Rafaello's Mistress

In the space of three weeks, her appearance had been transformed. She had swallowed her pride and allowed Rafaello to buy her clothes. Why? She had very wounding memories of never, ever having had the right clothes when she was seeing him five years earlier. Telling herself then that such superficial things shouldn’t matter had been cold comfort when she stuck out like a sore thumb in company. Neither she nor her friends had owned the kind of outfits worn by the women who were part of Rafaello’s world: the casual but oh-so-smart separates, the fashionable but understated garments that none the less screamed their designer tags. She had been tortured by fears that her appearance and her visible inability to blend in was an embarrassment to him.

Now sheathed in a Versace dress, purchased from one of the designer outlets that Corfu town offered the rich who flocked to the island over the summer, she had no such fear. The sleek dress was a magical shade somewhere between green and blue and with every movement and change of light the wonderful fabric seemed to change colour. It made her feel like a million dollars and gave her confidence.

Her thick mane of hair had been tamed and styled to fall back from her face. While she was in that exclusive salon she had taken advantage of the opportunity to be made up and had watched and learned and bought everything that was used with the gold credit card Rafaello had given her. So now she knew all about highlighting her cheekbones and using a subtle glimmer of different shadows on her eyelids. What had amused her most was the discovery of just how much work was involved in attaining that sun-kissed and wholly deceptive natural look.

Silver drop earrings with turquoise inserts hung from her ears. A silver watch encircled her wrist. Now Rafaello was set on buying her an elaborate choker. He had tried to tempt her into gold and diamonds and she had just laughed. She loved silver, and when she left she could take the silver jewellery with her without feeling bad about it, for on his terms such items cost next to nothing even in the most expensive shops. But there would be precious memories bound up in her possession of every piece. Memories she would share with their child on some distant day in the future. Her lovely face shadowing at a reality she had only had confirmed beyond doubt the day before, Glory thought back to the daunting but telling exchange she had shared with Rafaello several days earlier…

That particular morning, she had wakened feeling off-colour. As her period had already been slightly overdue, the nausea she was experiencing had reawakened her fear that she might be pregnant but she had decided that there was no point in involving Rafaello in her worries before there was any actual proof. After all, she had heard friends say that even a change of climate or a different diet could interfere with a woman’s cycle.

However, when Rafaello had teasingly called her lazy for lying in bed so late, stress had provoked Glory into a snappish reply. ‘Look, I’m just not feeling that great… OK?’

‘Is it that time of the month?’ Rafaello had queried with a frown, his sudden tension pronounced.

By putting her on the spot like that before she knew how matters stood herself, he had disconcerted and embarrassed her. ‘Probably…yes…’ she had responded hurriedly, picking up on his tension and telling herself that in all likelihood she was worrying herself unnecessarily.

‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?’ Rafaello had commented with a brilliant smile that seemed to accentuate his relief with cruel efficiency. ‘At least you’re not pregnant, bella mia.’

Once he had made that assumption and once she had witnessed his relief, wild horses could not have dragged the real truth from her. Forty-eight hours afterwards she had made a covert visit to a doctor in town and had learned that she was indeed in the very early stages of pregnancy. In choosing not to tell Rafaello, she had made the right decision, she told herself bracingly. Neither marriage nor a termination was on the cards and no way would she put him through the hypocrisy of attempting a supportive role in a pregnancy which he had so patently not wanted to happen. That would hurt her too much. After all, what did she really have left but her pride?

‘Glory…?’ The laughter in Rafaello’s dark, deep drawl dragged her back to the present.

Pasting a determined and bright smile back onto her downcurved lips, Glory finally turned away from the shop mirror.

‘I gather you like it.’ Rafaello sent her a vibrant smile of amusement and she realised that, having interpreted her long silence as sheer appreciation, he had already paid for the choker.

‘It’s really beautiful.

But not one quarter as beautiful as him, Glory reflected helplessly, scanning his lean, dark, devastating face with dreamy eyes of appreciation. Not once in five years had she known such happiness as she had experienced with him in recent weeks. She could not bring herself to destroy what had been a time of enchantment with the brutally realistic and unwelcome announcement that she was going to have his baby.

So if she was a bit sad now it was only to be expected. What goes around comes around. She had been right, he had been wrong and, whether he knew it or not, their time together was slowly running out. Her body was already changing with pregnancy. The speed of that development filled her with both fascination and fear. Her breasts were tender and the mere smell of certain foods made her nauseous. But surely she could manage to conceal those facts for another few weeks?

Linking sure fingers with hers, Rafaello walked her down the steep steps outside the shop and back into the colourful lively crowds passing through the narrow street. She adored Corfu town: the legacy of tall Italianate buildings adorned with shutters and balconies left behind by four centuries of Venetian rule, the buzz of the streets and cafés, the array of fascinating shops filled with silver, olive wood, needlework and leather-craft items. Even the locals came out to promenade round their town during the long evenings.

‘I suppose now we head for your favourite place,’ Rafaello commented lazily.

‘If you don’t mind…’

A Frenchman had built the Liston as a copy of the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. The arched façade filled with fashionable cafés overlooked a lush green cricket pitch surrounded by trees. She adored sitting there to watch the world go by with Rafaello by her side.

‘Why do people keep on staring at us?’ she had asked uncomfortably on her first visit.

‘You are a very beautiful woman.’ His amused but appreciative smile that she should even ask such a question had dissolved the insecure feelings she always struggled to hide from him and made her heart sing. She had a desperate need to believe that she could look like the sort of woman who belonged with him.

While Rafaello ordered wine for himself Glory pored over the ice-cream menu to make her selection. Then she rested back in her comfortable seat to survey him, torn between pain and pleasure. He was a visual joy to her from the crown of his gleaming dark head to the soles of his feet. Nothing about him jarred. She was so much in love with him, she could have shouted it from the rooftops. But, denied that outlet, she burned with inner intensity and quailed in torment at the prospect of tearing herself from him.

Suppressing that miserable awareness, Glory made herself dwell instead on the wonderful days they had shared and the endless nights of mutual passion. One day drifting into the next, seamless, timeless, marred by only the rarest disagreement and resealed by the fastest reconciliations on record. He had taught her to swim but had made several biting comments when he finally realised that she still preferred drifting round the villa pool in a large plastic ring like an overgrown child or just sitting at the foot of the Roman steps, submerged but safe. Only when he had appreciated the fear of deep water that she had overcome initially only for his benefit had he appreciated the level of her achievement. He thought her ring was cute now. He didn’t laugh when she just paddled down on the beach either.

She would carry away memories of wandering through the cool, shaded orchards that surrounded the villa, endlessly talking while they picked a path through the lush green trees laden with velvety peaches, tangerines and cherries beneath the burning blue sky. She would remember the glittering white of the sand-dunes at noon and the dark atmospheric richness of the church dedicated to the island’s revered St Spyridon. But most of all she would cherish the reality that he had never once called her his mistress or treated her with anything less than respect.

‘If you don’t start talking soon about what’s bothering you, cara mia,’ Rafaello murmured with his lustrous dark golden eyes fixed to her with magnetic probing force, ‘I’m likely to get annoyed with you.’

Glory froze as if he had turned a gun on her, dismayed that her façade of contentment had not been as good as she had imagined. It really shook her that he had evidently noted a change in her behaviour.

‘Not that annoyed,’ Rafaello groaned with rueful amusement.

‘I just don’t know why you should think there’s anything bothering me,’ Glory said tautly and she shrugged for good measure, but one of her hands had found its way down to her still flat tummy under the table.

‘You are not a naturally silent woman but for the last few days it’s been as though you’re not quite with me any more, mia preziosa. So what’s wrong? Is it your family? You never mention them but possibly that’s because you’re missing them.’ Rafaello regarded her expectantly.