‘I’m not.’ Bella smiled wantonly. ‘But you must know that if he is gentle, if he is considerate then a woman always has a soft spot for her first...’ As the duty manager knocked on the door of the suite she continued her soft taunt. ‘A tender spot...’ Bella said. ‘A sweet, warm spot...’ And then she told him a truth of his own. ‘Were you thinking of me as she sucked you?’ Bella asked, and laughed out loud. ‘But of course you were—I assume that you got my bedside note, warning that tomorrow would be stormy and hot.’
‘Jealous, Bella?’ Matteo demanded, as there was another knock on the door to the suite. ‘Is that the reason you threw water over us...?’ He released her arm to go and get the door as she spoke on with a sneer in her voice.
‘I wasn’t jealous at all—my mother used to do the same to dogs in the street.’
He had been about to let the manager in but instead he turned and fronted her, his anger pushing her up against the wall.
‘Shandy and I are not dogs and we were not out on the street. I was in bed with my lover...’
It was Bella’s turn to be doused but it felt as if it was by acid as Matteo shrugged off the sheet and picked up his robe.
His words made her face go pale and she shrank against the wall. It hurt so much to hear that and the enormity of what she had done was just starting to hit.
And then she glimpsed again his beauty.
He wasn’t bashful, there was no point, there was nothing of him that Bella hadn’t already seen, and so as he dressed she was taunted by one last glimpse of Matteo Santini naked.
One glimpse was enough to reveal that his thighs were more muscular, his arms just as toned. One glimpse was too much for she saw him, half-aroused, lifting from his thigh, and she knew it would never be hers to hold again.
Matteo strode off to let the manager in and the angry blonde came out of the bathroom. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and Bella could not bring herself to look at her.
‘Your maid...’ Shandy shouted, as she brushed past Bella and into the lounge room, loudly voicing her complaint. ‘She has completely ruined our morning...’
Matteo glanced over as Bella came through—the witch who had been in the bedroom had now turned her expression from seductive to contrite. Hell, she even managed to produce tears.
He could never have guessed that they were real.
‘I said that I was sorry,’ Bella attempted.
‘Oh, it’s way too late for that,’ Shandy shouted, and then turned to Alfeo, the duty manager. ‘Fire her.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ Matteo said, and then he cleared his throat. ‘It was an accident.’ He was used to putting out fires, massive ones, yet it was taking everything he had to put out this tiny one and to treat Bella as if he didn’t know her. ‘It was a simple accident,’ he reiterated, ‘and no one got hurt.’
‘Your maid threw a bucket of water over us!’ Shandy shrieked. ‘She didn’t just trip, she actually took aim. This is going to hit the papers if I have my way. Do you have any idea who I am?’
The duty manager couldn’t care less that Charlotte Havershand, or Shandy as she preferred to be known, was the daughter of some English politician. His concern was more for Matteo Santini’s reaction. Alfeo well knew that he was, along with his business partner Luka Cavaliere, considering purchasing this hotel. The room had been meticulously prepared, the staff had all been fully briefed and told that all the stops were to be pulled out for this most esteemed guest.
Alfeo knew too a little of Santini’s dark past and so he swallowed nervously as he weighed his options. Yes, Santini might appear to be being reasonable but he had meted out many a silent punishment in the past and so Alfeo came to a rapid decision.
‘You’re fired,’ Alfeo said to Bella.
‘Alfeo...’ Bella’s tears were flowing now. ‘Alfeo, please...’
‘Go and wait in my office and I will give you your papers.’
‘Alfeo...’ Bella begged. ‘I’ve worked here for five years and with one mistake you would—’
‘Out!’ Alfeo snapped, and with a sob she fled.
She offered no final plea to him, Matteo noted.
No parting shot either.
She simply turned and fled.
He should feel relief that she was gone.
He should snap to attention and resume the perfect life he had created but instead he just stared at the door she had run out of as the duty manger attempted to right her wrongs. ‘Now, I will attend to the mess she has made myself but first, please, take a seat and I will have breakfast brought to you here in the lounge. I cannot apologise enough—’
‘There was no need to fire her,’ Matteo said, and then he looked at Shandy, who was smirking as she sat down. ‘You just cost someone their job. Does that not bother you?’
‘What bothers me,’ Shandy retorted, ‘is that I have to get my hair done now when I was hoping to go shopping this morning. I do love the shops here...’ she examined her nails, no doubt, Matteo thought, toying between coral or nude. He recalled Bella’s bitten ones, as, despite his best attempts, the past finally, fully invaded, he could not live the lie a moment longer.
Breakfast was promptly delivered but Matteo waved away the new maid that had been sent and he also asked Alfeo to leave but said he would like to speak with him later, before he dealt with Bella.
He poured the coffee with a completely steady hand and as he did so Matteo dismissed his latest lover from his life.
Shandy didn’t go quietly, but he was more than used to that.
She pleaded, she sobbed and the room was slightly trashed again, but finally Shandy was in his company jet and on the way back to London as Matteo sat in a hotel that Bella had given five years of her working life to.
Five years.
Matteo had assumed that her arrival here had been recent, a year or two perhaps.
Five years, though, must mean that she had left Bordo Del Cielo around the same time that he had.
It made no sense.
Matteo called for the duty manager to come up to discuss the morning’s events.
‘It really is most irregular,’ Alfeo said, once Matteo had invited him to take a seat. ‘We only have our best staff working on the top floors.’
‘And Bella is one of your best?’ Matteo checked.
‘She’s one of our more experienced staff,’ Alfeo flushed.
‘You’ve had problems with her before?’ Matteo pushed. He had worked in hotels for a long time and knew when the duty manager was being evasive.
‘Not problems as such...’ Alfeo ran a worried hand through his hair and Matteo wondered if the manager’s sudden discomfort possibly had something to do with his maid’s extra-curricular activities. ‘Despite our best preparations for your visit, it would seem there was a mix-up with the staff rosters. Bella doesn’t usually work the top floors.’
Matteo was quite sure there had been no mix-up, he was quite sure that Bella had been busy meddling.
‘I don’t want her fired,’ he said. ‘You are to give her a warning but tell her that she has a second chance...’ Matteo hesitated. ‘After I check out, though. I leave here on Sunday for Dubai. Once I’ve gone, she can resume work.’
‘Of course,’ Alfeo said. ‘You can tell your fiancé that she has nothing to worry about, she shan’t be seeing Bella again—’
‘That’s all,’ Matteo said, choosing not to correct Alfeo.
Shandy wasn’t the problem.
With Bella in the same building, it was Matteo’s willpower that might not hold out.
But it would not prove so easy to avoid her, Matteo found out just as the manager left and he took a call from Luka.
‘It would seem you were right with what you said last night,’ Luka sighed. ‘Sophie has told her father that we will
marry in Bordo Del Cielo this weekend...’
‘And you said yes?’
‘I told her that she had better hope that her father dies before the service on Sunday. I will go through the motions and make the right noises but it is all just a charade. No way will I go through with a marriage just to appease her father.’
‘Finally you are speaking sense.’
‘Will you be there?’ Luka asked, and Matteo was about to say that he would but then Luka spoke on. ‘One problem, though—Sophie is going to ask Bella Gatti to be bridesmaid.’
Matteo remembered getting to the airport, Luka waiting. He remembered his tension as he’d looked out for Bella and her mother, ready to explain them if they showed.
They hadn’t.
And so he hadn’t told Luka that he had planned to take Bella with him.
But Luka had heard from a couple of people about that last wild night in Bordo Del Cielo.
‘I just wanted to warn you in case it makes things awkward for you and Shandy. Will you be there?’ Luka asked again.
‘I shall be,’ Matteo said. ‘I’m not sure about Shandy, though.’ For reasons of his own he did not, even to his friend, reveal that he and Shandy were over.
‘We’re flying out early Saturday,’ Luka said.
‘I’ll make my own way,’ Matteo said. ‘I have an appointment that morning, but I can only stay till the Sunday evening, though. I have to get to Dubai.’
‘Can you reschedule that? Given that I’m not going to go through with the wedding it’s going to be a helluva mess. It would be good if you could—’
‘Sorry. I can’t.’
Matteo hung up the phone.
Of course he could have rescheduled but it was safer not to.
He had kept her away for the next few days.
It would be impossible after that.
Oh, before the wedding there would be plenty to keep them busy, but by the Sunday night...
Even if it meant letting down his best friend, Matteo would not be staying for Luka’s wedding night.
He wanted one more time with Bella.
But that would be foolish at best.
CHAPTER THREE
BELLA SAT IN Alfeo’s office, chewing her nails.
She could not afford even a single day without work. Most of her savings had been depleted helping Sophie to face Luka.
The rest she kept for herself—Bella did not consider it her money to spend. It was to go towards giving her mother a headstone for her grave, for she had heard that Malvolio had made sure Maria had received a pauper’s funeral.
But it wasn’t just that she might be about to lose her job that had Bella anxious and close to tears.
It was seeing Matteo again.
The vision of him with his fiancée still danced before her eyes. His use of the word lover for another woman had, despite brave, taunting words to him, shaken Bella to her very core.
She loathed his beauty, his arrogance and his passion. She loathed everything about him if it was not aimed at her.
Sure, she had read about his many women over the years.
It had been hell, though, seeing it with her own eyes.
Yes, she had engineered this morning.
Even though she’d known he had booked for two, Bella knew how short-lived his relationships were and had hoped against hope that she might find him alone. In the little fantasy that her mind had created, the agony of finding him with another woman, and intimately too, had not been properly factored in.
No, tipping the water over Matteo and his lover had been no accident.
* * *
‘Bella.’
She stood when Alfeo entered but he gestured for her to sit down.
‘I am sorry about this morning,’ Bella started. ‘In five years of service there have been no incidents...’
Alfeo wasn’t so sure about that! ‘What about the dress that went missing that time and was found in your locker?’
Bella’s teeth ground together. ‘The guest had put the dress in the bin.’
‘And the same guest called Housekeeping a few hours later to say that she had changed her mind and could we go through the garbage...’
Bella pulled a face...typical of the clientele here that they would have the staff rummage through garbage on a whim.
‘I gave you the benefit of the doubt that time,’ Alfeo said, and Bella did her best not to roll her eyes. She had been given the benefit only because she’d known that items tossed aside by wealthy guests all too often found their way into Alfeo’s locker.
‘What about the perfume that went missing earlier this week?’
‘I spilt that.’
‘Straight into a little decanter,’ Alfeo said, and Bella met his eyes and lied.
‘No.’
She had stolen just the little she’d needed, enough to fill the vial in her mother’s heavy crystal bottle, the one her father had given to Maria.
Bella was a survivor and she wasn’t too proud to take from bins if it meant she could keep her dressmaking dreams alive, and thank God that she had because she had been able to fashion an elegant wardrobe for Sophie. And, yes, she had taken a smudge of perfume from a huge bottle but that was so Sophie could go to Luka smelling as she deserved to.
‘You remind me of a magpie, Bella. If it glitters, if it catches your beady eyes, then you want it,’ Alfeo said, but as Bella opened her mouth to argue he got to the point. ‘But all that aside, what happened this morning defies logic. The ice bucket stand was still standing, yet you say that you tripped and knocked it over.’
‘I wasn’t aware that you were re-creating a crime scene.’ Bella struggled to hold her tongue.
‘It might just as well be a crime scene! How the hell do I explain this in a report? Matteo Santini is looking to buy this place. We are trying to show the hotel in its very best light and you choose to give our most important guests a morning bed bath. What the hell were you thinking?’
She gave in then. Given what had happened, there was no way she could keep her job.
‘Can I at least have a reference?’ Bella asked.
‘Saying what? That Bella Gatti is a liar when she chooses to be, as well as an occasional thief...’
‘You could always say that Bella Gatti is a hard worker,’ Bella argued. ‘That she works ten-hour days and often stays well past that, all without complaint.’
‘Or I could tell you that Bella Gatti is on her final warning,’ Alfeo said, and he put her out of her misery. ‘I’ve just come from speaking with Mr Santini. He was most insistent that he does not want you fired but has asked that you take leave for the remainder of this week. I doubt he wants his fiancée to know that he has spared you,’ Alfeo said. ‘He checks out on Sunday, so you can resume work the next day.’
She sat there, completely stunned, as Alfeo spoke on.
‘Bella, know that I’m watching you. I still don’t believe this morning was an accident.’
She gave no smart answer. Instead, she thanked Alfeo for the reprieve.
‘Bella...’ Alfeo halted her as she stood to leave. ‘I don’t know why a guest of his standing would take such a personal interest in one of the maids...’
‘Perhaps he is just kind,’ Bella said, but there was a blush creeping from her throat to her cheeks.
‘From everything I have heard and read about him, Matteo Santini is not a kind man. He doesn’t give out favours,’ Alfeo said, and then he was blunt. ‘Do you?’
‘I don’t...I don’t know what you mean,’ Bella stammered.
‘Oh, but I think you do,’ he said, and then he warned her clearly. ‘If I ever find out that you are having intimate dealings with our guests...’
‘I’m insulted that you would suggest su
ch a thing,’ Bella said, but her cheeks were still pink because had Matteo been alone...
‘Then I apologise.’
She headed out through the back entrance into the alley and then she saw Matteo leaning against a wall. Long limbed, elegantly dressed, his expression utterly unreadable, she wanted to run to him. Had he stretched out his arms or even beckoned a finger she might well have done that, but then she remembered he had someone, that Matteo was, in fact, engaged.
He was, Bella thought, far too beautiful for an alley.
So was she, Matteo decided as she walked towards him.
‘What happened with the duty manager?’ Matteo asked.
‘I think you already know—I get to keep my job, though of course not while you are here with your fiancée.’ She closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the surly note to her voice and to remember her place for he might soon be her boss. ‘Thank you.’
Matteo looked at her pinched nostrils and knew the effort behind those two words and he could not help but smile.
‘What is there to smile about?’ she challenged.
‘Plenty,’ Matteo said, which had Bella frowning.
There was not a lot to smile about, Matteo thought, but there was enough—they were here.
‘Do you want to go for breakfast?’ Matteo offered, and it completely took Bella by surprise.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Won’t your fiancée...?’
Matteo had already decided that it might be safer not to reveal to Bella that he and Shandy had broken up, or that they had never been engaged—he hadn’t needed to see Bella again for memories to try and make themselves known.
He had offered her his world and she had rejected it.
Want was still there, though.
No, it was far safer for him to keep a fiancée in the wings when she was around.
‘Surely two friends are allowed to catch up.’ Matteo took a breath. ‘I want to know how you are.’
She wanted to know how he was too and so she nodded but then looked down at what she was wearing—she had taken off her apron but the pale green dress and flat lace-up shoes were far from flattering. ‘I’m not dressed for—’
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