The Platinum Collection: Affairs To Remember: When Falcone's World Stops Turning / When Christakos Meets His Match / When Da Silva Breaks the Rules. ABBY GREEN

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СКАЧАТЬ And reality was slowly sinking in. Her new reality. Living and working with Rafaele Falcone. She suspected that he’d flexed his muscles to get her to work for him as much to irritate her as for any bona fide professional reason, even if that was why he’d first contacted her.

      The thought of going back into that factory environment made her feel clammy. Although she’d loved it the first time around—it had been so exciting, getting an internship with one of the most innovative and successful motor companies in the world.

      Rafaele had made his initial fortune by devising a computer software program which aided in the design of cars, and that was how he’d first come onto the scene, stunning the world with its success. That was how he’d been able to fund getting Falcone Motors off the ground again—injecting it with new life, turning around the perception of the Falcone car as outdated and prehistoric. Now Falcone cars were the most coveted on the race track and on the roads.

      And Sam had been in the thick of it, working on new cutting edge designs, figuring out the most fuel-efficient engine systems. From her very first day, though, she’d been aware of Rafaele. She’d gone bright red whenever she saw him, never expecting him to be as gorgeous in the flesh as he was in press photos.

      He’d surprised her by being very hands-on, not afraid to get dirty himself, and invariably he knew more than all of them put together, displaying an awesome intelligence and intellect. And, in a notoriously male-dominated industry, she’d met more females working in his factory than she’d encountered in all her years as a student. Clearly when he said equal opportunities he meant it.

      Sam had found that each day she was seeking him out...only to look away like a naive schoolgirl if he met her gaze, which he’d appeared to do more and more often. She’d been innocent—literally. A childhood spent with an emotionally distant father and with her head buried in books hadn’t made for a well-rounded adolescence. While her peers had been experimenting with boys Sam had been trying in vain to connect with her scatty but brilliant father. Bridie had been in despair, and had all but given up encouraging Sam to get out and enjoy herself, not to worry so much about studying or her father.

      The irony of it all was that while the more predominantly masculine areas did appeal to her—hence her subsequent career—she’d always longed to feel more feminine. And it was this very secret desire that Rafaele had unwittingly tapped into so effectively. Just by looking at her, he had made Sam feel like a woman for the first time in her life.

      One of their first conversations had been over an intricate engine. The other interns and engineers had walked away momentarily and Sam had been about to follow them when Rafaele had caught her wrist. He’d let her go again almost immediately but her skin had burned for hours afterwards, along with the fire in her belly.

      ‘So,’ he’d drawled in that sexy voice, ‘where did your interest and love for engines come from, Miss Rourke?’

      The Miss Rourke had sounded gently mocking, as if some sort of secret code had passed between them. Sam had been mesmerised and it had taken a second for her to answer. She’d shrugged, looking away from the penetrating gaze that had seemed to see her in a way that was both exhilarating and terrifying.

      ‘My father is a professor of physics, so I’ve grown up surrounded by science. And my grandmother...his mother...she was Irish, but she ended up in England during the Second World War, working in the factories on cars. Apparently she loved it and had a natural affinity for working with engines—so much so that she kept her job after the war for a few years, before returning home to marry.’ She’d shrugged again. ‘I guess it ran in the family.’

      Sam looked back at her young naive self now and cringed. She’d been so transparent, so easy to seduce. It had taken one earth-shattering kiss in Rafaele’s office and she’d opened herself up for him, had forgotten everything her upbringing had taught her about protecting herself from emotionally unavailable people.

      He’d whispered to her that she was sensual, sexy, beautiful, and she’d melted. A girl who had grown up denying her very sexuality had had no defence mechanism in place to deal with someone as practised and polished and seductive as Rafaele.

      She’d fallen for him quicker than Alice in Wonderland had fallen down the rabbit hole. And her world had changed as utterly as Alice’s: beautiful dresses, intoxicating dates—one night he’d even flown them to Venice in his helicopter for dinner.

      And then there had been the sex. He’d taken her innocence with a tenderness she never would have expected of a consummate seducer. It had been mind-blowing, addictive. Almost overwhelming for Sam, who had never imagined her boring, almost boyish body could arouse someone—never mind a man like Rafaele Falcone, who had his pick of the world’s most beautiful women.

      During their short-lived affair, even though he’d told her, ‘Samantha...don’t fall for me. Don’t hope for something more because I have nothing to give someone like you...’ she hadn’t listened. She’d told herself that he had to feel something, because when they made love it felt as if they transcended everything that bound them to this earth and touched something profound.

      At the time, though, she’d laughed and said airily, belying her own naivety, ‘Relax, Rafaele! It is possible, you know, for not every woman you meet to fall in love with you. I know what this is. It’s just sex.’

      She’d made herself say it out loud, even though it had been like turning a knife towards her own belly and thrusting it deep. Because she’d been so far out of her depth by then she might as well have been in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. She’d been lying, of course. She’d proved to be as humiliatingly susceptible to Rafaele’s lethal charm as the next hapless woman.

      If anything, he’d given her a life lesson and a half. For a brief moment she’d lost her head and forgotten that if it looked like a dream and felt like a dream, then it probably was a dream. Her real world was far more banal and she’d always been destined to return to it. Milo or no Milo.

      Punching the pillow beneath her head now, as if she could punch the memories away too, Sam closed her eyes and promised herself that not for a second would she ever betray just how badly that man had hurt her.

      * * *

      ‘Mummy, the man is still here. He’s downstairs in the book room.’

      Sam responded to the none-too-gentle shaking of her son and opened her eyes. She’d finally fallen asleep somewhere around dawn. Again. Milo’s eyes were huge in his face and Sam struggled to sit up, pulling him into her, feeling her stomach clench at the reminder of who was here.

      ‘I told you that he’d be moving in with us for a while, don’t you remember?’ she prompted sleepily.

      Milo nodded and then asked, ‘But where’s his house?’

      Sam smiled wryly. Little did her son know that his father had a veritable portfolio of houses around the world.

      ‘He doesn’t have a house here in London.’

      ‘Okay.’ Milo clambered out of the bed and looked at her winsomely. ‘Can we get Cheerios now?’

      Sam got out of bed and reached for her robe—and then thought better of it when she imagined Rafaele giving its threadbare appearance a caustic once-over. No doubt he would wonder what on earth he’d ever seen in her.

      Hating to be so influenced by what he might think, Sam reached for jeans and a thin sweatshirt and yanked her sleep-mussed hair into a ponytail. No make-up. She cursed herself. She wasn’t trying СКАЧАТЬ