At Dante's Service (7 page)

How on earth had she fooled herself into thinking he had a softer side? She must have imagined the element of tenderness she’d thought she had sensed when he had made love to her last night. Had sex with her, she amended. There had been nothing loving about it. She was infuriated by his arrogance and more than anything she wished she could tell him to go to hell.

But the stark truth was that she had no choice but to honour the terms of her contract. She would have to accompany him to Tuscany if she was to have any hope of finding a job in the future, Rebekah acknowledged heavily. She did not want to risk Dante ruining her chance of working for Gaspard Clavier.

She lifted her chin and said with cool dignity, ‘Very well, I will work out my month’s notice in Tuscany. But I want to make it clear that I will go there on a strictly professional basis as your chef.’

‘Is that so?’ Dante reached out and idly wound a strand of her long hair around his finger, but his indolent air was deceptive and the feral gleam in his eyes sent a frisson of nervous excitement down her spine.

Before she could guess his intention, he gripped the hem of her shirt and whipped it over her head.

‘How
dare
you?’ Breathing hard, her temper boiling over, Rebekah’s hand flew to his face. But he caught her wrist before she could strike him and held her firmly while he moved his other hand behind her and deftly unfastened her bra so that her breasts spilled free.

‘You are gorgeous.’

Dante’s voice dropped to a husky growl that caused the tiny hairs on Rebekah’s body to stand on end. She realised as she watched the sudden flare of colour on his cheekbones that he was no more in control of the
situation than she was. And somehow that made her feel better, made her less ashamed of her attraction to him, because although she hated herself for her weakness she could not deny her longing for him to make love to her again.

He stroked her nipples and rolled them between his fingers until they hardened and tingled. ‘Stop fighting me,
mia bellezza
, and let me make love to you,’ he murmured, his breath warm on her skin, his tongue darting out to lick one tight bud so that it swelled in urgent response.

A quiver of anticipation ran through Rebekah. But, as Dante trailed a line of kisses along her collarbone, she was conscious of a different, altogether more unpleasant sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knew the headache she’d woken with was her body’s reaction to the alcohol she had unwittingly consumed at the party, and now a feeling of nausea swept over her.

‘Dante …’ she muttered, turning her head away as he was about to claim her mouth.

‘No more games,
cara
.’ He did not try to hide his impatience.

‘I’m not playing games,’ she gasped, fighting the churning sensation inside her. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

With a strength born of desperation, she pulled out of his arms and flew out of the kitchen and down the stairs to her apartment on the basement level.

Ten minutes later, she emerged from her bathroom to find Dante sitting on the end of her bed.

‘That’s not the reaction I usually get from women,’ he said drily.

‘Please go away.’ A glance in the mirror told her she looked even worse than she felt and the knowledge compounded
her humiliation. She was just thankful she had pulled her dressing gown around her half-naked body.

Dante stood up from the bed as she sank weakly onto it, but he remained in the room, looking unfairly gorgeous with a shadow of dark stubble shading his jaw and his hair falling onto his brow. His eyes narrowed on her white face and there was a faint note of concern in his voice.

‘Are you ill?’

Rebekah shook her head wearily. ‘No, I just react badly to alcohol, even small amounts. I wasn’t drunk last night.’ She flushed as she recalled how Dante had insisted she had known exactly what she was doing when she had slept with him. ‘But my body sometimes reacts badly to alcohol, and I’ll continue being sick until all traces of it have gone.’

She had barely finished speaking when another wave of nausea sent her running back into the en suite bathroom. It was so unglamorous—she couldn’t imagine what Dante must think of her. On the plus side, she thought as the sickness finally passed and she splashed her face with cold water, she had probably killed his desire for her stone-dead. Surely he wasn’t seriously expecting her to go to Tuscany with him?

When she staggered back to the bedroom she saw that he had placed a jug of water by the bed and drawn back the covers.

‘You had better try and sleep it off. How long do you think it will be before the sickness passes and you can travel?’

‘I expect I’ll be fine in twenty-four hours,’ she admitted wearily.

Dante unearthed her nightdress from beneath her
pillow and handed it to her. ‘Come on, get into bed,’ he urged, frowning when she simply stood there.

‘I’ll get changed once you’ve gone,’ she muttered, faint colour stealing into her white face.

‘It’s a bit late now for modesty,’ he said drily, but he turned around and she quickly slipped off her dressing gown and trousers and pulled the nightgown over her head.

‘Can I get you anything? Something to eat, perhaps?’ he asked, walking back over to the bed.

Rebekah grimaced as the queasy sensation returned when she lay down. ‘Not in this lifetime,’ she said with feeling.

‘Poor
cara
.’

She tensed as Dante drew the bedcovers over her. The unexpected note of tenderness in his voice was the last straw. She hadn’t expected him to be kind. She felt weak and wobbly and silly tears filled her eyes. The prospect of spending a month in Tuscany with him filled her with foreboding. How would she cope with her infatuation with him, especially now that she knew he was every bit the dream lover of her fantasies? Of course she did not have to sleep with him, her common sense pointed out. He couldn’t force her to. But the shameful truth was that he would not need to. He only had to kiss her and she turned to putty in his arms.

‘Please don’t insist on me working out my notice,’ she said tensely. ‘There must be hundreds of women who would be willing to go to Tuscany with you. I’ll forgo my last month’s wages if you agree to let me go now. I really want to concentrate on finishing the cookery book of my grandmother’s recipes, and I need to find a photographer who will take pictures for it.’

‘That’s not a problem. A friend of mine who lives in Siena is a photographer. I’m sure Nicole will be happy to work on the book with you.’

Was Nicole one of his mistresses? Angrily, Rebekah pushed the thought away. She could not see a way out of spending the next month in Italy with Dante and, with a heavy sigh, she flopped back against the pillows.

‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked gently.

Startled, her eyes flew open. ‘I’m not afraid of anything,’ she lied.

‘I think you are. I think you’re terrified of lowering your guard and allowing anyone to get close to you.’ He recognized the barriers she put up because for years he had put up his own, and he had no intention of taking them down, Dante brooded.

Rebekah refused to admit that Dante’s words were too close to the truth for comfort. Instead she turned onto her side and burrowed under the covers. ‘I’m really very tired,’ she muttered. He continued to stand by the bed for a few moments, but then he moved, and only when she heard the click of her door being closed did she realise she had been holding her breath.

T
HEY
flew to Tuscany two days later. Rebekah’s stomach still felt delicate and she had been dreading hanging around at the airport waiting for a commercial flight. The discovery that they were to travel by private jet was a shock but not an unwelcome one.

‘I can’t believe you own a plane,’ she said as she followed Dante up the steps of his jet and looked around the cabin at the plush leather sofas, widescreen television and polished walnut drinks cabinet. The plane’s interior looked more like a small but expensively furnished sitting room. This was the first time she had really appreciated that he was immensely wealthy. He came from a different world to a Welsh farmer’s daughter, she thought wryly.

‘It’s the family plane,’ he explained as he sat down next to her. ‘My father uses it mainly to fly between the Jarrell estate in Norfolk and his chateau in southern France. He keeps a mistress at both places and shares his time between them.’

It wasn’t hard to see where Dante’s attitude towards relationships stemmed from. ‘How old were you when your parents’ marriage ended?’

‘I was nine when they divorced, but I’d never known
them happy together. They have very different personalities and argued constantly. I never understood how they got together in the first place,’ he said drily. ‘Fortunately I was packed off to boarding school and escaped the tense atmosphere at home most of the time.’

Rebekah thought of the chaotic, noisy, happy home where she had grown up with her brothers. Her parents were devoted to one another, and their strong relationship was the lynchpin of the family.

‘Did either of your parents marry again?’

‘My father had two more attempts, but with each subsequent divorce he had to sell a chunk of the estate to pay the alimony bill and he finally realised that marriage is a mug’s game. I’ve taken steps to ensure that his mistresses, Barbara and Elise, will be provided for if he dies before them, but they can’t make a claim on the Jarrell estate’s remaining assets.’

‘What about your mother?’ Rebekah asked curiously.

‘She’s halfway through her fourth marriage. They last on average about six years,’ he said sardonically.

She did not miss the cynical tone in Dante’s voice. ‘I suppose it’s not surprising you have such a warped view of marriage when your parents both had bad experiences.’

‘I wouldn’t say I have a warped view,’ he argued, ‘just a realistic one.’

Nor was his attitude towards marriage based entirely on the hash his parents had made of relationships, Dante brooded. Inexplicably, he found himself tempted to tell Rebekah about Lara. Maybe she would lose that judgemental tone in her voice if he explained how his wife had betrayed him and deceived him and played him for a fool.

But what was the point? He did not care what she thought of him, did he? He was only taking her to Tuscany with him for one reason—two, he amended—she was a fantastic cook and an exciting lover. He was looking forward to spending the coming month with her, but after that, when he had become bored with her, as he inevitably did with his mistresses, they would go their separate ways.

‘Your mother still sings, doesn’t she?’ Rebekah said. ‘I read that Isabella Lombardi is regarded as one of the greatest sopranos of all time. Will she be at your house in Tuscany?’

‘No. She lives in Rome, but I think she might be on tour at the moment.’ Dante shrugged. ‘To be honest, I don’t see her very often.’

‘What about your father—are you close to him?’

‘Not at all. We meet for lunch three or four times a year, but really from the age of eight I lived pretty independently from both my parents. I was at school, my mother was always travelling the world for performances and my father was busy with his own life.’

‘I can’t imagine not being part of a close-knit, loving family.’ Rebekah pictured her parents at their remote farm and felt a sharp pang of homesickness. ‘I love knowing that, whatever happens, if ever I have difficulties, I can rely on my family to help me.’ She glanced at Dante. ‘Who do you turn to when you have problems?’

He gave her a quizzical look. ‘I don’t have problems, and if I did I would deal with them on my own. I’m a big boy of thirty-six,’ he said mockingly.

‘Everyone needs to have someone they can rely on,’ she said stubbornly.

The image of his grandmother flashed into Dante’s
mind, and he felt a dull ache beneath his ribs. Nonna Perlita had helped him through his darkest days after Lara had left him and all he had wanted to do was drink himself into oblivion. But that had been a long time ago, and he would never put himself in a position where he could be hurt again.

‘I don’t need anyone, so stop trying to analyse me.’ He lifted his hand and undid the clip that secured her hair on top of her head, grinning when she gave him an angry glare. ‘Leave it loose,’ he said, when she began to bundle the long silky mass back up into a knot. ‘You look very sexy with your hair down.’

She was so lovely, he mused, feeling a curious tug on his insides as he studied her face. There was something about her, a gentleness that touched him in some way he did not understand. She was surprisingly easy to talk to. He had revealed things about himself and his childhood that he had never mentioned to anyone else. But the kind of women he tended to be associated with only showed a superficial interest in him and were far more interested in his wealth and social status, Dante thought with a flash of cynicism.

Unable to stop himself, he leaned towards her and captured her mouth in a long, slow kiss that heated his blood. He was conscious of the laboured thud of his heart when after a few seconds her lips parted beneath his.

She should not be responding to him, Rebekah thought frantically, as Dante brushed his warm lips over hers and probed his tongue between them to explore the moist interior of her mouth. She had told herself that she would keep him at arm’s length; that she would be coolly polite and professional so that he would quickly lose
interest in her—which she assured herself she hoped he would do. He might even allow her to leave her job without completing her notice and she would be able to return to England and get on with her life.

The sweet seduction of his kiss and the ache of longing he evoked inside her made a mockery of her intentions. But when he had told her about his unhappy childhood she had glimpsed a hint of vulnerability in him that he kept hidden beneath his self-assured, sometimes arrogant persona, and she had not been able to resist him.

‘Tell me about your grandparents,’ she said huskily when he eventually ended the kiss and she drew a ragged breath. ‘It was lovely that your grandmother finished renovating the house she and your grandfather had planned together. She must have loved him very much.’

‘They adored each other,’ Dante agreed. ‘They met during the war and were married for many years.’

‘So, not all marriages in your family are doomed to failure. Doesn’t the fact that your grandparents were happily married for so long make you think you should reassess your attitude towards marriage?’

He laughed, but his eyes were hard as he said, ‘If that’s a roundabout way of asking whether there’s any possibility of our affair leading to a permanent relationship then let me make it crystal-clear there’s absolutely no chance.’

Rebekah ruthlessly quashed the sharp little pain his words induced. ‘I hope one day to meet the right man, and we’ll fall in love and decide to spend the rest of our lives together,’ she told him, wondering if she would ever really have the courage to risk her heart again. ‘But he won’t be anything like you.’

Why not? What the hell was wrong with him? Dante wondered, feeling an inexplicable surge of annoyance at her casual dismissal of him as prospective husband material. Not that he had any ideas on that score, of course. But he wouldn’t make a bad husband. In fact he had been a damn good one. He had done his best to make Lara happy, but the bitter reality was that his best hadn’t been good enough.

He stared moodily out of the plane window and was glad when the flight attendant came to serve them coffee and his conversation with Rebekah ended.

‘It was once a Benedictine monastery,’ Dante explained as the car rounded a bend and a huge house built of pale pink brick and darker terracotta roof tiles came into view. ‘Parts of the original building date back to the eleventh century. It was renovated at various times over the years, but my grandparents—well, my grandmother mainly—turned it into the beautiful house it is now.’

‘It looks amazing.’ Rebekah was stunned by the size of the building and impressed by its history. The monastery stood on a hill overlooking rolling green fields and others filled with golden sunflowers and scarlet poppies. In the distance was the distinctive semi-desert landscape of the area known as the Crete Senesi. A narrow road wound past olive groves and tall cypress trees up to the Casa di Colombe—The House of Doves.

A few minutes later Dante drove through the gates into the courtyard, where it was easier to appreciate the huge amount of restoration work that had been done on the ancient monastery. On three sides of the courtyard the cloister had been fitted with arched glass windows which gleamed in the bright sunlight. In one corner was
an ancient well, and all around the courtyard stood terracotta tubs planted with lavender, lemon and bay trees and a profusion of different herbs.

The splash of a fountain was the only sound to disturb the silence. As Rebekah climbed out of the car she was struck by the serene atmosphere. It was not difficult to imagine the Benedictine monks who had once lived here going about their daily lives with quiet devotion to their religious beliefs.

‘Nonna Perlita was a keen gardener,’ Dante told her when she admired the plants. ‘The knot garden on the other side of the house was her pride and joy. There is also a swimming pool, and in the grounds of the estate there’s a lake, although I wouldn’t recommend you swim in it. I used to catch newts in it when I was a boy.’

‘Who looks after the place now that your grandmother is no longer here?’

‘I employ staff from the village—a couple of grounds-men tend to the gardens and carry out any maintenance work, and two women come regularly to clean the house.’

Dante opened the heavy oak front door and gave a deep sigh of pleasure as he ushered Rebekah into the cool stone-floored hall. ‘For me this is home. One day I intend to move back here permanently.’

Rebekah gave him a surprised look. ‘Did you used to live here? I thought you grew up in England.’

‘I was born here—much to my father’s displeasure. He wanted his heir to be born in England, at the Jarrell estate. But my mother went into labour early while she was visiting my grandparents, and so this house is my birthplace.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘Apparently my father accused my mother of giving birth early on purpose because she wanted me to be born in Italy. It was just one
of many things they could not agree on—as was the language I should be brought up to speak. My father only spoke English to me and my mother taught me Italian, so I grew up bilingual.

‘I went to school in England, but spent most of the holidays here with my grandmother,’ he continued. He shrugged. ‘I enjoy living in London, but I think of myself as Italian rather than English.’

His Italian heritage was obvious in his dark olive skin tone and his jet-black hair, Rebekah mused. At his house in London she mostly saw him dressed in one of the superbly tailored suits he wore for work. He always looked gorgeous, but today he was wearing black jeans, matching shirt and designer shades and was so impossibly good-looking that she felt a fierce ache of longing whenever she looked at him. In fact she was so intent on not looking at him that she walked across the entrance hall to inspect a large framed photograph hanging on the wall.

The woman in the photo was clearly very elderly. Her hair was white and her face lined, but despite the marks of old age she was startlingly beautiful and bore an aura of serenity that was reflected in her bright silvery-grey eyes.

‘Is this lady your grandmother?’ She spun round and her heart lurched when she discovered that Dante had moved silently to stand beside her.

His eyes were focused on the picture. ‘Yes, that was Perlita a few months before she died.’

Unexpectedly, raw emotion clogged Dante’s throat. Usually when he’d arrived at the house he’d gone straight to see his grandmother. He wished she was still here, and curiously, because he had never brought any of his mistresses
to the Casa di Colombe, he wished that Rebekah could have met her. In many ways the two women were very alike, he realised. Like Nonna, Rebekah was independent and, he suspected, fiercely loyal to the people she cared about. He had heard the love in her voice when she spoke about her family.

He glanced down at her and for the first time it struck him how petite she was compared to his tall frame. He hadn’t noticed when he had danced with her at the party because she had been wearing high heels, but now she was wearing flat shoes and he was surprised by a feeling of protectiveness. He ran his finger lightly down her cheek. ‘How are you feeling? You still look pale.’

‘I’m fine now that the sickness has stopped,’ she assured him.

‘I want you to take things easy for the next couple of days.’ Dante’s eyes glinted wickedly. ‘In fact I think you need to spend most of the time lying down.’

Rebekah’s common sense told her to move away from him, but her heart refused to listen and her senses were swamped by his virile masculinity. The scent of his aftershave was tantalisingly sensual, as was the warmth that emanated from his body as he stepped closer and slid an arm around her waist.

‘Naturally, I will lie down with you to keep you company,’ he murmured in his rich as molten syrup voice.

A shiver of excitement ran through her. Common sense urged her to pull herself out of his arms, but she was trapped by the feral gleam in his eyes so that when he lowered his head she sank against him and parted her lips in readiness for his kiss.

Remembering his hot, hungry kisses when he had made love to her after the party, she was unprepared
for the soft brush of his mouth on hers. As light as gossamer, he teased her lips apart in a slow, sweet kiss that was utterly beguiling. Rebekah melted into it, her whole being attuned to the exquisite sensations he aroused in her and the thudding drumbeat of desire that pounded in her blood and made her ache for his possession.