Modern Romance - The Best of the Year

He’d looked up at her then and his face had tightened. ‘Are you sure it’s a shock? How do I know this wasn’t planned in some attempt to trap me?’

Sam had almost staggered backwards, her mouth open, but nothing had come out. Eventually she’d managed, ‘You think...you truly think I did this on purpose?’

Rafaele had stood up and started to pace, some colour coming back into his cheeks, highlighting that stunning bone structure. He’d laughed in a way that had chilled Sam right to her core, because she’d never heard him laugh like that before. Harsh.

He’d faced her. ‘It’s not unheard of, you know, for a woman who wants to ensure herself a lifetime of security from a rich man.’

The depth of this heretofore unrevealed cynicism had sent her reeling. Sam had stalked up to Rafaele’s desk, her hands clenched to fists. ‘You absolute bastard. I would never do such a thing.’

And then she’d had a flash of his expression and his demeanour when she’d come into the room, before she’d given him a chance to speak. A very bitter and dark truth had sunk in.

‘You were going to tell me it was over, weren’t you? That’s why you asked to see me.’

Rafaele had had the grace to avoid her eye for a moment, but then he’d looked at her, his face devoid of expression.

‘Yes.’

That was all. One word. Confirmation that Sam had been living in cloud cuckoo land, believing that what she’d shared with one of the world’s perennial playboys had been different.

She’d been so overcome with conflicting emotions and turmoil at his attitude to her news and his stark lack of emotion that she’d been afraid if she tried to speak she’d start crying. So she’d run out of his office. Not even caring that she’d humiliated herself beyond all saving.

She’d hidden in her tiny apartment, avoiding Rafaele, avoiding his repeated attempts to get her to open the door.

And then it had started. The bleeding and the awful cramping pain. Terrified, Sam had finally opened the door to him, her physical pain momentarily eclipsing the emotional pain.

She’d looked at Rafaele and said starkly, ‘I’m bleeding.’

He’d taken her to a clinic, grim and pale, but Sam hadn’t really noticed. Her hands had been clutching her belly as she’d found herself willing the tiny clump of cells to live, no matter what. For someone who hadn’t ever seriously contemplated having children, because she’d lost her own mother young and had grown up with an emotionally absent father, in that moment Sam had felt a primitive need to become a mother so strong that it had shaken her to her core.

At the clinic the kindly doctor had informed her that she wasn’t, in fact, miscarrying. She was just experiencing heavier spotting than might be normal. He’d said the cramps were probably stress-induced and reassured her that with rest and avoiding vexatious situations she should go on to have a perfectly normal and healthy pregnancy.

The relief had been overwhelming. Until Sam had remembered that Rafaele was outside the door, pacing up and down, looking grim. He was a ‘vexatious situation’ personified. She could remember feeling the cramps come back even then, at the very prospect of having to deal with him, and again that visceral feeling had arisen: the need to protect her child.

She’d dreaded telling him that she hadn’t miscarried after all.

And then a nurse had left the room, leaving the door ajar, and Rafaele’s voice had floated distinctly into the room from just outside.

Everything within her stilling, Sam had heard him say tightly, ‘I’m just caught up with something at the moment... No, it’s not important... I will resolve this as soon as I can and get back to you.’

And just like that the small, traitorous flame of hope she’d not even been aware she was pathetically harbouring had been extinguished. Obviously because of doctor/patient confidentiality Rafaele was none the wiser as to whether or not she’d actually miscarried. He believed that she had.

He’d terminated his conversation and come into the room. Sam had looked out of the window, feeling as if she was breaking apart inside. She’d forced herself to be calm and not stressed. The baby was paramount now.

Rafaele had stopped by the bed. ‘Sam...’

Sam hadn’t looked at him. She’d just answered, ‘What?’

She’d heard him sigh. ‘Look, I’m sorry...really sorry that this has happened. We should never have become involved.’

Sam had felt empty. ‘No,’ she’d agreed, ‘we shouldn’t have.’

Even then a small voice had urged her to put him straight, but she’d felt so angry in that moment and had already felt her stress levels rising, her body starting to cramp. Dangerous for the baby.

Feeling panicked, she’d finally turned her head to acknowledge Rafaele and said, ‘Look, what’s done is done. It’s over. I have to stay in for a night for observation but I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going home.’

Rafaele had been pale but Sam had felt like reaching up to slap him. He felt no more for her than he did for the fact that as far as he was aware he’d just lost a baby. He just wanted to be rid of her. ‘I will resolve this as soon as I can...’

‘Just go, Rafaele, leave me be.’ Please, she’d begged silently, feeling those stress levels rising. Her hands had tightened on the bedcover, knuckles white.

Rafaele had just looked at her, those green eyes unfathomable. ‘It’s for the best, cara. Believe me... You are young...you have your career ahead of you. After all, it wasn’t as if this was ever anything serious, was it?’

Sam’s mouth had twisted and she’d resolved in that moment to do her utmost to focus on her career...and her baby. No matter what it took. ‘Of course not. Now, please, just go.’

Sam’s control had felt so brittle she’d been afraid it would snap at any moment and he’d see the true depth of her agony.

Rafaele had stepped back a pace. ‘I will arrange for your travel home. You won’t have to worry about anything.’

Sam had stifled a semi-hysterical giggle at the thought of the monumental task and life-change ahead of her. She’d nodded abruptly. ‘Fine.’

Rafaele had been almost at the door by then, relief a tangible aura around him. ‘Goodbye, Sam.’

Feeling a sob rise, and choking it down with all of her will and strength, Sam had managed a cool-sounding, ‘Goodbye, Rafaele.’ And then she’d turned her head, because her eyes had been stinging. She’d heard the door close softly and a huge sob had ripped out of her chest, and tears, hot and salty, had flowed down her cheeks.

By the time Sam had been at home for a week she’d begun veering wildly between the urge to tell Rafaele the truth and the urge to protect herself from further pain. Then she’d seen on some vacuous celebrity TV channel that Rafaele was already out and about with some gorgeous Italian TV personality, smiling that devilishly sexy smile. As she’d looked at Rafaele, smiling for the TV cameras, his arm around the waist of the sinuous dark-haired Latin beauty, she’d known that she could never tell him because he simply wasn’t interested.

‘Mummy, I want Cheerios!’

Sam blinked and came back to reality. Milo. Breakfast. She pushed aside the memories, tried to ignore the guilt and got up to attend to her son.

* * *

That evening when the doorbell rang Sam looked up from washing the dinner things in the sink. Milo was playing happily on the floor in the sitting room with his cars, oblivious. As she went to answer it she assured herself it was probably just Bridie, who had forgotten her keys to the flat again.

But when she opened the door on the dusky late winter evening it wasn’t Bridie, who stood at five foot two inches in heels. It was someone over a foot taller and infinitely more masculine.

Rafaele Falcone.

For a long, breathless moment, the information simply wouldn’t compute. Suspended in time, Sam seemed to be able to take in details almost dispassionately. Faded jeans. Battered leather jacket. Thin wool jumper. Thick dark brown hair which still had a tendency to curl a little too much over his collar. The high forehead. The deep-set startling green eyes. The patrician bump of his nose, giving him that indelible air of arrogance. The stunning bone structure and that golden olive skin that placed him somewhere more exotic than cold, wet England.

And his mouth. That gorgeous, sculpted-for-wicked-things mouth. It always looked on the verge of tipping into a sexy half-smile, full of the promise of sensual nirvana. Unless it was pulled into a grim line, as it had been when she had seen him last.

Reality slammed into Sam like a fist to her gut. She actually sucked in a breath, only realising then that she’d been starving her lungs for long seconds while she gawped at him like a groupie.

‘Samantha.’

His voice lodged her even more firmly in reality. And the burning intensity of his green eyes as they swept down her body. Sam became acutely aware of her weekend uniform of skinny jeans, thick socks and a very worn plaid shirt. Her hair was scraped up into a bun and she wore no make-up.

Rafaele smiled. ‘Still a tomboy, I see. Despite my best efforts.’

A memory exploded into Sam’s consciousness. Rafaele, in his palazzo, presenting her with a huge white box. Under what had seemed like acres and acres of silver tissue paper a swathe of material had appeared.

Sam had lifted it out to reveal a breathtaking evening gown. Rafaele had stripped her himself and dressed her again. One-shouldered and figure-hugging, in black and flesh-coloured stripes, the dress had accentuated her hips, her breasts, and a long slit had revealed her legs. Then he’d taken her out to one of Milan’s most exclusive restaurants. They’d been the last to leave, somewhere around four o’clock in the morning, drunk on sparkling wine and lust, and he’d taken her home to his palazzo...

‘Still a tomboy, I see...’

The memory vanished and the backdrop of Sam’s very suburban street behind Rafaele came back into view.

Sexy smile. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in? It’s cold out here.’

Sam’s hand clenched tight around the door. Milo. Panic rushed into her blood. Finally. Rousing her.

‘Now isn’t a good time. I don’t know why you’ve come here. I thought I made it clear the other day that I’m not interested.’

Sam forced herself to look at him. Four years had passed and in that time she’d changed utterly. She felt older, more jaded. Whereas Rafaele only looked even more gorgeous. The unfairness of it galvanised her. He’d known nothing of her life the last few years. Because you didn’t tell him, a voice pointed out.

‘Why did you come here, Rafaele? I’m sure you have more important things to do on a Saturday evening.’

The bitterness in Sam’s voice surprised her.

Rafaele’s jaw tightened, but he answered smoothly. ‘I thought if I came to see you in person you might be persuaded to listen to my offer.’

A dull flush accentuated Rafaele’s cheekbones, but Sam was barely aware of it as 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, clasping his arms around them, and could almost visualise 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, ‘Like I said, now really isn’t a good time.’

She could see awareness dawn on Rafaele’s face as he obviously took in the fact of a child. He started to speak stiltedly. ‘I’m sorry. I should have thought... Of course it’s been years...you must be married by now. Children...’

Then his eyes slid down and she saw them widen. She didn’t have to look to know that Milo was now standing beside her, one chubby hand clinging onto her leg. Wide green eyes would be staring innocently up into eyes the exact same shade of green. Unusual. Lots of people commented on how unusual they were.

Rafaele stared at Milo for what seemed like an age. He frowned and then looked as if someone had just hit him in the belly...dazed. He looked up at Sam and she knew exactly what he was seeing as clearly as if she was standing apart, observing the interplay. Her eyes were wide and stricken, set in a face leached of all colour. Pale as parchment. Panicked. Guilty.

And just like that, something in his eyes turned to ice and she knew that he knew.

CHAPTER TWO

‘MUMMY, CAN WE watch the cars on TV now?’

Sam put her hand to Milo’s head and said faintly, ‘Why don’t you go on and I’ll be there in a minute, okay?’

Milo ran off again and the silence grew taut between Sam and Rafaele. He knew. She felt it in her bones. He’d known as soon as he’d looked into his son’s eyes. So identical. She hated that something about his immediate recognition of his own son made something soften inside her.

He was looking at her so hard she felt it like a physical brand on her skin. Hot.

‘Let me in, Samantha. Now.’

Feeling shaky and clammy all at once, Sam stepped back and opened the door. Rafaele came in, his tall, powerful form dwarfing the hallway. He smelt of light spices and something musky, and through the shock Sam’s blood jumped in recognition.

She shut the door and walked quickly to the kitchen at the end of the hall, passing where Milo sat cross-legged in front of the TV watching a popular car programme. His favourite.

She was about to pull the door shut when a curt voice behind her instructed, ‘Leave it.’

She dropped her hand and tensed. Rafaele was looking at Milo as he sat enraptured by the cars on the screen. He was holding about three of his favourite toy cars in his hands. If his eyes and pale olive skin hadn’t been a fatal giveaway then this might have been the worst kind of ironic joke.

Sam stepped back and walked into the kitchen. She couldn’t feel her legs. She felt sick, light-headed. She turned around to see Rafaele follow her in and close the door behind him, not shutting it completely.

Rafaele was white beneath his dark colouring. And he looked murderous.

He bit out, ‘This is where you tell me that by some extraordinary feat of genetic coincidence that little boy in there isn’t three years and approximately three months old. That he didn’t inherit exactly the same colour eyes that I inherited from my own mother. That he isn’t my son.’

Sam opened her mouth. ‘He is...’ Even now, at this last second, her brain searched desperately for something to cling onto. Some way this could be justified. He was his father. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the right any more. She’d never had the right. ‘He is your son.’

Silence, stretching taut and stark, and then he repeated, ‘He is my son?’

Sam just nodded. Nausea was churning in her belly now. The full implications of this were starting to hit home.

Rafaele emitted a long stream of Italian invective and Sam winced because she recognised some of the cruder words—they were pretty universal. Her belly was so tight she put a hand to it unconsciously. She watched as Rafaele struggled to take this in. The enormity of it.

‘No wonder you were so keen to get rid of me the other day.’

He paced back and forth in the tiny space. She could feel his anger and tension as it lashed out like a live electrical wire, snapping at her feet.

Suddenly he stopped and looked at her. ‘Are you married?’

Sam shook her head painfully. ‘No.’

‘And what if I hadn’t decided to pay you a visit? Would you have let me remain in blissful ignorance for ever?’

Stricken, Sam whispered, ‘I don’t...I don’t know.’ Even as she admitted that, though, the knowledge seeped in. She wouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt. She would have told him.

He pinned her to the spot with that light green gaze which had once devoured her alive and was now colder than the arctic.

‘You bitch.’

Sam flinched. He might as well have slapped her across the face. It had the same effect. The words were so coldly and implacably delivered.

‘You didn’t want a baby,’ she whispered, unable to inject more force into her voice.

‘So you just lied to me?’

Sam could feel her cheeks burning now, with shame. ‘I thought it was a miscarriage, as did you. But at the clinic, after the doctor had done his examination, he told me that I wasn’t miscarrying.’

Rafaele crossed his arms and she could see his hands clenched to fists. She shivered at the threat of violence even though she knew he would never hit her. But she sensed he wanted to hit something.

‘You knew then and yet you barefaced lied to me and let me walk away.’

Clutching at the smallest of straws, Sam said shakily, ‘I didn’t lie...you assumed...I just didn’t tell you.’

‘And the reason you didn’t inform me was because...?’

‘You didn’t...didn’t want to know.’ The words felt flimsy and ineffectual now. Petty.

‘Based on...?’

It was as if he couldn’t quite get out full sentences, Sam felt his rage strangling his words.

Her brain felt heavy. ‘Because of how you reacted when I told you in the first place...’

Sam recalled the indescribable pain of realising that Rafaele had been about to break it off with her. His abject shock at the prospect of her pregnancy. It gave her some much needed strength. ‘And because of what you said afterwards...at the clinic. I heard you on the phone.’

Rafaele frowned and it was a glower. ‘What did I say?’

Sam’s sliver of strength started to drain away again like a traitor. ‘You were talking to someone. You said you were caught up in something unimportant.’ Even now those words scored at Sam’s insides like a knife.

Rafaele’s expression turned nuclear. His arms dropped, his hands were fists. ‘Dio, Samantha. I can’t even recall that conversation. No doubt I just said something—anything—to placate one of my assistants. I thought you’d just miscarried. Do you really think I was about to announce that in an innocuous phone call?’

Sam gulped and had to admit reluctantly, ‘Maybe...maybe not. But how did I know that? All I could hear was your relief that you didn’t have to worry about a baby holding your life up and your eagerness to leave.’

He all but exploded. ‘Need I remind you that I was also in shock, and at that point I thought there was no baby!’

Sam was breathing hard and Rafaele looked as if he was about to kick aside the kitchen table between them to come and throttle her.

Just then a small, unsure voice emerged from the doorway. ‘Mummy?’

Immediately Sam’s world refracted down to Milo, who stood in the doorway. He’d opened it unnoticed by them and was looking from one to the other, his lower lip quivering ominously at the explosive tension.

Sam flew over and picked him up and he clung to her. Her conscience struck her. He was always a little intimidated by men because he wasn’t around them much.

‘Why is the man still here?’ he asked now, slanting sidelong looks to Rafaele and curling into Sam’s body as much as he could.

Sam stroked his back reassuringly and tried to sound normal. ‘This is just an old friend of Mummy’s. He’s stopped by to say hello, that’s all. He’s leaving now.’

‘Okay,’ Milo replied, happier now. ‘Can we look at cars?’

Sam looked at him and forced a smile, ‘Just as soon as I say goodbye to Mr Falcone, okay?’

‘Okey-dokey.’ Milo used his new favourite phrase that he’d picked up in playschool, squirmed back out of Sam’s arms and ran out of the kitchen again.

Sam watched Rafaele struggle to take it all in. Myriad explosive emotions crossing his face.

‘You’ll have to go,’ she entreated. ‘It’ll only confuse and upset him if you stay.’

Rafaele closed the distance between them and Sam instinctively moved back, but the oven was behind her. Rafaele’s scent enveloped her, musky and male. Her heart pounded.

‘This is not over, Samantha. I’ll leave now, because I don’t want to upset the boy, but you’ll be hearing from me.’

After a long searing moment, during which she wasn’t sure how she didn’t combust from the anger being directed at her, Rafaele turned on his heel and left, stopping briefly at the sitting room door to look in at Milo again.

He cast one blistering look back at Sam and then he was out through the front door and gone. Sam heard the powerful throttle of an engine as it roared to life and then mercifully faded again.

It was then that she started to shake all over. Grasping for a chair to hold onto, she sank down into it, her teeth starting to chatter.

‘Mummeeee!’ came a plaintive wail from the sitting room.

Sam called out, ‘I’ll be there in one second, I promise.’

The last thing she needed was for Milo to see her in this state. Her brain was numb. She couldn’t even quite take in what had just happened—the fact that she’d seen Rafaele again for the first time since those cataclysmic days.

When she was finally feeling a little more in control she went in to Milo and sat down on the floor beside him. Without even taking his eyes off the TV he crawled into her lap and Sam’s heart constricted. She kissed his head.

Rafaele’s words came back to her: ‘This is not over, Samantha. I’ll leave now, because I don’t want to upset the boy, but you’ll be hearing from me.’

She shivered. She didn’t even want to think of what she’d be facing when she heard from Rafaele again.

* * *

On Monday morning Sam filed into the conference room at the university and took a seat at the long table for the weekly budget meeting. Her eyes were gritty with tiredness. Unsurprisingly she hadn’t slept all weekend, on tenterhooks waiting for Rafaele to appear again like a spectre. In her more fanciful moments she’d imagined that she’d dreamt it all up: the phone call; his appearance at the house. Coming face to face with his son. A small, snide voice pointed out that it was no less than she deserved but she pushed it down.

Robustly she told herself that if she’d had to go back in time she would have done the same again, because if she hadn’t surely the stress of Rafaele being reluctantly bound to her and a baby would have resulted in a miscarriage for real?

Gertie, the secretary, arrived then and sat down breathlessly next to Sam. She said urgently, ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened over the weekend...’

Sam looked at her, used to Gertie’s penchant for gossip. She didn’t want to hear some salacious story involving students and professors behaving badly, but the older woman’s face suddenly composed itself and Sam looked to see that the head of their department had walked into the room.

And then her heart stopped. Because right on his heels was another man. Rafaele.

For a second Sam thought she might faint. She was instantly light-headed. She had to put her hands on the edge of the table and grip it as she watched in mounting horror and shock as Rafaele coolly and calmly strode into the room, looking as out of place in this unadorned academic environment as an exotic peacock on a grubby high street.

He didn’t even glance her way. He took a seat at the head of the table alongside their boss, looking stupendously handsome and sexy. He sat back, casually undoing a button on his pristine suit jacket with a big hand, long fingers...

Sam was mesmerised.

This had to be a dream, she thought to herself frantically. She’d wake up any moment. But Gertie was elbowing her none too discreetly and saying sotto voce, ‘This is what I was about to tell you.’

The stern glare of their boss quelled any chat and then, with devastating inevitability, Sam’s stricken gaze met Rafaele’s and she knew it wasn’t a dream. There was a distinct gleam of triumph in those green depths, and a more than smug smile was playing around that firmly sculpted mouth.

Her boss was standing up and clearing his throat. Sam couldn’t look away from Rafaele, and he didn’t remove his gaze from hers, as if forcing her to take in every word now being spoken, but she only heard snippets.

‘Falcone Industries...most successful...honoured that Mr Falcone has decided to fund this research out of his own pocket...delighted at this announcement...funding guaranteed for as long as it takes.’