Challenging Dante (A Bride for a Billionaire 4)

Dante was palpably disconcerted by her reference to his being a widower and he breathed in deeply, as if he was bracing himself. ‘To say the least, my life as a child and adolescent was dysfunctional. I thought that if I married young I could do it all differently and create the happy home I had never known. I also thought I loved Emilia. I never refer to my marriage because I made a mistake and I still feel guilty about that.’ Dante virtually grated that final hard-edged admission. ‘Are you satisfied now?’

‘Satisfied with what? You’re still not telling me what happened.’

‘Emilia died, running across a busy road to meet me for lunch. While I was waiting for her...before I learned what had happened,’ Dante framed jerkily, ‘I was wishing she would at least leave me alone during working hours... That’s how lousy a husband I was.’

Topsy was frowning, taken aback. ‘You didn’t love her?’

‘I thought I did but with mature hindsight I think it was more a fond friendship on my side than love. Her parents had divorced. We both wanted a stable home life but she wanted too much of me and I felt suffocated, trapped,’ he explained roughly, guiltily.

‘How did she want too much of you?’

‘If I wasn’t with her she was phoning me constantly and she couldn’t stand me leaving her to work. It was as though I had no right to a life of my own any more, but as far as Emilia was concerned that was how you loved someone. It didn’t work for me; it was like living in a cage. I knew I shouldn’t have married her within weeks. I realised we were too different but I could never have hurt her by telling her that.’

‘It’s not your fault that she died,’ Topsy told him gently.

‘I know that...but I wasn’t the best husband while she was alive. I was too young and selfish and she was too needy,’ he confided tight-mouthed. ‘But there’s nothing I can do about that now.’

He had regrets and Topsy was appalled to feel a dart of jealousy piercing her even on poor Emilia’s behalf because she could not bear to picture Dante having been married to anyone.

‘So, after that experience you didn’t do serious in relationships,’ Topsy guessed.

‘I didn’t think I was cut out for serious after Emilia and I went for variety rather than quality,’ Dante acknowledged, his face forbidding in its detachment as though he seriously loathed having to tell her such a thing.

‘There’s no shame in avoiding what doesn’t suit you,’ Topsy mumbled abstractedly. ‘We’re all different—we’re not meant to be the same. I’ve never done serious with anyone.’

Dante shot her a literal stabbing glance from glittering green eyes. ‘I thought what we had was serious.’

‘Which just goes to show how mistaken you can be,’ Topsy parried with a strangled little laugh.

‘Stop being so obstinate and listen to me!’ Dante growled at her out of all patience, his eyes flashing with angry hostility. ‘I was paired up with Cosima by her agent! She was not my girlfriend or my mistress or my lover or anything. She was chosen to publicise the ball and persuade other celebrities that the event was fashionable enough for them to attend. We went out to dinner twice and attended a couple of parties to make it appear to the press that we were a couple. It is not an uncommon arrangement when good PR is required...’

Topsy was staring fixedly at him. ‘You mean the hottest society couple in Italy was a fake romance? A show-mance?’ she whispered shakily. ‘Totally fake?’

‘Totally fake,’ Dante confirmed. ‘There was...er...a casual relationship with someone else at the time but that was over before I even met you.’

‘But the way Cosima spoke to you at the ball...about your “agreement”. What was that all about?’ Topsy persisted, frowning, afraid to believe what he was telling her.

‘I explained that I had met someone who would also be at the ball and she threw a fit at the threat of the paparazzi realising that I had lost interest in her and then assuming that she had been dumped. And Cosima naturally doesn’t do dumped as part of her glossy image. She refused to come to the ball until I promised that I would maintain the act of being with her all evening and have nothing to do with any other woman,’ he explained heavily. ‘If I had had any idea how much grief that promise would cause me, I would never have agreed. But, at least, she turned up and gave the fund the publicity we needed for it.’

‘But you must have fancied her,’ Topsy breathed before she could think better of it. ‘I mean, come on, Dante. Cosima’s gorgeous and she’s got a title like you, and even I have to admit that you look very well together.’

‘No, I didn’t fancy her in the slightest and she was very irritating company, talks about nothing but fashion and cosmetics,’ Dante complained sardonically. ‘At one point she called me a dinosaur for not being a fan of guy-liner.’

Topsy was surprised to find herself on the brink of laughing at the thought of that conversation. ‘Let’s face it, you are kind of conservative.’

‘Please tell me you don’t want me to wear guy-liner,’ Dante urged, almost making that pent-up laughter bubble over inside her. ‘I will do almost anything to get you back but I won’t use make-up.’

‘You don’t need guy-liner. You’ve got great eyelashes,’ she told him comfortingly.

Her brain had, however, leapt into a frantic whirl of excited and not particularly logical thoughts. He wanted her back. She wanted him back. For the first time that week the sick, tight feeling of isolation and loss had eased its stranglehold. He said he was serious about her. Could she believe that? Take the risk that he might respond to her feelings for him and give him another chance? But even through the chaos of her over-excited thoughts, there was one question she still had to ask and it was an obvious one.

‘So, why didn’t you tell me about your arrangement with Cosima before the ball?’ Topsy asked doggedly, and as his gaze cloaked she immediately saw that it was a question he had hoped she wouldn’t ask him.

‘I hadn’t quite worked out where you and I were going and making a big explanation about Cosima struck me as unnecessarily dramatic,’ he advanced with visible reluctance.

‘Unnecessarily dramatic?’ Topsy yelled, jumping upright, a flush of frustrated fury colouring her heart-shaped face. ‘How on earth could it be unnecessarily dramatic to explain about Cosima when you were sleeping in my bed with me every night?’

Dante shifted his feet restively, turned away, turned agitatedly back. ‘I felt that it would be like making a big statement about our relationship and I was already uneasy about the way I was behaving with you.’

‘A big statement,’ Topsy repeated, unimpressed by that excuse. ‘Why...uneasy?’

A deeply pained expression crossed his face. ‘Do we have to discuss this now?’

‘Yes, we do.’ Topsy was sticking to her guns, recognising that she was in a much stronger position than she had appreciated.

‘Even that I got involved with you in the first place was unusual for me. You were living in my home and I have never before developed an uncontrollable desire to ravish one of the staff. That felt weird,’ Dante recounted flatly. ‘And then I was staying with you every night, all night and that felt even weirder because I never hang around after sex.’

‘My goodness, I was getting a treat and I didn’t even know it!’ Topsy fired back with spirit. ‘What was so weird about being attracted to me?’

‘I thought you weren’t my type but you’re so much my type it’s ridiculous,’ Dante confessed and, without warning, suddenly stalked forward to reach for her hands with both of his. ‘Please tell me that you’re willing to move to Italy and live with me for ever, gioia mia.’

Topsy’s eyes opened very wide indeed, her astonishment at that rapid turnaround unconcealed. ‘That’s a bit of a tall order, Dante. For ever?’ she questioned weakly.

‘Nothing less than for ever will do and I’ve already asked your father for his permission.’

‘Permission for what?’ she echoed.

And Dante got down on one knee in front of her, altogether depriving her of breath and voice, and extended a glittering diamond ring. ‘Will you marry me?’

Topsy was so shattered by the marriage proposal that she crumpled back down on the edge of the sofa again. ‘You’re not serious...you can’t be?’

‘Why can’t I be?’ Dante demanded almost aggressively.

‘You said you didn’t do serious... I mean, you were really clear about that.’

‘And then I met you...’ A hand braced on her denim-clad thigh like a brand. ‘And I fell insanely in love with you so fast I didn’t know what was happening to me.’

‘But you thought all those bad things about me...that I was chasing Vittore, that I was a regular escort girl.’

‘And then you seduced me at the picnic,’ Dante slotted in, green eyes glowing with sudden amusement.