The Scandalous Orsinis. Sandra Marton

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      Like today.

      Falco and Nick, back from their business meetings overseas, were already there when Rafe arrived. Only Dante was missing. He was off somewhere in South America. Nobody knew where or why. Rafe figured it had something to do with that Sunday morning meeting with Cesare but decided it was Dante’s business to talk about it, not his.

      He sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything about what had happened at his Sunday morning meeting with his father… and if he wasn’t, what was he doing here? he thought, as he stepped from the sunlight into The Bar’s artificial gloom.

      He’d phoned Nick and Falco on the spur of the moment. They’d both been at work, as he should have been, when he called. “Got time for a beer?” he’d said, and they’d said sure.

      Now, seeing them, his gut knotted.

      Why he’d suggested getting together was beyond him. He had a problem on his hands but he wasn’t about to lay it out for discussion. There was still time to turn around and walk away—but Nick looked up, spotted him and it was too late.

      Nothing to do now but fake some casual conversation. Rafe fixed what he hoped was a smile on his face, sauntered over to their usual booth and slid in beside Falco.

      “Hey.”

      “Hey.”

      So much for casual conversation.

      The bartender, who’d spotted Rafe the second he walked in, came over with an icy mug of ale. Rafe nodded his thanks. His brothers watched as he took a long swallow.

      “Well,” he said brightly, “it’s good to see you guys.”

      Nick looked at Falco. “At least he doesn’t look as bad as he sounded.”

      And so much for getting through this unscathed. Rafe concentrated on his mug of beer.

      Falco shrugged. “He looks worse.”

      Okay. Enough. Rafe looked up.

      “I am,” he said, “right here. No reason to talk as if I weren’t.”

      “Sure.” Nick nodded agreeably. “No reason not to tell you, to your face, that Falco’s right. You look like caca.”

      “Thank you.”

      “You want compliments, you’re in the wrong place,” Falco said, but his usually hard expression softened. A bad sign, Rafe thought glumly. “So, you want to tell us what’s going on?”

      Rafe thought of making another clever response, but what was the point? His brothers knew him too well to be fooled. Besides, he was the idiot who’d called this meeting and brought this on his own head.

      “Nothing. It’s just been a long couple of days.”

      Nick raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?”

      Another shrug. Another swallow of beer. Then Rafe pressed the icy bottle against his temple, where a Chinese orchestra playing traditional Mandarin melodies had moved in to replace the departed trolls.

      “I, ah, I have some things to sort out.”

      “Such as?” Nick asked.

      “Just… things.”

      Nick looked at Falco. “Your turn.”

      Falco scowled. Nobody could scowl quite like Falco.

      “You want to tell us what’s happening? You don’t show up at the office—”

      “I’m entitled to a day off,” Rafe said, trying not to sound defensive.

      “You don’t show up,” Falco continued, “then you phone us and say you need to talk—”

      “I never said that.”

      “You didn’t have to. It’s Monday, the market’s in the toilet and here we are, taking a break at your request. You really think we’re going to think it’s just so we could all say ‘hello, what’s new, how was your weekend?’”

      “Hello,” Rafe said, “what’s new, how was your—” A muscle knotted in his jaw. “Okay. It’s true. I have a, uh, a slight problem.”

      “Blonde or brunette?”

      “That’s insulting, Nicolo. I mean, why jump to the conclusion that it’s a female problem?”

      “Blonde or brunette,” Nick repeated, and Rafe sighed.

      “Brunette.”

      “What happened to the Valkyrie?”

      “She’s history.”

      “How come?”

      Rafe narrowed his eyes. “Are we going to discuss the past or the current situation?”

      “Don’t get testy,” Falco said mildly. “Okay. So, what is the current situation?”

      Rafe stared at his brothers. The thing was, he did know why he’d phoned them. Who else would he turn to when he was in a mess straight up to his eyeballs? And, damn it, yes, this thing was a mess.

      He was married. Married, him, a man who’d never even contemplated marriage, who’d run like hell anytime a woman so much as breathed the word. He was married to a stranger from a world so unlike his it would have been funny if it hadn’t been so unbelievable.

      That was item one in the “current situation.”

      Item two was that even though he was going to end the marriage as quickly as he could pull it off, that hadn’t kept him from, item three, damned near making it with Chiara on his kitchen counter, which led, inexorably, to item four, that she was almost certainly a virgin and having sex with her would, oh damn, item five, make ending the marriage more complicated, never mind item six, that he’d introduced her as his wife and she wasn’t, well, she was, legally, and—

      “Rafe?”

      And what a disaster of a scene that had been. His housekeeper had all but burst into congratulatory song. Not Chiara. She’d turned bright pink.

      “I am not your wife,” she’d said, “and if you think that—that assaulting me makes it so, you are wrong!”

      Then she’d fled.

      He’d thought about trying to explain things to his housekeeper—who’d gone from looking at him through misty eyes to regarding him as if he’d turned into a serial killer right in front of her—given that up and gone after Chiara instead, but she’d locked her door and when he’d tried to talk to her—

      “Raffaele!”

      Rafe’s head came up. “Why’d you call me that?” he said, glaring at Nick.

      “Because СКАЧАТЬ