Moments passed. More moments. Their breath slowed and heat began to grow between their bodies. Usually he could never hold a woman close after lovemaking, but he held her tight, relishing what they’d done. It had been immense. Amazing. It was incredible how sex was so different with her. Like taming a tiger, coaxing her to trust him. That feeling as she’d looked into his eyes had meant more to him than all the declarations of love he’d heard over the years from other women.
He placed his hands on her stomach gently, reverently. He smoothed his fingers over her skin, lightly probing the precious bundle she contained.
‘He’s fine in there?’ he asked.
He felt her shift away from him.
‘Of course.’
She disentangled her arms from his and pulled the sheet between them, tucking herself further away.
‘Is everything OK?’
She shifted further, swung her legs onto the floor and stood up.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, but she didn’t turn around.
He sat up on one elbow, watching as she walked into the en suite bathroom, more perfect than the Venus de Milo. His own goddess, come to life.
‘I’m going to shower,’ she said, and closed the door.
Raffaele lay back, spread his arms wide and pushed a pillow behind his head, running what they’d done through his mind, comparing it to the first time, when he’d taken her in the shower. He should have gone slow and steady. They’d need to work their way up to that, he thought, smiling to himself.
He was getting hard again, even thinking about it. He put his hand on his cock and stroked. Yes. Hydros could wait another half-hour.
He walked to the door of the bathroom. The shower was on. He knocked and entered. But instead of his beautiful goddess, soaked with suds and wet with desire, he saw she was leaning on outstretched arms over the sink, staring at herself in the mirror.
She turned sharply. ‘I’m fine. I won’t be long,’ she said, fixing him with that haughty look.
He hung around the doorframe, trying to figure out what was happening, but she didn’t move away from the sink.
‘Do you feel sick? Is that what’s wrong?’
Clearly something was up. He stepped forward to pull her into his arms, but she grabbed up a towel like a matador and skirted away, opening the shower door, stepping inside and flicking the towel over the glass in one smooth movement.
‘I’m perfectly fine, thanks,’ she said, closing the screen and turning away from him. She lifted her face to the spray and then stood, washing the droplets from her cheeks.
He watched her for a few more moments. This was not a woman who wanted more sex, that was for certain. But that was the only thing that was certain. Because he could not understand how she could have been screaming his name, begging him to fill her, giving him that look, with those eyes that told him she was there with him in those moments. He hadn’t imagined any of that. And now she was as cold and distant and hostile as a Martian winter.
How had that happened?
It was moments like this that really pounded him in the gut. He didn’t understand women. But, then again, how could he? His childhood had been spent in boarding school or on holiday, dodging Salvatore’s emotional bullets. The few years he’d had with his mother had been shared with a nanny, basking in her sunshine only when she stopped filming for a moment.
But those rare moments had lit him up. When his mamma had hugged him close and kissed him he’d buried his face in her neck and felt flooded with love. It didn’t matter that she’d only been there in fleeting moments. She’d been his mamma and he her darling and there had been nothing in the world that would come between them.
And then she’d gone. Her life snuffed out in seconds. Wrenched from him for ever. Taking with her a piece of his heart he’d never get back.
The time had passed when the pain of not being able to reach out and touch her or hear her voice had almost made life not worth living. When the braying torments of Salvatore had forced him to hide with his comics under the bed, where he’d silently sob himself to sleep.
Those days had gone. The pain was easier to bear, but, God, how he missed what they might have been. She would have helped him with so much. Now, here, with Coral. She would have shown him how to navigate these waters, because he was way out of his depth with this one.
All he knew for sure was that he would look after Coral. She didn’t know how fragile life was. But he would keep her safe. Even if she fought him. Even if she chose to reject him while she stood there like marble under a waterfall—only a little more rocklike. A little more impenetrable.
* * *
Coral grabbed at the shampoo and squeezed it angrily into her hand. As she lathered up she saw him turn and walk away.
Good. Go away, she thought, furiously rubbing the foam into her head, feeling it soak through her fingers and down her back. Take your irresistible body and your picture-perfect face and your mouthwatering maleness and leave me alone.
Shampoo soaked into her eyes, stinging them. Furiously, she rubbed and splashed them with water.
Why on earth had she let that happen? Why had she let herself believe that he cared when all he was doing was scratching an itch and keeping her sweet because she was carrying his child. For one moment she had actually thought he might really care for her. He’d seemed genuinely interested in giving her pleasure.
He had given her the best orgasm of her life.
She stood still now under the shower, remembering as water coursed down her face and shoulders. What had he done to her? He had ruined her for ever for other men. Nothing would ever be the same again. It had been bad enough the first time. But she’d almost managed to forget what she’d felt and unlearn what he’d taught her about herself. Almost managed, while she’d been stuck in Islington with the publishing world’s doors closing in her face, no money in her purse and morning sickness that almost felled her daily.
But not now. Now it was imprinted on every nerve in her body that her son’s father was her ultimate fantasy come to life. And she’d have her own mini-Raffaele there to remind her of that for evermore.
She turned off the taps and grabbed at the towel. This anger was hers to own. She was responsible for getting herself into this situation not once but twice. She had allowed her physical desire for him to trump every last grain of common sense she had and knowingly and willingly had sex with him.
And beautifully.
And wonderfully.
She sighed, clutched the towel against her body and pushed out of the shower. She opened the door an inch to check if he was there. No sign. Of course not. Why would he be waiting there for her? Men cared only about sex, not intimacy. They cared about physical pleasure, not emotional commitment.
He hadn’t rolled her over and asked how she was feeling after they’d had sex. He couldn’t care less that she had opened herself up and laid herself bare. He’d patted her stomach to make sure the baby was OK, then followed her into the bathroom with his erection twitching for more.
She padded across the rug, her feet sinking into the velvety pile. As expected, there was no sign of anything other than her crumpled red tunic and worn-out boots lying beside the puddle of silk sheets like so much rubbish dropped in the snow.
‘Get yourself some proper maternity clothes.’
She looked at her charity shop finds. Maybe she damn well would. Maybe she’d stop playing the martyr and get back in the saddle of her own life. Six months ago she’d been a different person. She’d been pushing ahead, her face turned towards the sun. That Coral wouldn’t have let herself be treated like some temporary sex toy. That Coral was out there cutting her path, not hiding behind her pregnancy, begging for a job.
She picked up the tunic and held it out. Was she really going to continue to dress herself in rags and tr
undle about on public transport while her half-brother and the father of her child dressed in silk and cashmere and were ferried around in private jets and yachts? What kind of fool did that?
Not this one. Not any more.
She sat on the bed and stared around.
This stopped now.
If she was a part of this world then she was going to be a full part. Not some supporting actress who stepped in for a sex scene and then waited in the wings while the men forged forward with their lives.
She had an unclaimed fortune...
She was in the middle of one of the most beautiful houses in Regent’s Park...
It was a Rossini house, but the Di Viscontis had houses all over the world too. And a fleet of cruise ships. Those were just the parts she knew about. She might have missed out on their wonderful world, but there was no way she would deny her son all the things she’d never had. She wanted to make him proud of her—of course she did. And that started with giving him somewhere to live that was warm and happy and safe.
Somewhere like this.
All around her the antique furniture of the Rossini family bore witness. How many other women had been in these rooms over the years and generations? She’d bet each elegant piece had seen its fair share of happiness and pain, marriage and divorce...
Raffa might be saying all the right things now, but how long would that last? How could she be sure he wouldn’t tire of her and the baby?
Suddenly she felt a sharp stab of pain—an echo of what her mother had been through, pining for her love and sheltering her child. How many times had she contacted Giancarlo, pleading for him to come back to her?
Coral shuddered and pulled the damp towel around her. She wasn’t going to allow that to happen. She wasn’t going to allow any man to hold the keys to her happiness. Because she could be sure of nothing in this world other than the fact that there was no one at her back and there never would be. Whatever she achieved in this world was down to her.
So maybe it was time that she stopped playing the pride card.
She looked around for the tablet. It must be in the office.
She put on a robe and hurried downstairs.
* * *
At the back of the house, behind the kitchens, a short flight of wooden steps led down to the basement. Raffaele stood there now, gazing down into the half-light, absorbing the familiar waft of dry air and the scents that marked out the laundry and stores of dry goods.
If he let his eyes glaze he could almost see the dogs in the corner by the door to the wine cellar. He could almost sense his father tinkering about, choosing wine for dinner, beckoning him closer, holding a bottle of vintage red covered in dust up to his nose and then blowing. Laughing as the cloudy puff settled in the air, on father and son together.
Memories like those were precious, rubbed from his mind like a genie from a lamp, but so fleeting and fragile. The harder he tried to grab at them the more quickly they disappeared.
He moved down each creaking step and into the depths of the cellar, going towards the safe room. Most of the jewellery was still here. Kept intact with everything else in the house, even the staff, as if they were waiting for the moment when the family would be back again.
And now it would. He could almost feel the past reshaping itself. It was going to happen. It was as if all those years of dark pain might now be eclipsed by some light, some happy symmetry, where he might once again taste the fruit of a real family.
He opened the safe and pulled out a box, finding immediately what he was looking for. His grandmother’s engagement ring. The ring he had pictured on Coral’s finger the moment he had known he was going to ask her to marry him. He held it between his finger and thumb and it caught flashes of light, even there in the cellar’s gloom.
Yes, it was such an obvious solution—and it would solve her anxieties in one moment. It was the only thing that made sense. It would give her the security she needed.
That had to be the reason she was acting out. She wasn’t angry with him—she was afraid. Afraid of being alone because Giancarlo hadn’t married her mother and hadn’t even tried to have a relationship with her. In her mind she’d been rejected and abandoned, so she was doing what all abandoned children did so well—keeping people back, because they’d only go and leave anyway. Didn’t he know that better than anyone? Never let people get close. But Coral didn’t have the benefit of several years of therapy to reach that conclusion herself.
So he would marry her and keep them all safe. The Rossini family and the Di Visconti family would be aligned. He would right Giancarlo’s wrongs and give Coral the life she had missed out on. Salvatore would be enraged—but wasn’t he always? And they would need nothing from him. Romano’s net worth was already half as much again as Argento’s. And in a few years Raffaele would be able to step away from babysitting the cruise ships.
It was almost too perfect—and it was all within his grasp.
He slipped the ring into his pocket.
He would ask her tomorrow night at dinner. Before Salvatore arrived and had to be managed into handing over a DNA sample.
He crushed his hand round the little velvet box.
Yes, this was the way. The only way. It felt good. It felt right. Like when he’d left Rome to go to New York and when he’d launched Heavenly. When things felt like this it eased the knot in his stomach—for a little while, at least.
CHAPTER TEN
THIS DINNER WAS not going well. Everything was wrong. Coral had dropped her knife and knocked over her glass. She’d spilled soup down her dress and almost singed her hair on a candle. Raffa sat inches away from her, the strong angles of his face licked by the candles’ golden glow, his steady gaze assessing her without a flicker of emotion.
‘You seem a little anxious. Is everything all right?’ he asked.
She dabbed her napkin at a new stain on her lap.
‘I’m fine. It’s fine,’ she lied.
She was far from fine. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t rein in her emotions. The more composed and relaxed he got, the more vexed she felt.
In the little time they’d spent together since they’d left for the island he’d seemed to increase the easy charm as she became more and more waspish.
As soon as the plane had landed on Hydros she’d shot off with her camera, down to the little harbour, losing herself in images of rocky islands rearing up in the background and sea-battered driftwood in the stony foreground.
Usually her art gave her the space she needed to work out her thoughts, but her head had still been a mess. She hadn’t been able to help but think that the last time she’d viewed this horizon her head had been full of wonder and promise, stealing images from someone else’s world. But this time she was looking out at a vista that was slowly taking on a new meaning. It was a vista her father had enjoyed. A vista her son would enjoy.
She’d looked along the bay, imagining him playing in the sand, and felt suddenly how right that was. He should have everything in this world that would make him happy, despite how it made her feel.
When Raffa’s call had come, saying that the DNA test was a positive match she’d barely registered it. Of course it was. She’d made her way back to the new house with a clutch of beautiful images and a promise to herself to stop being so passive. She was going to get some advice. Some proper legal advice to see what her options were.
Now she listened with awe as Raffa told the story of how far Romano Publishing had come in five short years. How he’d built up the core business and could now acquire loss-making brands like MacIver because of their creativity and industry stature.
He spoke of how he’d started Heavenly. The risks he’d taken, the hours he’d worked until it had finally paid off. Not just financially, but by reputation. He knew everyone and everyone knew him.
/> He was out there in the world cutting a path, doing amazing, unforgettable things. And she wasn’t.
No matter how he dressed it up, he was following his dreams and she still wasn’t even being given the chance. That was wrong. But she couldn’t seem to hate him for it.
Not when every nerve danced to his tune, when every sense was alive to his nearness and the thought of his touch made her weak-kneed and desperate.
‘You don’t have much of an appetite?’ he said now.
She glanced at their respective plates—his clear and hers cluttered.
‘I’m not very hungry.’
‘Are you queasy? I should have thought. I’m sorry, that was inconsiderate.’
He reached his hand across and lifted her fingers. She stared wide-eyed at the gesture—at her fingers in his. They’d done something so much more intimate than hand-holding the day before.
She yanked them away. ‘No, I’m fine. Past all that. I wasn’t great for the first few months, but I feel better than ever now. Full of good health, actually. I could take on the world.’
As soon as she got out there.
He nodded, watching her. ‘You do look incredible. I’d never properly appreciated what was meant by the “bloom” of pregnancy before. But everything about you—your hair, your skin—is glowing. It’s amazing.’
He reached across and lifted a handful of her hair. She felt the brush of his fingers on her neck and the wildfire of lust spread through her body. She inhaled sharply, gripping the edge of her chair. She mustn’t let him see how he affected her. She had to stay on track.
‘The moment I saw you step off the jet I knew I wanted to touch this hair. Feel it in my hands.’
She turned her face and pulled her head away, and he slowly let her hair slide through his fingers.
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