Lynne Graham - His Cinderella's One-Night Heir

‘And I won’t share any more of my private business unless you first express an interest in accepting the job,’ Dante incised impatiently. ‘Sleep on the idea. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at eleven and you can give me an answer then. But be warned...I am a demanding employer with high standards. If you take the job, you’ll have to meet all my requirements. That will mean wearing the clothes I buy for you, breaking the nail-biting habit...and ditching the dog. I’m not keen on dogs.’

Belle’s shamefully bitten nails curled into her palms. He had noticed . She always prayed that people didn’t notice her bad habit but it seemed horribly typical of Dante Lucarelli that he had noticed her stubby nails, and she was mortified. Almost at the same time she reached for Charlie for reassurance and lifted him up onto her lap, sand from his paws and coat flying in all directions. ‘I can’t possibly ditch Charlie.’

‘He can go into kennels for the duration of our arrangement.’

‘No, he needs love and attention, and taken away from everything familiar, he would be frightened!’ Belle reasoned fiercely, hugging Charlie to her as if he were a worn soft toy.

‘He’s not a child,’ Dante reasoned in exasperation.

‘He’s the only family I’ve got, and he’s had a rough ride so far in life,’ Belle argued in growing dismay. ‘I won’t part with Charlie!’

‘Sleep on it,’ Dante advised again. ‘Now, let me walk you back to the campervan.’

‘That’s not necessary,’ Belle told him, springing upright and setting the dog down. ‘It’s only a hundred yards away.’

‘I decide what’s necessary, not you,’ Dante shot back at her, suspecting that she could be more trouble than she was worth because she was emotional, far too emotional. Cristiano had been full of emotion and very much prone to attachments as well and look where that caring, sharing nonsense had got his brother! Cristiano had left behind two heartbroken, seriously clingy and demanding chihuahuas and Dante kept them in exclusive boarding kennels in the very lap of luxury. He visited his brother’s pets religiously once a month. It wasn’t quite the same as taking the dogs home with him, but it was the best he felt able to offer dogs who had never been treated as dogs and who probably didn’t even know that they were dogs. Tito and Carina expected to share beds, sleep on laps and be hand-fed from plates.

Belle breathed in deeply. ‘Do you think maybe you’re having to hire a girlfriend because you’re so rude, heartless and authoritarian?’

‘I can’t remember when a woman last insulted me,’ Dante confided in receipt of that refreshing question and gloriously untouched by the condemnation. A lifetime of criticism from his parents had ensured that he had developed a very tough hide.

‘You must meet an awful lot of uncritical women.’

‘Very rich men rarely meet with anything else,’ Dante imparted with cynical conviction, pausing beside the small rusting campervan below the trees to marvel that anyone could actually be living in the battered vehicle full-time. ‘I’ll meet you in the bar tomorrow at eleven.’

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