Читать книгу Millionaires: Rafaello's Mistress / Damiano's Return / Contract Baby - Линн Грэхем, LYNNE GRAHAM - Страница 8

GLORY picked up her bag where she had left it sitting in the big, elegant hall. Pausing only to slip off the diamanté sandals which had scored deep welts across her toes, Glory headed for the grand staircase as quietly and quickly as she could.

But luck was not on Glory’s side. Maud Belper appeared from behind the green baize door below the stairs that led to the kitchen quarters. ‘You’re staying here, then?’

Hot, guilty, embarrassed pink from throat to brow, Glory gave a reluctant nod of confirmation.

‘Your father’s a mild man, Glory. It takes a lot to upset him but I honestly think he would lose his head with Mr Rafaello over this.’

Glory stilled and tried to act dignified. ‘I’m a grown woman, not a kid.’

‘It wouldn’t be about that, love.’ The grey-haired older woman frowned, her rounded good-natured face troubled. ‘I ought to be minding my own business and I’m no tittle-tattle. But I just feel I should warn you that you’re getting into a situation you don’t really understand.’

Having made that far from reassuring and deeply mysterious statement, the housekeeper went back through the green baize door without another word. Glory hastened on up the stairs in craven flight. What on earth was Maud Belper talking about? What situation? And why, when she was about to let herself down a bucketful with Rafaello, did there have to be a talkative witness lecturing on the sidelines?

Glory hurtled in through the first door off the main landing, thrust the door shut behind her and fumbled for the light. Then she understood why Rafaello had such a big office. It was only what he was used to, she decided, scanning the huge bedroom with inquisitive eyes. A bed the size of a football pitch sat dead-centre. Skittish as a racehorse, she averted her attention from it and studied the remainder of the elegant furniture. It was a very beautiful room. The pastel rug on the floor, the subdued wallpaper and the long curtains did not match, yet somehow the overall effect was subtle and very classy, she acknowledged. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in a tall dressing mirror, and stiffened in dismay.

Unsubtle, too bold, Glory decided as she scrutinised her own reflection with newly critical eyes. She wondered how a skirt and top that had looked so pretty and feminine on Tania could look so very different on her. Of course, Tania was a brunette and a little less curvy. It had stabbed Glory to the heart when Rafaello told her that she looked cheap but she could see now that, whether she liked it or not, he had been right.

Catching sight of the transfer design above her ankle, she wrinkled her nose and went into the imposing en suite with its marble-set sinks. Stripping off her tights, she ran some water and tried to wash off the fake tattoo. The transfer was more resistant than she had expected. As she frowned down at her leg it occurred to her that she should be more worried by her own behaviour than about how she looked to him.

Here she was, selling herself like a commodity for Sam’s sake. Well, not entirely for Sam’s sake, Glory adjusted guiltily. There was this dreadful enemy part of her which wanted Rafaello Grazzini any way she could get him. She was deeply ashamed of that truth but too essentially honest to deny it. He had driven her into an arrangement that was going to break her heart and smash her pride forever.

She was soft where feelings were concerned. She always had been. She got attached to people. She had never quite managed to detach herself from him. And why not? They had had six enchanted weeks together before everything went wrong, and during those weeks, he had treated her better than any man she had met before or since. She hadn’t had to fight for her life or deal with him getting into an all-male sulk at having his attentions refused. There had been a kind of teasing quality to his approaches, she recalled abstractedly. Only there had been nothing teasing about the manner in which Rafaello had arranged her on that desk downstairs …

Not knowing what was likely to happen next and hugely conscious that she did not want to experience intimacy for the first time on a desk in a very well-lit room, she had panicked. Really panicked, she conceded ruefully. Only true panic could possibly have snatched her from the intoxicating excitement of Rafaello’s mouth on hers. But it shocked her that after five years he could touch her again and make her want him like that. It scared her even more that, in her heart of hearts, she still could not credit that Rafaello would actually make her his mistress.

But why not? When Glory was sixteen, and she had first met Rafaello face-to-face, he had behaved more like a protective big brother. Still barefoot, she wandered back into the bedroom but her thoughts were miles away. Having a huge crush on Rafaello had not stopped Glory from wanting a boyfriend of her own because all her school friends had been dating by then. She had believed that nothing would ever come of her dreams about Rafaello Grazzini. After all, not only had she never even had the opportunity to speak to him, but she and Rafaello had also lived and moved in different worlds.

Unfortunately, Talitha Little had refused to allow her daughter to go out to bars or clubs or to start dating. Almost inevitably, in her last term at school Glory had rebelled and gone behind her mother’s back. Her best friend had set her up with one of her older brother’s mates and had invited her to stay over that night so that she could get dressed up and come home late. A whole crowd of them had gone to a local bar and Glory’s date, Tim, a smooth-talking twenty-five-year-old, had introduced her to alcohol.

‘Hey, look who’s here,’ her friend had whispered, nudging her in the ribs halfway through that evening. ‘Talk about slumming!’

Rafaello had been standing by the bar with a couple of other young men, their designer casuals marking them out as more than a cut above the majority of the clientele. Glory had not been able to take her eyes from him, for she had never seen him that close before. Indeed, most of her sightings of Rafaello had been when he drove past her in his sports car while she was walking home after getting off the school bus. Although he had been known to offer other people lifts on wet days, he had never once offered her one.

Even though she had been staring a hole in him, it had been a shock when Rafaello looked directly at her for the first time. She remembered going all red in the face but not being able to drag her gaze from the magnetic spell of his lustrous dark eyes.

‘I think you’re in with a chance there all right,’ her irrepressible friend had hissed. ‘It’s a shame you’re stuck with Tim.’

But Tim had gone to play darts at the other end of the crowded bar and Glory, emboldened by the unfamiliar effects of alcohol on her system, sat there with her entire attention shamelessly focused on Rafaello, flirting like mad with her eyes. She saw his companions noticing her and commenting and thrilled in her naïvety to the belief that if she was being discussed the commentary could only be an appreciative one. In that over-excited state, it was really not that big a surprise when, on her passage back from the cloakroom, Rafaello intercepted her.

‘Would you like to go for a drive in my Porsche?’ he murmured huskily.

Thrilled to death by that invitation, it could not be said that she played hard to get. ‘When?’

‘Now. Just follow me outside.’

And, just like that, she did. She had a little difficulty walking in a straight line across the car park.

‘Not the most loyal of girlfriends, are you?’ Rafaello remarked.

‘I only met him tonight,’ Glory hastened to inform him. ‘You recognised me, didn’t you?’

‘Oh, yes … you’re not easily missed.’

He unlocked the Porsche and settled her inside first with the kind of well-bred good manners that thrilled her. And while she was sitting there frantically trying to think of something witty to say, he drove her home.

‘What … why are you bringing me back here?’ Glory demanded, aghast at the sight of her parental home. ‘I’m supposed to be staying at my friend’s house tonight. I can’t go home dressed like this, not when I’ve been drinking either … I thought you were taking me for a drive!’

‘I just did—’

‘No, but I thought—’

‘You’re not capable of thinking anything right now. Your date was deliberately getting you drunk. You shouldn’t be drinking under age, particularly when you’re not mature enough for adult company—’

‘What are you talking about?’ Glory screeched at him in anguish.

‘You just walked out of that bar with me and got into my car. Don’t you realise how dangerous it is for a woman to behave like that? You don’t have the wit of a newborn baby. The safest place for you is home—’

‘My mother will kill me!’ she launched at him in complete panic.

‘I’ll have a word with her.’ Thrusting open the driver’s door, Rafaello cut short the dialogue.

Glory burst into floods of tears. He extracted her from his passenger seat only with difficulty. ‘I just couldn’t stand by watching that slimeball filling you up with booze,’ he breathed impatiently. ‘Surely you realise how he was planning to end the evening?’

‘You let me think that you—’

‘You’re out of bounds, Glory. You’re only sixteen.’

‘You were looking at me like you fancied me!’ she condemned tearfully.

‘Easiest way to get you out of there, and it wasn’t difficult … you’re a very beautiful girl—’

‘Do you think so?’ she asked him pathetically, and he laughed and her heart had gone crazy—but then her mother opened the front door.

Although Talitha Little had a hot temper, she had not said that much that night. The next morning over breakfast, while Glory was nursing a vicious hangover and being forced to explain herself, her mother had given her an odd little smile and had remarked that she was quite sure that Glory had learned her lesson well. Glory had spent the whole of that summer mulling over every word that Rafaello had said to her, and, appalled by the effect that alcohol had had on her usual caution, she had never touched it since then.

Emerging from those memories, Glory glanced at her watch and realised that she had already been upstairs for an hour. How could the same male who had protected her from her own juvenile stupidity be the same guy she was dealing with now? Was Benito Grazzini still with Rafaello? Glory crept out of the bedroom and crossed the landing to peer down into the hall. When the library door opened she backed away. She watched Rafaello and his father, a big barrel-chested man with silver hair, move to the front door together in silence. Benito Grazzini walked out and then abruptly turned to speak and to spread his hands in what looked curiously like an emotive appeal for understanding.

Glory was shocked by the expression on the older man’s face. He looked ravaged, almost distraught. But Rafaello’s profile was taut and grim. He made no response. After a moment Benito let his hands fall back to his sides in an attitude of weary defeat. Shoulders bowed, the older man turned and walked slowly and heavily out to the waiting limo gleaming beneath the outside lights. Rafaello thrust the door shut again.

‘Rafaello?’ Glory called down, for she could not silence herself. ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

He froze in surprise and then threw back his dark head and looked up to where she stood at the head of the staircase. His lean, strong face was shuttered. ‘How long have you been up there?’

‘Only a minute. I saw your father leave. He seemed upset—’

Rafaello lifted a broad shoulder in a faint shrug of indifference, but he was unusually pale. His expressive mouth clenched hard and his dark eyes were cold. ‘Did he?’

As he mounted the stairs to draw level with her Glory coloured with discomfiture. Obviously he had had a disagreement with the older man. But then, two such powerful personalities might well have regular differences of opinion and she could hardly blame him for snubbing her: it was none of her business. Or was it? Was it possible that the argument might have related to her? Before she could think better of asking such a question, she said, ‘Did you tell your father that I was here? Is that what caused the trouble between you?’

‘Hardly,’ Rafaello drawled with detached and dismissive cool. ‘But my plans have changed. I know it’s getting late but I’m going to have you driven back to Birmingham. Something rather more important than my libido has cropped up and I need to deal with it now.’

Wholly unprepared for that announcement, Glory stiffened in astonishment. She turned away, her face burning with sudden mortification. One minute he wanted her, the next he didn’t, and she was being dismissed like a casual employee. Yet it was so foolish of her to be feeling like that in the circumstances. She ought to be delighted and relieved, she told herself. ‘I’ll get my bag.’

‘I’ll send a car to pick you up on Monday around noon. I’ll need your address—’

She hesitated but did not turn back. ‘Are you still planning to let Sam know tonight that he doesn’t have to worry about that theft charge any more?’

A tense and unexpected silence stretched and, with a frown, she turned her head to look at him again.

‘Yes,’ Rafaello breathed with a grim look etched on his lean, dark features. ‘Yes, you can bet on that as a sure-fire event.’

‘Fine.’ Without another word, Glory went back into his bedroom, grabbed up her travel bag and locked herself in the bathroom. Tears of hurt bewilderment stung her eyes as she took off the top and skirt, which she now thoroughly loathed. Something had happened, something serious that had upset him. But he had not the faintest intention of telling her what that something was or of sharing his feelings.

She put on jeans, a T-shirt and comfortable canvas shoes. She thought that he might have followed her into the bedroom to wait for her to emerge and then talk to her again but he had not. She wrote her address on the notepad by the phone. When she went downstairs again she found him standing by the superb marble fireplace in the gracious drawing-room, staring down with brooding intensity into the low-burning fire.

‘I’m ready.’

‘The car’s outside. Don’t go all female and huffy on me, cara,’ Rafaello urged, shooting her a bleak glance from beneath his lush dark lashes. ‘Tonight is just a case of bad timing—’

‘Huffy? Why would I be huffy?’ Glory demanded with stinging chagrin. ‘All I’m hoping is that you use this weekend to think better of the idea of taking on an unwilling mistress!’

Rafaello focused dark golden eyes on her with sizzling effect. ‘Unwilling? We’ll find out in Corfu, won’t we …?’

Three days later a Toyota Landcruiser whisked Glory away from the island airport.

She had flown out to Corfu cocooned in the incredible luxury of Rafaello’s private jet and had been surprised to find that he was not on board. However, his aircrew had treated her like royalty and, although she had told herself that she was far too sensible to be impressed by rampant materialism, she had been impressed to death. His jet had been a far cry from the cramped and uncomfortable package holiday flight to Spain which she had endured with Sam a couple of years earlier. Served with a lunch that would have passed muster in a top-flight hotel, she had been offered a selection of recent films to watch and the latest copies of a dozen glossy magazines.

The Landcruiser branched off the busy main thoroughfare and eventually onto a rough road that climbed ever upward between groves of gnarled silver-green olive trees. They passed through quaint little hill villages on roads too narrow for two vehicles to pass at one and the same time. As they headed back down towards the coast on the other side of the island a series of tortuous bends and truly terrifying gradients slowed their journey even more. In all, it was an hour and a half and early evening before the car paused before a set of tall electronic gates that purred back for their entrance and drove up an avenue shaded by tall, graceful cypresses that cast long dark shadows like arrows.

The big villa was ultra-modern in design and pitched to take advantage of the sheltered seclusion of the lush green hillside and the fabulous sea views. A magnificent house in an even more magnificent setting, Glory conceded without much surprise as she climbed out of the car. But then, only the very best would satisfy a Grazzini. In the clear light in which every colour seemed sharper and brighter than it did back in England, the view of the brilliant blue Ionian Sea washing the golden strand only a hundred yards below her would have taken her breath away had not nervous tension already done that for her.

A middle-aged man in an old-fashioned steward’s white jacket ushered her into a marble-tiled foyer and showed her into a superb galleried reception room that opened out onto a wooden viewing deck.

‘Signor Grazzini will be with you soon, Miss Little,’ the manservant informed her. ‘Tea or coffee? Perhaps an aperitif before dinner?’

‘Where is Signor Grazzini?’ Glory enquired tautly, beginning to feel offensively like a parcel forever waiting to be picked up.

The older man looked uncomfortable.

‘That’s OK. I’ll go and find him for myself.’ Glory stalked back out to the hall, put her hands on her hips and yelled full volume, ‘Rafaello?’

Within fifteen seconds one of the doors off the spacious, airy hall jerked wide and Rafaello appeared. Clad in a lightweight pale cream suit, exquisitely tailored to his big, powerful frame, he looked nothing short of spectacular. He scanned her taut figure, taking in the patterned blue cotton shirt dress she wore and the plait in which she had restrained her hair.

‘You wanted me here. I’m here!’ Glory pointed out in the rushing silence, folding her arms in an effort to conceal the reality that she was trembling. For a crazy moment she had wanted to fling herself at him, and she had been shaken by that insane prompting.

‘What a novel way to get attention …’ a cut-glass English voice remarked.

Glory stiffened in dismay as a willowy brunette beauty with the exotic elegance of a supermodel strolled forward to stand by Rafaello’s side. Resting one possessive hand on his sleeve and throwing him a covert glance in the age-old communication of one lover to another, she spelt out their intimacy in non-verbal ways that any woman would have understood. ‘Really, I must try bellowing at the top of my voice when I next find that my host is not immediately available. So simple and effective.’ The brunette completed her cutting little speech with saccharine-sweet scorn.

‘Glory … this is Fiona Woodrow,’ Rafaello told her with unblemished composure.

The brunette extended a languid hand. Her face having flamed and then paled to leave her as white as paper, Glory ignored that empty gesture. Hypocrisy was not one of her talents.

A door opened somewhere behind her. ‘Jon …’ Rafaello drawled in the calmest of tones. ‘If you have the time, could you ensure that Glory gets a long cool drink?’

Jon Lyons escorted Glory out to the viewing deck. The sun was beginning to set over the beautiful bay below. The horizon was shot with the fiery splendour of crimson and gold. Hands clenched into fists of restraint by her side, Glory could not yet bring herself to look at the young blond man. Fiona Woodrow had made her feel small and stupid and crude in front of an audience but she blamed Rafaello entirely for that development.

The older man who had greeted her on her arrival appeared with a tray. A tall moisture-beaded glass and an artistic arrangement of tiny bite-sized appetisers were set down on the table beside which she stood.

‘I would need a dip in the Arctic to cool me down,’ Glory muttered finally, throwing a look of pained apology at Jon for her self-absorption. ‘Who is Fiona?’

‘Rafaello has been acquainted with Lady Fiona for a long time,’ Jon Lyons responded after an awkward pause, his clean-cut features tense, his brown eyes veiled. ‘I’m afraid that’s as much as I know.’

Lady Fiona? A titled member of the British aristocracy. Glory bit down hard on her tongue and tasted the sweet tang of blood in her dry mouth. She folded her arms even tighter; indeed, felt as though that defensive barrier was crazily the only thing keeping her upright and together. Acquainted? What a delicate choice of word! The brunette had brandished the fact that her relationship with Rafaello was of the intimate variety. There was no avoiding the obvious: Rafaello had another woman. Furthermore, he had not even had the decency to get Fiona Woodrow out of the villa before Glory arrived. It was disgusting. It lacerated her pride, tore at her heart and terrified her all at one and the same time. Her emotions were on such a high, she could barely think straight.

‘Does he have a lot of women he brings here? Is this like … the harem in the hills?’ she demanded unsteadily.

Momentarily, Jon looked as though he might laugh. Then he met her anguished blue eyes, with a look of sympathy, he said reluctantly, ‘The boss does get around. You can’t really blame him—’

‘Can’t I?’ Just then Glory needed no encouragement to heap all the sins of humanity on Rafaello’s broad shoulders.

‘Women go for him big-time.’

And why not? She had always wondered and now she knew for sure. Rafaello was a womaniser, spoilt for choice, spoilt by all the endless options and fresh faces available to a male with wealth, good looks and charm. Only where she herself was concerned the charm seemed to be in pretty short supply this time around.

But then, what else had she expected? He wasn’t dating her, wasn’t trying to please her. Caring concern and tact were not on his agenda. Suddenly she was facing unpleasant truths shorn of the hazy romantic images which had come from her own imagination alone. Of course Rafaello had not been on the flight out from England with her, of course he had not put himself out to come and meet her at the airport! All that he wanted from her was the use of her body. Casual, uncommitted sex. He had spelt that right out upfront. How had she managed to avoid facing that reality?

‘Please don’t be offended when I say that you don’t fit the usual mould,’ Jon Lyons confided in a wry undertone. ‘You’ll be history with Rafaello the minute he realises you’re emotionally involved.’

‘I’m not emotionally involved with him.’ Wanting to boil Rafaello in oil and make him suffer the tortures of the damned while she watched and gloated was not emotional involvement on Glory’s terms. In any case, she was not staying in Corfu to be a temporary distraction in any harem in the hills! Her brother, Sam, was safe. The theft charge had been withdrawn and her father had been reinstated. The crisis was over, the pressure on her already at an end. She had been able to confirm that on Saturday.

Sam had phoned her first thing that morning. She had been very surprised to learn that Rafaello had stayed talking with her father and Sam until well after midnight. What about the urgent business that had supposedly cropped up that same evening? Evidently, Rafaello had shown no apparent desire to cut his visit short. She had been even more surprised when Sam confided that Rafaello was, ‘OK … in fact, quite a cool guy and very talkative.’ To be frank, she had almost toppled over in shock when her kid brother had gone on to tell her that Rafaello had stated that in retrospect he felt that he might have rather overreacted to the whole situation.

Indeed, Rafaello had gone to extraordinary lengths to smooth matters over and Glory had been planning to thank him from the bottom of her heart for lying in his teeth. For, of course, he had been lying. She remembered how he had talked about having his home and his property ‘violated’ and had quite understood his feelings. But Rafaello’s generous attitude of forgiveness had released her brother from his brooding depression and anxiety. She had not expected Rafaello to recognise and understand just how vulnerable Sam could be.

That same evening Sam had phoned his friend, Joe, and, once reassured that confessing to stealing the snuff box would not result in his being charged in Sam’s place, Joe had come over to own up and apologise to Rafaello face-to-face. Joe had taken the box on impulse, thinking it would make a nice present for his mother’s birthday, but within half an hour of succumbing to temptation the teenager had panicked. He had hidden the tiny item in the Littles’ fuel shed sooner than retain possession of it and had hoped that something so very small would not even be missed at the Park.

Emerging from the recollection of that enlightening phone call from her brother, Glory lifted the tall glass and let her parched mouth rejoice in the refreshing fruit drink. Sam might be all right now but it really was time that she grew up and let go of her old memories of Rafaello Grazzini. Fanciful girlish memories based on what? A mere six weeks with him? She would be much better recalling the manner in which he had humiliated her at the end of that brief relationship. He had been cruel, unnecessarily cruel. Just as he was being now in a far more careless way.

‘If you want me to make that last flight, I should leave now,’ she heard Jon say.

Turning her head to glance at him in confusion, Glory only then realised that Jon had been addressing Rafaello, who was poised several feet away. She set down her glass and tilted up her chin, shutting out those dark golden eyes which could exercise such frightening power over her. ‘I might as well catch a lift with Jon if he’s going to the airport. I’m not staying.’

The younger man dealt her a startled glance before he walked back indoors, discreetly removing himself from the proceedings.

‘You’re not going anywhere, cara,’ Rafaello delivered with formidable cool.

‘And how are you planning to stop me?’ Glory enquired tightly, hanging on to her temper and her pain with fierce concentration, determined not to betray either or to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he had hurt her by allowing her to meet Fiona Woodrow.

‘With brute force if necessary.’

Glory opened her violet-blue eyes very wide to show how unimpressed she was by that threat. ‘You wouldn’t dare. I’d scream the place down.’

‘Noise doesn’t bother me. Being ripped off does, though.’

The tension sparked like invisible warning flares between them.

‘That’s right, be a real gentleman!’ Glory snapped. ‘Remind me about the callous agreement you forced on me—’

A winged black brow was elevated. ‘Forced? Didn’t you trek all the way to Montague Park on Friday night dressed like a tart just for my benefit?’

‘I was not dressed like a tart!’ Glory hissed at him in outrage.

‘Isn’t that just like a woman?’ Rafaello jerked loose his tie and cast it on the table. Her gaze widened slightly as, having undone his shirt collar, he proceeded to shrug with fluid grace out of the jacket of his suit. ‘Parade the bait and then go into pious denial when the victim bites—’

‘You are no woman’s victim, Rafaello Grazzini!’ Glory was infuriated by his line of argument. She had been desperate. She had believed that temptation was the only means of persuasion within her power. But whose fault was it that she had felt that she had to lower herself to that level? Who had spelt out those demeaning parameters? Who had made it brutally clear that in his opinion her looks were her only currency?

‘That’s right,’ Rafaello confirmed, his smouldering dark golden eyes holding hers full force. ‘Glad you’ve divined that fact. Do you recall how you tried to play me for a fool five years ago? Do you also remember how that ended? I wasn’t the one who fled in tears.’

‘You bastard …’ Glory framed in shaken outrage and pain. The very last thing she needed just then was the recollection of how devastated she had been at eighteen when he paraded her replacement, the merchant banker’s daughter, in front of her.

Rafaello discarded his jacket on the table alongside his tie. ‘I don’t let anyone call me that,’ he intoned in a lethal low-pitched drawl.

‘Well, I just got away with it!’ Glory slung in helpless triumph.

‘You’re not getting away with anything. It’s all going on an account to be rendered with your name at the top. Dio mio, you think I’m a fool?’

‘Look, I’m not going to waste time arguing with you.’ That unsettling reference to an account being rendered had chilled Glory to the marrow. ‘I’ll get a lift with Jon back to the airport.’

‘I said no.’

‘Oh, wow …’ Glory sounded out with syllabic thoroughness and all the scorn she could muster.

‘I warned you.’ Striding forward with an expression of calm intent stamped on his lean, strong face, Rafaello settled his hands to her waist and swept her off her feet.

In furious disbelief Glory swung back her arm and attempted to land a resounding slap on one hard male cheekbone but he ducked his head before it could connect. ‘How dare you do that when I want to hit you?’ she raged at him.

‘If you try to hit me again I might just dump you in the pool to cool off,’ Rafaello threatened with immovable cool as he hoisted her over his shoulder to prevent her flailing fists from doing any damage.

‘I can’t swim!’ Glory gasped in horror.

‘I’ll get into the water with you, then, but dip you I will,’ Rafaello swore, striding through the vast lounge into the hall.

‘I’ll call the police if you don’t put me down!’ Glory threatened in a rising screech.

‘What with? Alien antennae?’ Rafaello enquired.

Another voice entered the proceedings. ‘Rafaello …’ It was Jon Lyons’ quiet voice and he cleared his throat with pronounced hesitancy before continuing. ‘Do you really think you ought to be manhandling your guest like that?’

‘Don’t mess with what you don’t understand,’ Rafaello advised his executive assistant, galling amusement audible in his dark, deep drawl. ‘Glory and I go way back in time—’

‘No, we don’t!’ Glory braced her hands to his muscular back to raise her head, but she still couldn’t see Jon Lyons because he was standing out of view. So enraged was she by the ridiculous figure she had to be cutting that she was surprised that flames weren’t pouring from her mouth.

‘Glory was four years old when we first met. She was at a Christmas party for the estate workers’ children. She thumped a little boy who was chasing her with mistletoe. She was tiny but she attacked like a lion,’ Rafaello recounted, making Glory blink in bewilderment as she listened. ‘I hauled her off him before she got hurt and she was swinging her fists and screeching, “Let me at him!” She hasn’t changed much.’

‘You just made that whole story up.’ Glory had no memory whatsoever of the episode he had described, although she had certainly attended those festive parties as a child. ‘That never happened!’

Rafaello started to mount the stairs. ‘I didn’t notice you again until you were about thirteen, but don’t get excited at that news. It wasn’t you who first attracted my attention. It was the incessant car horns being sounded by admiring male drivers while you stood at the bus stop in the morning and I was driving past. Then, after you moved into the gardener’s cottage, I used to see you lurking in the rhododendrons beside the main drive, slapping on the paint before you could face the school bus.’

Glory was so stunned by that second even lengthier speech, her luscious mouth fell inelegantly wide.

‘I can see I was out of line interfering …’ From the hall below, Jon Lyons punctuated that retreat with a rueful laugh. ‘When you said way back you weren’t joking, Rafaello. It sounds like you two practically grew up together. I’ll see you next week.’

As the front door thudded shut downstairs and silence enclosed them again Glory balled both hands into furious fists and struck at Rafaello’s back again. ‘What were you doing sneaking through the bushes when I was putting on my lip gloss?’ she demanded for want of anything better to attack with at that moment.

‘When I was back from university I used to go out running in the morning. You were such a vain little creature. You used to sit endlessly combing your hair like a mermaid on a rock.’

‘You spied on me!’ Glory accused shakily. ‘I was not being vain!’

‘I avoided the main drive after I saw you there a couple of times. Spying on little schoolgirls wasn’t my style then or now.’

‘Mum wouldn’t let me style my hair or use make-up like my friends did, and I used to do myself up a bit before I went for the bus,’ she protested with fierce defensiveness. ‘I was not vain. Haven’t you ever heard of peer pressure? Put me down, Rafaello!’

Rafaello lowered her to the carpet in a lovely bedroom. French windows stood wide on a balcony on the far side of the room. The silk curtains were fluttering in the gentle breeze. For an instant the unusual bed engaged her attention. The tall headboard had an ornate carved frame and what appeared to be tiny pictures with silver surrounds set into the polished surface. Frowning over her momentary distraction, Glory headed straight back towards the door through which she had been carried. ‘You can stop acting like a caveman right now.’

Rafaello was lounging back against the door with folded arms. His white shirt open at his strong brown throat, his devastatingly dark and handsome face set with intent, he looked back at her with challenging golden eyes. ‘So tell me, what made you suddenly decide to go home again?’

Glory stiffened and paled. ‘If you think I’m willing to be another in the long line of your tarts, you’d better think again!’ she launched back grittily.

‘Welcome to the fold, bella mia.’ Rafaello’s delivery was as smooth as silk.