Читать книгу Modern Romance April 2019 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Heidi Rice - Страница 13

RAFFAELE LIFTED HER up off her feet into his arms and a stifled sound of surprise escaped her. But his sheer physical strength, not to mention his assurance, exhilarated her and sent her mind roaming in all sorts of intimate directions.

‘A caveman lurks inside that fancy business suit of yours,’ Vivi whispered, gazing up at him with instinctive appreciation as he settled her down on the ornamental sofa below one of the windows.

A caveman who only emerged around her, Raffaele adjusted, refusing to think. Even so, he didn’t do casual sex. Nor did he succumb to sudden impulses or give way to temptation. But, nevertheless, here he was with Vivi in his arms and a fire alarm wouldn’t have persuaded him to put her down again anywhere but on a horizontal surface. Some stuff didn’t need to be agonised over, some things between men and women weren’t complicated, he reasoned fiercely. Sex was just sex and their physical connection was remarkable and could well lead to them reaching agreement on the wedding her grandfather was demanding. Do you really believe that? a voice asked in his hind brain. And he knew he didn’t, but he didn’t much care either. Aroused to the point of pain, he was way beyond utilising logic.

For a split second, when he came down beside her, Vivi froze because her natural defences were suddenly all loudly screeching, ‘What are you doing?’

Raffaele, however, was more perceptive than she would’ve given him credit for because instead of grabbing her again he tilted her face up, scanning her anxious eyes. ‘Cold feet?’ he prompted, tensing at that prospect.

‘I don’t get cold feet,’ Vivi proclaimed with pride, feeling foolish about her momentary indecision. Insane curiosity was pulling at her because she badly wanted to know what intimacy would be like with him. If he was using her, she would also be using him and it was a plus that she would never have to see him again.

‘Madre di Dio... I hope not,’ Raffaele countered with heartfelt honesty, bending down to taste her mouth again with hungry, driving urgency.

Straight away the conflagration of heat came back and blew her away. Thought hung suspended while an expert hand disposed of the barriers between them. In fact, Vivi didn’t notice because Vivi was in a world of her own, a world of fiercely seductive physical need and sensation. He pushed her top out of his path and palmed her breasts, addressing his mouth to her straining pink nipples, and her temperature rose to an insane height, her body writhing of its own volition while he teased the tender flesh between her thighs with a skill that she was defenceless against. She gasped, moaned, clawed him down to her with an impatient hand, pale slender fingers locking into the crisp luxuriance of his short black hair.

Excitement gripped her in a heady wave as her hips rose in an arc of colossal craving, as if there were some distant point she would die if she didn’t reach. He crushed her parted lips, delved deep with his tongue, a shudder of violent arousal raking through his lean, powerful frame while she yanked at his tie, almost strangling him before he ripped it off for her. She needed to touch his skin, she needed to touch him so badly that not being able to actually hurt. While he kissed her, she struggled with his shirt until he tore it free, sending several buttons bouncing, unnoticed by either of them.

‘You’re burning me up,’ he groaned.

Vivi spread her hands wide on his lean bronzed chest, overpowered by the heat of his skin and his sheer muscular development as he leant over her obligingly. ‘You are hot,’ she whispered tongue-in-cheek.

And he got it, a sudden slashing grin banishing the often forbidding aspect of his lean, strong face, the febrile line of colour over his exotic cheekbones darkening. His thumb stroked across the most sensitive spot on her whole body and she jerked, suddenly mindless again, and his mouth engulfed hers. She wanted more, more, simply more. Nothing more elaborate distinguished her febrile thoughts. His sheer passion had shocked her and then delighted her but the excitement he evoked overwhelmed her.

Raffaele didn’t have a condom. She would be on the pill, he told himself, reluctant to take a break for a trip upstairs in case the impulsive beauty in his arms changed her mind—and it would kill him if she changed her mind! Of course, she would be on the pill or the implant or one of the other contraceptive options available to women, he assumed, tilting her slender thighs back with impatient hands and plunging into her with all the strength and energy of a man turned on to the point of madness.

A startling yelp escaped Vivi as a jolt of pain greeted that intimate invasion and she squeezed her eyes tightly closed, mortified by her outburst.

Raffaele had frozen in the act of penetration. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No, of course you didn’t,’ she declared, wanting to conceal her lack of experience, which struck her as deeply uncool at her age.

‘Then...er...why—?’ he began.

‘Got carried away by enthusiasm,’ Vivi lied but she could feel her face burning like hellfire at the fib. ‘That hurt,’ she mouthed in total silence as she buried her face in his neck, drinking in the achingly sexy scent of him with all the enthusiasm she had claimed because he smelled so incredibly good, all hot and musky with an undertone of designer cologne that was yummy.

‘Grazie a Dio... Thank God,’ Raffaele groaned in relief, shifting his lean hips in a motion that stirred up nerve cells that had run screaming from his initial thrust, sending instead an intriguing cascade of simmering sensation travelling through her lower body.

Her tension evaporated, liquid heat sizzling through her veins, lighting her up from inside out. He slid deeper into her and began to move and the hot, sweet pleasure began to gather in her pelvis, building and building like a fire being teased into flames. A kind of wonder gripped her as the frantic throes of arousal rose again and he released a guttural groan of satisfaction, muttering something indistinct in Italian, leaning down to crush her mouth under his again. For an instant she had thought in disappointment that he was done, that that was that, that all the fuss she had heard about was just stories to temp the inexperienced and then his pace picked up and the whole mood changed.

Raffaele rose over her, tipping her thighs back over his shoulders to pound into her in a raw demonstration of uncontrolled hunger. Her head fell back, the heat in her lower body spreading and mushrooming up inside her fast in a shocking surge that couldn’t be contained. Her heart started to race, breathlessness tightening her throat as the excitement climbed and her body clenched around him with an unbearable tightness. His urgency infiltrated every inch of her, dominating and controlling her in a way she had never dreamt, and then the heat exploded inside her and sent her flying. Contractions of pleasure convulsed her in an intoxicating wave that made her cry out in surprise and fall back, sated, in delirious delight, to revel in the aftershocks.

‘That was incredible,’ Raffaele said for her, brushing her tumbled copper curls back from her damp brow, his dark deep voice raw and breathless as he lifted back from her to release her from his crushing weight.

An odd little silence fell and Vivi lifted eyelids that felt heavy because she was in a drowsy daze after that insane surge of sensual pleasure. Raffaele was frowning down at her. ‘There’s blood on you...’

A deep flush of mortification swept up over Vivi’s expressive face, her consternation unhidden. She sat up in haste to hug her knees, her mane of curls tumbling round her like a cloak. ‘Is there?’ she tried to say coolly but her voice emerged as hesitant and awkward as she felt. ‘I was a virgin. I wasn’t expecting actual bl—’

‘A...virgin?’ Raffaele exclaimed incredulously, ready to argue with her statement and then freezing to logically consider the facts, not to mention her grandfather’s warning. A warning to which he had not paid the slightest heed, he acknowledged sickly, because he had discounted the older man’s view of his grandchild where it conflicted with his own convictions. To have his convictions suddenly proved utterly wrong when he least expected it wasn’t an experience that Raffaele had had very often in life and it absolutely knocked him sideways.

‘Yes, no big deal,’ Vivi dismissed hurriedly, scrambling off the sofa to gather up her clothing and pull it on at speed, while simultaneously attempting to shrug a careless shoulder.

‘It was a very big deal if you were still a virgin at your age,’ Raffaele contradicted without hesitation.

‘I was just never that into...er...sex,’ Vivi muttered in a quelling tone. ‘And don’t ask me why I’m different with you because I don’t know the answer to that.’

‘It’s called chemistry,’ Raffaele breathed, still struggling to get a handle on the sheer shock value of Vivi, with her diamond-studded navel and Perspex heels, being a complete innocent. ‘It affected my judgement as well.’

Vivi shrugged again. ‘What’s done is done.’

She sounded very young and very sure of that and Raffaele suppressed a groan, suddenly feeling very much older than his thirty years as he zipped his trousers. ‘It may not be because in the grip of that chemistry I made a rash decision. Assuming that you would be on birth control and because I had nothing conveniently available, I omitted to use contraception.’

‘But I’m not on birth control.’ She gasped and one hand flew up to her mouth to cover it in a show of anxiety. ‘And that means—’

‘That whatever happens, I’m with you every step of the way. When I make a mistake I own up and do what I can to rectify it,’ Raffaele delivered grimly as he pulled on his shirt.

Vivi wasn’t enamoured of being labelled a mistake. ‘There’s nothing you can do to rectify this mistake.’

Raffaele’s wide sensual mouth quirked. ‘There’s no point agonising right now over something we can’t change either. Thankfully we’re not frightened teenagers.’

‘Yes...er...that’s true,’ Vivi conceded grudgingly. ‘But I just can’t believe you took that risk with me.’

‘In the aftermath...’ Raffaele rested brilliant dark eyes on her flushed little face, against which her bright blue eyes were even more striking than usual ‘...neither can I. I chose to assume that it wouldn’t be a risk, which was irrational.’

‘Didn’t think you did irrational stuff,’ Vivi broke in helplessly.

‘Don’t mock,’ Raffaele urged. ‘It’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to you. Why are you putting your shoes on?’

Vivi lifted her head, eyes widening. ‘To go home?’

Raffaele frowned. ‘You’re not going home—you’re staying the night.’

Her blue eyes opened very wide as she gazed rather blankly back at him from the sofa where she sat. ‘Zoe will be expecting me home.’

‘So, phone her,’ Raffaele advised, pushing his advantage where he saw it because their encounter had off-balanced her and he didn’t want her taking refuge again behind her usually aggressive façade.

Put on the spot, Vivi hesitated and then she dug out her phone. Their intimacy on the sofa had seemed a touch too casual and juvenile to her taste while staying the night struck her as more adult and acceptable. She had slept with Raffaele di Mancini and shock waves were still racing through her at that awareness. She didn’t know how it had happened and that unnerved her but she didn’t want to decide it was a mistake either. Much better to accept it as just another one of life’s experiences, she told herself firmly. Why should she make a fuss or feel guilty about something as normal and everyday as sex?

‘I won’t be home until tomorrow,’ she told her sister. ‘I’ve had too much champagne...far too much champagne,’ she repeated, thinking about that with a brow that pleated because as a rule she didn’t drink.

‘You were drinking champagne with Mancini?’ Zoe exclaimed in disbelief.

‘It was lovely champagne,’ Vivi said ruefully before she rang off and glanced across at Raffaele, whose shirt was still hanging open on his broad bronzed chest, revealing the slabs of lean muscle roping his abdomen. ‘I don’t usually drink much. I think I was drunk.’

‘No, you weren’t!’ Raffaele contradicted with vigour. ‘I don’t have sex with drunken women. Stop looking for excuses. Just accept it for what it was.’

But she didn’t know what it was, which was the real problem. It was not as though she had stayed a virgin for a specific reason. When she had been younger and less cynical she had, admittedly, dreamt of falling in love before she had sex for the first time, but even then she had been in no hurry after a foster parent had once tried to touch her inappropriately, an experience that had laid a seedy veil over any sexual thoughts for Vivi. Furthermore, she hadn’t fallen in love, and even though love had happened for her older sister, Winnie had had to walk a long stony road to finally find her happy ending.

Vivi had stopped dreaming of love once she’d registered that loving a man often came with pain and disappointment. Indeed, loving meant being vulnerable and, if Vivi could help it, she never ever allowed herself to be as vulnerable as she had been as a child. Back then she had often been at the mercy of adults who insisted that they knew what was best for her even though they so obviously didn’t, because she would always end up in yet another unhappy living situation. Trusting anyone beyond her sisters was a challenge for her.

‘What was it, then?’ Vivi persisted.

‘Non importa...no matter,’ Raffaele overruled with determination as he bent and simply scooped her up off the sofa to carry her to the door, having decided that that particular conversation was only likely to lead them into even murkier waters.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Vivi demanded.

‘Taking you upstairs to a shower and a proper bed,’ Raffaele confided.

That programme sounded remarkably attractive to Vivi at that moment. She let him carry her upstairs, marvelling at the new intimacy between them. Of course that was the sex, she assumed. Some comfort that would be if she conceived a child, she reasoned worriedly. Winnie had had an unplanned pregnancy. As a result, Vivi was all too aware of the discomforts of pregnancy and the burden of a baby’s constant demands and she most definitely didn’t want to follow in her sister’s footsteps.

But in assuming that sex had made Raffaele more demonstrative, Vivi could not have been more wrong. Vivi had just proven every one of Raffaele’s convictions about her to be mistaken and he was reeling from the discovery that he was not as infallible a judge of character as he had believed himself to be.

It had finally dawned on him that Vivi could simply have been a receptionist at that agency and the ordinary, if beautiful, young woman she had purported to be, polished up to a deceptively exclusive level by his sister’s cast-off clothing. And if that was true, it meant he had misjudged her on every front. That was a bitter pill for him to swallow.

‘I still hate you, you know,’ Vivi warned him almost chattily as he set her down, barefoot, in a fabulous contemporary bathroom.

‘I can live with that,’ Raffaele assured her, unwilling to argue with the obvious reality that naturally she hated him when he had wronged her. He might not have called her a prostitute but he had not spoken up in her defence at the time either because he had blamed her for his sister’s mistakes and had been determined to ensure that Arianna wasn’t dragged into the same scandal.

Closing the door, he left her alone and Vivi breathed again. She was already struggling to accept what had happened between them. She had slept with Raffaele di Mancini, a man she hated like poison. How did that make sense? But then there had been no sense whatsoever in the encounter. She had been foolish, he had been foolish and he had surprised her by admitting the fact. She stripped and stepped into the shower but the minute the water came on and hit her from all directions in one of those technically advanced showers, destined to be a cleansing spa experience rather than a simple washing facility, she stepped out of it again in haste because she didn’t want to get her hair wet and couldn’t be bothered fiddling to work out the controls.

She ran a bath instead, stepped in and folded down with a slight wince as the tenderness between her legs made its presence felt. Yes, she had had sex for the first time and, with hindsight, it would’ve made more sense to warn him to ensure he tempered his passion. Vivi pressed cool hands to her hot cheeks and marvelled that she had given way to temptation. But he was right when he said they had strong chemistry. The kind of hunger he awakened in Vivi was so primal and so powerful she hadn’t been able to withstand it. Once he touched her she had been lost, her entire being surrendered instead to the need he had ignited in her. She washed, dried herself and peered out into the empty bedroom, which was lit by lamps on either side of the bed.

In spite of the fact that she had a boyfriend, she had slept with another man, she ruminated guiltily. It didn’t matter that the chemistry between her and Jude was as tepid as cold tea. What mattered was loyalty and she, a woman who valued loyalty, had been disloyal. She would end their relationship the following evening. In the circumstances, honesty was the best policy.

Exhaustion was beginning to creep over her, exacerbated, she suspected, by the champagne she had imbibed and the mad rush of conflicting thoughts and reactions assailing her. She would go to bed, sleep, she told herself heavily, there was nothing more to be said or done or decided right at that very moment.

Raffaele took in the vision of Vivi lying in his bed, her mane of hair fanned out across the white pillows, her luscious mouth pink and ripe from his kisses, her delicate features smooth in relaxation and involuntarily, he was spellbound. Maledizione...she was beautiful. Why was he allowing that truth to mess with his brain? At the start of the evening he had had a clear objective, which was to persuade Vivi, by any means within his power, to marry him. What had happened to that goal? Why had he even brought her to his bedroom instead of to one of the guest rooms? When too had he ever lost control like that with a woman? When had he ever run such a risk?

Self-loathing and a rare sense of failure attacked Raffaele in the aftermath of those unfamiliar thoughts. He had had sex instead of concentrating on protecting his sister. Even worse, his already thorny dealings with Vivi would only become more fraught and complex because they had become intimate.

His phone rang at dawn when he was already lying awake in a guest bed, watching the light rise beyond the windows to pierce the edges of the blinds. Reasoning that it had to be some kind of emergency because very few people had access to his private number, he answered it immediately. ‘Mancini.’

‘It’s Stam Fotakis,’ the older man grated. ‘I’m calling you to inform you that the wedding will take place in three weeks, on the twenty-fifth.’

Raffaele was frowning. ‘But—’ he began.

‘No buts, no arguments!’ Stam ranted angrily down the phone. ‘My granddaughter spent the night with you and the date of the wedding is now fixed. I warned you. That dossier on your sister goes to the press this weekend unless you can confirm that date!’

Within minutes, in the bedroom next door, Vivi was enjoying a similar rude awakening. ‘Grandad?’ she said sleepily, barely half awake. ‘It’s very early to be phoning.’

‘You spent the night with Mancini. You’re getting married to him on the twenty-fifth of this month and there won’t be any more arguments on that score! Is that understood?’

Her face scarlet, Vivi was now sitting bolt upright in the bed. ‘How do you know where I spent the night?’ she gasped.

‘Your security team,’ Stam delivered curtly. ‘There will be no further discussion about this matter.’

Vivi had never got dressed in such haste and never before with such distaste for the garments she was forced to put back on. The outfit, which had seemed such a good idea the night before, now filled her with embarrassment. Had Raffaele read the short skirt and the rest of it as some sort of a come-on? It didn’t really matter now though, did it? She had lost control, she had failed to call a halt, she had defied her own intelligence to continue that monumental mistake. She couldn’t blame alcohol, she couldn’t blame Raffaele, who was probably as programmed to take advantage of a willing woman as any other man; no, she could only blame herself. It seemed a fitting punishment that she now had to slip out of the house and take the walk of shame in those hateful Perspex heels! But the worst punishment of all for Vivi was the utterly mortifying knowledge that her grandfather was also aware that she had spent the night with Raffaele.

Vivi was halfway down the stairs, picking her way as quietly as she could, when Raffaele emerged without warning from a doorway. Her expressive face flamed, her eyes cloaking, soft mouth compressing into a tense line. Even in that single flaring glance she noticed that he looked amazing, all sleek and dark and spectacular in a dark grey suit, cut to enhance his lean, powerful build and accentuate his superb carriage. He emanated rock-solid assurance and it set her teeth on edge because she was feeling ratty and hunted and insecure.

‘Did you get a wake-up call too?’ Raffaele enquired softly.

‘I’m in a bit of a hurry, actually, so I won’t keep you.’

‘It’s a Saturday morning, so I can’t imagine why you should be in a rush. Join me for breakfast,’ he told her, striding back into the dining room.

Vivi paused in the doorway. ‘Er...thanks, but that doesn’t suit. If I could just get my coat...’

‘I’ll drop you home after breakfast.’

And there it was again, that habit of Raffaele’s that made Vivi want to tear her hair out and scream. He didn’t listen to what he didn’t want to hear, he just moved on past it to repeat his own wishes.

‘I said no, thanks,’ Vivi reminded him thinly.

In emphasis, Raffaele yanked out a dining chair for her and studied her expectantly. ‘Be reasonable, cara.’

And without warning, Vivi was made to feel like a child caught in the act of trying to run away to escape a punishment, and that analogy was too humiliating to be endured. Tensing even more, she moved forward on wooden legs and settled stiffly into the seat. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’

‘Non importa.... I have plenty to say to you,’ Raffaele countered, smooth as silk, as his butler appeared at her elbow to offer her a choice of tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

In need of something sweet to bolster her, Vivi chose hot chocolate and reached for toast.

‘According to your grandfather, our wedding will be taking place on the twenty-fifth,’ Raffaele informed her.

‘But I don’t listen to his commands when they conflict with what I want,’ she parried stubbornly as she buttered her toast, struggling not to think about what her refusal to comply might cost her foster parents.

Winnie had bitten the bullet and married Eros even though it was the last thing she had wanted at the time. Why should she rate her pride higher than Winnie had? Why couldn’t she play her part and fall into line for the sake of peace, as Winnie had? Perhaps it was because when she was young she had too often found herself bereft of choice. And now when she was told to do something she didn’t agree with she wanted to fight against it every step of the way.

‘And if I threaten to make redundancies at Hacketts Tech? And I should be frank, redundancies are required there. The business is overstaffed,’ he informed her coolly.

‘You’re threatening me...’

‘I’m threatening you,’ Raffaele agreed with a harsh edge to his accented drawl, his brilliant dark eyes veiled by a thick screen of lashes.

Vivi thought frantically about John and Liz and their need for a secure home where they could continue looking after troubled adolescents and helping them into adulthood. Yes, she certainly owed them a debt for the healing regime they had given her because being constantly angry, distrustful and fearful, as she had once been, only made the world an even more scary place. And what about her work colleagues? People had mortgages and rent to pay, loans to keep up, holidays booked, children to raise. The sudden loss of stable employment could devastate lives and that stress could surely destroy relationships as well. Raffaele was putting enormous power into her hands, power she hated him for giving her because to her mind his power to threaten redundancies deprived her of the power to say no to the wedding he and her grandfather were determined to stage.

‘So, if I was to say yes...what would happen?’ she pressed in a driven surge. ‘No redundancies?’

‘I could put a stay on them for the immediate future.’

‘A permanent stay,’ Vivi bargained, barely believing that she was finally agreeing to the fake wedding she had long resisted.

‘I can’t agree to permanent,’ Raffaele countered levelly. ‘The bottom line must be business and profit.’

‘Not for me, it’s not. For me, it’s people!’ Vivi argued with spirit.

‘I could put a stay on redundancies for the first year,’ Raffaele proffered.

‘Three years!’ Vivi suggested.

Raffaele frowned. ‘Too long. In that time, Hacketts Tech could go under,’ he warned her, filling her with consternation for she had not previously appreciated that the firm could already be struggling for survival.

‘Eighteen months, then...and the staff get plenty of warning of what’s coming,’ she bargained in desperation.

Raffaele angled back in his chair, brilliant dark eyes alight as a starry night sky. ‘Eighteen months with full disclosure,’ he negotiated. ‘And on the twenty-fifth we get married.’

‘Fake married,’ Vivi reminded him drily.

‘Unless you turn out to be pregnant, in which case all bets will be off,’ Raffaele murmured curtly. ‘Because that development would be a game-changer.’

‘That would be a nightmare,’ Vivi contradicted with a tiny lurch of fear because the prospect of pregnancy and motherhood unnerved her. ‘But it’s not likely to happen, is it?’

Raffaele lifted and dropped a shoulder with the lithe, fluid elegance that was so much a part of him. ‘I wouldn’t like to call it. It’s not a situation I’ve been in before. How soon will you know?’

Her face warming, Vivi engaged in some fast calculations and unselfconsciously counted on her fingers beneath Raffaele’s increasingly incredulous scrutiny, for maths had never been one of Vivi’s strengths. ‘In about ten days.’

‘We’ll visit a doctor together. I’ll arrange it and that way we’ll know exactly where we stand,’ Raffaele decreed.

‘That’s not necessary. There are tests that can be done at home.’

‘When it comes to accurate results I prefer to trust the medical profession,’ Raffaele overruled without hesitation.

Vivi breathed in so deep to contain her temper that she marvelled that she didn’t take flight like a balloon. She gritted her teeth and focused on her toast, even though it was turning to sawdust inside her dry mouth. How had she contrived to become intimate with a man who enraged her to such a degree? Every time he laid down the letter of the law according to Raffaele she wanted to punch him. Had people always listened respectfully to his commands and done as he told them to do? Had no living person ever contrived to punch a hole in that armour of arrogance he wore? Why did he always believe he was right?

But what did that matter when she had finally been forced to give her consent? Her conscience had made her agree to his terms, she acknowledged unhappily. He had blackmailed her without an ounce of shame or compassion. How could she possibly stand back in silence while people lost their jobs when he was giving her the power to minimise that blow as far as was possible? She wasn’t callous enough to shirk the responsibility he had put on her shoulders, she reflected ruefully.

Unfortunately, the repercussions of her decision to capitulate would spread like the ripples that followed a rock being thrown into a pool. Zoe would be caught up in the backwash and put under pressure to become the third and final bride. Her grandfather would be satisfied, although only to some extent, she conceded uneasily, recalling his censorious phone call earlier. Heat flushed her troubled face, warm pink chasing the pallor from her taut cheeks. It was a source of serious embarrassment to her to accept that Stamboulas Fotakis was equally aware of her miscalculation.

Miscalculation? Vivi questioned her use of that word on another tide of self-loathing because there had been nothing calculating in anything she had done. Indeed, reason and restraint had been blown out of the water by passion, a passion beyond anything she had ever expected to feel. A passion that in retrospect terrified her. She had tried to excuse herself by blaming it all on the champagne but she hadn’t drunk enough of it to use that justification and she knew it.

Raffaele watched Vivi like a hawk, seeing the fleeting expressions chase across her delicate features, curious as to what was skimming through that agile little brain of hers. He was also wondering why he wasn’t feeling triumphant that he seemed to have finally contrived to avert the threat aimed at destroying his sister’s happiness. Instead he simply felt angry, more coldly angry than he had ever guessed he could feel. He was livid with Stam Fotakis for his crude blackmailing tactics but even more incensed that Vivi had forced him to stoop to the same distasteful level for the first time in his life.

And what if she conceived his child? He released his breath in a slow hiss of determined denial at that possibility. What were the odds? He tried to picture a baby but the only one he could recall was Arianna shrieking through her baptism in the family chapel, a troubled little bundle wrapped in heirloom lace in her unrepentant mother’s arms while his father valiantly strove to behave as though it were normal to have a wife beside him strung out on drugs.

Raffaele had been eight years old then and that was the closest he had ever come to a baby. He should have been more responsible with Vivi. Lost in the grip of lust, however, he had been intolerably careless. At that point, he censored his brooding reflections and told himself off for assuming the worst. Fate had made him very lucky in business. Why shouldn’t he be equally lucky in his private life?