you were paying her to do, which is more than you can say for most of the entitled women we both know,’ Steve pointed out levelly. ‘It would be a simple hire-and-fire situation but I’m not sure she would go for it. I hear she can be a bit of a hothead.’
Dante said nothing because he collided with the eyes of the woman coming to serve them. Yes, the eyes were big and they were a sparkling, unusually dark blue that verged on violet, very noticeable against that ivory freckled skin of hers.
While Belle was on her break she had watched the two men walk in from the car park. Everyone knew Steve, the British owner of the restaurant, a friendly and unassuming man in spite of his wealth and success as an award-winning architect with a string of international offices. Steve was also an unashamed family man with four beautiful kids and an even more beautiful Spanish wife, but his guest was as physically different from him as night was from day.
He was very tall, lean and powerful in build and he moved with the lithe precision of a man very much at home with his own body. His luxuriant wind-tousled black hair, falling almost long enough to touch his broad shoulders, blew back in the breeze, accentuating his hard, sculpted features. Even in jeans and an open-necked shirt, he was as sleekly magnificent as a black panther, physically beautiful in a wild, natural way and probably equally dangerous.
Several women peered out from the bar to admire his progress. Belle went back inside to do her job, silently listening as the bartender, a keen user of social media and a business student, identified the stranger as Dante Lucarelli. Evidently, he was some mega-rich Italian, a tycoon in the field of renewable energy. She walked over to serve Steve and his guest and as the Italian glanced up at her from beneath long black curling lashes that were wickedly wasted on a member of the male sex, she collided with vibrant dark golden eyes. For a terrifying split second, she froze as if a detonator had gone off inside her and her whole body burned as if he had set her on fire.
Flushed and filled with discomfiture, she took their drink orders and hastened back to the bar to fill them. She shouldn’t have looked at him, shouldn’t have looked anywhere near him, she scolded herself fiercely. He was extraordinarily good-looking and he knew it. Of course he did. Nobody saw a face like that in a mirror every day and failed to notice its lack of flaws and, even if he didn’t look in mirrors much, every woman under sixty was studying him with appreciation and he could hardly be unaware of the amount of attention he attracted.
Belle’s face was red and she hated that she couldn’t stop that rush of self-conscious colour that turned her the colour of an overripe tomato. It embarrassed her as much at the age of twenty-two as it had when she had been at school and the butt of unkind jokes. Diminutive in height, red-haired, freckled, as well as overly endowed in the chest category, she had been very, very low on the cool scale of popularity at school.
Dante was hugely amused by the top-to-toe blush that had enveloped Belle. When had he last seen a woman blush? He could not remember, but then he didn’t make the mistake of associating blushing with either shyness or innocence. He was much more inclined to link it to sexual attraction and awareness. He was accustomed to women looking at him and wanting him. After all, it had been happening since he was sixteen, when he had lost his virginity to one of his mother’s friends, his rebellion after being confronted by his mother’s extramarital fling. At the age of twenty-eight, he took it for granted that ninety-nine out of a hundred women would say yes to sharing his bed if he asked. And rarely did he even have to ask. Sex was frequently offered to Dante on a plate and without the smallest encouragement.
Belle delivered the drinks without once looking in Dante’s direction and that overheated feeling in her body began mercifully to fade, allowing her to breathe again. It was normal to notice an attractive man, she soothed herself, and it wasn’t her fault that she blushed fire-engine red. Just an unfortunate fact of life and she needed to learn to deal with it, as she had learned to deal with so many other unfortunate facts.
Predictably, her mind strayed back to the bad luck that seemed to thread through almost every wrong decision she made. She had been born to a woman who didn’t want her, and a father who wanted nothing to do with her and told her so without embarrassment. Her grandmother, Sadie, had told her that that lack of interest was her parents’ problem and not something that Belle should take personally. Her grandparents had loved her, she recalled with a prickling sensation behind her eyes, but her gran and grandad were both gone now and thinking about their loss only made Belle feel sad because it reminded her all over again that she was alone in the world with nobody and nothing to fall back on when things went wrong. And in France, things had gone very, very wrong for Belle.
Dante studied Belle as she moved round the bar, striving to imagine her dressed in haute couture, and that was a challenge when for some juvenile reason his brain only wanted to picture her naked. Clearly, a new wardrobe would make her infinitely more presentable but, of course, she would have to stop biting her nails. Such a disgusting habit, he reflected with distaste.
‘What’s she doing in France?’ he asked Steve carelessly, angling his chin in Belle’s direction.
‘I only know local gossip. Word is she came out here about three years ago as a housekeeper/ companion for an elderly English widow living in the village. The widow’s family hired her in London and left her to sink or swim as the old lady drifted into dementia. Eventually the local doctor got a little help for her but Belle was basically left to struggle.’
Dante slanted up an ebony brow. ‘She sounds like an idiot. Why didn’t she just walk out and go home when the job got too much for her?’
Steve frowned. ‘She was attached to the old lady by then and didn’t want to let her down or abandon her.’
‘How did she end up working here, in the bar?’
‘The widow had a heart attack and died and as soon as the funeral was over, her family sold her house and left Belle homeless and without sufficient money to get home on. They also threw out the old lady’s dog...Charlie,’ Steve murmured as a small raggedy mutt badly in need of grooming nudged up against his leg for attention before moving on to eagerly greet another regular customer, who was more likely to offer him food.
Dante paid no heed to the dog, his attention resting on his friend. ‘And then?’
‘The guy who rents this place offered Belle an old campervan to live in. It’s parked in the overflow car park behind the trees and she and the dog moved in. Then he gave her a job here.’
‘So, she’s pretty much one of life’s losers,’ Dante surmised without surprise. ‘I’m more into winners.’
‘But losers are undoubtedly easier and less demanding to negotiate with,’ Steve remarked with cynical acceptance. ‘And when have you ever been shy about profiting from other people’s misfortunes?’
Dante grinned. ‘Being ruthless is in my genes.’
‘Except when it came to your brother. I lost count of the times you dragged Cristiano out of trouble,’ Steve murmured, unimpressed. ‘And you say you’re not sentimental and yet look at the lengths you’re willing to go to, simply to buy that woodland back.’
