by Lynne Graham
‘Glory…this is Fiona Woodrow,’ Rafaello told her with unblemished composure.
The brunette extended a languid hand. Her face having flamed and then paled to leave her as white as paper, Glory ignored that empty gesture. Hypocrisy was not one of her talents.
A door opened somewhere behind her. ‘Jon…’ Rafaello drawled in the calmest of tones. ‘If you have the time, could you ensure that Glory gets a long cool drink?’
Jon Lyons escorted Glory out to the viewing deck. The sun was beginning to set over the beautiful bay below. The horizon was shot with the fiery splendour of crimson and gold. Hands clenched into fists of restraint by her side, Glory could not yet bring herself to look at the young blond man. Fiona Woodrow had made her feel small and stupid and crude in front of an audience but she blamed Rafaello entirely for that development.
The older man who had greeted her on her arrival appeared with a tray. A tall moisture-beaded glass and an artistic arrangement of tiny bite-sized appetisers were set down on the table beside which she stood.
‘I would need a dip in the Arctic to cool me down,’ Glory muttered finally, throwing a look of pained apology at Jon for her self-absorption. ‘Who is Fiona?’
‘Rafaello has been acquainted with Lady Fiona for a long time,’ Jon Lyons responded after an awkward pause, his clean-cut features tense, his brown eyes veiled. ‘I’m afraid that’s as much as I know.’
Lady Fiona? A titled member of the British aristocracy. Glory bit down hard on her tongue and tasted the sweet tang of blood in her dry mouth. She folded her arms even tighter; indeed, felt as though that defensive barrier was crazily the only thing keeping her upright and together. Acquainted? What a delicate choice of word! The brunette had brandished the fact that her relationship with Rafaello was of the intimate variety. There was no avoiding the obvious: Rafaello had another woman. Furthermore, he had not even had the decency to get Fiona Woodrow out of the villa before Glory arrived. It was disgusting. It lacerated her pride, tore at her heart and terrified her all at one and the same time. Her emotions were on such a high, she could barely think straight.
‘Does he have a lot of women he brings here? Is this like…the harem in the hills?’ she demanded unsteadily.
Momentarily, Jon looked as though he might laugh. Then he met her anguished blue eyes, with a look of sympathy, he said reluctantly, ‘The boss does get around. You can’t really blame him—’
‘Can’t I?’ Just then Glory needed no encouragement to heap all the sins of humanity on Rafaello’s broad shoulders.
‘Women go for him big-time.’
And why not? She had always wondered and now she knew for sure. Rafaello was a womaniser, spoilt for choice, spoilt by all the endless options and fresh faces available to a male with wealth, good looks and charm. Only where she herself was concerned the charm seemed to be in pretty short supply this time around.
But then, what else had she expected? He wasn’t dating her, wasn’t trying to please her. Caring concern and tact were not on his agenda. Suddenly she was facing unpleasant truths shorn of the hazy romantic images which had come from her own imagination alone. Of course Rafaello had not been on the flight out from England with her, of course he had not put himself out to come and meet her at the airport! All that he wanted from her was the use of her body. Casual, uncommitted sex. He had spelt that right out upfront. How had she managed to avoid facing that reality?
‘Please don’t be offended when I say that you don’t fit the usual mould,’ Jon Lyons confided in a wry undertone. ‘You’ll be history with Rafaello the minute he realises you’re emotionally involved.’
‘I’m not emotionally involved with him.’ Wanting to boil Rafaello in oil and make him suffer the tortures of the damned while she watched and gloated was not emotional involvement on Glory’s terms. In any case, she was not staying in Corfu to be a temporary distraction in any harem in the hills! Her brother, Sam, was safe. The theft charge had been withdrawn and her father had been reinstated. The crisis was over, the pressure on her already at an end. She had been able to confirm that on Saturday.
Sam had phoned her first thing that morning. She had been very surprised to learn that Rafaello had stayed talking with her father and Sam until well after midnight. What about the urgent business that had supposedly cropped up that same evening? Evidently, Rafaello had shown no apparent desire to cut his visit short. She had been even more surprised when Sam confided that Rafaello was, ‘OK…in fact, quite a cool guy and very talkative.’ To be frank, she had almost toppled over in shock when her kid brother had gone on to tell her that Rafaello had stated that in retrospect he felt that he might have rather overreacted to the whole situation.
Indeed, Rafaello had gone to extraordinary lengths to smooth matters over and Glory had been planning to thank him from the bottom of her heart for lying in his teeth. For, of course, he had been lying. She remembered how he had talked about having his home and his property ‘violated’ and had quite understood his feelings. But Rafaello’s generous attitude of forgiveness had released her brother from his brooding depression and anxiety. She had not expected Rafaello to recognise and understand just how vulnerable Sam could be.
That same evening Sam had phoned his friend, Joe, and, once reassured that confessing to stealing the snuff box would not result in his being charged in Sam’s place, Joe had come over to own up and apologise to Rafaello face-to-face. Joe had taken the box on impulse, thinking it would make a nice present for his mother’s birthday, but within half an hour of succumbing to temptation the teenager had panicked. He had hidden the tiny item in the Littles’ fuel shed sooner than retain possession of it and had hoped that something so very small would not even be missed at the Park.
Emerging from the recollection of that enlightening phone call from her brother, Glory lifted the tall glass and let her parched mouth rejoice in the refreshing fruit drink. Sam might be all right now but it really was time that she grew up and let go of her old memories of Rafaello Grazzini. Fanciful girlish memories based on what? A mere six weeks with him? She would be much better recalling the manner in which he had humiliated her at the end of that brief relationship. He had been cruel, unnecessarily cruel. Just as he was being now in a far more careless way.
‘If you want me to make that last flight, I should leave now,’ she heard Jon say.
Turning her head to glance at him in confusion, Glory only then realised that Jon had been addressing Rafaello, who was poised several feet away. She set down her glass and tilted up her chin, shutting out those dark golden eyes which could exercise such frightening power over her. ‘I might as well catch a lift with Jon if he’s going to the airport. I’m not staying.’
The younger man dealt her a startled glance before he walked back indoors, discreetly removing himself from the proceedings.
‘You’re not going anywhere, cara,’ Rafaello delivered with formidable cool.
‘And how are you planning to stop me?’ Glory enquired tightly, hanging on to her temper and her pain with fierce concentration, determined not to betray either or to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he had hurt her by allowing her to meet Fiona Woodrow.
‘With brute force if necessary.’
Glory opened her violet-blue eyes very wide to show how unimpressed she was by that threat. ‘You wouldn’t dare. I’d scream the place down.’
‘Noise doesn’t bother me. Being ripped off does, though.’
The tension sparked like invisible warning flares between them.
‘That’s right, be a real gentleman!’ Glory snapped. ‘Remind me about the callous agreement you forced on me—’
A winged black brow was elevated. ‘Forced? Didn’t you trek all the way to Montague Park on Friday night dressed like a tart just for my benefit?’
‘I was not dressed like a tart!’ Glory hissed at him in outrage.
‘Isn’t that just like a woman?’ Rafaello jerked loose his tie and cast it on the table. Her gaze widen
ed slightly as, having undone his shirt collar, he proceeded to shrug with fluid grace out of the jacket of his suit. ‘Parade the bait and then go into pious denial when the victim bites—’
‘You are no woman’s victim, Rafaello Grazzini!’ Glory was infuriated by his line of argument. She had been desperate. She had believed that temptation was the only means of persuasion within her power. But whose fault was it that she had felt that she had to lower herself to that level? Who had spelt out those demeaning parameters? Who had made it brutally clear that in his opinion her looks were her only currency?
‘That’s right,’ Rafaello confirmed, his smouldering dark golden eyes holding hers full force. ‘Glad you’ve divined that fact. Do you recall how you tried to play me for a fool five years ago? Do you also remember how that ended? I wasn’t the one who fled in tears.’
‘You bastard…’ Glory framed in shaken outrage and pain. The very last thing she needed just then was the recollection of how devastated she had been at eighteen when he paraded her replacement, the merchant banker’s daughter, in front of her.
Rafaello discarded his jacket on the table alongside his tie. ‘I don’t let anyone call me that,’ he intoned in a lethal low-pitched drawl.
‘Well, I just got away with it!’ Glory slung in helpless triumph.
‘You’re not getting away with anything. It’s all going on an account to be rendered with your name at the top. Dio mio, you think I’m a fool?’
‘Look, I’m not going to waste time arguing with you.’ That unsettling reference to an account being rendered had chilled Glory to the marrow. ‘I’ll get a lift with Jon back to the airport.’
‘I said no.’
‘Oh, wow…’ Glory sounded out with syllabic thoroughness and all the scorn she could muster.
‘I warned you.’ Striding forward with an expression of calm intent stamped on his lean, strong face, Rafaello settled his hands to her waist and swept her off her feet.
In furious disbelief Glory swung back her arm and attempted to land a resounding slap on one hard male cheekbone but he ducked his head before it could connect. ‘How dare you do that when I want to hit you?’ she raged at him.
‘If you try to hit me again I might just dump you in the pool to cool off,’ Rafaello threatened with immovable cool as he hoisted her over his shoulder to prevent her flailing fists from doing any damage.
‘I can’t swim!’ Glory gasped in horror.
‘I’ll get into the water with you, then, but dip you I will,’ Rafaello swore, striding through the vast lounge into the hall.
‘I’ll call the police if you don’t put me down!’ Glory threatened in a rising screech.
‘What with? Alien antennae?’ Rafaello enquired.
Another voice entered the proceedings. ‘Rafaello…’ It was Jon Lyons’ quiet voice and he cleared his throat with pronounced hesitancy before continuing. ‘Do you really think you ought to be manhandling your guest like that?’
‘Don’t mess with what you don’t understand,’ Rafaello advised his executive assistant, galling amusement audible in his dark, deep drawl. ‘Glory and I go way back in time—’
‘No, we don’t!’ Glory braced her hands to his muscular back to raise her head, but she still couldn’t see Jon Lyons because he was standing out of view. So enraged was she by the ridiculous figure she had to be cutting that she was surprised that flames weren’t pouring from her mouth.
‘Glory was four years old when we first met. She was at a Christmas party for the estate workers’ children. She thumped a little boy who was chasing her with mistletoe. She was tiny but she attacked like a lion,’ Rafaello recounted, making Glory blink in bewilderment as she listened. ‘I hauled her off him before she got hurt and she was swinging her fists and screeching, “Let me at him!” She hasn’t changed much.’
‘You just made that whole story up.’ Glory had no memory whatsoever of the episode he had described, although she had certainly attended those festive parties as a child. ‘That never happened!’
Rafaello started to mount the stairs. ‘I didn’t notice you again until you were about thirteen, but don’t get excited at that news. It wasn’t you who first attracted my attention. It was the incessant car horns being sounded by admiring male drivers while you stood at the bus stop in the morning and I was driving past. Then, after you moved into the gardener’s cottage, I used to see you lurking in the rhododendrons beside the main drive, slapping on the paint before you could face the school bus.’
Glory was so stunned by that second even lengthier speech, her luscious mouth fell inelegantly wide.
‘I can see I was out of line interfering…’ From the hall below, Jon Lyons punctuated that retreat with a rueful laugh. ‘When you said way back you weren’t joking, Rafaello. It sounds like you two practically grew up together. I’ll see you next week.’
As the front door thudded shut downstairs and silence enclosed them again Glory balled both hands into furious fists and struck at Rafaello’s back again. ‘What were you doing sneaking through the bushes when I was putting on my lip gloss?’ she demanded for want of anything better to attack with at that moment.
‘When I was back from university I used to go out running in the morning. You were such a vain little creature. You used to sit endlessly combing your hair like a mermaid on a rock.’
‘You spied on me!’ Glory accused shakily. ‘I was not being vain!’
‘I avoided the main drive after I saw you there a couple of times. Spying on little schoolgirls wasn’t my style then or now.’
‘Mum wouldn’t let me style my hair or use make-up like my friends did, and I used to do myself up a bit before I went for the bus,’ she protested with fierce defensiveness. ‘I was not vain. Haven’t you ever heard of peer pressure? Put me down, Rafaello!’
Rafaello lowered her to the carpet in a lovely bedroom. French windows stood wide on a balcony on the far side of the room. The silk curtains were fluttering in the gentle breeze. For an instant the unusual bed engaged her attention. The tall headboard had an ornate carved frame and what appeared to be tiny pictures with silver surrounds set into the polished surface. Frowning over her momentary distraction, Glory headed straight back towards the door through which she had been carried. ‘You can stop acting like a caveman right now.’
Rafaello was lounging back against the door with folded arms. His white shirt open at his strong brown throat, his devastatingly dark and handsome face set with intent, he looked back at her with challenging golden eyes. ‘So tell me, what made you suddenly decide to go home again?’
Glory stiffened and paled. ‘If you think I’m willing to be another in the long line of your tarts, you’d better think again!’ she launched back grittily.
‘Welcome to the fold, bella mia.’ Rafaello’s delivery was as smooth as silk.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘DID I just hear you say what I thought I heard you say?’ Glory demanded with stark incredulity.
‘I was hoping provocation would get you to the crux of the matter.’ Rafaello’s glinting, lustrous dark gaze rested on her. ‘Fiona’s parents own a villa just along the coast. She’s a regular visitor and I wasn’t expecting her. You’re throwing a tantrum because Fiona was here when you arrived and she embarrassed you…or you embarrassed yourself.’
Glory’s lovely face flamed as if he had lit a bonfire inside her. So much had passed between them in the last few minutes that she did not know where to begin in arguing or defending herself. ‘I don’t throw tantrums like some spoilt brat demanding attention. But, whether you like it or not, I do have standards—’
‘But offer you enough cash and you drop them,’ Rafaello slotted in with lethal timing.
‘Oh…so we’re back to the cheque I accepted when I was eighteen, are we?’ Although Glory felt severely undermined by his referring to that episode again, she squared her slight shoulders and tossed her honey-blonde head high. ‘I suppose it’s time that I told you the truth about that. I let
Dad have that money because he needed it. Your father forced me to leave my home.’
‘And how did Benito do that?’ Rafaello enquired with extreme dryness and the kind of outrageous aura of unspoken disbelief that made her want to scream and force him to listen to her with an open mind.
‘For goodness’ sake, Dad was drinking at the time. I know you never mentioned it but you must’ve known about his alcohol problem,’ Glory asserted in a strained undertone. ‘Your father threatened to sack him unless I moved away and broke off all contact with you. Dad would never have stopped drinking if he’d lost his job and his home as well.’
Silence had fallen. Rafaello was very still, his fabulous bone-structure defined by hard tension. But his ice-cool dark eyes were now bleak and unimpressed. ‘How very distasteful it would be if you were telling the truth. But I have very good cause to know that Benito would never have sacked your father or left him and your brother homeless,’ he asserted with harsh conviction. ‘You’re talking about blackmail. You’re lying in your teeth.’
Although Glory had known that Rafaello would not easily credit her story, it was none the less a blow when he rejected her version of events with such immediacy. Furthermore she neither understood nor believed his assurance that Benito Grazzini would never have sacked her father and put him out of the cottage. After all, any employer would eventually sack a drunken worker and would feel little need to defend their action. Why would Rafaello’s father have felt any different? Compassion only went so far.
‘Why try to wrap up what really happened?’ Rafaello was now studying her with derision curling his wide, sensual mouth. ‘You got the offer to be a model and you couldn’t wait to grab at what you believed was your chance for fame and fortune. You had already decided to leave home, so you simply accepted the financial bribe my father offered you.’