by Lynne Graham
‘But I’m not on birth control.’ She gasped and one hand flew up to her mouth to cover it in a show of anxiety. ‘And that means—’
‘That whatever happens, I’m with you every step of the way. When I make a mistake I own up and do what I can to rectify it,’ Raffaele delivered grimly as he pulled on his shirt.
Vivi wasn’t enamoured of being labelled a mistake. ‘There’s nothing you can do to rectify this mistake.’
Raffaele’s wide sensual mouth quirked. ‘There’s no point agonising right now over something we can’t change either. Thankfully we’re not frightened teenagers.’
‘Yes...er...that’s true,’ Vivi conceded grudgingly. ‘But I just can’t believe you took that risk with me.’
‘In the aftermath...’ Raffaele rested brilliant dark eyes on her flushed little face, against which her bright blue eyes were even more striking than usual ‘...neither can I. I chose to assume that it wouldn’t be a risk, which was irrational.’
‘Didn’t think you did irrational stuff,’ Vivi broke in helplessly.
‘Don’t mock,’ Raffaele urged. ‘It’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to you. Why are you putting your shoes on?’
Vivi lifted her head, eyes widening. ‘To go home?’
Raffaele frowned. ‘You’re not going home—you’re staying the night.’
Her blue eyes opened very wide as she gazed rather blankly back at him from the sofa where she sat. ‘Zoe will be expecting me home.’
‘So, phone her,’ Raffaele advised, pushing his advantage where he saw it because their encounter had off-balanced her and he didn’t want her taking refuge again behind her usually aggressive façade.
Put on the spot, Vivi hesitated and then she dug out her phone. Their intimacy on the sofa had seemed a touch too casual and juvenile to her taste while staying the night struck her as more adult and acceptable. She had slept with Raffaele di Mancini and shock waves were still racing through her at that awareness. She didn’t know how it had happened and that unnerved her but she didn’t want to decide it was a mistake either. Much better to accept it as just another one of life’s experiences, she told herself firmly. Why should she make a fuss or feel guilty about something as normal and everyday as sex?
‘I won’t be home until tomorrow,’ she told her sister. ‘I’ve had too much champagne...far too much champagne,’ she repeated, thinking about that with a brow that pleated because as a rule she didn’t drink.
‘You were drinking champagne with Mancini?’ Zoe exclaimed in disbelief.
‘It was lovely champagne,’ Vivi said ruefully before she rang off and glanced across at Raffaele, whose shirt was still hanging open on his broad bronzed chest, revealing the slabs of lean muscle roping his abdomen. ‘I don’t usually drink much. I think I was drunk.’
‘No, you weren’t!’ Raffaele contradicted with vigour. ‘I don’t have sex with drunken women. Stop looking for excuses. Just accept it for what it was.’
But she didn’t know what it was, which was the real problem. It was not as though she had stayed a virgin for a specific reason. When she had been younger and less cynical she had, admittedly, dreamt of falling in love before she had sex for the first time, but even then she had been in no hurry after a foster parent had once tried to touch her inappropriately, an experience that had laid a seedy veil over any sexual thoughts for Vivi. Furthermore, she hadn’t fallen in love, and even though love had happened for her older sister, Winnie had had to walk a long stony road to finally find her happy ending.
Vivi had stopped dreaming of love once she’d registered that loving a man often came with pain and disappointment. Indeed, loving meant being vulnerable and, if Vivi could help it, she never ever allowed herself to be as vulnerable as she had been as a child. Back then she had often been at the mercy of adults who insisted that they knew what was best for her even though they so obviously didn’t, because she would always end up in yet another unhappy living situation. Trusting anyone beyond her sisters was a challenge for her.
‘What was it, then?’ Vivi persisted.
‘Non importa...no matter,’ Raffaele overruled with determination as he bent and simply scooped her up off the sofa to carry her to the door, having decided that that particular conversation was only likely to lead them into even murkier waters.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Vivi demanded.
‘Taking you upstairs to a shower and a proper bed,’ Raffaele confided.
That programme sounded remarkably attractive to Vivi at that moment. She let him carry her upstairs, marvelling at the new intimacy between them. Of course that was the sex, she assumed. Some comfort that would be if she conceived a child, she reasoned worriedly. Winnie had had an unplanned pregnancy. As a result, Vivi was all too aware of the discomforts of pregnancy and the burden of a baby’s constant demands and she most definitely didn’t want to follow in her sister’s footsteps.
But in assuming that sex had made Raffaele more demonstrative, Vivi could not have been more wrong. Vivi had just proven every one of Raffaele’s convictions about her to be mistaken and he was reeling from the discovery that he was not as infallible a judge of character as he had believed himself to be.
It had finally dawned on him that Vivi could simply have been a receptionist at that agency and the ordinary, if beautiful, young woman she had purported to be, polished up to a deceptively exclusive level by his sister’s cast-off clothing. And if that was true, it meant he had misjudged her on every front. That was a bitter pill for him to swallow.
‘I still hate you, you know,’ Vivi warned him almost chattily as he set her down, barefoot, in a fabulous contemporary bathroom.
‘I can live with that,’ Raffaele assured her, unwilling to argue with the obvious reality that naturally she hated him when he had wronged her. He might not have called her a prostitute but he had not spoken up in her defence at the time either because he had blamed her for his sister’s mistakes and had been determined to ensure that Arianna wasn’t dragged into the same scandal.
Closing the door, he left her alone and Vivi breathed again. She was already struggling to accept what had happened between them. She had slept with Raffaele di Mancini, a man she hated like poison. How did that make sense? But then there had been no sense whatsoever in the encounter. She had been foolish, he had been foolish and he had surprised her by admitting the fact. She stripped and stepped into the shower but the minute the water came on and hit her from all directions in one of those technically advanced showers, destined to be a cleansing spa experience rather than a simple washing facility, she stepped out of it again in haste because she didn’t want to get her hair wet and couldn’t be bothered fiddling to work out the controls.
She ran a bath instead, stepped in and folded down with a slight wince as the tenderness between her legs made its presence felt. Yes, she had had sex for the first time and, with hindsight, it would’ve made more sense to warn him to ensure he tempered his passion. Vivi pressed cool hands to her hot cheeks and marvelled that she had given way to temptation. But he was right when he said they had strong chemistry. The kind of hunger he awakened in Vivi was so primal and so powerful she hadn’t been able to withstand it. Once he touched her she had been lost, her entire being surrendered instead to the need he had ignited in her. She washed, dried herself and peered out into the empty bedroom, which was lit by lamps on either side of the bed.
In spite of the fact that she had a boyfriend, she had slept with another man, she ruminated guiltily. It didn’t matter that the chemistry between her and Jude was as tepid as cold tea. What mattered was loyalty and she, a woman who valued loyalty, had been disloyal. She would end their relationship the following evening. In the circumstances, honesty was the best policy.
Exhaustion was beginning to creep over her, exacerbated, she suspected, by the champagne she had imbibed and the mad rush of conflicting thoughts and r
eactions assailing her. She would go to bed, sleep, she told herself heavily, there was nothing more to be said or done or decided right at that very moment.
Raffaele took in the vision of Vivi lying in his bed, her mane of hair fanned out across the white pillows, her luscious mouth pink and ripe from his kisses, her delicate features smooth in relaxation and involuntarily, he was spellbound. Maledizione...she was beautiful. Why was he allowing that truth to mess with his brain? At the start of the evening he had had a clear objective, which was to persuade Vivi, by any means within his power, to marry him. What had happened to that goal? Why had he even brought her to his bedroom instead of to one of the guest rooms? When too had he ever lost control like that with a woman? When had he ever run such a risk?
Self-loathing and a rare sense of failure attacked Raffaele in the aftermath of those unfamiliar thoughts. He had had sex instead of concentrating on protecting his sister. Even worse, his already thorny dealings with Vivi would only become more fraught and complex because they had become intimate.
His phone rang at dawn when he was already lying awake in a guest bed, watching the light rise beyond the windows to pierce the edges of the blinds. Reasoning that it had to be some kind of emergency because very few people had access to his private number, he answered it immediately. ‘Mancini.’
‘It’s Stam Fotakis,’ the older man grated. ‘I’m calling you to inform you that the wedding will take place in three weeks, on the twenty-fifth.’
Raffaele was frowning. ‘But—’ he began.
‘No buts, no arguments!’ Stam ranted angrily down the phone. ‘My granddaughter spent the night with you and the date of the wedding is now fixed. I warned you. That dossier on your sister goes to the press this weekend unless you can confirm that date!’
Within minutes, in the bedroom next door, Vivi was enjoying a similar rude awakening. ‘Grandad?’ she said sleepily, barely half awake. ‘It’s very early to be phoning.’
‘You spent the night with Mancini. You’re getting married to him on the twenty-fifth of this month and there won’t be any more arguments on that score! Is that understood?’
Her face scarlet, Vivi was now sitting bolt upright in the bed. ‘How do you know where I spent the night?’ she gasped.
‘Your security team,’ Stam delivered curtly. ‘There will be no further discussion about this matter.’
Vivi had never got dressed in such haste and never before with such distaste for the garments she was forced to put back on. The outfit, which had seemed such a good idea the night before, now filled her with embarrassment. Had Raffaele read the short skirt and the rest of it as some sort of a come-on? It didn’t really matter now though, did it? She had lost control, she had failed to call a halt, she had defied her own intelligence to continue that monumental mistake. She couldn’t blame alcohol, she couldn’t blame Raffaele, who was probably as programmed to take advantage of a willing woman as any other man; no, she could only blame herself. It seemed a fitting punishment that she now had to slip out of the house and take the walk of shame in those hateful Perspex heels! But the worst punishment of all for Vivi was the utterly mortifying knowledge that her grandfather was also aware that she had spent the night with Raffaele.
Vivi was halfway down the stairs, picking her way as quietly as she could, when Raffaele emerged without warning from a doorway. Her expressive face flamed, her eyes cloaking, soft mouth compressing into a tense line. Even in that single flaring glance she noticed that he looked amazing, all sleek and dark and spectacular in a dark grey suit, cut to enhance his lean, powerful build and accentuate his superb carriage. He emanated rock-solid assurance and it set her teeth on edge because she was feeling ratty and hunted and insecure.
‘Did you get a wake-up call too?’ Raffaele enquired softly.
‘I’m in a bit of a hurry, actually, so I won’t keep you.’
‘It’s a Saturday morning, so I can’t imagine why you should be in a rush. Join me for breakfast,’ he told her, striding back into the dining room.
Vivi paused in the doorway. ‘Er...thanks, but that doesn’t suit. If I could just get my coat...’
‘I’ll drop you home after breakfast.’
And there it was again, that habit of Raffaele’s that made Vivi want to tear her hair out and scream. He didn’t listen to what he didn’t want to hear, he just moved on past it to repeat his own wishes.
‘I said no, thanks,’ Vivi reminded him thinly.
In emphasis, Raffaele yanked out a dining chair for her and studied her expectantly. ‘Be reasonable, cara.’
And without warning, Vivi was made to feel like a child caught in the act of trying to run away to escape a punishment, and that analogy was too humiliating to be endured. Tensing even more, she moved forward on wooden legs and settled stiffly into the seat. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’
‘Non importa.... I have plenty to say to you,’ Raffaele countered, smooth as silk, as his butler appeared at her elbow to offer her a choice of tea, coffee or hot chocolate.
In need of something sweet to bolster her, Vivi chose hot chocolate and reached for toast.
‘According to your grandfather, our wedding will be taking place on the twenty-fifth,’ Raffaele informed her.
‘But I don’t listen to his commands when they conflict with what I want,’ she parried stubbornly as she buttered her toast, struggling not to think about what her refusal to comply might cost her foster parents.
Winnie had bitten the bullet and married Eros even though it was the last thing she had wanted at the time. Why should she rate her pride higher than Winnie had? Why couldn’t she play her part and fall into line for the sake of peace, as Winnie had? Perhaps it was because when she was young she had too often found herself bereft of choice. And now when she was told to do something she didn’t agree with she wanted to fight against it every step of the way.
‘And if I threaten to make redundancies at Hacketts Tech? And I should be frank, redundancies are required there. The business is overstaffed,’ he informed her coolly.
‘You’re threatening me...’
‘I’m threatening you,’ Raffaele agreed with a harsh edge to his accented drawl, his brilliant dark eyes veiled by a thick screen of lashes.
Vivi thought frantically about John and Liz and their need for a secure home where they could continue looking after troubled adolescents and helping them into adulthood. Yes, she certainly owed them a debt for the healing regime they had given her because being constantly angry, distrustful and fearful, as she had once been, only made the world an even more scary place. And what about her work colleagues? People had mortgages and rent to pay, loans to keep up, holidays booked, children to raise. The sudden loss of stable employment could devastate lives and that stress could surely destroy relationships as well. Raffaele was putting enormous power into her hands, power she hated him for giving her because to her mind his power to threaten redundancies deprived her of the power to say no to the wedding he and her grandfather were determined to stage.
‘So, if I was to say yes...what would happen?’ she pressed in a driven surge. ‘No redundancies?’
‘I could put a stay on them for the immediate future.’
‘A permanent stay,’ Vivi bargained, barely believing that she was finally agreeing to the fake wedding she had long resisted.
‘I can’t agree to permanent,’ Raffaele countered levelly. ‘The bottom line must be business and profit.’
‘Not for me, it’s not. For me, it’s people!’ Vivi argued with spirit.
‘I could put a stay on redundancies for the first year,’ Raffaele proffered.
‘Three years!’ Vivi suggested.
Raffaele frowned. ‘Too long. In that time, Hacketts Tech could go under,’ he warned her, filling her with consternation for she had not previously appreciated that the firm could already be struggling for surviv
al.
‘Eighteen months, then...and the staff get plenty of warning of what’s coming,’ she bargained in desperation.
Raffaele angled back in his chair, brilliant dark eyes alight as a starry night sky. ‘Eighteen months with full disclosure,’ he negotiated. ‘And on the twenty-fifth we get married.’
‘Fake married,’ Vivi reminded him drily.
‘Unless you turn out to be pregnant, in which case all bets will be off,’ Raffaele murmured curtly. ‘Because that development would be a game-changer.’
‘That would be a nightmare,’ Vivi contradicted with a tiny lurch of fear because the prospect of pregnancy and motherhood unnerved her. ‘But it’s not likely to happen, is it?’
Raffaele lifted and dropped a shoulder with the lithe, fluid elegance that was so much a part of him. ‘I wouldn’t like to call it. It’s not a situation I’ve been in before. How soon will you know?’
Her face warming, Vivi engaged in some fast calculations and unselfconsciously counted on her fingers beneath Raffaele’s increasingly incredulous scrutiny, for maths had never been one of Vivi’s strengths. ‘In about ten days.’
‘We’ll visit a doctor together. I’ll arrange it and that way we’ll know exactly where we stand,’ Raffaele decreed.
‘That’s not necessary. There are tests that can be done at home.’
‘When it comes to accurate results I prefer to trust the medical profession,’ Raffaele overruled without hesitation.
Vivi breathed in so deep to contain her temper that she marvelled that she didn’t take flight like a balloon. She gritted her teeth and focused on her toast, even though it was turning to sawdust inside her dry mouth. How had she contrived to become intimate with a man who enraged her to such a degree? Every time he laid down the letter of the law according to Raffaele she wanted to punch him. Had people always listened respectfully to his commands and done as he told them to do? Had no living person ever contrived to punch a hole in that armour of arrogance he wore? Why did he always believe he was right?