by Abby Green
She has the power to change everything…
Rafaele Falcone runs his luxury auto empire and private life with the same ice-cold ruthlessness. Emotions play no part in his decisions, and he always demands the best, so he doesn’t hesitate to ask brilliant engineer Samantha Rourke to join his company—even though he walked away from her years before.
That sexy Italian accent still sends shivers down her spine, but gutsy Sam knows it’s not just about her impossible desire to feel his hands on her body once again. Because Falcone is about to discover her deepest secret—one that will send his world into a spin!
“Samantha.” Rafaele smiled. “Aren’t you going to ask me in? It’s cold out here.”
Sam’s hand clenched tightly around the door. Panic rushed into her blood. Finally. Rousing her.
“Now isn’t a good time. I thought I made it clear that I’m not interested.”
A dull flush accentuated Rafaele’s cheekbones, but Sam was barely aware of it when she heard a high-pitched “Mummy!” which was accompanied by small feet running at full speed behind her.
She felt Milo land at her legs and she could almost visualize his little round face peeping out to see who was at the door. Like trying in vain to halt an oncoming train, Sam said in a thready voice, “Now really isn’t a good time.”
Rafaele stared at Milo for what seemed like an age. He frowned and looked as if someone had just hit him in the belly, dazed. He glanced up at Sam and she knew exactly what he was seeing. Her eyes were wide and stricken, set in a face leached of all color.
Panicked. Guilty.
And just like that, something in his eyes turned to ice, and she knew that he knew.
Blood Brothers
Power and passion runs in their veins
Rafaele and Alexio have learned that to feel emotion is to be weak. Calculated ruthlessness brings them immense success in the boardroom and the bedroom. But a storm is coming, with the sudden appearance of a long-lost half brother and the three women who will change their lives forever…
Read Rafaele Falcone’s story in:
WHEN FALCONE’S WORLD STOPS TURNING
February 2014
Only one woman has come close to touching this brooding Italian’s cold heart, and he intends to have her once more. But Samantha Rourke has a secret that will rock his world in a very different way.…
Read Alexio Christakos’s story in:
WHEN CHRISTAKOS MEETS HIS MATCH
April 2014
His legendary Greek charm can get him any woman he wants—and he wants Sidonie Fitzgerald for one hot night. But when that night isn’t enough, will he regret breaking his own rules?
And coming soon…
Cesar Da Silva’s story
June 2014
The prodigal son is tormented by his dark past. Can one woman save this Spanish billionaire’s tortured soul, or is he beyond redemption?
ABBY GREEN
When Falcone’s World Stops Turning
All about the author…Abby Green
ABBY GREEN deferred doing a social anthropology degree to work freelance as an assistant director in the film and television industry—which is a social study in itself! Since then it’s been early starts, long hours, mucky fields, ugly car parks and wet-weather gear—especially working in Ireland. She has no bona fide qualifications but could probably help negotiate a peace agreement between two warring countries after years of dealing with recalcitrant actors. Since discovering a guide to writing romance one day, she decided to capitalize on her longtime love for Harlequin® romances and attempt to follow in the footsteps of such authors as Kate Walker and Penny Jordan.
She’s enjoying the excuse to be paid to sit inside, away from the elements. She lives in Dublin and hopes that you will enjoy her stories. You can email her at [email protected].
Other titles by Abby Green available in ebook:
FORGIVEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN?
THE LEGEND OF DE MARCO
SECRETS OF THE OASIS
THE STOLEN BRIDE (The Notorious Wolfes)
This is for Gervaise Landy, without whose influence I would most likely still be speaking into a walkie-talkie outside an actor’s trailer in a car park somewhere, in the rain, trying to explain what the delay is. Thank you for all the great conversations about Harlequin Mills and Boon, and that first memorable one in particular all those years ago. As soon as we recognized a fellow fanatic in each other, we were kindred spirits. You were the one who put the idea in my head in the first place about writing for Harlequin Mills and Boon, and you were the one with the tape on how to write one, which I still have, and which I will return to you as soon as you promise me you’re going to sit down and finish that manuscript. With much love and thanks for sowing the seed of a dream in my head!
In thanking Gervaise, I also have to dedicate this book to Caitríona Ní Mhurchú, at whose party I first met Gervaise. From the age of sixteen I have idolized this glamorous, confident, sexy, intelligent woman, so if you see any of those traits in my heroines, it comes from a deep well of inspiration.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
RAFAELE FALCONE LOOKED at the coffin deep inside the open grave. The earth they’d thrown in was scattered on top, along with some lone flowers left by departing friends and acquaintances. Some of them had been men, inordinately upset. Evidently there was some truth to the rumours that the stunning Esperanza Christakos had taken lovers during her third marriage.
Rafaele felt many conflicting emotions, apart from the obvious grief for his dead mother. He couldn’t say that they’d ever had a close relationship; she’d been eternally elusive and had carried an air of melancholy about her. She’d also been beautiful. Beautiful enough to send his own father mad with grief when she left him.
The kind of woman who’d had the ability to make grown men completely lose all sense of dignity and of themselves. Not something that would ever happen to him. His single-minded focus was on his career and rebuilding the Falcone motor empire. Beautiful women were a pleasant diversion—nothing more. None of his lovers were ever under any illusions and expected nothing more than the transitory pleasure of his company.
His conscience pricked at this confident assertion—there had only been one lover who had taken him close to the edge but that was an experience he didn’t dwell on...not any more.
His half-brother, Alexio Christakos, turned to him now and smiled tightly. Rafaele felt a familiar ache in his chest. He loved his half-brother, and had done from the moment he’d been born, but their relationship wasn’t easy. It had been hard for Rafaele to witness his brother growing up, sure in the knowledge of his father’s success and support—so different from his own experience with his father. He’d felt resentful for a long time, which hadn’t been helped by his stepfather’s obvious antipathy towards the son that wasn’t his.
They both turned and walked away from the grave, engrossed in their own thoughts. Their mother had bequeathed to both her sons her distinctive green eyes, although Alexio’s were a shade more golden than Rafaele’s striking light green. Rafaele’s hair was thicker and a darker brown next to his brother’
s short-cut ebony-black hair.
Differing only slightly in height, they were both a few inches over six foot. Rafaele’s build was broad and powerful. His brother’s just as powerful, but leaner. Dark stubble shadowed Rafaele’s firm jawline today, and when they came to a stop near the cars Alexio observed it, remarking dryly, ‘You couldn’t even clean up for the funeral?’
The tightness in Rafaele’s chest when he’d stood at the grave was easing slightly now. He curbed the urge to be defensive, to hide the vulnerability he felt, and faced his brother, drawling with a definite glint in his eye, ‘I got out of bed too late.’
He couldn’t explain to his brother how he’d instinctively sought the momentary escape he would find in the response of an eager woman, preferring not to dwell on how his mother’s death had made him feel. Preferring not to dwell on how it had brought up vivid memories of when she’d walked out on his father so many years ago, leaving him a broken man. He was still bitter, adamantly refusing to pay his respects to his ex-wife today despite Rafaele’s efforts to persuade him to come.
Alexio, oblivious to Rafaele’s inner tumult, shook his head and smiled wryly. ‘Unbelievable. You’ve only been in Athens for two days—no wonder you wanted to stay in a hotel and not at my apartment...’
Rafaele pushed aside the dark memories and quirked a mocking brow at his brother, about to dish out some of the same, when he saw a latecomer arrive. The words died on his lips and Alexio’s smile faded as he turned to follow Rafaele’s gaze.
A very tall, stern-faced stranger was staring at them both. And yet...he looked incredibly familiar. It was almost like looking into a mirror. Or at Alexio...if he had dark blond hair. It was his eyes, though, that sent a shiver through Rafaele. Green, much like his and Alexio’s, except with a slight difference—a darker green, almost hazel. Another take on their mother’s eyes...? But how could that be?
Rafaele bristled at this stranger’s almost belligerent stance. ‘May we help you?’ he asked coolly.
The man’s eyes flickered over them both, and then to the open grave in the distance. He asked, with a derisive curl to his lip, ‘Are there any more of us?’
Rafaele looked at Alexio, who was frowning, and said, ‘Us? What are you talking about?’
The man looked at Rafaele. ‘You don’t remember, do you?’
The faintest of memories was coming back: he was standing on a doorstep with his mother. A huge imposing door was opening and there was a boy, a few years older than him, with blond hair and huge eyes.
The man’s voice sounded rough in the still air. ‘She brought you to my house. You must have been nearly three. I was almost seven. She wanted to take me with her then, but I wouldn’t leave. Not after she’d abandoned me.’
Rafaele felt cold all over. In a slightly hoarse voice he asked, ‘Who are you?’
The man smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m your older brother—half-brother. My name is Cesar Da Silva. I came today to pay my respects to the woman who gave me life...not that she deserved it. I was curious to see if any more would crawl out of the woodwork, but it looks like it’s just us.’
Alexio erupted beside Rafaele. ‘What the hell—?’
Rafaele was too stunned to move. He knew the Da Silva name. Cesar was behind the renowned and extremely successful Da Silva Global Corporation. His mind boggled to think that he might have met him and not known that they were brothers. With a sickening sense of inevitability, he didn’t doubt a word this man had just said. Their fraternal similarities were too obvious. They could be non-identical triplets.
That half-memory, half-dream had always been all too real—he’d just never known for sure, because whenever he’d mentioned it to his mother she’d always changed the subject. Much in the way she had never discussed her life in her native Spain before she’d met his father in Paris, where she’d been a model.
Rafaele gestured to his brother, ‘This is Alexio Christakos...our younger brother.’
Cesar Da Silva looked at him with nothing but ice in his eyes. ‘Three brothers by three fathers...and yet she didn’t abandon either of you to the wolves.’
He stepped forward then, and Alexio stepped forward too. The two men stood almost nose to nose, with Cesar topping his youngest brother in height only by an inch.
Cesar, his jaw as rigid as Alexio’s, gritted out, ‘I didn’t come here to fight you, brother. I have no issue with either of you.’
Alexio’s mouth thinned. ‘Only with our dead mother, if what you say is true.’
Cesar smiled, but it was thin and bitter. ‘Oh, it’s true, all right — more’s the pity.’
He stepped around Alexio then, and walked to the open grave. He took something out of his pocket and dropped it down into the dark space, where it fell onto the coffin with a distant hollow thud. He stood there for a long moment and then came back, his face expressionless.
After a charged silent moment between the three men he turned to stride away and got into the back of a waiting dark silver limousine, which moved off smoothly.
Rafaele turned to Alexio, who looked back at him, gobsmacked.
‘What the...?’ he trailed off.
Rafaele just shook his head. ‘I don’t know...’
He looked back to the space where the car had been and reeled with this cataclysmic knowledge.
CHAPTER ONE
Three months later...
‘SAM, SORRY TO bother you, but there’s a call for you on line one...someone with a very deep voice and a sexy foreign accent.’
Sam went very still. Deep voice...sexy foreign accent. The words sent a shiver of foreboding down her spine and a lick of something much hotter through her pelvis. She told herself she was being ridiculous and looked up from the results she’d been reading to see the secretary of the research department at the London university.
Kind eyes twinkled mischievously in a matronly face. ‘Did you get up to something at the weekend? Or should I say someone?’
Again that shiver went down Sam’s spine, but she just smiled at Gertie. ‘Chance would be a fine thing. I spent all weekend working on Milo’s playschool nature project with him.’
The secretary smiled and said indulgently, ‘You know I live in hope, Sam. You and Milo need a gorgeous man to come and take care of you.’
Sam gritted her teeth and kept smiling, restraining herself from pointing out how well she and Milo were doing without a man. Now she couldn’t wait to take the call. ‘Did you say line one?’
Gertie winked and disappeared, and Sam took a deep breath before picking up the phone and pressing the flashing button. ‘Dr Samantha Rourke here.’
There was silence for a few seconds, and then came the voice. Low, deep, sexy—and infinitely memorable. ‘Ciao, Samantha, it’s Rafaele...’
The prickle of foreboding became a slap in the face. He was the only one apart from her father who had ever called her Samantha—unless it had been Sam in the throes of passion. All the blood in her body seemed to drain south, to the floor. Anger, guilt, emotional pain, lust and an awful treacherous tenderness flooded her in a confusing tumult.
She only realised she hadn’t responded when the voice came again, cooler. ‘Rafaele Falcone...perhaps you don’t remember?’
As if that was humanly possible!
Her hand gripped the phone and she managed to get out, ‘No... I mean, yes. I remember.’
Sam wanted to laugh hysterically. How could she forget the man when she looked into a miniature replica of his face and green eyes every day?
‘Bene,’ came the smooth answer. ‘How are you, Sam? You’re a doctor now?’
‘Yes...’ Sam’s heart was doing funny things, beating so hard she felt breathless. ‘I got my doctorate after...’ She faltered and the words reverberated in her head unspoken. After you came into my l
ife and blew it to smithereens. She fought valiantly for control and said in a stronger voice, ‘I got my doctorate since I saw you last. How can I help you?’
Again a bubble of hysteria rose up in her: how about helping him by telling him he has a son?
‘I am here in London because we’ve set up a UK base for Falcone Motors.’
‘That’s...nice,’ Sam said, a little redundantly.
The magnitude of who she was talking to seemed to hit her all of a sudden and she went icy all over. Rafaele Falcone. Here in London. He’d tracked her down. Why? Milo. Her son, her world. His son.
Sam’s first irrational thought was that he must know, and then she forced herself to calm down. No way would Rafaele Falcone be calling her up sounding so blasé if he knew. She needed to get rid of him, though—fast. And then think.
‘Look...it’s nice to hear from you, but I’m quite busy at the moment...’
Rafaele’s voice took on a cool edge again. ‘You’re not curious as to why I’ve contacted you?’
That sliver of fear snaked down Sam’s spine again as an image of her adorable dark-haired son came into her mind’s eye.
‘I...well...I guess I am.’ She couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic.
Rafaele’s voice was almost arctic now. ‘I was going to offer you a position with Falcone Motors. The research you’re currently conducting is exactly in the area we want to develop.’
Sheer blind panic gripped Sam’s innards at his words. She’d worked for this man once before and nothing had been the same since. Her tone frigid, she said, ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. I’m committed to working on behalf of the university.’
Silence for a few taut seconds and then Rafaele responded with a terse, ‘I see.’
Sam could tell that Rafaele had expected her to drop at his feet in a swoon of gratitude, even just at the offer of a job, if nothing more personal. It was the effect he had on most women. He hadn’t changed. In spite of what had happened between them.
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