His Cinderella's One-Night Heir

‘Tinkerbelle,’ Belle admitted with extreme reluctance. ‘Unfortunately, my mother thought that was a cute name for a baby girl but my grandparents called me Belle. Belle Forrester.’

‘Tinkerbelle? That’s out of a kid’s movie, isn’t it?’ Dante breathed in surprise, studying her where she stood as stiff and still as though she were on the edge of dangerous quicksand. She had released her hair from the clasp and it foamed across her shoulders in an untamed curling mane.

‘Peter Pan. Tinker Bell was the fairy, but Belle is a movie name too,’ Belle told him with compressed lips.

‘I guess if you’d had wings you’d have flown yourself back home,’ Dante remarked very drily.

‘So...er...the job?’ Belle prompted tautly.

‘The job would be a little unusual but completely above board,’ he assured her and then, as though suddenly recollecting his manners, he moved closer to extend a lean hand. ‘My name is Dante Lucarelli.’

‘Yes.’ Belle barely touched the tips of his fingers. ‘The bartender identified you before you’d been seated for five minutes. He’s a business student.’

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he urged.

‘There’s not a lot relevant to tell,’ Belle retorted uncomfortably, wishing he would just get to the point instead of keeping her in ignorance. ‘I’m twenty-two. I left school at sixteen with a bundle of GCSEs and I haven’t had any educational input since then. I’d like to change that when I get back to London. These days you need training and qualifications to make a decent life.’

‘If you know that why did you skip that opportunity until now?’

‘I never had the opportunity,’ Belle countered wryly, settling down on the concrete bench beneath the trees. ‘My grandmother died and then my grandfather fell ill and needed looking after. After they were both gone, I took a job here, which was basically housekeeping but which turned into full-time caring as well.’

Dante lounged back against a tree trunk, all lithe, lean power and thrumming masculinity. He was as relaxed as she was tense. ‘Is caring for older people what you want to do going forward?’

Belle stiffened. ‘No, definitely not. I think professional caring’s a job you need a vocation for and I don’t have that.’

‘Fair enough,’ Dante murmured, increasingly surprised by her cool, unapologetic self-containment, because at the very least he had expected bubbly encouragement and flirtation from her. In his experience women came on to him whether they thought they had a chance with him or not, but Belle wasn’t making the smallest effort in that direction. ‘You may not have a vocation for the job I’m about to offer you either, but it would eventually get you back to the UK and I would pay you handsomely to do it.’

Belle twisted round to get a better view of him, wishing he would step out of the shadows so that she could see him better. ‘Tell me about it...’

‘I need a woman prepared to pretend that she’s my live-in girlfriend. Faking the part would be all that was required from you,’ Dante assured her with calm emphasis. ‘The job would only last for a couple of weeks and then you would be free to pursue your own plans with the cash I give you. It would be a win-win proposition for both of us.’

Belle was rarely deprived of speech, but the shock of the nature of his job offer was sufficient to glue her tongue to the roof of her mouth because such an exotic possibility wouldn’t have crossed her mind in her wildest dreams. ‘But...er...you don’t even know me,’ she protested weakly when she could find her voice again.

‘Why would I need to know you? Steve vouches for your trustworthiness. It’s a job, a role if you want to call it that. It’s casual and temporary but also financially rewarding,’ he completed smoothly.

‘But pretending to be someone’s girlfriend would mean knowing stuff about each other, that sort of thing,’ Belle protested in a rush. ‘And we’re complete strangers.’

‘I’m sure a simple question and answer session would cover the basics you would need to know,’ Dante fielded without hesitation. ‘Think about this from my point of view.’

Belle’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t know you well enough to do that.’

‘Then let me do it for you,’ Dante responded silkily. ‘I’m offering you the job purely because you’re a stranger and I will be paying you to provide what I require. As a stranger, you’ll walk away afterwards without a problem. You won’t cling or believe that I have any further obligation towards you, nor will you assume that having helped me out makes you special to me in any way.’

Belle stared back at him, stunned by that revealing little speech. ‘Do women often cling to you?’

Dante tensed, glittering dark eyes locking to the pale troubled oval of her face. ‘It’s been a problem in the past. If there’s a stage-five clinger out there, I’ve met her!’

‘I’m not the clingy type,’ Belle whispered abstractedly, marvelling at the impact of those compelling dark eyes of his even in low light. ‘But you still haven’t explained why you need a fake live-in girlfriend.’

‘And I won’t share any more of my private business unless you first express an interest in accepting the job,’ Dante incised impatiently. ‘Sleep on the idea. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at eleven and you can give me an answer then. But be warned...I am a demanding employer with high standards. If you take the job, you’ll have to meet all my requirements. That will mean wearing the clothes I buy for you, breaking the nail-biting habit...and ditching the dog. I’m not keen on dogs.’

Belle’s shamefully bitten nails curled into her palms. He had noticed. She always prayed that people didn’t notice her bad habit but it seemed horribly typical of Dante Lucarelli that he had noticed her stubby nails, and she was mortified. Almost at the same time she reached for Charlie for reassurance and lifted him up onto her lap, sand from his paws and coat flying in all directions. ‘I can’t possibly ditch Charlie.’

‘He can go into kennels for the duration of our arrangement.’

‘No, he needs love and attention, and taken away from everything familiar, he would be frightened!’ Belle reasoned fiercely, hugging Charlie to her as if he were a worn soft toy.

‘He’s not a child,’ Dante reasoned in exasperation.

‘He’s the only family I’ve got, and he’s had a rough ride so far in life,’ Belle argued in growing dismay. ‘I won’t part with Charlie!’

‘Sleep on it,’ Dante advised again. ‘Now, let me walk you back to the campervan.’

‘That’s not necessary,’ Belle told him, springing upright and setting the dog down. ‘It’s only a hundred yards away.’

‘I decide what’s necessary, not you,’ Dante shot back at her, suspecting that she could be more trouble than she was worth because she was emotional, far too emotional. Cristiano had been full of emotion and very much prone to attachments as well and look where that caring, sharing nonsense had got his brother! Cristiano had left behind two heartbroken, seriously clingy and demanding chihuahuas and Dante kept them in exclusive boarding kennels in the very lap of luxury. He visited his brother’s pets religiously once a month. It wasn’t quite the same as taking the dogs home with him, but it was the best he felt able to offer dogs who had never been treated as dogs and who probably didn’t even know that they were dogs. Tito and Carina expected to share beds, sleep on laps and be hand-fed from plates.

Belle breathed in deeply. ‘Do you think maybe you’re having to hire a girlfriend because you’re so rude, heartless and authoritarian?’

‘I can’t remember when a woman last insulted me,’ Dante confided in receipt of that refreshing question and gloriously untouched by the condemnation. A lifetime of criticism from his parents had ensured that he had developed a very tough hide.

‘You must meet an awful lot of uncritical women.’

‘Very rich men rarely meet with anything else,’ Dante imparted with cynical conviction, pausing beside the small rusting campervan below the trees to marvel that anyone could actually be living in the battered vehicle full-time. ‘I’ll meet you in the bar tomorrow at eleven.’

CHAPTER TWO (#ua6cd4497-8745-5913-97cb-ff9c08c1d6e3)

IN THE CONFINEMENT of her bunk bed, Belle lay awake well into the early hours, pondering her choices, which only got fewer the more she thought about them. As always, she made lists. A long list of important questions that she should have asked but which Dante might not have answered. A list of pros and cons, again full of blanks, owing to her lack of facts on his situation.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Charlie ruefully as he cuddled up to her. ‘We don’t like or trust people who dislike dogs, do we? Do you think that’s being too judgemental? Unfair? I mean, Steve’s a lovely person and he’s friends with Dante, which says something in his favour.’

Armed with her lists and clad in denim shorts and a light floral top, she walked up to the bar in the morning sunshine. The restaurant was being cleaned and it was time to prepare the tables for lunch. Hips twitching to the beat of the music playing, Belle set out place mats and glasses while she wondered if Dante was even capable of understanding how she felt about her dog.

Charlie hadn’t started out as hers, but necessity had made him hers and they had been together since shortly after her arrival in France. She didn’t have any family. She couldn’t count the father she had only met once in her life or Tracy, who hadn’t stayed in touch once her own parents were both gone. Charlie, silly and scruffy as he was, had become Belle’s family. He wasn’t the brightest of dogs, but he was always cheerful and loving and a wonderful comfort when the world seemed dark and she felt alone.

* * *

Dante, fresh from a late breakfast of kids and toddler tantrums, was in the mood to be charmed and the first thing he saw as he mounted the steps was Belle’s bottom swaying in rhythmic time to the music. She had a gorgeous derrière, curvy and firm, and when she was dancing it was a work of art in the making, exactly what the average male wanted to see and take advantage of. Even so, he didn’t intend to take advantage, Dante reminded himself doggedly, because as her potential employer, he would naturally be immune to her appeal. Sex didn’t come into his dealings with employees. No matter how tempted he was, he would never ever make that mistake, he assured himself squarely.

‘Sit down with me,’ he told Belle as he strode past her.

‘I can’t. This is work time,’ she pointed out, her gaze locking on him as though magnetised. ‘I should’ve told you that last night.’

‘I arranged it with your boss. You’ve got an hour off to be with me,’ Dante informed her smoothly.

‘But this is one of the busiest times of the day!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’m paying for your time off the clock,’ Dante told her without hesitation.