Millionaires: Rafaello's Mistress / Damiano's Return / Contract Baby

‘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—’