His Forbidden Conquest: A Moment on the Lips / The Best Mistake of Her Life / Not Just Friends

Irresistible.

He climbed back onto the bed. ‘OK, Princess, I’m in your hands.’

A flicker of hurt passed over her face. ‘My friends call me Caz.’

‘We’re not exactly friends,’ he pointed out.

‘Let me rephrase that. People who are close to me.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘And I don’t think you can get much closer than you’ve just been.’

‘No.’ But physical closeness was where he drew the line. He didn’t want emotional closeness. Didn’t need it. He was fine just how he was, working hard and growing his business. Making his world secure. Emotional closeness was the quickest way to let the cracks grow and break that security. And no way was he ever going to let that happen.

‘Am I that scary?’ she asked.

‘How do you mean, scary?’

‘For a moment, there, you looked utterly terrified.’

Oh, hell. He always managed to mask his feelings. The fact that she could see right through him was worrying. In the extreme. ‘It must’ve been your imagination,’ he said coolly. ‘I’m scared of nothing.’ Not any more. His days of being scared were long behind him, left in the miseries of his childhood. ‘I was thinking, as you’re here I might as well feed you.’

‘You’re going to cook for me?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘When I have excellent chefs working for me downstairs? What’s the point?’

‘Oh.’ She looked slightly crestfallen; then she glanced over at the crumpled trail of clothes across his bedroom.

He took pity on her. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag you down there.’

‘Actually, I’d like to see your restaurant.’

‘Not sitting with me, you won’t—I don’t want my staff talking about me.’ The words were out before he could stop them.

To his relief, she didn’t pick up on it. Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to explain to her why he hated people talking about him.

‘So what are you intending?’ she asked.

‘Room service. Kind of.’

She frowned. ‘Surely that’ll make them talk more?’

‘I’m having a business discussion with a colleague and it ran a bit late, so we decided to take a break for dinner. It happens.’

‘So what’s the difference between them knowing I’m up here and seeing me downstairs with you?’

All the difference in the world. ‘There just is, OK?’

‘Dante, you’re being completely illogical.’

He ignored her. ‘Is there anything you’re allergic to or hate eating, or shall we just have the special?’

‘Special?’

‘Dante’s menu is the same, regardless of where the restaurant is, but then the chef at each restaurant has a corner of the menu that’s just his or hers, a dish that’s a local speciality or what have you,’ he explained. ‘It changes whenever the chef feels like it. That way my chef gets to enjoy the creative side and feels that he or she has an input to the menu.’

‘Your staff really matter to you, don’t they?’ she asked.

‘This is a service industry. Without your staff, you’re nothing. You can produce the best food in the world, but if the service is poor the customer won’t come back. So it’s important that your staff feel they have a stake.’

She said nothing.

‘You know nothing about your staff, do you?’ he asked softly.

‘Not yet,’ she admitted.

‘You need to know who works for you and what their job involves. The best way to do that is to spend a few hours doing every single job in your business, so you know the challenges your staff face and can empathise with them.’

‘Is that what you did?’

He nodded. ‘I still do it, every so often. It keeps me in touch with the staff and the business, and they respect me for it.’

‘Every job?’ she tested.

‘Every job,’ he emphasised, ‘from waiting tables to pot-washing to cashing up last thing at night to peeling vegetables. And, yes, I clean toilets as well.’

‘Right.’ She looked utterly shocked.

Ha. He’d just bet she’d never cleaned a toilet in her life. And even when she’d been living in London, he was pretty sure that she hadn’t cleaned her own flat. She would’ve paid someone to do it. Princesses didn’t soil their hands.

‘The special will be fine, thank you.’ She paused. ‘Um, would it be OK for me to have a shower?’

‘Sure.’ Dante had to hold back the idea of joining her in there. ‘The bathroom’s next door. There are clean towels in the airing cupboard. Help yourself to what you need.’

‘Thank you.’

He scooped up his own crumpled clothes and headed for the kitchen to give her some privacy. While she was in the shower, he rang the restaurant and ordered the special.

He’d just switched the kettle on to make coffee when she walked in. She hadn’t pulled her hair back again and his heart skipped a beat; like this, she looked younger than her twenty-eight years, slightly vulnerable.

And the thought hardened his heart. She didn’t need his protection. She already had people looking out for her. Always had. Not like the way he’d been, half a lifetime ago.

‘I’ve ordered the special. It should be with us in twenty minutes.’

‘That’d be good. So does your chef recommend red or white?’

He shrugged. ‘No idea. I don’t drink.’

She blinked. ‘What, not ever? Not even on your birthday or at Christmas?’

He thought back to his childhood. Christmases, his father’s birthday. Grappa, followed by the anger and the pain and the tears. ‘Not ever.’ He forced himself to relax. It wasn’t her fault that his father had been a mean drunk. ‘But if you want wine, sure, I can order some.’