‘Pass me a couple more curtain hooks, would you, darling?’‘I wish you’d come down from there and let me do that,’ Dante said as he fumbled in a cellophane bag.Juliet looked down at him from her precarious position on the windowsill and found herself thinking how absurdly handsome he was – a curious mixture of delicacy and strength, with his long eyelashes and sinewy skier’s physique. ‘You’re so protective,’ she said.Dante smiled. ‘That’s my job.’It was a week since Dante’s humiliating experience at the Best Dressed Pet competition. Although he’d been subdued for a few days afterwards, Juliet was surprised to see how quickly he’d bounced back. She’d found their row in the conservatory quite upsetting and since then she’d been making a concerted effort to make him feel more at home – discreetly donating some of Gus’s belongings to charity, taking time out from the hotel to make sure she and Dante always ate lunch together, even passing on the contact details of a friend of a friend who managed a bar in town and might have some work going.
