by Maggie Cox
Having had most of his time back in Italy monopolised by Antonio’s eager plans for his daughter’s future, Dante had hardly had a moment to think about Bliss Maguire and that incredible morning that he’d made love to her. But think about her he had, in the still of the night, in his big king-sized bed with the imported silk sheets from Saudi Arabia. His mind and body drowned in intoxicated heat at just the thought of having her there with him, helping to obliterate the stresses and strains of his working day with her soft, breathless sighs and a body whose lovely lines his hands would recognise even if he were blind.
Parking the dark blue Mercedes in a dominant position in the concrete car park where it would be in full view, Dante silenced the engine, then glanced once again at the time on his solid gold watch. It was almost eight thirty in the evening and there was still no sign of Bliss. He gave vent to his frustration in his own tongue as he glared into the side-view mirror, then sat bolt upright as a black taxi pulled up beside him and Bliss stepped out. She was wearing a pink linen jacket over her slim black skirt and Dante noticed immediately that she’d cut her hair. It had been shaped to frame her lovely heart-shaped face and, even in the fading evening light, Dante could see the glossy shine on it. Smiling at something the driver said as she handed over the fare, she moved aside with a short wave as he drove off again. Dante immediately got out of the car and slammed the door.
‘You are home late,’ he said out loud in his accented English. He saw her turn round in surprise and shock, her skin turning pale at the sight of him.
‘Dante. What are you doing here?’
‘I told you I would be back. Clearly you did not believe me.’
‘That was six weeks ago! Can you blame me?’
‘When I make a promise, I keep it. I would have been in touch sooner, but the demands of my work prevented me.’ Dante’s voice was grave and he clearly did not like the idea that she had doubted his word.
‘How are you? How is Tatiana, and little Renata?’ Telling herself to keep the conversation light and not let him see how totally shocked she was to see him, Bliss knew it was a tall order when inside her all her senses were reacting as though she’d just bungee jumped into the Grand Canyon. He looked so gorgeous and self-possessed as he stood there; so out of place in this cold, concrete, graffiti-smeared car park—as incongruous as a royal prince turning up in a dole queue. Bliss hadn’t forgotten how handsome his features were, how resolute and sculpted his jaw or how riveting his eyes—yet seeing him again in the flesh, dressed to kill in another exquisitely tailored suit, was almost too much for her already beleaguered senses to bear.
‘Tatiana is well. Renata is growing fast and keeping her mother busy.’
‘I’m very relieved. I was worried about them,’ Bliss confessed.
‘Then I am glad that I can put your mind at rest. Shall we go inside?’
‘Inside?’ With her door key held firmly in her closed palm, Bliss swallowed over the painful rawness in her throat. Her head was swimming as though it had been shaken up like one of those snow globes, and she was certain her temperature had just gone up a degree on seeing Dante standing there. Now it seemed her legs had turned to liquid rubber at the very idea of inviting this man over her threshold once again. Especially when she recalled what had happened the last time…
‘It’s getting late and I’m very tired. Why don’t we make it another night instead?’ she suggested hopefully.
‘No. Now is good. Give me your bag—I will carry it upstairs for you.’
‘I can manage.’ She didn’t welcome the autocratic tone in his voice. She was feeling too raw inside to be told what to do by anyone. She had bought a pregnancy test on the way home, gone back to Trudy’s to use it and had her already strong suspicions confirmed. To find Dante waiting for her in the car park of the flats where she lived, on the very day she’d discovered it was irrefutable fact that she was having his baby, was the kind of timing you couldn’t plan. Now all she needed was to discover she didn’t have a job to go to on Monday and that would be the icing on the cake. Weariness washed over her like enervating steam from a Turkish bath.
Dante saw her shoulders droop and her face become even paler. Instantly concerned at the tired picture that she presented, he went to her side, retrieved her heavy leather shoulder bag and, with his hand behind the small of her back, guided her up the concrete staircase to her flat.
‘Why do you look so tired? What have you been doing with yourself?’ When she struggled to fit her key inside the lock, Dante took that too and did the honours. Inside the small hallway he put down her bag and shut the door behind them. Then he turned back to Bliss to examine her properly, the cadence of his heart increasing almost dramatically at the sight of her. ‘And why did you cut your beautiful hair?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Her tone exasperated, Bliss dragged her fingers through her shortened hair and grimaced at the gorgeous hunk of male towering over her.
‘So many questions. My head is spinning!’ It wasn’t a lie either. If she didn’t sit down soon, she’d fall down. Pushing open a door, she went into her recently tidied living room and flopped down onto the cushion-laden couch. Dante followed, his tanned brow furrowed as if her behaviour was severely taxing his patience.
‘You do not look well.’ Recognising that beneath the pallor of her skin there was a definite hint of a flush—the kind a person acquired when they were running a temperature—Dante’s initial concern was swiftly renewed. ‘Why did you go into work today if you were not well?’ He knew he was bombarding her with his questions, but he couldn’t help it. It alarmed him immensely to think that she had no one else to voice concern over her well-being, especially since she had come so willingly and unquestioningly to Tatiana’s aid in the store that day, then again when she’d stayed to help with little Renata.
‘Because I have to earn my living, that’s why!’ She hadn’t meant to shout, but in a way anger helped Bliss to hold back the more powerful underlying emotion that was threatening to engulf her. A need for Dante to hold her, to cradle her against that comforting, hard-muscled chest of his, was growing inside her at such a rate as to scare her witless. What was she thinking of? Did she imagine for one second that he would welcome such a display of feminine weakness? He’d probably run a mile if he thought she needed him in any way, let alone if he found out she was pregnant with his baby! But he mustn’t find out. Bliss was determined on that score. He was obviously in London visiting his sister and maybe he’d even thought to experience a repeat performance of what had happened between him and Bliss the last time they’d been together in her flat, but casual sex could not and would not be on the agenda. No matter how powerful her attraction for him.
‘Have you eaten?’ Sighing, Dante dropped down onto the couch beside her, his hands linked together across his powerful thighs in his designer suit.
‘I’m not hungry. When did you get back from Italy?’
‘Yesterday. I’ve been staying in Belgravia.’
‘At your family’s hotel?’ Bliss stole a greedy glance at his flawless chiselled profile.
‘Yes.’
One small word, Bliss thought desperately, and it could make her melt as if her very bones were fashioned out of candle wax.
‘It is clear to me that you have been working too hard, Bliss. What you need is a holiday. Why don’t you come back to Italy with me?’
His suggestion was so surprising and so completely unexpected that Bliss experienced a wave of dizziness. The feeling was so disorienting that immediately she felt nauseous—just as she had done in the coffee house with Trudy. Terrified she was going to disgrace herself in front of him, she covered her mouth with her hand and made a dash across the room and out of the door to the bathroom.
‘Bliss? Bliss, are you all right?’
He rapped hard on the locked bathroom door, fresh concern adding a commanding edge to his voice. ‘Open the door immediately! What is wrong? Tell me!’
After a few sec
onds Bliss opened the door, her face white. Her beautiful violet eyes were wary and glazed with unshed tears. Dante stared. ‘Do you need a doctor?’ he demanded, pushing away the surge of fear that rose up inside him.
‘No. I don’t need a doctor. I think I’m coming down with a cold, that’s all.’ She pushed past him, wondering desperately what she could say to make him go, because if he stayed around much longer she was afraid she might just break down and make a fool of herself. It went against the grain to feel so vulnerable and weak. Weakness or vulnerability had no place in her life. Bliss had understood from a very young age that inner strength was vital if she was going to survive in the world—doubly so, given her family’s history.
‘I just need to rest,’ she told him when he followed her back into the living room. ‘Perhaps you’d better go.’
‘You did not answer me when I suggested you should come back to Italy with me for a holiday,’ Dante replied firmly, his face hardening.
‘Why, Dante? Because you think you owe me something because of what happened between us? Then let me reassure you that you don’t. You can leave with a clear conscience as far as I’m concerned.’
‘And you also did not cash the cheque I left you.’ His gaze glittering with fury, he irritably pushed a lock of sable hair away from his brow. ‘I paid you for helping my sister and you insult me by not accepting that payment. Now you insult me further by suggesting I am offering you a holiday because we made love and I feel guilty! Il mio Dio!’
‘I don’t want to argue with you.’ Wishing she didn’t feel so weak and under the weather, Bliss dropped back down again onto the couch. She still hadn’t taken off her jacket because right now she welcomed the extra warmth it gave her.
‘And I don’t mean to insult you…no matter what you think.’
He could see that she was obviously tired. Biting back the frustration that was knotting every muscle in his body with profound tension, Dante decided to take charge of the situation.
‘Well, we will talk about that tomorrow. What I think you should do right now is go straight to bed. If you are not feeling better in the morning I will phone for a doctor. I will stay here tonight and make sure you do not get any worse.’ He loosened his expensive silk tie, rubbed a hand around the back of his collar and regarded Bliss as though he expected her to take action immediately. Dumbfounded, she stared up at his tall, commanding figure and felt her stomach execute a neat somersault.
‘You’re not serious?’
‘Why not?’ His green-eyed gaze narrowing with suspicion, Dante frowned.
‘I don’t want you to stay! If you’re staying because of some misguided sense of loyalty where I’m concerned, then I release you from any such ridiculous obligation. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need your help.’
‘It is clear to me that you do.’
Removing his jacket, a fine specimen of exquisitely perfect tailoring that only the seriously rich and those with immaculate taste could afford to indulge in, he folded it casually across the back of a chair and stood, arms crossed. Meanwhile, his eyes tracked her every move as though he half expected her to make a run for it.
‘I want you to go, Dante! I don’t want you to stay here!’ Desperately raising her agitated gaze to his, Bliss begged for his understanding. The last thing in the world she wanted him to do was stay the night and bear witness to her increasingly growing lack of control over the contents of her stomach—all because she was pregnant…
‘Then, on this occasion, innamorata, I am overriding such desire. You helped my sister in her hour of need and now it is my turn to help you. Your couch looks extremely comfortable. I will spend the night there.’
Bliss once again sensed the colour leach from her face. As Dante firmly planted his feet in front of the door she jumped up, pushed him aside and fled once more to the bathroom, feeling more wretched and afraid than she’d felt since her mother had taken her own life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAISING the pastel-green curtain to view a drizzly, uninspiring dawn, Bliss sighed heavily, dropped the curtain back into place, then walked heavy-footed back to her bed. The tossed duvet and pillows looked as if she’d had a fight with them and clearly illustrated that she’d hardly slept a wink. Now she was feeling as flat as a sofa cushion that had lost all its stuffing, weary to the bone and queasy. There was no way she’d be able to go in to work today. Perching on the edge of the bed, she tried desperately hard to control the need to rush straight to the bathroom again. It didn’t help her sense of losing control that Dante had probably spent an equally restless night on her couch, his tall, muscular frame clearly far too big to be remotely comfortable on a piece of furniture that was hardly the height of luxury and ease. Why had he insisted on doing such a crazy, unexpected thing? He’d been adamant he was going to stay even in the face of her disagreement, but this morning she wanted to make it clear to him that she didn’t need a minder—now or ever. Besides…she had to get him out of the house before there was the remotest chance he would find out about her condition.
Searching through kitchen cupboards, Dante found some coffee grounds, a small cafetière and two mugs. As he stood waiting for the kettle to come to the boil he stretched his arms wide, then rolled his head from side to side to ease out the kinks in his neck. He had not enjoyed the best night’s rest known to man on Bliss’s couch and this morning his body felt as though it had been locked inside a hamster cage, such was the stiffness in his limbs. But he wasn’t complaining, because at least he had had the satisfaction of being close to Bliss.
When he had peered into her room a couple of times to check on her, it had been to find that she’d kicked all her bedclothes aside, but he’d hesitated in covering her up because she was clearly a little feverish. Her skin had had the blush-pink sheen to it that people often had when they were running a temperature. Biting back his anxiety as well as the urge to let his gaze linger on the smooth, taut limbs revealed by her lack of covers, all Dante had been able to do was pray that by the morning her temperature would be back to normal again. If it wasn’t he would be calling upon a doctor friend of the family who worked in Harley Street, for advice. Sandrine Lantain had been a GP before she’d decided to specialise and Dante knew she wouldn’t mind seeing Bliss at short notice if he asked her to.
In his opinion what Bliss needed most was a holiday and today he planned on persuading her to come back to Italy with him. If she told him she could not due to work commitments, then Dante fully intended to find her another, better job on her return; one where the holiday entitlement was good and where she would definitely have the prospect of advancing her career if she so wished. He’d even toyed with the idea of finding her work in Italy—that way he could keep an even closer eye on her and maybe persuade her that they should see each other on a regular basis. The idea had been growing in him ever since he had left her that morning after they had made love. Made love…somehow the description didn’t seem enough to describe the wild torrent of emotion that had erupted between them so hotly. Dante had a passionate nature, but it had not been his fortune to experience such an explosive intensity of emotion or earth-shattering pleasure with any other woman before. With Bliss, every emotion and desire he possessed was exquisitely heightened so that even just thinking of her he felt heat start to rise in his body.
‘You’ve found the coffee, I see.’
She was suddenly framed in the kitchen doorway, her dark hair becomingly tousled, her body robed in a thin, silky coral-pink wrap that barely reached her knees. And such knees, Dante thought with satisfaction, his enthusiasm growing on the subject. Her legs were also shapely and elegant, with beautiful feet that arched prettily with perfectly trimmed pink toenails. His glance slid back slowly to her face and, to his utmost pleasure, he discovered that his openly appreciative admiration of her bare legs had caused her to colour delightfully.
‘You have discovered my one vice. Without coffee in the morning I am—what do you say? A
bear with a bad head?’
Her heart thudding at the laughter in his stunning green eyes, Bliss clutched at the front of her robe and slowly let out her breath. She didn’t know about ‘bear with a bad head’; ‘most stunning male in the universe’ was the epithet that most readily sprang to mind.
‘Sore head. It’s sore head, not bad.’
He shrugged as if the distinction was of no consequence. Which of course it wasn’t.
‘You want some?’ he asked her, the laughter in his eyes dying away to be replaced by a much more intense look that made Bliss hot and shivery all at once.
‘Some coffee, you mean?’ She quickly shook her head. Already the potent smell of the coffee grounds in the opened jar was making her poor stomach heave. ‘No thanks. I don’t want anything this morning.’
‘You are still feeling unwell?’
Her sore throat had eased a little and her temperature too, but, yes, she wasn’t exactly feeling on top of the world, Bliss silently acknowledged. In fact, if she didn’t get to the bathroom pronto, she would soon illustrate to the gorgeous male specimen standing in her kitchen that she was feeling anything but well.
‘Bliss!’
This time Dante was too quick for her, reaching the bathroom door at exactly the same time as she did, his fingers gripping her chin to turn her pallid face towards him for closer, more thorough inspection.