmth in the other man’s dark eyes as he silently acknowledged her. Was something going on there? A hot flash of jealousy hit Dante a glancing blow as he resumed his seat.
‘Well, if everybody’s ready, we’ll make a start, shall we? ‘ With a respectful glance in their visitor’s direction, Grant Cathcart organised his notes and prepared to address the meeting.
Dante Romano. No wonder she’d never been able to find him! What had instigated the name-change? she wondered. Underneath, was he still as ruthless and cutthroat as it had said in the newspaper reports she’d read when she’d been searching for him? But what did it matter when it had already been decided by the Cathcarts that he was going to be their saviour?
As well as investing a substantial amount of money in the Mirabelle, Dante Romano was taking the hotel, its owners and its staff firmly under his wing. Being satisfied that Anita and Grant were completely happy with the arrangement was one thing. Only time would tell if Anna would be equally happy. There was a very big—in fact a huge hurdle she had to cross before then.
Shaking her head, she emitted a small groan as she added chopped up red and green peppers to the stir-fry she was busy cooking for herself and Tia.
She’d half believed she was hallucinating when she’d walked into the office to find Dan, or Dante as he called himself now, sitting there. And she’d had such a jolt when his incredible winter-coloured eyes had bored into hers. In those electrifying few seconds the world could have ended, and she hadn’t been able to drag her hypnotised gaze away.
Five years ago she’d never even asked him his full name. When he’d asked her to stay with him for the night but not to expect anything more she’d agreed—and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t speculate on where he would go or what he would do when he left her, even if it ultimately meant he was going from her arms to someone else’s.
Consoling herself that she’d helped comfort him in his hour of need, and that no matter how emotionally painful it was it would have to be enough, Anna had never intended to try and track him down afterwards. But when she’d found herself pregnant with his child she’d reasoned that she owed it to him to let him know. However, discovering that the suite’s occupant Dan Masterson was a veritable ‘shark’ in the world of international business, who didn’t care who he brought down in his empire-building quest, had definitely given her pause. He might have been tender with Anna that night they’d spent together, and he might have been troubled, but could she knowingly risk inflicting such a driven ruthless man on her child?
She’d decided no, she couldn’t. Besides, she’d definitely received the impression from her one-night lover that he wasn’t interested in a relationship, so why would he be interested in the fact that he’d left his one-time-only lover pregnant? she’d reasoned.
Leading up to that night five years ago she’d been working so hard, what with all the different jobs she did at the hotel—sometimes even working double shifts back to back—and because she’d been extremely tired, she’d absent-mindedly forgotten to take one of her daily contraceptive pills. It had only dawned on Anna to check when early-morning nausea had become a worrying recurrence.
Some months after Tia had been born she’d revised her decision not to get in touch with Dan and decided to try once more to locate him. It had been as though he had vanished. The only information about him she’d been able to glean was stuff from the past. There had been nothing to indicate what he was doing nearly eighteen months after they’d met.
From the living room came the delighted chuckle of her small daughter as she knocked down the building blocks she’d had as a toddler that she’d been happily shaping into a wobbling tower for the past ten minutes or so. A wave of sadness and terror deluged her mother all at once. What would Dan—or Dante, as she should call him now—think when he found out that their passionate night together all those years ago had made him a father? How poignant that he hadn’t had the privilege of knowing his own delightful daughter. Anna had no doubt that it would have enhanced his life in a myriad different ways. But what could she have done when it had seemed as though he didn’t exist any more?
With genuine regret she squeezed her eyes shut, then quickly opened them again. Her terror came from the fact that she knew he was a very rich and influential man indeed—rich enough to invest in a major share of the hotel that was the means of her employment and her place to live. How would it reflect on Anna if Dante’s was the controlling share? What if he decided she wasn’t up to her job—or, worse still, that he wanted to try and take Tia away from her? A man as wealthy as him must have access to all kinds of power…particularly legal power.
Abruptly switching off the burner beneath the wooden-handled wok, Anna wrapped her arms protectively round her middle as she crossed the tiled kitchen floor to examine the collage of baby and toddler photographs of Tia that were framed on the wall there. Behind her, the suddenly ringing telephone made her jump.
‘Hello?’
‘Anna? It’s me—Dante. I’m still in the hotel. You rushed off rather quickly after the meeting and I think we need to talk. I believe you
