Cinderella's Scandalous Secret

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  His eyes moved back and forth between each of hers as if looking for something screened behind her gaze. ‘One of the reasons I brought you here was to avoid the press. I wanted to enjoy being with you without a bunch of cameras following us all the time.’

  ‘And the other reason?’

  He gave another mercurial half-smile. ‘Put it down to a moment of weakness on my part.’ He stepped back from her and picked up her bag he’d brought in earlier. ‘You should rest for a bit. It’s been a long day.’

  Isla followed him to the master bedroom, a strange sense of déjà vu assailing her as she entered the suite. She could recall in intricate detail the first time she had come into this bedroom with him. And the explosive passion they had shared on that massive bed moments later. She sent Rafe a surreptitious glance to see if he was showing any signs of being affected by memories of the past but his expression was inscrutable. So impersonally inscrutable he could have been a butler showing a low-status houseguest to their room.

  The room contained the light but intoxicating citrus notes of his aftershave and the smell of freshly laundered bedlinen. The windows overlooking the estate were open, the sheer silk curtains billowing like sails.

  ‘Are you cold? I can close these if you’d like.’ Rafe gestured to the windows.

  ‘I’m fine. Leave them open. It’s nice to have some fresh air after being on the plane.’ Isla placed her tote bag on a velvet chair, doing her best to keep her eyes away from the bed.

  ‘I’ll get Concetta to bring you up some refreshment.’

  She swung back around to look at him. ‘Please don’t. I’d...I’d like to be alone for a while.’ Her gaze fell away and she bit down on her lower lip. The last thing she needed right now was a hail of insults from Rafe’s unfriendly housekeeper. Her emotions were all over the place as it was. Coming back here had stirred them into a writhing nest of anguish.

  She was uncertain of how she should handle Rafe’s proposal. Uncertain of her place in his life, even if she had a place in his life other than as the mother of his child. A child he might well be able to take off her if he put his mind to it. She didn’t belong in his world and coming back here only reinforced it. She was a fish so far out of the safety of water she was choking, gasping. It would be foolish of her to let her guard down. She had let her guard down in the past and ended up bitterly disappointed each and every time. After her mother died, she’d hoped her father would claim her but he had handed her back into the foster system as soon as he could. Then there was the disappointment of family after family showing an interest in her, meetings arranged and then suddenly cancelled. Her hopes shattered time and time again. Even her past two boyfriends—men she’d thought she had a future with—had dumped her without ceremony.

  Was she cursed always to have people leave her?

  Rafe came over to her and took both her hands in his. His gaze softened and his hands gently squeezed hers. ‘Are you feeling unwell? Nauseous?’

  Isla kept her gaze averted, looking instead at her hands encased in the warm strong shelter of his. ‘No. Just...tired.’ Overwhelmed. Out of place. Worried. Vulnerable.

  He nudged up her chin with his finger to mesh his gaze with hers. ‘I know this is a big step for you, coming back here with me. But we have to focus on what’s best for the baby. Our baby.’

  Isla slipped out of his hold and put some distance between them, her arms going around her middle. ‘Your housekeeper doesn’t even think it is your baby.’

  Rafe let out a rough-edged sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Do you want me to get rid of her? Is that what you want? To dismiss her and find someone else? Concetta has only ever worked for me. Her life hasn’t been easy. She was married to a brute of a man who left her penniless after she finally worked up the courage to leave him. She has no other skills.’

  There was a part of Isla that wanted exactly that—for him to terminate the housekeeper’s employment right then and there. But there was another part of her that knew how it felt to be dismissed from a much-needed job for speaking her mind too freely. Knew how it felt to be let go. Dismissed. Rejected. ‘No. That’s not what I want,’ Isla said, turning her back to him. ‘I can stand up for myself. I’ve had to do it most of my life. God knows no one else was going to do it for me.’

  Rafe came up behind her and placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders and turned her to face him. His expression was etched in a frown. ‘What was your family’s reaction to the news of your pregnancy? Were they happy for you?’

  Ah, the sticky web we weave...

  Isla went to duck out of his hold but his grip tightened on her shoulders.

  ‘No,’ he said, his frown deepening. ‘Don’t run away. Talk to me.’

  Isla couldn’t meet his gaze and focused on the tanned column of his throat instead. ‘I don’t have a family. My mother died of alcohol poisoning when I was seven. I was handed to my father, who’d been divorced from my mother since I was five, but he didn’t keep me for long. I spent the rest of my childhood in foster care.’

  The sound of Rafe’s sharply indrawn breath brought her gaze back up to his. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ he asked. ‘Why give me the impression you had a normal childhood?’

  This time Isla was successful in extricating herself from his hold. She cupped her elbows in her crossed over hands, keeping her expression guarded. ‘Because it was easier than explaining. You didn’t talk about your family either and I was okay with that. We were having a fling, Rafe. Not promising to share our lives for ever.’

  ‘Was anything you told me about yourself true? Anything at all?’

  Isla sat on the end of the bed before her legs gave way out of sheer exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion more than anything. The only person who knew about her childhood was her friend Layla because they had met in foster care. But Layla had been lucky enough to be claimed by her great-aunt, who took her to live with her at her place of employment as housekeeper for a wealthy Scottish family. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t like talking about my background. I try to forget it as much as possible.’

  He came to hunker down in front of her, one of his hands coming to rest on her knee. ‘What did you think I was going to say if you had told me?’

  Isla affected a light ironic laugh. ‘I can tell you one thing—you wouldn’t have invited me back here to live with you for two months. You date supermodels and starlets, not girls from a Scottish slum.’

  His eyes searched hers for a moment. ‘You seriously think I wouldn’t have become involved with you because of your background? You think I’m that much of a snob?’

  Isla inched up her chin, pride her only reliable armour. ‘Why would you? We have nothing in common. You grew up with money. I grew up in poverty. You have a mother and a father and siblings. I have no one.’

  A shadow of something passed over his face and he got to his feet like he had suddenly morphed into a tired old man. He pushed a hand through his hair, leaving deep finger comb marks. It seemed an age before he spoke.

  ‘My father’s wife is not my mother. And my brothers are only half-siblings. My mother died when I was fourteen. She was my father’s mistress.’

  Isla’s eyes rounded. ‘But everything I’ve read in the press about your background—’

  ‘Was fabricated by my father to whitewash his reputation,’ Rafe said with an unmistakable note of bitterness in his tone. ‘He kept his two lives separate until he had an almost fatal car accident when I was thirteen. We didn’t question why he was always travelling for business—it was his job. He provided for us, took us on nice holidays, showered us with gifts. We didn’t even question why he couldn’t spend Christmas with us every year. There was always a crisis he had to attend to, staffing problems or whatever that only he could fix. When it looked like he might not make it through the night, someone from his company phoned my mother and we rushed to the hospital to f
ind him surrounded by his family. His first family. His official family.’

  Isla rose from the bed and went to him, touching him on the forearm. ‘It must have been awful finding out like that.’

  ‘It was.’ The two words were as sharp and brutal as slash marks on tender flesh.

  Her arm fell away from his. ‘You said your mother died when you were fourteen. Did you live with your father and his...other family after that?’

  A cruel smile twisted his mouth. ‘No. I was sent to boarding school. In England. Far enough away so I didn’t disturb my father’s happy little nest.’

  ‘It can’t have been too happy a nest if your father felt the need to have a mistress for all those years,’ Isla said, frowning.

  ‘My father’s wife came from money. Lots of money. A divorce was out of the question. She gave him an ultimatum once he recovered from the accident—ditch his mistress and keep his distance from me. So he did.’

  ‘What? He dumped you both just like that?’ Isla snapped her fingers for effect.

  Rafe’s eyes were as hard and cold as marble. ‘His company would have collapsed without Elena’s steady injection of funds. Money was always going to win over sentiment with my father.’

  ‘Have you any contact with him now?’

  ‘Minimal.’ Rafe straightened one of the original artworks on the wall with a minuscule adjustment. He turned to look at her and added, ‘It’s funny, but my father and his wife find it far less distasteful to include me in their happy family game now I have become one of the wealthiest men in Sicily.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can have anything to do with them after the way you and your mum were treated,’ Isla said.

  ‘My half-brothers are decent men. It’s not their fault our father is a weak man whose primary motivation is greed.’

  ‘But you loved him once? Your father, I mean.’

  Rafe’s mouth turned down at the corners and another shadow passed over his face. ‘I idolised him. He was my hero, the person I most looked up to. For years I modelled myself on him.’ He made a harsh sound of disgust at the back of his throat. ‘But everything he told me was lies.’

  And Isla had done the same. Guilt crawled over her like a spreading stain and she could feel its hot colour blooming in her cheeks. She had lied by omission rather than blatantly telling mistruths. She was still doing it, withholding information—for how could she tell him about the photos? The shameful shots of her in that gentleman’s bar. Her young nubile body flagrantly exposed. Photos that would be circulated for large sums of money if she were ever to marry Rafe. She knew how much he hated the intrusion of the press. Trailer trash to marry one of Sicily’s richest men? Of course, it would cause a storm of avid interest. Rafe’s housekeeper wouldn’t be the only person in his life who would be throwing nasty insults at her—the whole world would do so.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a difficult time,’ Isla said. ‘But you must feel some sense of satisfaction that you made it on your own?’

  A fleeting smile touched his mouth. ‘Like you, sì?’

  She gave one of her pretend laughs. ‘I’ve hardly made it, Rafe. I haven’t touched a paintbrush in three months.’

  ‘Then we will have to do something about that. I have organised for us to visit my grandmother in a couple of days. She lives in Marsala, about eighty kilometres from here.’

  ‘You didn’t mention anything about her when I was here last. Why?’

  His expression became shuttered. ‘My nonna is old-school, like Concetta. She disapproves of casual relationships. She’s been waiting for years for me to settle down. The time is right now for you to meet her as my fiancée.’

  There was that annoying F word again. Fiancée. And what was his old-school nonna going to think of Isla’s topless photos if they were to go public? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘I haven’t said I was going to marry you, Rafe.’

  He pulled back the bed covers and patted the bed, his gaze giving nothing away. ‘Have a rest now, cara. I insist. You look tired and a little flushed.’

  Isla slipped off her shoes and lay down on the cloud-soft bed and he pulled the cool sheet back over her, leaning down to press a soft-as-air kiss to the middle of her forehead. The surprising tenderness of the kiss made her wonder if somewhere deep inside him he actually cared a little for her. Not just for the baby she was carrying but for her. Was she being foolish to hope? Hadn’t she learned her lesson by now about harbouring vain hopes? He was a good man, a caring man, with perhaps more sensitivity than she had given him credit for in the past. Surely his treatment of his housekeeper proved that he had a heart. But would he ever open it enough to welcome Isla in?

  He was almost to the door before she found her voice. ‘Rafe?’

  He turned to look at her. ‘Yes?’

  Isla chewed at her lower lip. ‘But what if, like Concetta, your grandmother doesn’t accept me?’

  A determined light appeared in his green and brown gaze. ‘Once you are wearing my ring, she will accept you. Concetta too. Now rest.’

  If only he knew how far from acceptable she felt.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RAFE SAT IN his study at his desk and flicked his gold pen back and forth. He had business matters to see to—emails to send, documents to sign, deals to negotiate—but for once in his life he didn’t feel like working. He felt like walking back upstairs and joining Isla in his bed.

  That was where he wanted to be right now. With his arms around her, kissing her until she moaned, touching her until she begged. Burying himself in her sweet hot warmth and forgetting about everything but how good they were together.

  Better than good—the best.

  He should be angry with her for not telling him about her background. He should be feeling blindsided and betrayed, but somehow he wasn’t. Instead, he felt compassion for her. Deep compassion. The circumstances of her childhood were terrible and it pained him she hadn’t felt comfortable telling him when they were having a fling.

  Bringing her back here to his villa had opened up a vault of memories. A vault he had kept tightly locked. When she’d left him three months ago, he had ruthlessly disciplined himself not to think about their time together. Every time his mind would drift to the scent of her skin, the softness of her mouth, the creamy perfection of her breasts, he would throw himself into work or do a punishing, muscle-burning workout. He hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on what he was missing. Not just the hot sex and lively conversations—he’d had plenty of hot sex and lively conversations before. It was Isla he’d missed. Her smile, her tinkling bell-like laugh, her silken touch on his skin.

  Dio, her touch on his skin. He ached to feel it again. Ached and throbbed to bury himself in her and send them both to paradise.

  Concetta had questioned on numerous occasions why he insisted on keeping Isla’s things in the walk-in wardrobe but he had expressly forbidden his housekeeper to remove them. Every time he went to his wardrobe and was confronted with Isla’s clothes it was a form of self-torture. Things he had bought her. It was inconsistent of him to keep them there, as he’d been trying not to think about her, and yet he had kept them there to remind himself of his failure to read the signs on their relationship. Failure was a word he loathed and nothing reeked of abject failure more than to be blindsided in a relationship. Her presence in his villa had changed the atmosphere from the moment she had stepped over the threshold.

  And it had changed it again now.

  Rafe tossed his pen aside and rose to go to the windows that looked out over the stunning white sand–fringed beach of Mondello below. His villa, with its private gardens and infinity pool overlooking the ocean, was his castle. His fortress. The home he wished his mother had lived long enough to see. To enjoy with him. Years of her life had been spent living a lie and it churned his guts to think of all the things she’d done without because
his father had kept her in limbo, feeding her empty promises year after year. Unlike Rafe, his mother had always known about Tino Angeliri’s wife but had put up with being his mistress because she had loved him so much. And Rafe had loved him too. Deeply. And he had thought his father loved him but that was another lie. For a time, Rafe had been angry at his mother for not telling him the truth about his father earlier, but over time he’d come to realise she had only wanted to protect him.

  Rafe and his mother had lived in a nice enough apartment—paid for by his father—but the one thing his mother had longed for was a garden. So Rafe had spent a veritable fortune on the garden here to honour her wish. Years of living out of his various hotels had made him appreciate this private sanctuary all the more. He had a handful of staff but mostly he was here alone.

  But not now.

  Isla was here and he wanted her to stay. Indefinitely. They would be parents in four months’ time. He wanted his child to experience what he hadn’t—legitimacy. Yes, it was old-fashioned of him in this day and age to insist on the formality of marriage. But he would settle for nothing less. He would not have Isla referred to as his mistress. He would not have his child called a love-child. He would not have his child called a bastard. He would not be a part-time parent like his father. He and Isla would be a family and he would do everything in his power to make it work.

  Rafe opened the window and the salty tang of the sea breeze wafted past his nostrils. It had shocked him to find out Isla had grown up without a loving family, especially when she’d hinted at the opposite. But, looking back with the benefit of hindsight, there had been clues if he had taken the time to notice them. Isla had never called anyone on her phone in his presence. And no one had called her, apart from her friend Layla.

  Not that he could talk. He didn’t call his father or stepmother or half-brothers and only sent a text for birthdays. The only family member he called occasionally was his grandmother, because she was his last link to his mother. But even that relationship was tricky to handle. The shame of having a daughter ‘living in sin’ and having an illegitimate son by her married lover had caused a rift between his grandmother and his mother that had meant Rafe hadn’t met his nonna until after his mother’s death. It was hardly the way to build a close family bond.