Читать книгу Modern Romance April 2019 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Heidi Rice - Страница 18

RAFFAELE’S MOUTH CAME down on hers with the most earth-shattering sensuality she had ever experienced. It was everything her charged body needed even though she refused to admit that to herself. Desire shot through her as hot as the bonfire he had mentioned, her breasts swelling, her nipples tightening hard, her core growing slick and damp. All just from a kiss! She argued with herself while pushing instinctively into the hard, muscular heat of him. She wanted so much more, craved the most primitive of possessions, was completely shocked by the tide of sexual longing he could awaken in her.

‘Per l’amor di Dio... I ache for you,’ Raffaele husked thickly, tugging at the spaghetti straps of her dress and dragging the bodice down to reveal the pink pouting buds of her breasts while stalking her backwards, down onto the swan bed. He closed his mouth hungrily to a tantalising peak, dimly registering that he was aroused beyond belief and questioning the reality because sex had never done that to him before. Unfortunately for him, however, he was getting a real high out of it, so he repressed that nagging flare of dismay and ignored it.

‘I love your breasts,’ he growled.

Vivi lay back on the bed, belatedly disconcerted by what she was allowing to happen between them. She was being shimmied out of her dress by determined hands and she wasn’t doing anything to stop him.

I don’t want to stop him. The words stood out like some sort of brain Morse code she couldn’t ignore. Her fingers speared into his black cropped hair and she trembled, seduced by the lashing of his tongue and the nip of his teeth over her achingly sensitive breasts. She wanted more, she wanted so much more, not least the irksome ache at the heart of her sated. She was just using him for sex. That was all right, wasn’t it? Nothing scary about that, was there? Men had been using women for sex for centuries, so, there was no reason why it couldn’t occasionally be done the other way round, she told herself, pulling him up to her to claim his passionate mouth for her own.

Heavens, his kisses were addictive, she acknowledged helplessly, lifting her hips to facilitate the removal of her last garment, barely crediting what she was doing, but she couldn’t get enough of his mouth or the taste of him. And then there was the wonderfully solid weight and feel of him over her and the wickedly familiar scent of him, clean, musky man overlaid with a hint of sexy cologne. There was just something about Raffaele that got to her every time he got close. Her hands roved down his spine to his slim hips and back up again, tugging at his shirt when it got in her way. She found the buttons, doggedly released them, began to pull and he got the message, rearing up half over her to pull it off and throw it aside, looming over her to expose a mouth-watering display of well-toned pecs and abs.

Below those elegant suits he wore, he was all sleek bronzed flesh and lean, hard muscle. She loved his body, she realised, really, really loved his body, and that alien thought shook her into opening her eyes and blinking up at him.

‘Che cosa...what?’ he husked, staring down at her with stormy, dark golden eyes and lashes longer than her own.

‘Nothing.’ Not fair to bless a man with those lashes, she had thought the very first time she saw him. But his eyes were absolutely beautiful, his lean, dark features equally so. Raffaele hadn’t been standing behind any door when the gifts were handed out at birth. Her heart was banging inside her chest like a drum tattoo and when his hand roved across her inner thigh, her body sang in a chorus of anticipation that was as terrifying as it was thrilling. He stroked her, lightly, almost playfully, and her back arched and her hips rose, the hunger rising as demandingly as any bone-deep craving. And that was what it was, she conceded in a daze, a hunger so instinctive she couldn’t fight it, couldn’t control it, certainly couldn’t snuff it out and go back to the innocence that had once been hers.

‘If there’s something bothering you, you should tell me,’ Raffaele muttered, gazing down at her, enthralled by the pleasure of Vivi not fighting him for once, while, at the same time, suspiciously wondering what had brought about this miraculous change.

Vivi half slid out from under him to turn on her side and aimed her reddened lips at his. ‘You’re talking too much, taking too long,’ she complained, because no way was she ever going to tell him the truth: that sometimes he mesmerised her into being a woman she despised, a weak woman, a woman without proper self-discipline and strength.

‘No, tonight will be what our first time should have been but wasn’t,’ Raffaele declared with maddening resolve.

‘It was good...us...the first time,’ Vivi protested through compressed lips.

‘Good, but crazy and brief—like a couple of teenagers having sex for the first time,’ Raffaele reasoned, his pride clearly troubled by that reality.

‘You will just never do what I ask you to do!’ Vivi complained helplessly.

‘Probably not,’ Raffaele agreed smoothly, amusement gleaming in his dark eyes as he crushed her ripe pink mouth under his again, taking the easy way out of the disagreement. It went against the grain with him to accept that he had gone utterly out of control the first time he had been with her and in retrospect that performance shamed him. This time around nothing short of an earthquake was going to be allowed to distract him.

His hand massaged over a long smooth thigh, relishing the satiny feel of her skin and the receptive dampness at her core even more. He wanted to do something he hadn’t done before because he wanted to drive her wild. It momentarily crossed his mind that in the past he had been a fairly selfish lover, accustomed to the women in his bed doing everything possible to please him. It had never been the other way round for Raffaele. He had never been eager to impress a woman with the gratification he could give her and the novelty of that challenged and aroused him.

As Raffaele lowered his tousled dark head in the direction of the most intimate part of her, Vivi froze. ‘No, I don’t want that!’ she gasped, hot with embarrassment at the very thought of it.

Vivi closed her eyes, telling herself she could get through anything and that presumably he would know what he was doing. That was one advantage of an experienced lover, she told herself even as every nerve cell in her body rose up in anger at the very idea of Raffaele being with another woman. Seriously, what was that reaction about? she asked herself in bewilderment. She didn’t own him. Theirs was a temporary marriage of convenience and once their baby was born...

A sudden burst of intense pleasure blurred her active brain and a startled gasp was wrenched from her. In the compelling timeless moments that followed, crashing waves of sensation gripped her slender length, building and building to a peak of rapture that was spellbinding. Her hips rose and the heat in her pelvis mushroomed up to grip her entire body. A tiny shriek escaped her and she saw stars as the tension broke and she reached a breathtaking climax. Raffaele grinned down at her and crushed her mouth under his as the after quakes of pleasure still cocooned her. Her arms came up and locked to him, some need in her responding to that urge to hold him close and unnerving her.

‘You’re amazing, tesoro mio,’ Raffaele growled, sliding her thighs back, moving over her.

Nobody had ever called Vivi amazing before and her eyes literally prickled with tears, tears of gratification that shook her. But before she could even think about that, Raffaele was hauling her legs round his waist and sinking into her with delicious force. It felt exquisite, it felt like everything she had been waiting for as her body expanded to take him, and the glorious friction of his every movement took her by storm. Her heart raced and she could feel his movement and it felt like the most intense bond ever. Little ripples of pleasure gathered again at her core and she gasped for breath, her body rising and falling against his, exhilaration shooting through her in wave after wave as he plunged deeper into her, inflaming every sense. Vivi was sensually enthralled as the sweet tension began to gather and tighten in her pelvis again, her excitement climbing, all control wrested from her as he ravished her with pleasure. Another orgasm rocked her like a blazing star igniting inside her pelvis, paroxysms of liquid hot delight sending radiant tendrils though her entire being. She cried out, feeling him shudder over her, the locked-tight tension of his lean, strong body as he too reached the same peak and it broke over him.

Sliding free of her, Raffaele disconcerted Vivi by tugging her back into him and closing both arms round her. ‘As we’ve just demonstrated,’ he intoned, ‘giving this marriage a chance can work.’

And that fast, Vivi was shot from the blissful aftermath of relaxation to wanting to pound both her fists into Raffaele, because she could hear the smile in his voice and couldn’t bring herself to look up and actually see that smile. When had she decided to forget what Raffaele was really like? He always had an agenda and he had just used sex to entrap her in an arrangement she had already refused to consider.

She should’ve had more control, should’ve said no, should’ve looked beyond the moment, she told herself with self-loathing. Only she never managed to do any of those sensible things when Raffaele was involved, did she? He always caught her unprepared because he was calculating, clever, usually working towards a goal.

‘It was just sex,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘Meaningless.’

Raffaele gritted his teeth on an angry response. ‘It’s not meaningless because you’re my wife. This is a beginning,’ he informed her arrogantly.

‘But I didn’t agree to trying to stay married,’ Vivi almost whispered, because having that conversation while lying naked in bed with him felt very very uncomfortable. ‘I think that’s silly. We agreed to stay married until the baby’s born and surely that’s enough.’

Raffaele shifted position and lifted up to gaze down at her. ‘What have you got to lose, Vivi? Whatever happens, we’ll be together for the next few months,’ he pointed out levelly. ‘If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’

‘It’s never going to work between us,’ Vivi assured him.

Shimmering dark golden eyes held her evasive gaze fast. ‘But you could at least give us a chance...it’s not going to cost you anything to try.’

Vivi lost colour and closed her eyes tight against the intrusion of his. He made trying sound so reasonable, was making her feel bad for refusing. But then he didn’t know, couldn’t possibly understand that she was trying to protect herself from getting hurt. Just suppose it worked for her but not for him? Where would that leave her? Just suppose Raffaele was being a manipulative nasty guy? This was, after all, a man who had been willing to go to quite extraordinary lengths purely to marry her and make a profit even though he already appeared to be wealthy beyond avarice. Wasn’t it entirely possible that Raffaele felt that if he had to be stuck with a wife for the next six months and more, it might as well be a wife who also shared his bed? Wasn’t it possible that he was only trying to use her?

Or was that her paranoia talking? Raffaele had to have many more sophisticated options than her available if all he wanted was sex, she reasoned more calmly. Even though he was now ostensibly married, there would still be willing women on offer because he was rich and young and very, very good-looking. Also, incredible in bed, she added and felt her face burn. So why would he want to simply use her for that physical outlet? No, she finally decided, the odds were that Raffaele was serious when he suggested giving their marriage of convenience the chance to become something more real. And if Raffaele was making a genuine offer, cowardice—the fear of being hurt—wasn’t a good enough excuse for her to employ as a defence.

Vivi breathed in deep and opened her eyes, colliding with his intent dark golden stare. ‘Everything in this household is way over the top—too fancy for me,’ she admitted uncomfortably.

‘You can make changes,’ Raffaele said easily, startling her with that immediate response. ‘The palazzo hasn’t had a proper mistress since my mother died over twenty years ago and it’s running on the same lines now as it ran under my grandmother. Nothing has been altered.’

‘Arianna’s mother didn’t change anything?’ she asked in surprise.

‘She was always too busy chasing her next high or she was in rehab or she was shopping,’ Raffaele said drily.

‘You really didn’t like your stepmother.’

‘There was nothing to like. She had no interest in the man she married, his son or even her own daughter. She wanted the money, the lifestyle, nothing else. I remember her screaming at my father that Arianna was a dreadful accident.’

Vivi grimaced and said nothing, registering, however, that Raffaele’s rich, privileged childhood had not been as idyllic as she had naively assumed. If he had made false assumptions about her, she acknowledged ruefully, she had been equally guilty of making similar assumptions about him based on superficialities like wealth and background.

‘Why didn’t he divorce her if she was so awful?’

‘He believed marriage was for ever, but I also suspect that he couldn’t bring himself to face the fact that he’d made a hideous mistake remarrying so quickly after my mother’s death. He was lonely, still grieving, not in the right state of mind to make such a major decision. I don’t think he even appreciated that women as corrupt as Arianna’s mother existed in the world. He’d married young, he couldn’t have been very experienced with women.’

‘So, I could make changes here if I wanted to?’ Vivi recapped.

‘Of course, it’s your new home. If you’re going to raise our family here, it has to be comfortable for you.’

‘Don’t put the cart in front of the horse,’ Vivi urged stiffly. ‘Sometimes, you are so pushy, Raffaele.’

‘And sometimes, you like that about me,’ Raffaele fielded, bending down to claim her parted lips with his, sending a dizzy spurt of pleasure travelling through her slender length.

Vivi rolled out of reach, not trusting him that close, not trusting herself either. ‘We may not work. We don’t have much in common.’

‘Incredible chemistry and a baby are a healthy start,’ Raffaele informed her with a sizzling smile.

‘All right, I’ll give it a go,’ Vivi told him grudgingly, sliding off the side of the bed at speed when he tried to reach for her again. ‘I’m going for a shower and then I want to eat. I’m ravenous.’

* * *

‘My foster mum was a darling but her husband was a drunk,’ Vivi volunteered ruefully. ‘And there were horrible violent scenes when he came home at night and he would beat her up. I’d be at the top of the stairs listening to him shout, praying he wouldn’t hurt her too much. And then one night he came into my room and sat down on my bed and told me I was a big girl...’

‘What age were you?’ Raffaele cut in rawly, incensed by what she had experienced while she was still a child.

‘Thirteen, not very developed either,’ she muttered with a shudder. ‘He tried to touch me and I screamed and his wife came in and, well, that was the end of that placement.’

‘I hope the next placement was happier for you,’ Raffaele breathed through gritted teeth, shocked against his will by what he was learning about the care system for orphaned kids.

He had also learned that the stepmother whom he had loathed had not been quite the nightmare he had believed her to be, certainly not when compared to some of the parenting figures Vivi had endured. His stepmother’s essential lack of interest in him and his father’s care had protected him from the worst of the older woman’s drug excesses. Separated from her sisters, however, because it was hard to find a single home willing to take all three girls, Vivi had been deprived of the family support she had relied on as a child.

‘That was the worst that ever happened to me and, to be honest, it wasn’t so bad. Zoe had it roughest of all of us. That’s why she is the way she is,’ Vivi told him ruefully, suddenly feeling uncomfortable because as a rule she was very private when it came to her childhood experiences. ‘How on earth did we get talking about this stuff?’

Raffaele hid a smile because he had learned how to draw Vivi out of her shell and he wasn’t about to share his secrets. Ironically it was new to him to wonder what made another human being tick. Beyond the business world where sizing up opponents was the norm, Raffaele never got close enough to people to care why they did what they did or why they thought a certain way. To date, Arianna was the sole exception to that rule and now Vivi was the second, and both of them were family, which put them in a different category, he reasoned. If only it were as easy to get Vivi to take his advice, actually listen to him, he conceded with considerably less assurance, because Vivi was as stubborn as a rock planted in concrete.

Over the past seven weeks, his bride had begun to look more noticeably pregnant, something which she complained about because apparently her sister had not shown the same signs at such an early stage. In addition, Vivi was as sick as a dog several times a day, something which she simply took in her stride and brushed off as an unalterable fact of pregnancy. She had yet to go near a doctor, had an innately practical attitude to her condition and saw no need for medical intervention. Raffaele had learned to hide his concern because she did, literally, consider her pregnancy to be none of his male business, but he had contrived one small achievement by persuading her to go for a scan that afternoon with a top-flight obstetrician in Florence. Luckily for him, Vivi wanted to see their baby and was willing to take advantage of that facility.

Feeling somnolent even in the shade, Vivi contemplated her rising stomach above her bikini pants with disfavour. She was blowing up like a balloon, just as Zoe had forecast, and there was nothing she could do about it. Vivi refused to let pregnancy get in her way of making the most of her enjoyable new life.

Enjoyable? She smiled at that disconcerting acknowledgement, gazing out at the beautiful sun-drenched gardens surrounding the private pool. The view beyond was of even more spectacular countryside, composed of rolling hills and vineyards and olive and orange orchards and, as far as the eye could see, it was all Mancini land. Slowly she had begun to understand that Raffaele lived like a feudal prince because his family had once been feudal rulers. His father had used his ducal title throughout his life but Raffaele didn’t use his, respecting that the Italian Republic no longer legally recognised the titles of the former nobility. Only the fact he didn’t use the title didn’t stop the staff routinely referring to him as Il Duca or to herself as La Duchessa, nor did it change the outlook of the many people who revered Raffaele for his pedigreed heritage. It no longer surprised her that Raffaele had that aristocratic cool and dignity that had once set her teeth on edge.

It was the weekend, which meant that Raffaele was at home, and she loved the weekends best when she generally had him all to herself. Possessive...much? Oh, yes, very possessive, she conceded ruefully. He ticked every box in the husband stakes, as if he had contrived to swallow some magic potion that endowed him with perfection. No such thing as a perfect man, her hind brain reminded her, but if there had been, Raffaele would top the lists. Initially she had been shocked by how considerate he could be of her comfort.

She had changed stuff at the palazzo, stuff that had been set in stone for probably at least a hundred years, she thought wryly. They no longer ate in a giant dining room surrounded by staff. Now they dined in much more relaxed surroundings in a much smaller room. The menus had also become considerably less elaborate because they were both quite sparing eaters. She had banished dated practices like the staff lining up to greet Raffaele every time he came home and he hadn’t even noticed their absence. Piece by piece she was dragging daily life at the Palazzo Mancini into the modern world.

The biggest challenge, however, had initially been her need to find something to occupy herself while Raffaele was at the bank. She had been amazed to discover that the palazzo was opened to the public one day every week, a day when Raffaele had been routinely in the habit of removing himself to the family apartment in Florence for twenty-four hours. Although a very private man, Raffaele saw it as his bounden duty to open his ancestral home to tourists, and to architectural historians and interested conservationists. At the same time, Vivi had stayed home one week simply to see the entire process in operation and she had been appalled at the mess that was being made of the experience, with untrained staff struggling to cope with questions they couldn’t answer and poor Amedeo giving a very boring talk about the family.

Vivi had taken over by engaging a young historian to write up the Mancini family history and then hiring proper tour guides. She had plans for a shop and a café as well for the end of the tour because there was so much unused space in the palazzo. Those plans had kept her very busy. Surprisingly, Raffaele was content to allow her a completely free hand but worried that she was taking on too much of a burden, until it finally dawned on him that Vivi adored being busy and needed a purpose in life as much as he did.

Yes, she took time out to shop with Elisa and Arianna, both of whom she got on with very well. They had dined several evenings with Tomas and Arianna, who occupied a very smart house in Florence. Zoe had come for a visit and had shared their grandad’s marital plans for her with remarkably little concern, insisting that she would easily cope with living abroad in a palace as a princess for a few months, which was evidently all that was to be required of her. Winnie and Eros had stayed as well for a weekend, Winnie confiding that she had not suffered nausea anything like as badly as Vivi was.

Viv’s fingers spread fondly over her stomach as she wondered if she was carrying a little girl, having read somewhere the possibility that a female baby could increase morning sickness in a mother-to-be.

‘You’re drifting off to sleep,’ Raffaele murmured, long brown fingers stroking the back of her hand. ‘Let’s go in. You need to get ready to go for your scan.’

Vivi lifted her head and collided with sunlit dark golden eyes, and a spasm of pure lust that made her feel wanton gripped her. Almost every time she looked at Raffaele, she wanted him with an instinctive hunger she couldn’t suppress. He was fantastic in bed, that was all it was, she told herself; it was perfectly normal to crave pleasure. They shared his museum piece of a bed every night, for it was a lot more comfortable than it looked and she was as guilty of luxuriating in his body as he was in hers. Just good clean fun—well, maybe not quite clean, she conceded, thinking of some of the stuff they did, her mind drifting drowsily over X-rated imagery that once would have shocked her. And the most amazing thing about Raffaele, she thought wonderingly as he tugged her off the sunlounger, was that, in spite of that conservative, conventional vibe he put out so strongly, he was wildly and wonderfully uninhibited in bed.

‘You’re miles away...what are you thinking about?’

Her cheeks warm, Vivi grinned at him as he tugged her up the rear staircase that led to their rooms.

‘Seriously?’ Raffaele stressed, reading her expressive face, arousal pulsing through him instantaneously. ‘If this is what being pregnant does to you, bella mia... I hope you appreciate that I’m likely to want to keep you pregnant.’

‘No, not with the sickness and all the rest of it. You get one child off me and that’s your lot!’ Vivi laughed.

As she melted into the heat of him in the privacy of their bedroom, Raffaele recognised the joy that Vivi brought into his life and marvelled at that startling revelation, for it was not a sensation he had recognised or even expected to find since leaving childhood behind.

* * *

The obstetrician watched the screen as the nurse worked the wand over Vivi’s exposed stomach. Standing up, she addressed the nurse and the wand lingered while Raffaele’s hand tightened on Vivi’s, sending alarm kicking up through her. Was something wrong with her pregnancy? Had something worrying been spotted?

The older woman smiled down at Vivi’s anxious face and indicated the screen. ‘I can tell you that you have one healthy boy here and behind him his twin, who may or may not be another boy. We can’t get a good enough view yet to tell the second child’s gender.’

‘Second child?’ Vivi gasped in alarm. ‘You mean...there’re two of them?’

‘Twins,’ Raffaele confirmed not quite steadily. ‘We are going to be the parents of twins. Dr Fanetti suspects that that is what is causing your extreme nausea and may also explain why your pregnancy appears to be developing faster than normal.’

The rushing fast pulse of their babies’ heartbeats filled the room and, blinking, Vivi rested her head back in shock. Twins. Two babies. The very concept silenced her when adjusting to the prospect of even one baby had demanded so much from her.

‘This is really exciting news,’ Raffaele intoned. ‘We have never had twins in the family.’

‘A twin pregnancy is riskier,’ Vivi reminded him nervously, because she had listened to the obstetrician’s strictures, which warned that she had to be more careful carrying twins than she would’ve had to be with a singleton pregnancy. She would grow larger, get more tired and there was a greater chance of premature birth. ‘I’m stunned. Two children, not one, that’s a massive jump from having no children at all.’

‘We’ll have a team of nannies,’ Raffaele assured her soothingly. ‘You will have extra check-ups, more frequent scans and tests. Every possible precaution will be exercised on your behalf.’

Vivi was thinking that she could never ever have managed two babies alone and was belatedly grateful that she had agreed to give their marriage a fair chance. And it was working brilliantly, wasn’t it? Her heart was touched by his unashamed excitement about their children. How could she look past that? Any woman would value that in the father of her kids. Kids? Raffaele was so supportive and she hadn’t expected that from him, in truth hadn’t expected many of the things he had done. She got flowers all the time, she got gifts, was now the proud owner of several valuable and very beautiful pieces of jewellery. She was beginning to understand why Arianna adored her big brother and marvelled that she had misjudged him to such an extent when he had misjudged her two years earlier.

In retrospect the speed with which he had reached that misjudgement still surprised Vivi, because Raffaele was usually a much more controlled and cautious individual, yet he had leapt in to make positively clumsy wrong assumptions about her.

‘We could go out tonight to celebrate,’ Raffaele murmured, grabbing her hand and bringing it to his lips to press a kiss there, his beautiful eyes locked to her with undeniable appreciation.

‘Well, look at you,’ Vivi teased. ‘One child was a shock and two is a—’

‘A miracle,’ Raffaele slotted in cheerfully.

‘You really do like children.’

Raffaele grinned, pure masculine charisma in the sunlight. ‘If they’re ours, a mix of us both...sì.’

Vivi only just resisted the urge to stop in the middle of the street and kiss him. She wasn’t the demonstrative type, never had been, but sometimes there was something about Raffaele that made her want to hurl herself into his arms like a homing pigeon. Oh, go on, she urged herself, why not admit it? She was besotted with him because he made her so happy, made her feel beautiful, irresistible and special. Two years back she had been on track to falling for him for all the most superficial reasons: his looks, his sophistication, his charm. Two years on she looked for more from a man and Raffaele delivered on every front. She wasn’t ashamed of loving him. In fact, loving Raffaele made her feel whole, as if she had come full circle from the youthful insecurities that had frightened her off getting too attached to anyone beyond the safe circle of the sisters she trusted.

As they climbed out of the limo outside the palazzo, Amedeo came hurrying out to address his employer in a flood of Italian. Raffaele glanced across the lawn to where a large helicopter was parked, the pilot standing beside it. ‘Your grandfather’s here.’

Her brows rose. ‘Oh...that’s unexpected.’

Raffaele expelled his breath in a slow hiss. ‘And he’s probably in a rage, so let me handle him.’

‘Why would he be in a rage?’ Vivi asked blankly.

‘Actions I took as payback for something he did to me but, now he’s in the family, we’re rather stuck with each other and it wasn’t the brightest idea... I admit,’ Raffaele admitted tautly. ‘You go upstairs and I’ll deal with him.’

‘No, he’s my grandad and a shocking old grouch,’ Vivi countered. ‘I’m not leaving you alone to deal with him.’

Raffaele grimaced. ‘Vivi...there’s stuff you don’t know and this is not the moment for you to find out. Stay out of this...please.’

In shock at that admission, Vivi fell back a step, her tense face pale below her mop of curls. She still hadn’t had those curls straightened, she acknowledged absently as the giant mirrors in the hall threw back a myriad reflections of her hurrying figure. Why not? She hated her curls but Raffaele adored them, genuinely adored them, was forever trailing his fingers through them, rearranging them and admiring them.

But what didn’t she know? What did Raffaele not want her to find out? She hovered outside the grand salon they rarely used and even through the solid wooden door she could hear the roar of Stamboulas Fotakis shouting about losing millions of pounds. Millions of pounds? How was that possible? And what could Raffaele possibly have to do with that loss? Taking a deep breath, Vivi opened the door and walked in...