The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

has shown some interest in the book, and Nana would be thrilled to see her recipes in print. But she’s very frail now and I’m aware that I need to hurry and finish the book.’

      Her eyes softened as she thought of the tiny elderly lady who had only recently been persuaded to leave her remote cottage and move into Rebekah’s parents’ farmhouse.

      ‘It sounds like you are close to your grandmother.’

      ‘Yes, I am. She’s a wonderful person.’

      Dante found himself transfixed by Rebekah’s gentle smile and he wondered why he had not noticed before how pretty she was. Perhaps it was because her dull clothes and the way she wore her hair in that severe style, scraped back from her face and tied in a braid which she pinned on top of her head, did not demand attention.

      But it wasn’t quite true that he had not noticed her, he acknowledged. He knew from the subtle rose scent of her perfume the moment she walked into a room, and sometimes he felt a little frisson of sexual awareness when she leaned across him to serve a meal. Her violet eyes were beautiful, and her dark lashes that brushed her cheeks when she blinked were so long that he wondered if they were false. He quickly discounted the idea. A woman who was not wearing a scrap of make-up was not likely to bother with false eyelashes.

      ‘I was close to my grandmother. In fact I adored her.’ As the words left his mouth he silently questioned why he was sharing personal confidences with his cook when he had never felt any inclination to do so with his mistresses. ‘She died a year ago at the grand age of ninety-two.’

      ‘Did she live at your family’s estate in Norfolk? I looked you up on the Internet and learned that the Jarrells own a stately home near Kings Lynn,’ Rebekah admitted, her cheeks turning pink when he looked surprised.

      ‘No, Nonna Perlita was my Italian grandmother. She lived in Tuscany, where I was born. Years ago my grandparents bought an ancient ruined monastery with the idea of restoring it and making it their home. When my grandfather died shortly afterwards, everyone assumed Perlita would sell the place, but she refused to move, and oversaw all the renovations my grandfather had planned. She said the Casa di Colombe—which means The House of Doves—was a lasting tribute to her husband.’

      ‘That’s lovely,’ Rebekah said softly. ‘You must miss her.’

      ‘I always spend July in Tuscany. This is the first year that she won’t be there and I know the house will feel empty without her.’

      Thinking about his grandmother evoked a tug of emotion in Dante’s gut. After he had discovered the truth about Ben and learned how Lara had deceived him, Nonna was the person he had turned to and he had poured out his pain and anger to her.

      ‘Dante … is something wrong?’

      Rebekah’s hesitant voice forced him to drag his mind from the past and, catching her puzzled look, he glanced down and saw that he had tightened his grip on his wine glass so that his knuckles were white.

      ‘Is it the sauce?’ she asked anxiously. ‘It does have quite a unique flavour. Maybe I used too much lemon-grass.’

      ‘No, it’s fine,’ he reassured her. ‘The dinner is superb, as usual. You said you have been concentrating on developing your career—’ he determinedly steered the conversation away from himself ‘—is that the reason you left Wales two years ago and came to London?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said after a long silence.

      Dante lifted his brows enquiringly.

      ‘I … was in a relationship,’ Rebekah explained reluctantly, realising she would have to elaborate. But she could not tell him the full truth. Maybe one day she would come to terms with what a fool she had been, but she felt ashamed of the way she had blindly trusted Gareth. ‘It didn’t work out, and I decided to move away and make a new start.’

      ‘Why did you break up with the guy?’

      Dante knew he should back off. He had heard the tremor in Rebekah’s voice and sensed that she had been hurt. He did not need to be a mind-reader to realise she was uncomfortable with him probing into her private life, but for some reason he could not control his curiosity about her.

      ‘He … met someone else,’ she muttered.

      ‘Ah, that explains a lot.’

      ‘What does it explain?’ Irritation swept through Rebekah at Dante’s complacent expression.

      ‘Why you got involved in the situation with Alicia, for a start. Your boyfriend let you down—I assume he was unfaithful with the “someone else”—and now you think all men, including me, are untrustworthy like him.’

      ‘You are untrustworthy.’ Rebekah did not know how they had got into this conversation, or where it was leading, but she recognized the truth in what Dante had said. Gareth’s betrayal had rocked her comfortable world and made her doubt her judgement. ‘In fact, you are a hundred times worse than Gareth,’ she said hotly. ‘You never stay with one woman for longer than five minutes.’

      ‘True,’ Dante agreed unrepentantly. ‘But I never cheat. I have a strict rule of one woman at a time, and I always end a relationship before I start another one. I’m completely upfront at the beginning of an affair that I’m not looking for permanence. Surely that’s better than stringing a woman along and building up her hopes that I might make a commitment to her?’

      ‘In other words, you’re a paragon of virtue when it comes to relationships,’ she said sarcastically.

      ‘I’d like to think so,’ he replied seriously. ‘I certainly don’t deliberately set out to hurt anyone.’

      Morosely, Rebekah pushed her plate of barely touched dinner aside. Maybe Dante was right. Maybe it was better to have an affair with someone who was adamant they did not want a deeper relationship than to trust that if a man said he loved you he meant it.

      Dante’s voice intruded on her painful thoughts. ‘Your relationship must have ended some time ago, and you moved to London. How’s the new start going—are you seeing anyone?’

      ‘Not currently,’ she muttered, wishing she could turn the conversation away from her personal life.

      Dante leaned back in his chair and sipped his wine while he appraised her. ‘Don’t you think you’ve spent long enough moping over the guy in Wales? You need to get out and socialise. And I suggest you update your wardrobe. Without wanting to be rude, you’re never going to attract a man in the frumpy clothes you wear.’

      Anger boiled inside Rebekah like molten lava. ‘My clothes are not frumpy; they’re smart and professional. Would you rather I served your dinner dressed like a burlesque dancer?’

      ‘Now there’s a thought,’ he said softly.

      The wicked glint in Dante’s eyes caused a flush of rosy colour to spread across Rebekah’s cheeks and the atmosphere in the dining room prickled with an inexplicable tension. Her breath caught in her throat and she unconsciously moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. She watched Dante’s eyes narrow and, to her shock, she felt a spark of electricity sizzle between them.

      Startled, she dropped her gaze, and when she looked at Dante again his expression was shuttered and she wondered if she had imagined the flash of sexual awareness in his eyes. She shoved her hands under the table to hide the fact that they were trembling. ‘Anyway, I do socialise,’ she told him, annoyed by his accusation that she spent her free time moping about the house.

      ‘You’re hardly likely to meet a new man at an evening class in pottery,’ he said sardonically.

      ‘I don’t recall saying I wanted to meet a new man.’

      ‘So are you going to allow one failed relationship to affect the rest of your life?’

      ‘No … but …’

      ‘You can’t live in the past, Rebekah. You need to move on.’