At Dante's Service Read Online Free PDF Page B

WestEnd tomorrow, and the after-show party. Why don’t you come with me?’
    It made sense to help Rebekah feel more settled in London, Dante told himself. She was a fantastic chef and he did not want her to be tempted to return to Wales. Maybe if he took her out a couple of times she would find her feet on the social scene.
    Rebekah swallowed. Perhaps that flash of sexual awareness had been in his eyes after all.
    ‘You’re inviting me to spend the evening with you?’ She wanted to make sure she had not misunderstood him.
    ‘It will do you good to get out,’ he said briskly, as if he thought she needed to be encouraged to buck her ideas up.
    Her stomach swooped as the realisation dawned that he had asked her out because he felt sorry for her. The words hovered on her lips to decline his invitation, but a spark of pride made her reconsider. She was not moping over Gareth and she was certainly not the pathetic victim of a failed relationship that Dante seemed to think. There was no reason not to go to the theatre with him. Her only plan for tomorrow night was to wash her hair. It was true that her social life was unexciting. She had kept in touch with a couple of friends she had made when she had worked for the catering company but they led busy lives and she’d only met up with them twice since she had started working for Dante.
    ‘All right, I’d like to go with you,’ she said quickly, before she could change her mind. ‘I’ve never been to a first night before. What do you think I should wear?’
    ‘These events are usually formal affairs and I imagine most women will wear full-length evening dresses.’
    Rebekah ran her mind through the contents of her wardrobe and realised she had nothing suitable. ‘In that case I’ll have to go shopping.’
    Dante took his wallet from his pocket, pulled out a credit card and pushed it across the table. ‘Take this and buy whatever you need.’
    ‘Certainly not,’ she said frostily, and pushed the card back to him. ‘I’m not a charity case and I can afford to buy my own clothes.’
    He had never met such a proud and prickly woman, Dante mused as he returned the card to his wallet. All the women he knew would have seized the credit card and bought a dozen designer dresses with it, but Rebekah was looking at him with an outraged expression, as if he had suggested selling her grandmother. He felt a flare of irritation but also a grudging respect for her.
    She stood up from the table and, as she leaned forwards to pick up his empty plate, his eyes were drawn to the sway of her breasts. His body tautened and, to his surprise, he felt a heady sense of anticipation at the prospect of taking her out tomorrow evening that he had not experienced for a long time.
    If her mother knew how much she had paid for the dress she would have a fit, Rebekah thought guiltily the following evening as she got ready to go out with Dante. She still couldn’t quite believe herself that she had spent so much money on an impractical slither of silk that she would probably never have the opportunity to wear again. But she did not regret buying it. She had spent all morning traipsing up and down Oxford Street and had tried on dozens of evening gowns that hadn’t suited her. It had made her realise how much she relied onher chef’s uniform to disguise her unfashionably curvaceous figure.
    Finally, as she had been on the brink of giving up and phoning Dante to say she had changed her mind about going to the theatre, a dress displayed in the window of an exclusive boutique in Bond Street had caught her eye. Initially the price tag had put her off, but the shop assistant had persuaded her to try it on.
    ‘The colour is the exact shade of your eyes,’ the woman had enthused. And so Rebekah had pulled off her jeans in the changing cubicle and stepped into the dress. The assistant had run the zip up her spine, and they had both stared at her reflection in the mirror.
    ‘It looks quite nice,’