At Dante's Service
The reason was complicated, she thought bleakly. She had been feeling low all day since her mother had phoned with the news that Gareth and Claire’s baby had been born. ‘A little girl,’ her mum had said in a brisk voice tinged with an underlying note of sympathy that had made Rebekah ache to be home with the people she loved. ‘I thought it best if I told you, as you were bound to find out.’
So Gareth was now a father. Presumably he had wanted this baby, she thought bitterly. Following the conversation with her mother, she had been swamped by memories of the past. Seeing the Portmans’ baby today had been so painful. She had coped by keeping busy with the party preparations and helping the waiters serve the food, but when James had suggested she might like to hold adorable little Alexander she’d had to hurry away before her tenuous hold on her composure shattered.
She had still been in a highly emotional state when Alicia Benson had walked into the kitchen and burst into tears as she confided that Dante had led her to believe their relationship was serious. Of course she had been sympathetic to Alicia, Rebekah assured herself. She knew what it felt like to have your dreams dashed and your heart broken.
She began to stack the dishwasher with the pots and pans she had used to prepare Thai-style coconut chicken, her movements automatic while her mind dwelled, as it so often did, on Dante. His cavalier attitude to relationships made her infatuation with him even less comprehensible, she thought ruefully. She assumed that one day she would come to terms with everything that had happened with Gareth and want another relationship, but it would take her a long time to trust a man enough that she would risk her emotional well-being and she certainly would not consider becoming involved with a womaniser like Dante.
The sound of footsteps striding down the hall made her stiffen and she lifted her chin with a touch of defiance as the kitchen door swung open and he walked in. She had been perfectly within her rights to remind him that her duties did not include coping with the fallout from his fast-changing love life, she assured herself. It was important to establish boundaries, and if he did not like them then maybe it would be better if she handed him her resignation.
She shot him a lightning glance and saw that he had removed his tie and undone the top few shirt buttons to reveal his tanned throat. The musky scent of his aftershave teased her senses and, to her disgust, her heart-rate quickened.
‘Miss Benson has gone and won’t be back,’ he informed her curtly.
Not now he had made it clear to Alicia that the tears she was able to turn on when it suited her left him completely unmoved, Dante thought. He had done nothing to feel guilty about. There had never been any question that he would want more than a casual fling with her. Far more troubling was Rebekah’s attitude. He had no wish to lose an excellent cook but he would not tolerate her interference in his private life.
He ran a hand through his hair and stared exasperatedly at her. ‘What the hell was all that about?’
The sensible thing to do would be to apologise for poking her nose into matters that did not concern her, but the gremlin inside Rebekah had other ideas. The phone call from her mother had triggered memories of the day Gareth had called off the wedding. She still remembered the gut-wrenching shock she’d felt when he had admitted that he had been secretly sleeping with Claire for months. Was it too much to ask for men to be honest and truthful with women? she thought bitterly.
‘I won’t apologise for feeling sorry for your girlfriend,’ she said stiffly. ‘I realise you don’t give a damn about the feelings of the women you have affairs with. But I think it was despicable of you to lead Miss Benson on and make out that you wanted a serious relationship with her.’
Dante uttered an oath, instinctively reverting to his first language to express his anger. ‘I did not lead her on. I made it clear from the start, as I always do, that I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. I don’t know what rubbish Alicia spouted to you, but if she told you I had promised to make a commitment to her then she was lying.’
Rebekah did not know why she was so certain Dante was speaking the truth but he had spoken so forcefully and she felt instinctively that he was not a liar. She tore her eyes from him and became very busy tidying up her recipe notes that were strewn over the worktop. ‘I see. Well, it’s nothing to do with me. I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she mumbled.
‘You’re right—you shouldn’t. I pay you to cook for me, not give me a sermon on morality.’ Dante was furious, but he was also intrigued as he watched the rosy-pink flush spread across Rebekah’s cheeks. ‘Why do you care who I sleep with, anyway?’
‘I don’t. I have absolutely no interest in your bedtime activities.’
‘No?’ Dante’s eyes narrowed speculatively on her face. He could feel the vibes of tension emanating from her and his curiosity was aroused. He knew very little about her, he realised. She had told him a few basic facts, such as that she had grown up on her family’s farm in North Wales and had trained as a chef at a hotel in a town with an unpronounceable name. But he knew nothing about her personal life. He’d seen no evidence that she had a boyfriend, yet why would a young and attractive woman choose to be single?
‘Maybe you’re jealous,’ he suggested idly. He was still annoyed with her, and had made the comment with the deliberate intention of riling her. But her reaction surprised him.
‘Of course I’m not jealous,’ she snapped. ‘What a ridiculous idea. I want more from a relationship than to be a rich man’s plaything.’
‘I don’t get any complaints from my playthings,’ Dante drawled. He knew he was being unfair to tease her, but he could not deny a certain satisfaction as he watched the rosy flush on her face deepen to scarlet. He wondered if she was a prude. She certainly dressed like a woman determined to quash any hint of her sensuality.
Occasionally he had found himself imagining unbuttoning her, literally, and removing her shapeless chef’s jacket.
With a derisive shake of his head, he dismissed his inappropriate thoughts. He leaned his hip against the kitchen table and crossed his arms over his chest while he debated how he was going to deal with the situation that had arisen between them. He did not want to terminate her employment, but she would have to understand that he had every right to live his life the way he chose.
‘I don’t want to know about your love life.’ Rebekah shoved her recipes back into their folder, praying Dante would not notice that her hands were trembling. She sensed he was still angry and she felt sick inside as she waited for him to dismiss her from her job.
‘Then in future don’t pass judgement on how I choose to live my life,’ he growled.
Dante stared at her stiff shoulders and felt a sudden urge to pull the pins from her hair and release it from its tight knot on top of her head. He sighed, his temper cooling as quickly as it had flared.
‘I’m going to forget what happened tonight on the understanding that you won’t interfere in my personal affairs again. You said you had prepared a meal for two?’
Relief swept through Rebekah when she realised that Dante did not seem about to sack her. ‘Yes, but I can freeze the spare portion.’
‘I have a better idea. You can join me for dinner.’ The steely glint in his eyes warned her against arguing with him. ‘This is a good opportunity for us to get to know one another. I’ve been involved in a difficult divorce case in recent weeks and haven’t taken the time to check if you’ve settled in. Now is your chance to tell me if you have any problems.’
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT would Dante’s response be, Rebekah wondered, if she revealed that the only problem she had was when he strolled into the breakfast room at weekends, wearing nothing more than a black robe? On weekdays he was always dressed in one of his superbly tailored suits, and quickly gulped down coffee and toast as he skimmed through case notes. But on weekends he enjoyed a cooked breakfast and spent a leisurely hour reading the newspapers.
The first morning that she had been faced with his half-naked body, his hair damp from the shower and his jaw covered in dark stubble that added to his sex appeal, her heart had slammed against her ribs. Even now, the memory of his long tanned legs, and the mass of crisp dark chest hairs revealed when the front of his robe gaped slightly, evoked a molten sensation in the pit of her stomach.
She dared not look at him and quickly turned away to open the oven. ‘If you go through to the dining room, I’ll bring the food in.’
Minutes later, she pushed the serving trolley into the dining room and halted when she saw Dante’s angry expression.
He stared at the table, set with candles and roses that she had picked from the garden. ‘If I ever want you to play cupid, I’ll let you know,’ he said sarcastically. ‘What were you thinking of?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Did Alicia put you up to it, and ask you to arrange for her to have a romantic dinner with me?’
‘No, I just thought …’ Rebekah’s voice tailed away. It was impossible to explain that she had hoped Dante’s relationship with Alicia Benson was serious. If he was in a committed relationship then she would have to accept that her own attraction to him was pointless, she had reasoned. And instead of wasting time fantasising about him, she would get over her ridiculous infatuation.
She tore her eyes from Dante’s handsome face, hating herself for the ache of longing she could not suppress. ‘I’ll take the flowers away,’ she muttered as she set his dinner in front of him.
‘You may as well leave them. Sit down and eat your food before it gets cold,’ he said tersely when she leaned across the table to pick up the vase of roses. ‘Do you need to wear your apron while we’re eating?’
‘Sorry!’ Rebekah’s voice was as curt as his as she reached behind her to unfasten the apron. She tugged it off and dropped it onto the chair beside her.
She sat down and stared at her plate of Thai chicken. While it had been cooking it had smelled so tempting that she had decided to forget her diet for one night and have some. But she hadn’t expected Dante to ask her to eat with him—well, he had ordered, not asked, she thought, feeling infuriated by his arrogance. Sometimes she wondered why she was so attracted to him, but a quick glance at his handsome profile caused her heart to slam against her ribs. Every nerve-ending in her body seemed to be finely attuned to him and she felt so tense that the idea of swallowing food seemed impossible.
Dante leaned back in his chair and studied Rebekah. Today had been full of surprises, he mused. There had been that strange incident at the christening party when she had practically recoiled from James Portman’s baby, and then her puzzling behaviour regarding his ex-mistress. And now, for the first time since he had known her, she was not dressed in her chef’s jacket but had changed into a plain white T-shirt that moulded her breasts. Her curvaceous figure was a pleasant surprise.
To his shock, he felt his body stir as a hot flood of desire swept through him. It was a predictable male reaction to the feminine form, he told himself. Perhaps it was the Italian blood in him that made him find a woman with full breasts and shapely hips more attractive than the current fashion to be stick-thin and bony.
He cleared his throat. ‘Would you like red or white wine?’
‘Oh, I won’t have any, thanks.’ Rebekah grimaced. ‘I’m really hopeless with alcohol. Half a glass of wine is all it takes to make me drunk.’
‘Is that so?’ Dante found himself picturing his chef after she’d had a couple of glasses of wine—all bright eyes, flushed cheeks and discarded inhibitions. He poured himself a glass of Chianti. ‘Getting drunk doesn’t sound a bad idea after having to deal with Alicia’s unacceptable behaviour,’ he said grimly.
‘Don’t you ever worry that you’ll end up alone and lonely? Surely even playboys grow bored of sleeping around?’ Rebekah’s common sense warned her not to antagonise him, but she felt rebellious tonight, angry with the male species in general and Dante in particular—although if she was honest she was angrier with herself for her stupid crush on him.
‘It hasn’t happened to me yet,’ Dante drawled, annoyed that she had the audacity to question his lifestyle. He was not going to admit that lately he had been feeling jaded. There was no thrill in the chase when you knew at the beginning of the evening that you were guaranteed to bed your date by the end of it, he thought sardonically.
‘What do you suggest as an alternative to casual sex?’ he demanded, posing the question partly to himself. Marriage wasn’t for him—he had tried it once and had no intention of ever repeating the experience. But surely there had to be something more than meaningless affairs with women who did not interest him outside the bedroom? ‘I grew out of believing in happy ever after at about the same time that I stopped wearing short trousers,’ he said abruptly.
‘Why are you so cynical? It’s your job, I suppose,’ Rebekah murmured. ‘But not all marriages end in the divorce courts. My parents have been happily married for forty years.’
‘How nice for them, and for you,’ he said drily. ‘Unfortunately, I was not brought up in a stable family unit. My parents split up when I was young and for most of my childhood they fought over me like two dogs over a bone. Not because they loved me particularly, but because I was something else to fight about and winning was all that mattered to either of them.’
Rebekah heard the underlying bitterness in Dante’s voice and felt guilty that she had brought up a subject that he clearly found contentious. ‘That can’t have been much fun,’ she said quietly, trying to imagine what it had been like for him as a young boy, torn between his warring parents. Her own childhood had been so happy, and she had always hoped that one day she would have children and bring them up in the same loving environment that she and her brothers had enjoyed.
Silence fell between them while they ate. Dante gave a murmur of appreciation after his first mouthful but Rebekah’s appetite had disappeared and she toyed with her chicken.
‘I’m surprised you’re not married,’ he said suddenly. ‘You seem the sort of woman who would want to settle down and have a couple of kids. But you’re what—late twenties? And you’re still single.’
‘Twenty-eight is hardly over the hill,’ she said tersely. He had touched a raw nerve, especially when he had mentioned children. She was unaware that Dante had noticed her fingers clench around her knife and fork. He could almost see her putting up barriers and once again he asked himself why he was curious about her.
As the silence stretched between them Rebekah realised Dante was waiting for her to continue the conversation. ‘I would like to marry and have children one day,’ she admitted. She did not add that her longing for a baby sometimes felt like a physical ache inside her. ‘At the moment I’m concentrating on my career.’
‘What made you decide to train as a chef?’
‘I suppose cooking has always been part of my life and, when I left school, training to be a professional chef seemed a natural progression. My grandmother first taught me to cook, and by the age of seven or eight I could make bread and bake cakes and help my mother prepare the dinner. It was a matter of expediency,’ she explained. ‘I have seven brothers—six are older than me and Rhys is younger. When we were growing up, the boys helped my father on the farm, and they’re all huge rugby players with enormous appetites. My mother says it was like feeding an army when they all came in from working in the fields. I think she was relieved when she finally gave birth to a girl. Even when I was a small child I used to help her around the house.’
‘I don’t have any siblings and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be part of such a large family. Didn’t you resent being expected to help with domestic tasks rather than work on the farm with your brothers?’
Rebekah laughed. ‘My family is very traditional, but I’ve never minded that. We’re all incredibly close, even now that most of the older boys are married and have families of their own. Mum was too busy to teach me how to cook, but my grandmother loved showing me recipes she had collected over many years, and others that she had created herself. Nana Glenys is in her nineties now, but when she was young she worked as a cook for a top military general and his family, and she travelled to India and the Far East. Much of her cooking was influenced by the food she experienced abroad, as well as traditional Welsh dishes.’
She hesitated, wondering if she was boring Dante. Although she had worked for him for two months she had never talked to him on a personal level and she was conscious that the details of her life were mundane and unexciting. But when she glanced at him she found he was watching her and appeared interested in what she was saying.
‘Actually, I’m compiling a cookery book of Nana’s recipes. I’ve been working on bringing the dishes up to date and replacing items such as double cream with low-fat ingredients that are available today. A publisher has shown some interest in the book, and Nana would be thrilled to see her recipes in print. But she’s very frail now and I’m aware that I need to hurry and finish the book.’
Her eyes softened as she thought of the tiny elderly lady who had only recently been persuaded to leave her remote cottage and move into Rebekah’s parents’ farmhouse.
‘It sounds like you are close to your grandmother.’
‘Yes, I am. She’s a wonderful person.’
Dante found himself transfixed by Rebekah’s gentle smile and he wondered why he had not noticed before how pretty she was. Perhaps it was because her dull clothes and the way she wore her hair in that severe style, scraped back from her face and tied in a braid which she pinned on top of her head, did not demand attention.
But it wasn’t quite true that he had not noticed her, he acknowledged. He knew from the subtle rose scent of her perfume the moment she walked into a room, and sometimes he felt a little frisson of sexual awareness when she leaned across him to serve a meal. Her violet eyes were beautiful, and her dark lashes that brushed her cheeks when she blinked were so long that he wondered if they were false. He quickly discounted the idea. A woman who was not wearing a scrap of make-up was not likely to bother with false eyelashes.
‘I was close to my grandmother. In fact I adored her.’ As the words left his mouth he silently questioned why he was sharing personal confidences with his cook when he had never felt any inclination to do so with his mistresses. ‘She died a year ago at the grand age of ninety-two.’
‘Did she live at your family’s estate in Norfolk? I looked you up on the Internet and learned that the Jarrells own a stately home near Kings Lynn,’ Rebekah admitted, her cheeks turning pink when he looked surprised.
‘No, Nonna Perlita was my Italian grandmother. She lived in Tuscany, where I was born. Years ago my grandparents bought an ancient ruined monastery with the idea of restoring it and making it their home. When my grandfather died shortly afterwards, everyone assumed Perlita would sell the place, but she refused to move, and oversaw all the renovations my grandfather had planned. She said the Casa di Colombe—which means The House of Doves—was a lasting tribute to her husband.’
‘That’s lovely,’ Rebekah said softly. ‘You must miss her.’
‘I always spend July in Tuscany. This is the first year that she won’t be there and I know the house will feel empty without her.’
Thinking about his grandmother evoked a tug of emotion in Dante’s gut. After he had discovered the truth about Ben and learned how Lara had deceived him, Nonna was the person he had turned to and he had poured out his pain and anger to her.
‘Dante … is something wrong?’
Rebekah’s hesitant voice forced him to drag his mind from the past and, catching her puzzled look, he glanced down and saw that he had tightened his grip on his wine glass so that his knuckles were white.
‘Is it the sauce?’ she asked anxiously. ‘It does have quite a unique flavour. Maybe I used too much lemon-grass.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ he reassured her. ‘The dinner is superb, as usual. You said you have been concentrating on developing your career—’ he determinedly steered the conversation away from himself ‘—is that the reason you left Wales two years ago and came to London?’
‘Yes,’ she said after a long silence.
Dante lifted his brows enquiringly.
‘I … was in a relationship,’ Rebekah explained reluctantly, realising she would have to elaborate. But she could not tell him the full truth. Maybe one day she would come to terms with what a fool she had been, but she felt ashamed of the way she had blindly trusted Gareth. ‘It didn’t work out, and I decided to move away and make a new start.’
‘Why did you break up with the guy?’
Dante knew he should back off. He had heard the tremor in Rebekah’s voice and sensed that she had been hurt. He did not need to be a mind-reader to realise she was uncomfortable with him probing into her private life, but for some reason he could not control his curiosity about her.
‘He … met someone else,’ she muttered.
‘Ah, that explains a lot.’
‘What does it explain?’ Irritation swept through Rebekah at Dante’s complacent expression.
‘Why you got involved in the situation with Alicia, for a start. Your boyfriend let you down—I assume he was unfaithful with the “someone else”—and now you think all men, including me, are untrustworthy like him.’
‘You are untrustworthy.’ Rebekah did not know how they had got into this conversation, or where it was leading, but she recognized the truth in what Dante had said. Gareth’s betrayal had rocked her comfortable world and made her doubt her judgement. ‘In fact, you are a hundred times worse than Gareth,’ she said hotly. ‘You never stay with one woman for longer than five minutes.’
‘True,’ Dante agreed unrepentantly. ‘But I never cheat. I have a strict rule of one woman at a time, and I always end a relationship before I start another one. I’m completely upfront at the beginning of an affair that I’m not looking for permanence. Surely that’s better than stringing a woman along and building up her hopes that I might make a commitment to her?’
‘In other words, you’re a paragon of virtue when it comes to relationships,’ she said sarcastically.
‘I’d like to think so,’ he replied seriously. ‘I certainly don’t deliberately set out to hurt anyone.’
Morosely, Rebekah pushed her plate of barely touched dinner aside. Maybe Dante was right. Maybe it was better to have an affair with someone who was adamant they did not want a deeper relationship than to trust that if a man said he loved you he meant it.
Dante’s voice intruded on her painful thoughts. ‘Your relationship must have ended some time ago, and you moved to London. How’s the new start going—are you seeing anyone?’
‘Not currently,’ she muttered, wishing she could turn the conversation away from her personal life.
Dante leaned back in his chair and sipped his wine while he appraised her. ‘Don’t you think you’ve spent long enough moping over the guy in Wales? You need to get out and socialise. And I suggest you update your wardrobe. Without wanting to be rude, you’re never going to attract a man in the frumpy clothes you wear.’
Anger boiled inside Rebekah like molten lava. ‘My clothes are not frumpy; they’re smart and professional. Would you rather I served your dinner dressed like a burlesque dancer?’
‘Now there’s a thought,’ he said softly.
The wicked glint in Dante’s eyes caused a flush of rosy colour to spread across Rebekah’s cheeks and the atmosphere in the dining room prickled with an inexplicable tension. Her breath caught in her throat and she unconsciously moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. She watched Dante’s eyes narrow and, to her shock, she felt a spark of electricity sizzle between them.