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Jason, the Cathcarts’ slightly built son and manager, smiled diffidently at Dante as he sat down opposite him at the meeting table. He was clutching a pen and a spiral notebook and his hand shook a little. What was the story with him? Dante wondered. Was the manager’s role too big an ask for him, or was it just that he struggled to assert himself under his parents’ guardianship of the hotel?
‘Was she informed about the meeting?’
‘Yes…of course. It’s just that she—’
‘Then she should be here on time, like everyone else.’
His chastising glance encompassed them all, but Dante nonetheless tempered it with a trace of a smile. He heard the door behind him open and turned expectantly. A woman with hair the same hue as a bright russet apple stepped inside, bringing with her the faint but stirring scent of oranges and patchouli.
His thoughts careened to an abrupt halt…like a driver applying the emergency brake before hitting a wall. He stared in shock. Anna…dear God, she still worked here?
‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she breathed, porcelain skin flushing. ‘I was—’
The startled leap in her sherry-brown eyes told Dante she recognised him. His heart—which had all but stalled—pumped a little harder as he realised he’d been genuinely afraid she might have forgotten him. What a blow that would have been to his pride, when out of all the women he’d seen over the years she was the one that haunted him…
‘Mr Romano,’ Grant Cathcart was saying, ‘I’d like to introduce you to our stalwart assistant manager…Anna Bailey.’
Rising automatically to his feet, Dante extended his hand, praying hard that his voice wouldn’t desert him. Anna’s palm was fragile and slightly chilled as it slid into his. Their gazes locked as though magnetized, and though he sensed her tremble, inside he believed that he trembled more.
‘Miss Bailey…I’m very pleased to meet you,’ he heard himself announce.
‘The feeling is mutual, Mr—Mr Romano,’ she replied politely.
Her warm velvet voice bathed his senses in liquid honey. Arresting memories of their unforgettable night together came pouring back in a disturbing heated rush. Realising that his hand still covered hers, Dante reluctantly withdrew it.
‘Why don’t you come and sit down, Anna love? ‘ Anita invited. ‘There’s plenty of coffee in the pot if you’d like some.’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Anna murmured distractedly.
As Dante watched her, she moved like a sleepwalker to a seat at the opposite side of the table, next to Jason, and he didn’t miss the spark of warmth in the other man’s dark eyes as he silently acknowledged her. Was something going on there? A hot flash of jealousy hit Dante a glancing blow as he resumed his seat.
‘Well, if everybody’s ready, we’ll make a start, shall we? ‘ With a respectful glance in their visitor’s direction, Grant Cathcart organised his notes and prepared to address the meeting.
Dante Romano. No wonder she’d never been able to find him! What had instigated the name-change? she wondered. Underneath, was he still as ruthless and cutthroat as it had said in the newspaper reports she’d read when she’d been searching for him? But what did it matter when it had already been decided by the Cathcarts that he was going to be their saviour?
As well as investing a substantial amount of money in the Mirabelle, Dante Romano was taking the hotel, its owners and its staff firmly under his wing. Being satisfied that Anita and Grant were completely happy with the arrangement was one thing. Only time would tell if Anna would be equally happy. There was a very big—in fact a huge hurdle she had to cross before then.
Shaking her head, she emitted a small groan as she added chopped up red and green peppers to the stir-fry she was busy cooking for herself and Tia.
She’d half believed she was hallucinating when she’d walked into the office to find Dan, or Dante as he called himself now, sitting there. And she’d had such a jolt when his incredible winter-coloured eyes had bored into hers. In those electrifying few seconds the world could have ended, and she hadn’t been able to drag her hypnotised gaze away.
Five years ago she’d never even asked him his full name. When he’d asked her to stay with him for the night but not to expect anything more she’d agreed—and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t speculate on where he would go or what he would do when he left her, even if it ultimately meant he was going from her arms to someone else’s.
Consoling herself that she’d helped comfort him in his hour of need, and that no matter how emotionally painful it was it would have to be enough, Anna had never intended to try and track him down afterwards. But when she’d found herself pregnant with his child she’d reasoned that she owed it to him to let him know. However, discovering that the suite’s occupant Dan Masterson was a veritable ‘shark’ in the world of international business, who didn’t care who he brought down in his empire-building quest, had definitely given her pause. He might have been tender with Anna that night they’d spent together, and he might have been troubled, but could she knowingly risk inflicting such a driven ruthless man on her child?
She’d decided no, she couldn’t. Besides, she’d definitely received the impression from her one-night lover that he wasn’t interested in a relationship, so why would he be interested in the fact that he’d left his one-time-only lover pregnant? she’d reasoned.
Leading up to that night five years ago she’d been working so hard, what with all the different jobs she did at the hotel—sometimes even working double shifts back to back—and because she’d been extremely tired, she’d absent-mindedly forgotten to take one of her daily contraceptive pills. It had only dawned on Anna to check when early-morning nausea had become a worrying recurrence.
Some months after Tia had been born she’d revised her decision not to get in touch with Dan and decided to try once more to locate him. It had been as though he had vanished. The only information about him she’d been able to glean was stuff from the past. There had been nothing to indicate what he was doing nearly eighteen months after they’d met.
From the living room came the delighted chuckle of her small daughter as she knocked down the building blocks she’d had as a toddler that she’d been happily shaping into a wobbling tower for the past ten minutes or so. A wave of sadness and terror deluged her mother all at once. What would Dan—or Dante, as she should call him now—think when he found out that their passionate night together all those years ago had made him a father? How poignant that he hadn’t had the privilege of knowing his own delightful daughter. Anna had no doubt that it would have enhanced his life in a myriad different ways. But what could she have done when it had seemed as though he didn’t exist any more?
With genuine regret she squeezed her eyes shut, then quickly opened them again. Her terror came from the fact that she knew he was a very rich and influential man indeed—rich enough to invest in a major share of the hotel that was the means of her employment and her place to live. How would it reflect on Anna if Dante’s was the controlling share? What if he decided she wasn’t up to her job—or, worse still, that he wanted to try and take Tia away from her? A man as wealthy as him must have access to all kinds of power…particularly legal power.
Abruptly switching off the burner beneath the wooden-handled wok, Anna wrapped her arms protectively round her middle as she crossed the tiled kitchen floor to examine the collage of baby and toddler photographs of Tia that were framed on the wall there. Behind her, the suddenly ringing telephone made her jump.
‘Hello?’
‘Anna? It’s me—Dante. I’m still in the hotel. You rushed off rather quickly after the meeting and I think we need to talk. I believe you have a flat downstairs—can I come down and see you?’
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_640b2bd6-2c36-5cfe-ad18-9dfafaef5286)
ANNA was struck dumb by Dante’s request. What should she do? If she agreed for him to come down to the flat, how to prepare him for her news when Tia was there, large as life, playing happily in the living room? There was no time to prepare for anything!
‘I’d love to talk to you—I really would—but—’
‘But?’
She could imagine him sardonically curling his lip. He knew she was hedging. God, why couldn’t she be a better actress?
‘I’m making dinner at the moment. Why don’t we arrange to meet up tomorrow? You’re coming in to start working with Grant and Anita, aren’t you?’
‘I think I’d rather come and talk to you right now, Anna. I’ll be with you in about five minutes.’
He put down the phone. Anna was left staring at the receiver in her hand as if it was a grenade she’d just pulled the pin from.
‘Tia, we’re going to have a visitor in a minute. We’ll have dinner after he’s gone, okay?’
She sped round the compact living room, sweeping up strewn toys into her arms like a whirlwind, then throwing them onto the end of the faded gold couch as if she was aiming to knock down coconuts at a carnival stall. When Dante arrived she would hide her emotions as best she could, she promised herself, yanking her oversized emerald sweater further down over her hips. Yes, she would hide behind her assistant manager’s mask—be unflustered and professional, as if she could totally handle whatever he cared to throw at her. No matter that she hadn’t been able to so much as look at another man since he’d left, because her heart had been irrevocably stolen by him.
She didn’t have a hope of concealing her feelings behind a managerial mask under the circumstances. How could she?
‘Who’s coming to see us, Mummy?’ Feeling a tug on her trouser-leg, Anna’s gaze fell distractedly into her daughter’s. The child’s big blue-grey eyes—eyes, she realised with another frisson of shock, that were identical to her father’s—were avid with curiosity. ‘Is it Auntie Anita?’
‘No, darling. It’s not Auntie Anita.’ Chewing anxiously down on her lip, Anna forced herself to smile. ‘It’s a man called Dante Romano and—and he’s an old friend of mine.’
‘If he’s your friend, why haven’t I seen him before?’ Tia’s husky little voice was plaintive.
‘Because—’
The knock on the hallway door just outside completely silenced whatever it was that Anna had been about to say. Rolling up her sweater sleeves, she reached for Tia’s hand and led her as calmly as she was able over to the couch, where she sat her down. Crouching in front of her, she tenderly stroked back some golden corkscrew curls from her forehead.
‘Don’t be nervous, will you? He’s—he’s a very nice man, and I’m sure he’ll be very pleased to meet you.’
As she hurried out into the hallway a surge of irrepressibly strong emotion made tears flood into her eyes. Not now! she moaned silently, wiping them away with the back of her hand. Why don’t you wait to hear what he has to say before you start crying?
‘Hi.’ His handsome smile was devastatingly confident, and Anna could scarcely contain the anger that suddenly rose up inside her, let alone analyse it.
‘Hello,’ she murmured in reply, praying he wouldn’t see the evidence of her tears. ‘Come in.’
Had he called at a bad time? Dante speculated. Her beautiful brown eyes appeared slightly moist. He guessed she would rather have put off his visit until tomorrow, but the fact of the matter was he couldn’t wait until then to see her and talk to her again. Ever since Anna had walked into that office he’d ached to get her alone, find out what she’d been doing all these years… maybe even ask if she’d ever thought about him since that extraordinary night they’d spent together.
Folding her arms, she stood squarely in front of him, leaving him with the distinct notion he wasn’t going to be invited in any farther. Fighting down the sense of rejection that bubbled up inside him, he swept his glance hungrily over her pale oval face. The dazzling fire-lit brown eyes were wary, he noticed, and the softly shaped mouth that was barely glazed with some raspberry-coloured lipgloss was serious and unsmiling.
‘You said you wanted to talk…what about? ‘
It wasn’t a very promising start. Apprehension flooded into the pit of Dante’s stomach.
‘What a greeting. You make it sound like you’re expecting an interrogation.’ He shrugged, momentarily thrown off balance by her cool reception.
‘It’s just that I’m busy.’
‘Cooking, you said?’ He quirked a slightly mocking eyebrow and sniffed the air.
‘Look… how do you expect me to greet you after all this time? The truth is you’re the last person I ever expected to see again! For you to show up now, because you’re the new investor in the Mirabelle, is obviously a shock…a shock that I was totally unprepared for.’ Pursing her lips, she was clearly distressed. ‘I don’t know how to put this any other way, Mr Romano, and please don’t think me presumptuous, but I think that whatever else happens round here our relationship should remain strictly professional for as long as we have to work together.’
‘Why? Afraid you might be tempted to instigate a repeat performance of the last time we got together?’
Stung by her aloof air, and the distance she seemed so eager to put between them, Dante said the first thing that entered his head. Trouble was, he’d be lying if he said the thought of them being intimate hadn’t crossed his mind. It was practically all he’d been dwelling on since setting eyes on her.
Blushing hard, Anna gazed down at the floor. When she glanced up at him again her dark eyes were spilling over with fury.
‘What a hateful, arrogant thing to say! Bad enough that you only thought me good enough for a one-night stand, but to come here now and assume that I—that I would even—’ She gulped in a deep breath to calm herself. ‘Some of us have moved on.’
Dante nodded, sensing a muscle flex hard in the side of his cheek. ‘And you have moved on, haven’t you, Anna? Assistant Manager, no less.’
‘If you’re suggesting I got the position by any other means than by damned hard work then you can just turn around and leave right now. I certainly don’t intend to meekly stand here while you mock and insult me!’
His lips twitched into a smile. He couldn’t help it. Did she have any idea how sexy she was when she was angry? With that fiery-red hair spilling over her shoulders and those dark eyes flashing. it would test the libidinous mettle of any red-blooded heterosexual male. To Dante it felt as if a lighted match had been dropped into his blood, and it had ignited as though it were petrol.
‘I didn’t come here to insult you, Anna. I merely wanted to see you again in private…that’s all.’
‘I heard you shouting, Mummy.’
A little girl with the prettiest corkscrew blond curls Dante had ever seen suddenly emerged from a room along the hall. Deep shock scissored through him. She’d addressed Anna as ‘Mummy’.
Definitely flustered, Anna ran her fingers over the child’s softly wayward hair, captured a small hand in hers and squeezed it.
‘Tia…this is the man I told you about. Mr Romano.’
‘Why are you calling him Mr Romano when you told me his name was Dante?’
The girl was engagingly forthright. Dante smiled, and the child dimpled shyly up at him.
‘Hello, Tia.’ Staring into her riveting misty-coloured eyes, he frowned, not knowing why she suddenly seemed so familiar. Quickly he returned his attention to Anna. ‘You got married and had a child?’ he said numbly. ‘Was that the “moving on” you referred to?’
‘I’m not married.’
‘But you’re still with her father? ‘
Her cheeks pinking with embarrassment, she sighed. ‘No…I’m not.’
‘Obviously things didn’t work out between you?’ Dante’s racing heartbeat started to stabilise. So she was alone again? It must have been tough, raising her child on her own. He wondered if the father kept in touch and assumed the proper responsibility for his daughter’s welfare. Having had a father who had shamelessly deserted him and his mother when it didn’t suit him to be responsible, Dante deplored the mere idea that the man might have turned his back on Anna and the child.
‘Perhaps—perhaps you’d better come in after all.’ Saying no more, Anna turned back towards the room along the hallway, Tia’s hand gripped firmly in hers.
Barely knowing what to make of this, Dante followed. The living room was charming. The walls were painted in an off-white cream-coloured tone, helping to create a very attractive sense of spaciousness and light. It was the perfect solution in a basement apartment where the long rectangular windows were built too high up to let in much daylight.
‘Please,’ she said nervously, gesturing towards a plump gold-coloured couch with toys strewn at one end, ‘sit down. Can I get you something to drink?’
She’d gone from hostile to the perfect hostess in a couple of seconds flat. It immediately made Dante suspicious. He dropped down onto the couch.
‘No, thanks.’ Freeing his tie a little from his shirt collar, he gave Tia a smile then leant forward, his hands linked loosely across his thighs. ‘What’s going on, Anna? And don’t tell me nothing. I’m too good a reader of people to buy that.’
She was alternately twisting her hands together and fiddling with the ends of her bright auburn hair. The tension already building in Dante’s iron-hard stomach muscles increased an uncomfortable notch.
‘Tia? Would you go into your bedroom for a minute and look for that colouring book we were searching for earlier? You know the one—with the farm animals on the front? Have a really good look and bring some crayons too.’
‘Is Dante going to help me colour in my book, Mummy?’ The little girl’s voice was hopeful.
‘Sure.’ He grinned at her. ‘Why not?’
When Tia had left them to run along the hallway to her bedroom, Anna’s dark eyes immediately cleaved apprehensively to Dante’s. ‘That night—the night we were together.’ She cleared her throat a little and his avid gaze didn’t waver from hers for a second. ‘I got pregnant. I didn’t lie when I told you I was on the pill, but because I’d been working so hard I missed taking one… Anyway…Tia’s yours. What I’m saying—what I’m trying to tell you—is that you’re her father.’
He’d heard of white-outs, but not being enamoured of snow or freezing weather had never experienced one. He imagined the blinding sensation of disorientation that currently gripped him was a little like that condition. Time ticked on in its own relentless way, but for a long moment he couldn’t distinguish anything much. Feelings, thoughts—they just didn’t exist. He quite simply felt numb. Then, when emotions started to pour through him like a riptide, he pushed to his feet, staring hard at the slender redhead who stood stock-still, her brown eyes a myriad palette of shifting colours Dante couldn’t decipher right then.
‘What are you up to? ‘ he demanded. ‘Has someone put you up to this to try and swindle money from me? Answer me, damn it!’ He drove his shaking fingers through his hair in a bid to still them. ‘Tell me what you just said again, Anna—so I can be sure I didn’t misunderstand you.’
‘Nobody put me up to anything, and nor do I want your money. I’m telling you the truth, Dante. That night we spent together resulted in me becoming pregnant.’
‘And the baby you were carrying is Tia? ‘
‘Yes.’
‘Then if that’s the truth, why in God’s name didn’t you find me to let me know?’
‘We agreed.’ She swallowed hard. Her flawless smooth skin was alabaster-pale, Dante registered without sympathy. ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t hold each other to anything…that it was just for the one night and in the morning we’d both move on. You were—you were so troubled that night. I knew you were hurting. I didn’t know what had happened, because you didn’t tell me, but I guessed you might have just lost someone close. You weren’t looking for anything deep…like a relationship. I knew that. You didn’t even tell me your last name. You simply wanted—needed to be close to someone and for some reason—’ She momentarily dipped her head. ‘For some reason you chose me.’
Barely trusting himself to speak, because his chest felt so tight and he was afraid he might just explode, Dante grimly shook his head.
‘You could have easily found out my last name by checking in the reservations book. From there you could have found a contact address. Why didn’t you? ‘
She hesitated, as if she was about to say something, but changed her mind. ‘I—I told you. I didn’t because we’d made an agreement. I was respecting your wishes. that’s all.’
‘Respecting my wishes? Are you crazy? This wasn’t just some simple mistake you could brush aside, woman! Can’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve denied me my own child. For over four years my daughter has lived without her father. Did she never ask about me?’
‘Yes…she—she did.’
