Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee
left home for college and still sported dusky pink rose wallpaper.
The faded décor now seemed to scream out her innermost teenage fantasies of not being the school nerd, of her deeply secret wish to be just like all the other girls. No wonder Rafaele had seduced her so easily. He’d unwittingly tapped into the closet feminine romantic that Sam had repressed her whole life in a bid to be accepted by her father, turning herself into a studious tomboy.
Aghast to be thinking of this now, she swallowed her mortification, reached past Rafaele and pulled the door firmly closed in his face. Then she led him to his room.
Thankfully it was at the other end of the house from her room and Milo’s, which was opposite hers. And, even better, it had an en suite bathroom. After that cataclysmic moment in the university the other day she had no intention of running into a half-naked Rafaele on his way to the bathroom.
Rafaele barely gave the room a cursory once-over. As she led him back downstairs Sam sent up another silent prayer that he was already chafing to get back to his own rarefied world, where his every whim was indulged before he’d even articulated it out loud.
Bridie had indeed set out tea and coffee in the front room. Sam poured coffee and handed it to him, watching warily as he sat down on the comfy but decidedly threadbare sofa.
He looked around, taking in the homely furnishings. ‘You have a nice house.’
Sam took a seat as far away from Rafaele as possible. She all but snorted. ‘Hardly what you’re used to.’
He levelled her a look that would have sent his minions running. ‘I’m not a snob, Samantha. I may have had a privileged upbringing, but when I set out to resurrect Falcone Industries I had nothing but the shirt on my back. I lived in an apartment the size of your porch and worked three jobs to put myself through college.’
Sam frowned, a little blindsided by this revelation. ‘But your stepfather—he was a Greek billionaire...’
Rafaele’s mouth twisted. ‘Who hated my guts because I wasn’t his son. The only reason he put me through school at all was because of my mother. He washed his hands of me as soon as he could and I paid him back every cent he’d doled out for my education.’
He’d never told her this before—had always shied away from talking about personal things. She’d always assumed that he’d been given a hand-out to restart Falcone Industries. It was one of the most well-documented resurrections of a company in recent times. Spectacular in its success. She recalled his mother ringing from time to time, and their clipped conversations largely conducted in Spanish, which was her first language.
At a loss to know what to say, Sam went for the easiest thing. ‘How is your mother?’
Rafaele’s face tightened almost imperceptibly but Sam noticed.
‘She died three months ago. A heart attack.’
‘I’m 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