Rafaello's Mistress

‘Don’t be so pious. I’m finally getting a good look at my younger son for the first time in my life,’ Benito said hoarsely, studying Sam where he stood with unashamed intensity and moving forward to address him direct. ‘Always when I’ve seen you before I was afraid to stare in case I betrayed myself. I didn’t even know you were here in this house. I came to talk to your sister this evening.’

Rafaello expelled his breath in an impatient hiss. ‘I’ve already told you how I feel about that—’

‘Your father can talk to me if he wants to,’ Glory cut in. ‘Anything’s got to be better than all this bad feeling and awkwardness.’

‘Yes, Rafaello.’ Benito Grazzini backed her up. ‘No need at all for you to fly home and come racing down here to protect Glory. We’re all family now, or we will be by Friday, and we’ve got to mend fences as best we can. Come down and join us, Sam. But if you don’t want to, that’s all right too.’

‘You talk even more than Rafaello does.’ Sam surveyed his birth father with grudging fascination. ‘It must be hard to get a word in edgeways.’

‘Why do you think I shout?’ Rafaello groaned, curving an arm round Glory’s slight figure, and only then as he drew her back against him did she realise that she was trembling. ‘Sorry, didn’t know you were within hearing distance. I just didn’t want Benito upsetting you, cara.’

One by one they all filed into the drawing room, where there was lots of space for people who might not want to be too close together. As soon as Glory had seated herself, Benito sank down on a sofa. Sam hovered way back by one of the windows and Rafaello took up what could only be described as a combative stance by the imposing fireplace. In his well-cut dark pinstripe suit, his black hair slightly tousled, his stunning eyes semi-screened by his lush black lashes above his smooth olive cheekbones, Glory really had to work hard at dredging her attention from him.

‘So where and how do we start?’ Benito enquired.

‘I’d like to know the truth about you and Mum,’ Glory told the older man, her strained gaze skimming over him fast and away again. ‘She’s gone and I can’t ask her. But please be honest.’

‘Are you out of your mind to be asking that?’ Rafaello demanded.

‘If I’d had the guts I’d have asked for her.’ Sam sent his sister a wry glance of appreciation.

Benito squared his broad shoulders. ‘Talitha and I both had what we thought were happy marriages. Then we met and discovered that there was more. She was the love of my life and with her I felt complete.’

‘Are you serious?’ Glory lifted her head to prompt, utterly taken aback by that speech.

The older man was watching Rafaello, whose shaken expression was revealing, and with a troubled frown he turned his attention back to Gl

ory. ‘We did love each other, and for a while the rest of the world just did not exist. We were very selfish and I can’t pretend otherwise. When Talitha told me she was carrying my child I asked Rafaello’s mother, Carina, for a divorce and perhaps only then did I appreciate how much pain I had already caused.’

‘Oh…’ Glory stole an anxious glance at Rafaello to see how he was taking what appeared to be news to him as well. His father had been prepared to divorce his mother? Her heart went out to the man she loved when she saw his eyes veil and his strong bone-structure clench tight. ‘I don’t think we should talk about this. I was stupid even suggesting that we did—’

‘No.’ This time it was Rafaello who disagreed. ‘I need to hear this too. I only wish I had heard the whole story three months sooner,’ he told his father.

‘You were too furious to listen. As I confessed to you then, Carina had a breakdown,’ Benito said in weighted continuance, scrutinising the rug on the floor with fixed interest, guilt and grim regret emanating from him in waves. ‘I can’t even say I saw my duty then. It was Talitha who said we must finish, that we had no right to cause so much pain, that we each had children to consider…and, no matter how hard I tried to change her mind, she wouldn’t see me or speak to me again.’

‘Mum was like concrete when she made up her mind about anything,’ Sam conceded in the strained silence that had fallen.

‘You got ditched by a Little too,’ Rafaello drawled in the most curious of tones, surveying his brooding parent with an air of surprise and sympathy.

‘I thought you were a sleazebag who hit on my mother just for fun,’ Sam told Benito in an embarrassed rush. ‘But I can see it wasn’t like that. You got hurt too.’

Benito rose upright and threw back his shoulders. Fixing his attention squarely on his eldest son, he said bluntly, ‘Before I wear out my welcome I must admit to what I did to Glory five years ago—’

‘Oh, never mind about that,’ Glory broke in hastily, feeling that Rafaello had had a ghastly enough experience being forced to listen to how his mother, Carina, had only held on to Benito because her mother had ended their affair.

Rafaello pulled away from the fireplace, lean dark features taut, dark eyes glittering. ‘I mind…’

‘You’re getting into stuff that’s nothing to do with me.’ Sam spread an uneasy glance round his tense companions. ‘I’ll be down robbing the fridge if anyone wants me. I’m starving.’

Some of Benito’s tension ebbed. ‘Does Sam know?’ he asked Glory.

‘No, and I won’t tell him.’

‘You did threaten to sack Glory’s father, didn’t you?’ Rafaello studied the older man with incredulous contempt. ‘Glory’s been telling the truth all along and you lied to me. Why?’

Benito grimaced. ‘Your mother was still alive. I couldn’t face your bringing Talitha’s daughter home to meet Carina. She couldn’t have coped with that. It was too close. There was the secrecy over Sam too. I was afraid of everything coming out and of Sam’s home-life being wrecked…and I panicked.’

‘What right did you have to visit your mistakes on my life?’ Rafaello derided.