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

‘Suit yourself.’ He gestured to a nearby couch. ‘Sit down, Sam—and you can put down your bag. You look as if your fingers might break.’

She looked down stupidly to see white knuckles through the skin of her fingers where they gripped the leather. Forcing herself to take a breath, she moved jerkily over to the couch and perched on the edge, resisting the design of it, which wanted to seduce her into a more relaxed pose.

Rafaele came and sat down opposite her, clearly far more relaxed than her as he sank back into the couch, resting one arm across the top. Sam fought the desire to look and see how his shirt must be stretched across his chest.

‘What kind of a name is Milo anyway? Irish?’

Sam blinked. It took a minute for his words to sink in because they were so unexpected. ‘It’s...it was my grandfather’s name.’

Sam was vaguely surprised he remembered that detail of her heritage. She was one generation removed from Ireland, actually, having been born and brought up in England because her parents had moved there after her brilliant father had been offered a job at a London university.

Sam sensed his anger building again. ‘I did intend to tell you...some day. I would never have withheld that information from Milo for ever.’

Rafaele snorted a harsh laugh. ‘That’s big of you. You would have waited until he’d built up a childhood full of resentment about his absent father and I wouldn’t have even known.’

Rafaele sat forward and put down his glass with a clatter. He ran his hand impatiently through his hair, making it flop messily onto his forehead. Sam’s insides clenched when she remembered how she’d once felt comfortable running her hands through his hair, using it to hold him in place when he’d had his face buried between—

Shame flared inside her at the way her thoughts were going. She should be thinking of Milo and extricating them both from the threat that Rafaele posed, not remembering lurid X-rated memories.

In a smaller voice she admitted, ‘I’ve been living day to day...it didn’t seem to be urgent right now. He...he doesn’t ask about his father.’

Rafaele stood up, towering over her. ‘I’d say it became urgent about the time you gave birth, Sam. Don’t you think he must be wondering why other kids have fathers and he doesn’t?’

Words were locked in Sam’s throat. Milo mightn’t have mentioned anything yet, but she had noticed him looking at his friends in playschool when their fathers picked them up. It wouldn’t be long before he’d start asking questions.

She stood up too, not liking feeling so intimidated.

Rafaele bit back the anger that threatened to spill over and keep spilling. Looking as vulnerable, if not more so than she had earlier, Sam said tightly, ‘Look, I can’t stay too long. My minder is doing me a favour. Can we just...get to what we need to discuss?’

He’d been unable to get Sam’s pale face out of his mind all day. Or the way he’d hauled her into his arms like a Neanderthal, all but backing her up against that sink to ravish her in a tacky bathroom. The feel of her against him, under his mouth, had dragged him back to a place he’d locked away deep inside, unleashing a cavalcade of desire more hot and urgent than anything he’d ever encountered.

He struggled to curb some of the intense emotion he was feeling.

‘What’s going to happen is this: I am going to be a father to my son and you will do everything in your power to facilitate that—because if you don’t, Samantha, I won’t hesitate to use full legal force against you.’

Rafaele delivered his ultimatum and Sam just looked at him, trying not to let him see how his words shook her to her core. ‘I won’t hesitate to use full legal force against you.’

‘What exactly do you mean, Rafaele? You can’t threaten me like this.’

Rafaele came close to Sam—close enough for his scent to wind around her, prompting a vivid memory of how it had felt to have her mouth crushed under his earlier that day. He looked at her for such a long, taut moment that she stopped breathing. And then he moved back to the couch to sit down again and regarded her like a lounging pasha.

‘It’s not a threat. It’s very much a promise. I want to be in Milo’s life. I am his father. We deserve to get to know one another. He needs to know that I am his father.’

Panic boosted Sam’s adrenalin. She couldn’t have sat down if she’d wanted to. Every muscle was locked. ‘You can’t just barge in and announce that you’re his father. He won’t understand. It’ll upset him.’

Rafaele arched a brow. ‘And whose fault is that? Who kept this knowledge from him and from me? One person, Sam. You. And now you have to deal with the consequences.’

‘Yes,’ Sam admitted bitterly, ‘I recognise that, and you’ve already made your sphere of influence obvious—but not at the cost of my son’s happiness and sense of security.’

Rafaele leant forward. ‘You have cost our son his happiness and security already. You’ve wilfully cost him three years of knowing he had a father. You’ve already irreparably damaged his development.’

Our son. Sam’s insides contracted painfully. She was feeling shocked again at the very evident emotion on Rafaele’s face. Quickly masked, though, as if he was surprised by his own vehemence.

‘So what are you proposing, Rafaele?’

A part of Sam, deep down inside, marvelled at that moment that there had ever been intimacy between them. That she had ever lain beside him in bed and gazed deep into his eyes. On their last night together...before he’d gone on his business trip...she’d reached out and touched his face as if learning every feature. He’d taken her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, and there had been something she’d never seen before darkening his eyes, making her breath grow short and her heart pound...

‘What I’m proposing is that, as I’m due to be here in England for the foreseeable future, I want to be a part of Milo’s daily life so that he can get to know me.’

Sam struggled to take it in. ‘“The foreseeable future”? What does that mean? You can’t get to know him and then just walk away, Rafaele, when your business is done.’

Rafaele stood up and put his hands deep in his pockets, as if he was having second thoughts about physical violence. Silkily he replied, ‘Oh, don’t worry, Sam, I have no intention of walking away—ever—no matter where my business takes me. Milo is my son just as much as he is yours. You’ve had unfettered access to him for over three years of his life and you will never deny me access again. I want him here—with me.’

Sam’s mouth opened and closed again before she could manage to articulate, ‘Here with you? But that’s preposterous. He’s three!’

Rafaele clarified with clear reluctance, ‘Naturally you would also have to come.’

Sam emitted a scared laugh, because even though what Rafaele was saying was insane he sounded eminently reasonable. ‘Oh, thanks! Should I be grateful that you would allow me to stay with my son?’

Rafaele’s face darkened. ‘I think any judge in any courtroom would look unfavourably upon a mother who kept her son from his father for no apparent good reason.’

Sam blanched and tried to appeal to him. ‘Rafaele, we can’t just...uproot and move in with you. It’s not practical.’ And the very thought of spending any more time alone with this man than she had to scared the living daylights out of her.

His voice sounded unbearably harsh. ‘I am going to be under the same roof as my son, as his father, and I will not negotiate on that. You can either be part of it or not. Obviously it will be easier if you are. And, as we’re going to be working together again, it can only be more practical.’

Anger surged again at Rafaele’s reminder of that small detail and his intractability. ‘You’re being completely unreasonable. Of course I need to be with my son...that’s non-negotiable.’

Rafaele took a step closer, and even though his hands were in his pockets Sam felt the threat reach out to touch her.

‘Well, then, you have a measure of how I’m feeling, Samantha. I will expect you back here with your bags and Milo by this time tomorrow evening or else we take it to the courts and they will decide how he will divide his time between us.’ He added, ‘You’ve proved that you believe one parent is dispensable—what’s to stop me testing out the theory with you?’

Sam gritted out, ‘I do recognise that you’ve missed out on time with Milo...and I should have told you before now. But I had my reasons and I believed they were valid.’

‘Very noble of you, Samantha,’ Rafaele mocked, with an edge.

Trying to concentrate and not be distracted by him, she said, ‘It’s just not practical for us to come here. This might be your home, and it’s beautiful—’

‘It’s not mine,’ Rafaele bit out. ‘It belongs to a friend. I’m renting it.’

Sam lifted her hands in an unconscious plea for him to listen. ‘All the more reason why this isn’t a good idea—it’s not even your permanent home. Milo is settled into a good routine where we are. We have a granny flat attached to the house and that’s where Bridie lives.’

Rafaele arched a brow. ‘His minder?’

Sam nodded. ‘She was my father’s housekeeper since I was two, after my mother died. She cared for me while I grew up and she stayed on after my father passed away two years ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rafaele offered stiffly, ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Thank you...’ Sam acknowledged. ‘The thing is,’ she continued while she had Rafaele’s attention, ‘Bridie has known Milo since he was born. She...helped me.’