Rafaello's Mistress

‘OK…’ Rafaello drawled in the silken tone of a male taking up a challenge without hesitation. ‘Yesterday you raced back to my office and fell into my arms—’

‘I did not fall into your arms, I was grabbed—’ Glory squeezed out between gritted teeth.

Rafaello ignored that contradiction. ‘If I hadn’t called time I do believe we would’ve had sex in the lift—’

‘Speak for yourself!’ Glory launched at him in strong chagrin. ‘I don’t behave like that—’

‘Don’t you?’ Rafaello vented a derisive laugh. ‘When you burst in here I thought some maniac had decided to treat me to a strippergram!’

‘A…what?’ Glory gasped in dismay.

‘Dressed like that you look like a cheap little scrubber.’ Rafaello skimmed her a brooding scrutiny and his hard sensual mouth twisted. ‘Not my style; a definite turn-off.’

Veiling her stricken gaze, Glory dropped her head and gulped in sustaining air like a drowning swimmer. Hurt and humiliated by that blunt assessment, she had to bite back the impulsive words rising to her lips. She could not afford to antagonise Rafaello when her brother’s whole future rested in his hands. A taut silence stretched while she fought an almost overwhelming urge to tell him what he could do with his uninvited opinions. So she had got the outfit wrong. But then, what had he expected? Some classy designer number? Never had the gap between her world and his seemed as great as it did at that moment.

‘Since you’re lousy at getting to the point, isn’t it fortunate that I can work out exactly what you’re doing here?’ Rafaello remarked drily.

Prompted, Glory glanced up, her lovely face tense with strain. Brilliant dark eyes slammed into hers and she trembled, her mouth running dry. ‘I’m certain that Sam didn’t steal that snuff box, but I know things don’t look good for him and that it’ll be very hard to prove that he’s innocent. You did say that if you got the box back you might consider not pressing charges—’

‘Only I was talking about it being returned voluntarily,’ Rafaello contradicted with chilling cool. ‘Not found during a police search.’

Glory had not really had any hope that he would not make that distinction but she had felt that she ought to try out that angle. ‘All right…’ she breathed unevenly. ‘So if you can still get the charges dropped, well…I’ll do whatever you want.’

Rafaello strolled soundlessly over to the windows before swinging back round to look at her again, his lean, strong face intent. ‘I can have the theft charge withdrawn but how do I know that you’ll respect your side of the agreement?’

At the news that the charge of theft could still be withdrawn, a little colour eased back into Glory’s complexion. But she was strung so high with tension that even her knees had begun to wobble. ‘Whatever you think of me, I’m not a cheat or a liar.’

Rafaello scanned her with unreadable dark eyes. ‘My father certainly had no grounds for complaint after the bargain he struck with you. Unless I’m very much mistaken, it has been five years since you set foot on Grazzini land. You can’t have seen much of your father and your brother since then.’

Was that actually a hint of censure that she was hearing? Sam and Glory talked on the phone most weeks. For the first couple of years she had lived in Gloucester with her father’s sister and she had often seen her family. But when her aunt passed away, Glory had had to move further north to find employment, and inevitably the frequency of their meetings had declined. No longer could Glory feel that she was as close to her younger brother as she had once been. Acknowledging that truth, she felt hugely bitter at the damage that Benito Grazzini had cruelly inflicted on her small family circle.

‘Living a couple of hundred miles away hasn’t exactly been a help,’ Glory said defensively. ‘We don’t all have limos and private jets to get around in.’

‘But you will have for as long as you’re with me.’ Losing interest in the subject that he himself had raised, Rafaello studied her with a reflective all-male intensity that sent fresh pink flying into her cheeks. ‘You can take your coat off. I assume you’re staying tonight.’

Glory froze. ‘Tonight?’

Rafaello dealt her a lazy mocking smile. ‘Were you waiting for me to schedule in a date for next month?’

‘But tonight…for goodness’ sake!’ Glory was seriously challenged to maintain any form of cool when she realised how soon he was expecting her to meet and deliver on the terms of their agreement. ‘After this I was planning to go and see Dad and Sam and surprise them.’

‘Surprise me instead,’ Rafaello invited softly. ‘If your family aren’t expecting you, you’ll find yourself facing some awkward questions. I’ll have the theft charge dropped and I’ll personally inform your father of that decision this evening.’

‘That’s great,’ Glory told him gratefully. ‘But—’

‘You will be flying out to Corfu tomorrow,’ Rafaello cut in quietly.

‘Tomorrow? Corfu?’ Her blue eyes had widened to their fullest extent. He was expecting her to go abroad? ‘Are you crazy? I have a job, a home and a whole bunch of stuff to sort out before I can go anywhere—’

‘I’ll have someone clear your bedsit, settle any final bills and inform your landlord and your employer that you’re not coming back. It’s not a problem.’

‘Well, it is a problem for me. I can do all those things for myself within a couple of days,’ Glory argued in a flustered but insistent undertone. ‘But if you’re expecting me to go abroad with you I want to see my family tonight.’

‘If you walk out on me one more time you can forget about walking back in again.’

The silence shimmered like the menacing quiet before a storm. Chilled by that cold threat that cut unmercifully through her every argument, Glory studied Rafaello in genuine shock.

Rafaello gazed back at her with hard dark eyes that had no shade of lighter emotional gold.