Modern Romance - The Best of the Year

Slowly he said, ‘Sam...last night at the function...’

She tensed. She really didn’t want to talk about it. That acrid jealousy was all too recent and current.

‘I didn’t mean what I said...about you becoming my mistress. I know you’re not that kind of woman.’

Sam emitted a small laugh and felt a dart of hurt. ‘You can say that again.’

He leant forward and put his wine down, ‘Dio, Sam, stop putting words in my mouth. I meant that you’re worth more than any other woman who was there last night.’

She looked at him and her heart jumped into her throat. His eyes were intense on hers.

With imperfect timing the waiter appeared again with their food, and Sam looked at the fish she’d evidently ordered but couldn’t remember selecting now. You’re worth more than any other woman who was there.

She looked at Rafaele and whispered, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Eat...then we’ll talk.’

Sam felt as if she could no more eat than walk over hot coals, but she forced some of the succulent food down her throat and wished she could enjoy it more. She was sure it was delicious.

When the dishes were cleared away Sam felt very on edge. Rafaele regarded her steadily and her nerves felt as if they were being stretched taut.

Finally he clarified, ‘I should have thought more about it before taking you with me last night.’

He obviously saw something Sam was unaware of on her expressive face because he put up a hand and went on, ‘Not because I don’t want to be seen with you in public but because you were right. We need to know what...we are.’

Sam frowned. ‘What we are?’

Rafaele reached out and took her hand. Sam looked at her much smaller pale hand in his dark one and her insides liquefied.

‘Sam...I think we should get married.’

Sam raised her eyes to his. Shocked. ‘What did you just say?’

‘I said, I think we should get married.’

Sam was barely aware of Rafaele letting her hand go so that the waiter could put down coffee and dessert in front of them. She was stunned. Blindsided.

She shook her head, as if that might rearrange her brain cells into some order so that she could understand what Rafaele had just said. She had to be sure. ‘Did you just say that you think we should get married?’

He nodded, looking at her carefully, as if she was made of something explosive and volatile.

‘I... Why on earth would you say that?’

Now that the words were sinking in, a reaction was moving up through Sam’s body, making her skin prickle. Four years ago, in the time between finding out she was pregnant and seeing Rafaele again, she’d daydreamed of such a moment—except in her dream Rafaele had been on one knee before her, not sitting across a table looking as if he’d just commented on the weather.

The most galling thing of all was that she had grown up vowing never to marry, terrified of the way her father had effectively gone to pieces after losing her mother. But she’d forgotten all about that when she’d met Rafaele, weaving dreams and fantasies around him that had had no place in reality.

‘Why?’ she repeated again, stronger now. Almost angry. Definitely angry, in fact. ‘Do you think that I’m some kind of charity case and I’ll be only too delighted to say yes because you can take care of me and Milo?’

She couldn’t stop now.

‘Decorating a few bedrooms doesn’t a father and husband make, Rafaele. So I don’t know where you’re getting this notion from. It’s just another way to control us, isn’t it?’

His eyes flashed at her outburst. ‘No, Sam. Think about it. Why shouldn’t we get married? I’ve been thinking about buying a home in London. We could live there. Bridie could come too... We could look for a good school for Milo. A lot of my work for the foreseeable future will be in England, and my commutes to Europe shouldn’t take me away too much...’

He had it all figured out. Square Sam and Milo away in a convenient box and tick them off the list. On the one hand the image he presented tugged at a very deep and secret part of her—a fantasy she’d once had. She only had to think of last night and how close she’d come to baring herself utterly. She didn’t doubt that he hadn’t factored in the reality that she would want to be a wife for real.

Terrified at the strength of emotion she was feeling, Sam stood up and walked quickly out of the restaurant.

Rafaele watched Sam leave. Not the first time he’d provoked her into walking away from him. She’d looked horrified. Not the reaction a man wanted when he proposed. He grimaced and acknowledged that he hadn’t exactly proposed. But since when had Sam wanted hearts and flowers? Did she want that? What he was suggesting was eminently practical. Logical. Unfortunately Sam plus any attempt on his part to apply logic always ended up in disaster.

Rafaele stood up. His friend Francisco was waving him out of the restaurant to go after his lover. The old romantic. Rafaele just smiled tightly.

When he emerged into the street it was quiet. This time of year it was mainly locals. But in a few months the place would be warm and sultry and heaving. Sam was stalking away, and when he called her she only seemed to speed up.

Cursing softly, Rafaele followed her and caught up. ‘Your coat and bag, Sam.’

She stopped and turned around, arms crossed mutinously across her breasts. She reached out and grabbed for them, pulling the coat on, hitching her bag over her shoulder.

She looked at him and her eyes were huge in the gloom. ‘I don’t know why you would even suggest such a thing.’

Rafaele curbed his irritation. Did she really have to sound so repulsed at the idea?

He dug his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching for her—he didn’t know if he wanted to shake her right now or kiss her. Actually, that was a lie. He’d always want to kiss her, no matter what. That thought sent shards of panic into his bloodstream.

‘I happen to think it’s a very good idea. There are far more reasons why you should consider this than not. We have a history. We get on well. We have a child together... And there’s the physical chemistry. You can’t deny that, cara.’

‘The chemistry will burn out.’

That was said with a desperately hopeful edge that resonated within Rafaele.

He had to make her see what he’d realised last night—that marriage was the solution... To this tangled mess of emotions you don’t want to deal with, his conscience sneered. He ignored his conscience. Surely by marrying her he would no longer experience this wildness around her? This need to devour, consume? This loss of all reason? It would negate this completely alien need to possess her... It would publicly brand her as his, and maybe then he’d feel some equanimity again.

‘We have a child. Is that not enough of a reason? I want Milo to have my name. He is heir to a vast industry and fortune.’

‘No, Rafaele,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It’s not enough. I might have thought it would be at one time, but not any more. I want more for me and Milo. He deserves to have two parents who love each other.’

Rafaele responded with a sneering edge to his voice. ‘You and I both know that fairytale doesn’t exist. What we have is better than that, Sam. We can depend on each other. We respect each other.’

She lifted her chin. ‘How do I know you’ve forgiven me for keeping Milo from you? That you won’t use it in the future? That it won’t be a reason for resentment when you think about it?’

Rafaele slashed a hand through the air. ‘Sam, it’s not about that any more. I appreciate that you had your reasons, and I admit that I didn’t give you any indication to believe that I would welcome a child into my life. We can’t change the past, but we can make sure we go into the future right.’

For a long moment Sam just looked at him, and then she said, ‘I won’t marry you. Not just to make things nice and tidy. To make things easier for you. I want more...’ She shrugged her shoulder in a gesture of apology.

Rafaele felt the red mist of rage rising when he thought of some other man moving into that cosy house in the quiet suburbs, waking up next to Sam, having lazy early-morning sex...

‘Do you really think someone like your ex-lover can give you a happy-ever-after? When it doesn’t even exist?’

Sam started to back away. ‘I’m not talking about this any more, Rafaele. I don’t want to marry you. It’s plain and simple.’

Rafaele felt his chest tighten and an awful cold feeling seeped into his veins. ‘Well, then...’ He almost didn’t recognise his own voice. ‘It would appear that you’re giving me no option but to take the legal route to establish custody of my son.’

Sam stopped and crossed her arms. She whispered, ‘It doesn’t have to come to that, Rafaele. We can come to an arrangement.’

Rafaele felt as hard inside as granite. ‘I want my son, Sam, and I want him to have my name.’

‘I can’t fight you in a court, Rafaele. I don’t have those kinds of resources.’

Rafaele pushed down his conscience. He was full of darkness—a darkness that had clung to him all his life. He was standing in front of this woman and for one second, when she’d said she didn’t want to marry him, he’d been tempted to go down on one knee to convince her. It had been fleeting, but there. And it had been like a slap in the face. Had he learnt nothing?

Sam would not reduce him to that. No woman would. All that mattered was his son. He would not walk away from him and leave him to fend for himself as his own father had done with him.

Rafaele’s voice was as cold as he felt inside. ‘You’re the one who started this, Samantha.’

Sam’s arms tightened and Rafaele could see her knuckles turn white against the skin of her fingers.

‘You were stringing us along all this time, lulling me into a false sense of security. We’re leaving here tomorrow to go home. Do your worst—see if I care.’

Rafaele felt impervious to anything in that moment. He was numb. He saw Sam spot a taxi driving slowly alongside them. A very rare Rome taxi. She hailed it and jumped in. When she passed him, her profile was stony through the window. Rafaele felt something trying to break through, to pierce this numbness that had settled over him, but he pushed it down ruthlessly and tried to ignore the feeling that something very precious had just shattered into pieces.

CHAPTER TEN

THE FOLLOWING DAY Rafaele saw them off at the airport. They had been booked onto a scheduled flight home, albeit first class.

Milo was confused and kept saying, ‘Why is Daddy not coming too, Mummy?’

Sam repeated for the umpteenth time, praying that she wouldn’t start crying, ‘Because he has to work. We’ll see him again soon.’ Probably in a courtroom! she thought half hysterically.

She’d gone straight to her bedroom last night when she’d got in, and locked the door. Not that Rafaele would be banging it down to get in. Rafaele’s cold proposal had shown her that nothing had changed. He wanted Milo and he merely saw her as a way to get to him.

Once she’d said no to him he’d revealed his true colours. She felt sick to think that perhaps even the physical side of things had been a monumental act for him. Going through the motions so that he could use that as one more thing to bind them together.

Sam caught a worried glance from Bridie and forced a smile. She couldn’t take Bridie’s maternal inquisitiveness now. Better that she think nothing was wrong and everything was as per schedule—Rafaele had told them on the flight over that he would be staying on in Rome for work. Sam’s head hurt when she thought of what would happen in the immediate future, with regard to Rafaele staying in her house.

Rafaele had Milo in his arms and was saying in a low, husky voice that managed to pluck at Sam’s weak and treacherous heartstrings, ‘Ciao, piccolino. I’ll see you very soon.’

Milo threw his small chubby arms around Rafaele’s neck and Rafaele’s eyes met Sam’s over Milo’s shoulder. His green gaze was as cold as ice and it flayed Sam. Their flight was called and she put her hands out for Milo. After a long moment he handed him over.

Then Bridie was saying goodbye to Rafaele, and gushing again over her trip to the Vatican, and Sam was walking away towards the gate, feeling as if her heart was being ripped to pieces.

* * *

‘I thought I might stay on here for a while, if you don’t mind?’

Rafaele curbed the urge to snarl at his father. It had been a week since Sam and Milo had returned home and an aching chasm of emptiness seemed to have taken up residence in his chest.

‘Of course,’ he said curtly. ‘This is your home as much as mine.’

The old man smiled wryly. ‘If it hadn’t been for you it would have remained in ruins, owned by the bank.’

Rafaele said gruffly, ‘That’s not important. Everything is different now.’

‘Yes,’ Umberto said. ‘Milo is...a gift. And Sam is a good woman. She is a good woman for you, Rafaele. Real. Honest.’

Rafaele emitted a curt laugh and said, ‘Don’t speak of what you don’t know, Papa. She kept my son from me for nearly four years.’

Rafaele stood up from the dining table then and paced to the window. He’d only come back to Milan to check on the factory and now he felt rootless. He wanted to go back to England to see Milo but was reluctant because... Sam. She brought up so many things for him.

‘She must have had good reason to do so.’

Yes, she did. You gave her every reason to believe you couldn’t wait to see the back of her.

Rafaele’s conscience slapped him. It slapped him even harder when he thought of the resolve that had sat so heavily in his belly when he’d decided that he would have to let her go. Of her face when he’d confirmed that he didn’t want to see her any more. It was the same feeling he’d had in his chest the other night in the street.

His jaw was tight as he answered his father. ‘Once again, it’s none of your business.’

He heard his father’s chair move behind him but stayed looking out the window, feeling rigid. Feeling that old, old anger rise up even now.

‘I’m sorry, Rafaele...’

Rafaele tensed all over and turned around slowly. ‘Sorry for what?’

Umberto was looking at him, his dark gaze sad. ‘For everything. For being so stupid as to lose control of myself, for gambling away our fortune, for losing the business. For begging your mother not to leave in front of you... I know seeing that must have had an effect...’

Rafaele smiled and it was grim, mirthless. It hid the awful tightening in his chest, which made him feel as if he couldn’t draw enough breath in. ‘Why did you do it? Why didn’t you just let her go? Why did you have to beg like that?’

His father shrugged one shoulder. ‘Because I thought I loved her. But I didn’t really love her. I just didn’t know it then. I wanted her because she was beautiful and emotionally aloof. By then I’d lost it all. She was the one thing left and I felt that if she went too then I’d become vapour. Nothing.’

Rafaele recalled his words as if it was yesterday. ‘How can you leave me? If you leave I’m nothing. I have nothing.’

‘I wanted you, you know,’ he said now in a low voice. ‘I wanted to take you back when I got a job and was making a modest living. But your mother wouldn’t let me near you. I was only allowed to see you on those visits to Athens.’

Rafaele remembered those painfully tense and stilted meetings. His mother had been vitriolic in her disgust at the man who had once had a fortune and had lost it, compounding Rafaele’s sense of his father as a failure and compounding his own ambition to succeed at all costs.

‘Why are you telling me this now?’ Rafaele demanded, suddenly angry that his father was bringing this up.

‘Because I can see the fear in you, Rafaele. I know that it’s driven you to become successful, to build Falcone Industries from the ground up again. But you don’t have to be afraid. You’re not like me. You’re far stronger than I ever was. And you won’t do to Milo what I did to you. He will never see you weak and humiliated.’

Rafaele felt dizzy now, because he knew that he did have the capacity to repeat exactly what his father had done. He’d almost done it the other evening, albeit not in front of his son. Thank God.

Umberto wasn’t finished, though. ‘Don’t let fear ruin your chance of happiness, Rafaele. I lived with bitterness for a long time and it makes a cold bedfellow. You have proved yourself. You will never be destitute... Don’t be afraid to want more.’

Rafaele saw his father then, slightly hunched, his face lined with a sadness he’d never truly appreciated before.

‘I’m not afraid,’ he said, half defiantly. But he knew it was a lie. He realised he was terrified.

* * *

‘Come on, you, it’s time for bed.’

‘No. Don’t want to go to bed.’

Sam sighed. Milo had been acting up ever since they’d got home, and every single day he asked for Rafaele.

‘Where’s my daddy? When is he coming back in the car? Why can’t we have a car? Where is Grandpapa?’

Sam shared a look with Bridie, who was helping to clear up Milo’s things, just as the doorbell rang. They looked at each other and immediately Milo ran for the door, shrieking, ‘Daddy, Daddy!’

Sam went after him, her heart twisting. ‘Milo, it won’t be him...’

She pulled him back from the door and opened it, fully expecting to see just a neighbour or a door-to-door religious tout. But it wasn’t either of those.

‘Daddy!’ Milo’s small clear voice declared exactly who it was.

He was jumping up and down, endearingly still too shy to throw himself at the man who had only so recently come into his life. But when Rafaele bent down and opened his arms Milo ran straight into them and Sam’s heart squeezed so tight it hurt. She heard Bridie behind her exclaim and usher Rafaele in.

Sam could see that he was holding something in his hand, and when he put Milo down he handed it to him. It was a mechanical car.

Milo seized it with inelegant haste. ‘Wow!’

Sam chided him automatically through a fog of shock. ‘Milo, what do you say?’

‘Thank you!’

Sam was so tense she could crack. She avoided looking at Rafaele, dreading seeing that ice-cold green again.

Bridie was taking Milo by the hand and saying, ‘Come on, you promised you’d help me to find my spectacles in my flat earlier—’

Milo started protesting, and Sam felt like doing the same, but Bridie had lifted Milo up and was quelling his protests by promising him a DVD. And then they were gone before Sam could get a word out, and she was alone in the hall with Rafaele.

She still hadn’t really looked him in the eye as he reached out and pushed the front door closed. Finally she looked at him and her eyes widened. He looked terrible. Well, as terrible as a gorgeous Italian alpha male could look—which was not terrible at all. But Rafaele looked tired, drawn, pale. Older. Somehow diminished.

Immediately Sam was concerned and said, ‘What is it? Your father?’

Rafaele shook his head. ‘No, it’s not my father. He is fine. Asking after you all.’

‘Well...what is it, then? You look...’ As bad as I feel.

Rafaele smiled, but it was tight, and then it faded again and he’d never looked more serious.

Sam crossed her arms and started babbling out of nervousness. ‘Are you here ahead of your team of lawyers? Because if you are you could have saved yourself the bother, Rafaele...’

He shook his head and looked pained. For an awful moment Sam thought there might be something wrong with him and she felt weak.

‘No. I should never have said that to you. I’m sorry. Of course there won’t be a team of lawyers...’

Sam wanted to sit down. Relief swept through her like a cleansing balm. ‘But why did you say it then?’

Rafaele gave out a curt laugh. ‘Because you threaten me on so many levels and I thought I could control it...control you.’

His words sank in. You threaten me. And then, as if feeling constricted, Rafaele took off his battered leather jacket and draped it over the bottom of the stairs. He was wearing a light sweater and worn jeans and Sam could feel her blood heating. Already.

Suddenly Rafaele asked, ‘Do you mind if I have a drink?’

Sam shook her head and stood back. He walked into the front room and, bemused, she uncrossed her arms and followed him. Rafaele was at the sideboard, pouring himself a shot of her father’s whisky. He looked around and held up a glass in a question but she shook her head. She stood tensely inside the door. Half ready to flee.

Her voice felt rusty, unused. ‘Rafaele, why are you here?’

He turned around to face her. ‘Because we need to talk. Properly talk.’

Sam tensed even more, and as if sensing she was about to say something Rafaele put up a hand to quell her.

‘I told you that I was about Milo’s age when my mother left my father and took me with her?’ he began.

Sam nodded carefully.

Rafaele’s mouth became a thin line. ‘Unfortunately that day I was subjected to a vision of my father prostrating himself at my mother’s feet...begging her not to go. Crying, snivelling. I saw a broken man that day...and I believed for a long time—erroneously—that it had been my mother’s fault, that she had done it to him. When, of course, it was much more complicated than that... It didn’t help that he blamed her for most of his life, refusing to acknowledge his own part in his downfall.’

Sam took a breath. ‘Your father told me a bit...’

Even now her heart ached, because she thought of Milo’s pain and distress if he were to witness something like that. How would a scene like that affect a vulnerable, impressionable three-year-old?

But Rafaele didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking at the liquid in the glass, swirling it gently. ‘And then my stepfather... He was another piece of work. I’d gone from the example of a broken man who had lost everything to living with a man who had everything. What they had in common was my mother. They were both obsessed with her, wanted her above all. And she...?’ Rafaele smiled grimly. ‘She was aloof with them both, but she chose my stepfather over my father because he could provide her with the status and security she’d come to enjoy...’

Rafaele looked at her and his smile became bleak.

‘For a long time I never wanted to think about why she did those things...but since I’ve discovered my older brother and learned she abandoned him I have to realise that perhaps for her, security had become the thing she needed most—above warmth and emotion. Above anything. God knows what happened with her first husband to make her do such a drastic thing as to leave her son, leave his father...’

His mouth twisted.

‘From an early age I believed instinctively that women could ruin you even if you had money and success. I believed that to succeed I had to hold women at the same distance my mother had always done with the men around her. I wouldn’t ever be weak like my father or stepfather, and never lose control.’

Rafaele smiled again but it was impossibly bleak.

‘And then you came along and slid so deeply under my skin that I didn’t realise I’d lost all that precious control until it was too late.’

Sam’s heart was beating like a drum now. She felt light-headed. ‘I don’t... What are you saying, Rafaele?’

He looked at her and his gaze seemed to bore into her. ‘I still want us to get married, Sam...’

Something cold settled into her belly. He wasn’t going to let this go. He’d basically just told her how he viewed the women in his life and that only the fact that she’d proved herself to be completely different had merited her this place in his life. She backed away to the door and saw him put down his glass and frown...

‘Sam?’

Sam walked out through the door and went to the front door and opened it. Rafaele appeared in the hallway, still frowning.

She shook her head. ‘Rafaele, I’m really sorry that you had to see so much at a young age, and that it skewed your views of women... And I can see how Milo is at an age where he must have pushed your buttons... But I can’t marry you.’