Raffaele: Taming His Tempestuous Virgin

Bzzzz.

Ah-ha. The Saks delivery. Rafe bit back a smile, kissed the top of her head and eased her off his lap. “It’s the doorman. Must be a delivery. He’s authorized to sign for me but…” He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

But it wasn’t a delivery. It was, the doorman said, his brothers. Two of them, anyway. They had their own elevator keys and they’d gone straight by him. In fact, they were pressing the call bell right now and considering that Mr. Orsini and his lady guest had, um, had gone upstairs rather hastily.

Rafe slammed down the phone. He could hear the gentle hum of the car starting its descent.

Bewildered, he ran his hand through his hair. Two of his brothers. Nicolo and Falco, probably, unless Dante was back in town and—and what in hell did that matter? His brothers were on their way.

And Chiara was naked in his living room.

He ran to her. Took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

“Raffaele?”

“It’s okay,” he said as they raced up the stairs. “It’s just that my brothers are here.”

Her gasp almost suctioned all the air out of the stairwell. “Dio mio! Your brothers? But we are—”

“Right.” He shouldered open the door to his room, almost broke his neck tripping over the dozens of boxes and shopping bags piled on the floor. “I haven’t told them anything about—I haven’t said a word to anyone about—” He took a breath. “Just get dressed, baby, okay? I’ll handle the rest.”

“Get dressed in what? This is not my room, it is yours.”

“Yeah. Okay, but there’s stuff here.” He gestured at the packages. “The things you tried on this morning.”

“You bought it all?”

“Yes. So just grab something and—”

“But I told you—”

“This is no time to argue!” Rafe hurried into his dressing room, yanked on a pair of jeans, tugged a T-shirt over his head and heard Nick’s voice drifting up the stairs.

“Rafe? Are you up there, man?”

Chiara froze. So did he. “Raffaele?” she whispered.

Rafe shook his head, held up his hand. “I’ll be right down.”

“We’ll come up if—”

“No! No, that’s okay. I’m on my way.”

“Raffaele.” His wife was the color of cream. “My clothes…they are all over the living room!”

So were his. Damn. It was face-the-music time. A couple of minutes from now his brothers would know all about Chiara. That he had gone to Italy, that he had married her against his better judgment…

That he loved her.

The timing sucked. They’d know that last part before she did but what the hell, if there was one thing life had taught him, it was that you played the cards you were dealt even if they weren’t the ones you’d have preferred.

He took a couple of breaths, then went to the door.

“Raffaele, wait!”

Chiara flew to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, rose on her toes and kissed him. He took her by the wrists and drew her hands to her sides.

“We have to talk.”

He sounded more serious than she had ever heard him sound. The look in his eyes was serious, too. A chill swept through her.

“Talk about what, Raffaele?”

She saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.

“About us.” He lifted his hand as if he might cup her cheek but he didn’t. Instead he headed for the stairs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FALCO and Nick were on the terrace, deep in conversation.

Rafe knew they were talking about him. He hadn’t gone to the office in over a week. He’d shown up at The Bar and behaved like a crazy man, and today, again, he hadn’t shown up at work. Yeah. Well, okay. The sooner he told them what was going on, the better.

First he’d get rid of that telltale pile of clothes by the sofa. Maybe they hadn’t noticed it. He could just grab the stuff, like this, open a door of the built-in sound system and jam it all inside.

Good. Excellent. Now take another deep breath—he was becoming an expert at those—and join them on the terrace.

“Hi,” he said brightly.

His brothers turned toward him. They looked grim.

“Great idea, coming out here,” he said so cheerfully that he felt like a TV commercial. “The sun, the blue sky—”

“What’s going on?” Falco said.

“Going on?”

“You heard him,” Nick said. “What’s the deal with you?”

“No deal.” This was going to be harder than he’d thought. “I just…I just—”

“You haven’t come to the office in days.”