Rafaello's Mistress

The knock on the door and the rattle of approaching china came as a welcome interruption. Obviously coffee was always on offer at the speed of light: a tray sitting already prepared and some fancy machine ready to dispense the hot, viciously strong brew he favoured. Her mind was going all over the place again. He never had taken to her herbal tea, Glory recalled dimly.

‘You were saying…?’ As a china cup and saucer were slid onto the small table that had appeared by her elbow by someone she did not even have the time to look at, Rafaello returned to his rather forbidding concept of casual chat.

‘Was I?’ Glory reached for the coffee. ‘Oh, yes, where I work. A factory—’

‘What kind of factory?’

‘Well…it’s nothing very interesting…’

Brilliant dark eyes settled on her. ‘You might be surprised at what interests me.’

Glory jerked a slight shoulder in submission and her coffee slopped out of the cup into the saucer. ‘The factory makes polystyrene for packaging and all sorts of other things…’

Rafaello continued to observe her as though her every word was fascinating. ‘And what do you do there?’

‘I pack it…the polystyrene. Sometimes I do other jobs—’

Rafaello was studying her with intense concentration. ‘And for how long have you been thrilling to the excitement of the factory floor?’

‘Look, it’s not exciting but I work alongside a nice bunch of people and the pay’s not bad.’ Her beautiful eyes reflecting reproach at that tone of sarcasm, Glory coloured. ‘I’ve been there two years.’

‘Forgive me for asking, cara,’ Rafaello drawled softly, ‘but what happened to your burning ambition to become a model?’

Glory paled and stiffened. ‘It wasn’t exactly a burning ambition. As you know, I had that offer and it…well, it just didn’t pan out—’

‘Why not?’

The pink tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten the taut line of her lower lip. She was extremely uncomfortable with his line of questioning and dismayed by the extent of his interest. His dark gaze dropped to her soft, full mouth and lingered with visible force. Sudden tension seemed to make the atmosphere sizzle. She felt her lips tingle as if he were touching them and her breathing seemed to choke off at source. Her bra felt too tight for her full breasts and her nipples pinched tight into straining buds of sensitivity. In dismay, she began sipping at the coffee she didn’t want with a hand that shook. Please no, she was praying, please, no, don’t let me be feeling like this again…

‘Why not?’ Rafaello persisted without remorse. ‘Why didn’t the modelling offer work out?’

He was going to dig and dig until he hit paydirt, Glory registered in mortification, and so she decided to just be honest. ‘It wasn’t the kind of modelling I wouldn’ve done. It was what they call “glamour” stuff…you know…like where you take your clothes off for the camera, rather than put clothes on?’

Rafaello surveyed her steadily, not a muscle moving on his darkly handsome face.

‘So they asked you to get your kit off…and you said no? Didn’t they offer you enough money?’

Glory looked at him in considerable embarrassment. ‘The money had nothing to do with it. I just wasn’t prepared to do that sort of stuff—’

Rafaello dealt her a look of derision. ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower of rain, cara. Are you or are you not the woman my father bought off with five thousand pounds?’

At that unexpected question, Glory turned whiter than his shirt and stared back at him in horror. As her fingers involuntarily loosened their grip on the saucer it fell clean out of her hand. The cup tipped and she gasped as coffee went flying over the perfect pale carpet.

‘Si…yes,’ Rafaello confirmed as the spilt liquid flowed over the expensive fibres in a spreading stain and she just stared fixedly at it, paralysed where she sat. ‘Naturally my father told me what it cost to persuade you that I was not, after all, the love of your life. And it was a fitting footnote to our relationship. A lousy five grand when you could have had ten, twenty, thirty times that for the asking. But I guess five grand seemed like a small fortune to you then.’

Glory was still watching the seeping pool of coffee. She was appalled that he had found out about that payment. She felt sick. She was in an agony of shame. Rafaello knew, Rafaello knew about the money. ‘He said it would be a secret, he said you would never know…’ she mumbled strickenly.

‘Dio mio…do you believe everything you’re told?’ Rafaello murmured with a cruel enjoyment that she could feel like a knife plunging between her ribs. ‘I was amused—’

‘Amused?’ Folding her arms over her churning tummy, Glory gazed up at him in shaken disbelief.

‘My father acting like some clumsy Victorian squire trying to pay off a maidservant he saw as a threat to family unity. So unnecessary,’ Rafaello mused. ‘I never entertained a single serious thought about our relationship. But I wasn’t amused when you took the money like the greedy little gold-digger he said you were. That was cheap and inexcusable.’

Glory sat there as if she were turned to stone. She said nothing. She had nothing to say, for, as the money had not been returned, she could not defend herself. It would scarcely help her father’s case if she was now to confide that Archie Little had refused to allow her to destroy that cheque. Indeed, he had taken her to the bank that same day and the money had been transferred into his account. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, he had said when she argued with him. If she was being forced to leave home to please Benito Grazzini, her father had believed that he was due some compensation. Deprived of her help in the household, not to mention the extra money her job brought in, how was he to manage?

A greedy little gold-digger? So that was how Rafaello had learned to think of her over the past five years. True bitterness scythed through Glory. She thought of the games rich people played and the damage they could wreak. Their money could give them the power to bully smaller people and make them do what they didn’t want to do. She had left home because her father’s job and his very survival had been at stake and for no other reason. It seemed bitterly ironic that she was now facing Rafaello again for much the same reason.

She squared her shoulders and veiled her eyes. ‘Now that you’ve told me what you think of me, can we discuss why I asked for this appointment?’