Page 10 of Unveiled As The Italian's Bride
‘I like that. As I mentioned, this would be a business proposition. We would have separate quarters, naturally, but should you accept the details would be hammered out between us and all the necessary legalities would be arranged. I have a team of extremely discreet lawyers.’
‘IfI accept...’
Dante smiled and Kate did her best to hold on to her composure because she could read triumph in that smile.
But it was a tempting proposition.
If it weren’t for her dad, for the financial commitments that made it so hard for her to put aside any money for her own future, then she would never be here now, considering his outrageous proposition.
But...
The thought of giving them the sort of lifestyle that might go some way to compensating for what they had lost—maybe even a little caravan so that they could sate some of the wanderlust that would never really desert them... The thought of the freedom to do this without the cold anxiety of how far any money she earned could ever go...
Temptation dangled in front of her like a banquet spread wide to tempt a starving beggar. Surely two years wasn’t an eternity to put aside when the rewards were so tempting?
She would still be young, but she would be settled, with her parents’ and her futures secure. And it wasn’t as though he was asking her to do anything but share space under his roof. As he’d been keen to point out, they would have their separate quarters. She wondered if that was common anyway in his world, where the rules most people obeyed didn’t seem to exist.
‘I’ll think about it.’ She glanced away but, had he looked into her eyes, he surely would have seen capitulation.
She said yes.
Dante looked at her over the continental breakfast laid out on the table between them the following morning. With Angelina dropped off to school and all calls on hold for the next couple of hours, allowing him to discuss the details of their marriage, he seemed quietly satisfied.
‘I’ll arrange a meeting with my lawyers as quickly as possible,’ he said in response. ‘But first we have to go over the bare bones of this arrangement—make sure we’re on the same page.’ He nodded at the spread of breads and jams in front of them. ‘And eat something, Kate. You’re allowed.’
Oddly, and despite the fact that she had been working for him for over two years, this was the first time Kate had sat down and shared a meal with him without the presence of his daughter or other people around.
Kate’s eyes skittered away from his but she was still very much aware of him in her peripheral vision as she reached for a croissant. He was dressed in black jeans and a heavy cream shirt rolled to the elbows with the top two buttons undone, revealing a sprinkling of dark hair. When she looked at him, she was struck by the notion that she had agreed to marry this man, a guy who sent her nervous system into freefall and with whom she had nothing in common.
‘This feels strange,’ she confessed.
‘That’s because itisstrange. That said, I very much appreciate you agreeing to my proposal. I must ask you whether you are absolutely sure that you want to go ahead with this because, once the announcement is put out there, retracting it would be...somewhat awkward.’
‘Two years isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things.’
‘Especially given the financial incentive,’ Dante murmured. For the first time, he found that he was intensely curious about why the money mattered so much to her. Was she saving for a fancy house in a fancy neighbourhood? Paying off a student loan and whatever debts she might have accumulated when she had been studying? Investing in gold bars—because who could ever go wrong with that?
Certainly, there was no significant other on the scene. That had been mentioned in passing only a couple of months ago, when he had had to ask her to work for three weeks over the summer holidays which she’d been due to have off to return to England.
‘Of course, please tell me whether you have commitments of a personal nature, in which case I can try and arrange a fill-in from the agency until Sara is well enough to return after her operation.’ He hadn’t bothered to beat about the bush.
Sara, the middle-aged woman who covered the holiday period with Angelina, had been rushed to hospital with appendicitis.
‘Personal nature?’
‘A boyfriend, perhaps?’
He had shrugged away the potential intrusiveness of the question but his dark eyes had been watchful.
‘I—no... I’m a free agent, as it happens...’
At the time, Kate had struggled not to laugh—boyfriend? She had spent most of her life living in and out of suitcases with her parents. Certainly, during her teenage years, when most girls her age had been navigating their way through the complex world of boys and first relationships, she had been busy making sure she kept abreast with schoolwork. With her in and out of various schools, there had simply never been the opportunity to build any kind of relationship with any boy. Then, just when she had found stability, settling into her career, the unexpected had happened with her father’s accident to sweep her back off her feet. Boys were a luxury she had just never got round to sampling.
‘We’ll have to work out a timetable to break the news, but I suggest telling Antonio first and then waiting for him to digest it.’
‘He’s going to be a little surprised.’
‘As understatements go, you could very well be right.’
