Cinderella's Scandalous Secret

Something moved at the back of his gaze as quick as a camera shutter click. Disappointment? Pain? Anger? She couldn’t quite tell. ‘I’m sure they won’t mind waiting.’

Isla lifted her chin, locking her defiant gaze on his. She could feel the tug-of-war between their two strong wills prickling and pulsing in the air like soundwaves. The push and pull of their personalities had more or less defined their whirlwind fling. ‘You can’t force me to do anything any more, Rafe.’

His eyebrows lifted ever so slightly above his hazel eyes. And his cynical half-smile was back. ‘When did I ever force you, cara mia? You were with me all the way, sì?’ His voice was so low and deep it sounded like it was coming through the floorboards. Deep enough to strike a chord in the secret core of her being, reverberating like the sound of a struck tuning fork.

Isla tried to block the storm of erotic memories that flooded her brain. Memories of her limbs entangled with his, her body singing with delight and satiation and super-heightened sensuality. The taste of him, the musky scent of their coupling in the air, the feel of his hands lazily stroking the flank of her thigh, so close to the pounding heart of her need. She drew in a sharp breath and went back to her trolley, grasping the handle to stop herself from touching him. Surely she was immune to him by now? She hadn’t felt a flicker of lust for anyone since they’d broken up.

She wondered if she ever would again.

‘I have to go.’ Isla pushed the trolley towards the door but before she could get any distance his voice stalled her.

‘One drink. In the bar downstairs. I promise I won’t keep you long.’ A tiny pause and he added, ‘Please, cara?’

Isla should have walked out without saying another word but something in the quality of his tone stopped her. If she refused it would make her look churlish. After all, she had been the one to end their relationship. If anyone should be feeling churlish it should be him. She had left a note at his home rather than tell him face to face. The most telling thing about their breakup was that she’d only received one phone call from him where he’d left a stinging voicemail. One final call that had allowed him to vent his anger and thus confirming to her she had done the right thing. If he had truly cared about her, wouldn’t he have called multiple times? Wouldn’t he have done everything in his power to find her? To meet with her in person and beg her to come back to him. Except men like Rafe Angeliri didn’t beg. They didn’t have to. Women never left him in the first place. They were the ones who begged to stay.

But spending time with Rafe was dangerous for her now. Dangerous on so many levels. She was only just starting to show her pregnancy; her bump was still in that is-she-or-isn’t-she? phase. A quick drink might be just enough contact to assure him she had well and truly moved on with her life. Moved on from him. Surely she owed him a few more minutes of her time? He was the father of her baby, even if she’d vowed never to let him know it. She would look upon having a quick drink with him as a fact-finding mission. She needed to know what his plans were so she could adjust her own. If he was going to spend time here in Edinburgh then she would have to leave. To disappear and hope he wouldn’t come looking for her.

Isla turned to face Rafe, her heart and mind still at war. When had she ever been able to resist him? A big fat never. Which was why she had to be careful around him now. ‘Okay. One drink.’

Once the door closed behind Isla, Rafe let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Five months had passed and he still couldn’t be in the same room as her without wanting her. The lust hit him like a sucker punch. Seeing her standing beside his bed had brought back so many memories. Memories he had never been able to erase from his mind, much less his body. It was as if Isla McBain had imprinted herself on his flesh. No one else could satisfy the burning, aching need she aroused. He had dated other women since but each time he had thought about sleeping with them something had made him pull back. He was turning into a damn monk and he had to sort it out so he could move on with his life.

Move on from her.

Rafe was annoyed at himself for still being bitter about their breakup. But usually it was him who called time on his relationships. He was the one who set the agenda and changed it when it suited him. It had been a new experience—an uncomfortable experience—to have Isla leave him, especially when he was out of town working on the biggest and most important deal of his career. And especially when he had taken her home to Sicily—the first lover he had ever taken to his private sanctuary.

His villa in Sicily was normally out of bounds for casual lovers. It blurred the boundaries to have lovers sleep over too many times, but for once he had relaxed his guard. He had taken Isla there for weeks on end, cancelled important work meetings just so he could spend time with her without the press documenting every moment. Something about their relationship had made him want to keep it out of the public eye. Not because he didn’t like being with her but because he did. A lot. A lot more than he had enjoyed being with other lovers.

But somehow he had read her wrong and that bothered him. Big time. What niggled him the most was that he suspected she had waited until he was preoccupied with that deal so she could maximise the impact.

Coming home to an empty villa and a note from Isla propped up on the mantelpiece had blindsided him. And if there was one thing he detested more than anything else it was being blindsided. Hadn’t his duplicitous father set the bar for blindsiding? With his father’s two families operating simultaneously—two wives, two families, who each thought they were Tino Angeliri’s entire world until Rafe had discovered the truth when he was thirteen. A phone call from one of his father’s staff had changed everything. Revealed everything. When his father had been critically injured in a car crash while away on business, the staff member had felt compelled to inform Rafe and his mother of Tino’s life-threatening injuries. But when he and his mother flew to Florence to be by Tino’s bedside they discovered Tino already had visitors. Four of them. His other family. His wife and two sons. His father’s first family. His father’s official family. His father’s other life. Rafe had stood by the hospital bed and recounted every one of his father’s blatant lies. Years and years of bold-faced blatant lies.

Rafe was his father’s dirty little secret. His illegitimate son.

Coming home to that damn Dear John letter from Isla had enraged Rafe so much he had torn it into confetti-like shreds. It had reminded him of walking into that Florence hospital when everything he believed about himself and his family was found to be false. A pack of lies. Secrets and lies. He hadn’t realised he was capable of such anger until it hit him in sickening, gut-shredding waves. Why hadn’t he seen it coming? Surely there must have been a sign. Or had Isla deliberately misled him, lulling him into a false sense of security just as his father had done for all those years? Pretending, lying, misleading—the three deadly sins of any relationship.

He had called Isla as soon as he’d read the note and left a message. It wasn’t a message he was particularly proud of, but he was not one to hand out second chances. She hadn’t called him back and, in a way, he had been glad. Clean breaks were always to be advised. But nothing about their breakup felt clean to him. It felt rough around the edges, torn instead of neatly cut, ripped and raw instead of resolved.

Rafe paced the floor of the penthouse until he was sure he would wear his way through the carpet to the suite below. Something was off about her now. Her body language, her averted gaze, her caginess. Why had Isla had given up her Fine Arts degree and moved back to Scotland? She had been so passionate about her art and had said how much she enjoyed living in London. He had seen some of her drawings and he’d been amazed at her talent. What had made her turn her back on her dreams and work for a friend in a job that didn’t maximise her creativity? Had something happened in the time since their breakup? Something that had poisoned her artistic aspirations. But what?

He turned and looked at the neatly made bed, picturing her in it with her slim limbs wrapped around his. He let out a filthy curse and swung away, his guts twisting and tangling in disgust. Disgust at himself for allowing her to still get under his skin.

Isla was by far the feistiest and most fascinating woman he had ever been involved with and he couldn’t help wondering if that was why no one else since had measured up. He had found Isla’s quick wit and hair-trigger temper entertaining as well as frustrating. So few people stood up to him. So few women treated him as an equal instead of a meal ticket.

Isla had been different. She had made it virtually impossible for him to be satisfied by anyone else. He had enjoyed their heated debates, enjoyed how all their fights were settled between the sheets. He’d enjoyed goading her to get a rise out of her just so he could have her quaking and shuddering in his arms.

She looked the same but different somehow. Her figure was still slim but some of her curves had ripened, making him ache to touch her, to feel her, to smell and taste her. Her breasts were a little fuller. Dio. He had to stop thinking about her gorgeous breasts. How soft they felt in his hands, under his lips and tongue. How it felt to have her moving, thrashing beneath him as he took her screaming all the way to paradise.

The new energy that surrounded her now intrigued him. Her gaze blazing with defiance one minute and skittering away from his the next. Her skin paling and then flushing, her body turned away when before it had always turned towards him like a compass point finding true north.

Isla’s rejection was like a scabbed-over sore. Seeing her again had ripped off the scab and left the wound smarting, stinging, festering. He had to expunge her from his system so he could finally move forward. One drink with her and he would walk away without a backward glance. He owed it to himself to leave what they’d shared in the past where it belonged.

It was over and the sooner he accepted it the better.

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