The Platinum Collection: Affairs To Remember. Эбби Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ sorry, Rafaele,’ Sam responded. ‘I had no idea...’ She gestured helplessly. ‘I must have missed it in the papers.’

      His Spanish mother had been a world-renowned beauty and feted model. Her marriages and lovers had been well documented. The rumour was that she had cruelly left Rafaele’s father when it had become apparent that he’d lost everything except his title. But this was only hearsay that Sam had picked up when she’d gone to Milan to work for Falcone Industries as an intern.

      Rafaele shook his head, his mouth thin. ‘It was overshadowed by the economic crisis in Greece so it barely made the papers—something we welcomed.’

      Sam could remember how much Rafaele had hated press intrusion and the constant glare of the paparazzi lens. He put down his cup and stood abruptly. Sam looked up, her breath sticking in her throat for a minute as he loomed so large and intimidating. Gorgeous. Lord, how was she going to get through even twenty-four hours of him living under the same roof, just down the hall? Did he still sleep naked—?

      ‘...will you tell him?’

      Sam flushed hotly when she registered Rafaele looking at her expectantly. He’d just asked her a question and she’d been so busy speculating on whether or not he still slept naked that she hadn’t heard him.

      She stood up so quickly her knees banged against the coffee table and she winced. ‘Tell who what?’

      Rafaele looked irritated. ‘When are you going to tell Milo that I am his father?’

      Sam crossed her arms over breasts that felt heavy and tingly. ‘I think...I think when he’s got used to you being here. When he’s got to know you a bit...then we can tell him.’ She cursed herself for once again proving that her mind was all too easily swayed by this man.

      He nodded. ‘I think that’s fair enough.’

      Sam breathed out, struck somewhere vulnerable at seeing Rafaele intent on putting Milo’s needs first, over his wish to punish her.

      Just then Bridie put her head around the door. ‘I’m off, love, and Milo is waiting for his story. If you need me over the weekend just call me. Nice to meet you, Mr Falcone.’

      Sam moved towards the door, more in a bid to get away from Rafaele than a desire to see Bridie out, but the older woman waved her back with a definite glint in her eyes.

      ‘Stay where you are.’

      Rafaele murmured goodnight and then Bridie was gone. Sam heard the sound of the front door opening and closing. And now she really was alone in the house with the man she’d hoped never to see again and her son. Milo. The incongruity of Rafaele Falcone, international billionaire and playboy, here in her suburban house, was overwhelming to say the least.

      She backed towards the door. ‘I should go to Milo. He’ll come looking for me if I don’t.’ Why did she suddenly sound as if she’d just been running?

      Rafaele inclined his head. ‘I have some work to attend to, if you don’t mind me using the study?’

      Sam was relieved at the prospect of some space. ‘Of course not.’

      And then she fled, taking the stairs two at a time as she had when she’d been a teenager.

      Rafaele heard Sam take the stairs at a gallop and shook his head. He looked around the room again. Definitely not the milieu he was accustomed to, in spite of his defence to Sam. Those gruelling years when he’d done nothing but work, study, sleep and repeat were a blur now.

      He felt slightly shell-shocked at how easily he’d told Sam something he never discussed. It was no secret that he’d turned his back on his stepfather to resurrect his family legacy, but people invariably drew their own conclusions.

      His mouth tightened. He’d resisted the urge to spill his guts before—had been content to distract them both from talking by concentrating on the physical. Avoiding a deeper intimacy at all costs.

      Rafaele cursed and ran his hands through his hair, feeling constricted in his suit. He’d come straight here from a meeting in town. As soon as he’d walked in through the front door he’d felt the house closing in around him claustrophobically and he’d had a bizarre urge to turn on his heel, get back into his car and drive very fast in the opposite direction.

      For a wild few seconds when he’d looked at Sam waiting in the hall the only thing he’d been able to remember was how he’d all but devoured her only days before. He’d assured himself that he could just send in his lawyers and have her dictated to, punished for not telling him about Milo.

      But then he’d seen Milo, held in her arms, and the claustrophobia had disappeared. That was why he was here. Because he didn’t want more months to go by before he got a chance to let his son know who he was. More months added on top of the three years he’d already missed. Rafaele had never really forgiven his own father for falling apart and checking out of his life so spectacularly. For investing so much in a woman who had never loved him. For allowing himself to turn into something maudlin and useless.

      For years Rafaele had been jealous of his younger brother, Alexio, who had grown up bathed in his father’s love and support. So much so, however, that Rafaele knew how stifling Alexio had found it, prompting him to turn his back on his own inheritance. He smiled grimly to himself. Maybe that just proved one could never be happy?

      He made his way to the study and sat down behind the desk, firing up various machines. He stopped abruptly when he heard movement above his head. His heart twisted at the realisation that he must be underneath Milo’s room. Obeying an urge he couldn’t ignore, Rafaele stood up and walked out of the room and up the stairs, as silent as a panther.

      He saw the half-open door of Milo’s room and stopped when he could see inside. The scene made him suck in a breath. Sam was leaning back against a headboard painted in bright colours with Milo in her embrace. She held a book open in front of them and was reading aloud, putting on funny voices, making Milo giggle.

      Rafaele had forgotten that she wore glasses to read and write. They made her look seriously studious, but also seriously sexy. Her mouth was plump and pink. Even in the plain white shirt and trousers her slim curves were evident. This sight of her was hugely disconcerting. He’d never expected to see her in this situation. And yet something about it called to him—an echo of an emotion he’d crushed ruthlessly when she’d first told him she was pregnant. Before the shock had hit, and the cynical suspicion that she’d planned it, had come something far more disturbing. Something fragile and alien.

      He hated her right then for still having an effect on him. For still making him want her. For invading his imagination when he’d least expected it over the last four years. He would find it hard to recall his last lover’s name right now, but Sam...her name had always been indelible. And this was utterly galling when she’d proved to be as treacherous as his own mother in her own way. When she’d kept the most precious thing from him. His son.

      For a moment Rafaele questioned his sanity in deciding to take over funding the research programme at the university in a bid to get to Sam. But then he remembered looking down into Milo’s green eyes and recognising his own DNA like a beacon winking back at him.

      As much as there was a valid reason behind his rationale, it had also come from that deeper place not linked solely to rationale and he hated to admit that.

      His eyes went to his son СКАЧАТЬ