Hired: Mistress: Wanted: Mistress and Mother / His Private Mistress / The Millionaire's Secret Mistress

‘She likes you,’ Dante said as he took a sleepy Alex from Matilda.

‘I’m very easy to like,’ Matilda answered.

‘Very easy,’ Dante said, only, unlike before, Matilda knew there were no double meanings or cruel euphemisms to mull over. As he walked away the echo of his words brought a warm glow to her tired, aching body.

Quite simply it was the nicest thing he’d ever said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I’M SORRY to have disturbed you.’

‘It’s fine.’ Matilda attempted, struggling to sit up, slightly disorientated and extremely embarrassed that Dante had found her in the middle of the day, hot and filthy in nothing more than the skimpiest of shorts and a crop top, lying on a blanket with her eyes closed. Absolutely the last person she was expecting to see at this hour, he was dressed in his inevitable dark suit, but there was a slightly more relaxed stance to him. He held a brown paper bag in one hand and he didn’t look in his usual rush—his usually perfectly knotted tie was loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. But his dark eyes were shielded with sunglasses making his closed expression even more unreadable if that were possible.

‘You’ve done a lot.’

‘It’s getting there.’Matilda nodded. ‘And if I keep going at full speed, I could still be done by early next week.’

He didn’t say a word, he didn’t have to. Just a tiny questioning lift of his eyebrow from behind his dark glasses was enough for Matilda.

‘I am allowed to take a break,’ Matilda retorted.

‘I didn’t say anything!’

‘You might not have said it but I certainly heard it. I am allowed to take a break, Dante. For your information, I’ve been working since first light this morning—apart from a coffee at ten I haven’t stopped.’

‘You don’t have to justify yourself to me.’

‘No, I don’t.’ Matilda agreed.

‘How you organise your time is entirely your business. It’s just…’ His voice faded for a moment, a hint of a very unusual smile dusting across his face. ‘I think I must be in the wrong job. “Flat out” for me is back-to-back meetings, endless phone calls, figures, whereas the twice I’ve seen you work, you’re either taking an impromptu shower with a water bottle or dozing under a tree.’ She opened her mouth to set him straight, but Dante spoke over her. ‘I am not criticising you, I can see for myself the hours of work you have done. For once I was not even being sarcastic—I really was thinking back there when I saw you that I am in the wrong job!’

‘You are.’ Matilda smiled, the wind taken out of her sails by his niceness. ‘And for the record, I wasn’t dozing.’

‘Matilda, don’t try and tell me that you weren’t asleep. You didn’t even hear me come over. You were lying on your back with your eyes closed.’

‘I was meditating,’ Matilda said and seeing the disbelieving look on his face she elaborated further. ‘I did hear you come over, I just…’ It was Matilda’s voice fading now, wondering how she could explain to him that in her deeply relaxed state she had somehow discounted the information.

‘Just what?’

‘I didn’t hold onto the thought.’

‘You’ve lost me.’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘You’re really telling me that you weren’t asleep!’

‘That’s right—I often meditate when I’m working, that’s where I get my best ideas. You should try it,’ she added.

‘I have enough trouble getting to sleep at one in the morning, let alone in the middle of the day.’

‘My point exactly,’ Matilda said triumphantly. ‘I’ve already told you that I wasn’t asleep. You’re very quick to throw scorn, but sometimes the best way to find the answer to a question is to stop looking for it.’

‘Perhaps.’ Dante gave a dismissive shrug. ‘But for now I’ll stick with the usual methods. I actually came to see if you wanted some lunch.’ Before she could shake her head, before she could come up with an excuse as to why she didn’t want to go over and eat with Katrina, Dante held out the paper bag he was holding. ‘I bought some rolls from the deli.’

‘The deli?’

‘Why does that surprise you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Matilda admitted, her neck starting to ache from staring up, feeling at a distinct disadvantage as Dante hovered over her. Wiggling over, she patted the blanket for him to sit beside her. ‘It just does. How come you’re home?’

‘I live here,’ Dante quipped, but he did sit down beside her, pulling the rolls out of the bag and offering one to her. ‘I’ve spent the entire morning trying to read an important, complicated document relating to the case and haven’t got past the second page. My new secretary cannot distinguish between urgent and urgent yet.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Invariably anyone who wants to speak with me says that it is urgent—but she puts them all through, then I get waylaid. I decided to follow your business methods, they seem to be working for you.’

‘What method?’ Matilda gasped. ‘I didn’t know I had one!’

‘Turning the phone off and disappearing. Katrina is out with Alex today. I thought there was more chance of actually getting some work done if I just came home, but first I must have some lunch.’

‘I didn’t hear the chopper!’

‘I drove,’ Dante said, ‘and it was nice.’ They ate in amicable silence until Dante spoiled it, his words almost causing her to choke on her chicken and avocado roll. ‘I was thinking about you.’

‘Me?’

‘And how much I enjoy talking to you.’ He took off his dark glasses and smiled a lazy smile, utterly comfortable in his own skin as Matilda squirmed inside hers, wriggling her bare feet in the moss and staring at her toes. ‘And you’re right, it’s nice to take a moment to relax.’

Relaxed certainly wasn’t how Matilda would describe herself now. He was so close that if she moved her leg an inch they’d be touching, if his face came a fraction closer she knew they’d be kissing. Desire coursed through her as it had when she’d cut herself, only this time Dante didn’t seem to be pulling back, this time he was facing her head on. It was Matilda who turned abruptly away, terrified he’d read the naked lust in her eyes. She took a long drink from her water bottle then, blowing her fringe skywards and trying to keep her voice normal, determined not to make a fool of herself again, to be absolutely sure she wasn’t misreading things, she said, ‘You should try meditating if you want to be relaxed.’

‘It wouldn’t work,’ Dante dismissed.

‘It won’t if that’s your attitude…’ She could feel the atmosphere sizzling between them, knew that if she said what was on her mind then she’d be crossing a line, playing the most dangerous of dangerous games. ‘Try it,’ she breathed, her eyes daring him to join her. ‘Why don’t you lie back and try it now?’

‘Now?’ Dante checked, a dangerous warning glint in his eyes, which she heeded, but it only excited her more.

‘Now,’ Matilda affirmed. ‘Just lie back.’

‘Then what?’ Dante’s impatient voice demanded instruction as, impossibly tense, he lay back.

‘You close your eyes and just breathe,’ Matilda said, her head turning to face him, her own breath catching in her throat as she gazed at his strong profile. She’d been right with her very first assessment of Dante. He was astonishingly beautiful—his eyes were closed and black, surprisingly long lashes spiked downwards onto indigo smudges of exhaustion. His nose was chiselled straight, so straight and so absolutely in proportion to the rest of his features she could almost imagine some LA cosmetic surgeon downing his tools in protest as he surveyed the landscape of Dante Costello’s flawless face.

Flawless.

A perfectionist might point out that he hadn’t shaved, but the stubble that ghosted his strong jaw, merely accentuated things: a shiver of masculinity stirring beneath the surface; a glimpse of what he might look like in the intimate dawn of morning. His full mouth was the only softening feature, but even that was set in grim tension as he lay there.

‘You have to relax,’ Matilda said, her words a contradiction because her whole body lay rigid beside him, her own breath coming in short, irregular bursts. Even her words were stilted, coming in short breathy sentences as they struggled through her vocal cords. ‘Use your stomach muscles and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.’

‘What?’ One eye peeped open.

‘Abdominal breathing,’she explained, but from the two vertical lines appearing over the bridge of his nose Matilda knew she was talking to the hopelessly unconverted.