Rafaello's Mistress

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Glory absorbed this very different viewpoint of her past history with Rafaello with some difficulty.

  ‘Why else did he suggest I should move in here if not so that if you took some crazy notion of legging it before the wedding I could warn him?’

  Glory walked slowly downstairs again. Rafaello, afraid that she might get cold feet? Her susceptible heart flowered as though the sun had come out to warm it. Rafaello had been abroad for a solid week and she had left London only the evening before. He had flown from Rome to New York, where he seemed to be working eighteen-hour days. He called her most days but their conversations had been horribly impersonal. Furthermore, Rafaello had not referred to their wedding once since she had told him to mind his own business when he had asked her if she had bought a white dress. But oh, yes, Glory was eager to think that Rafaello might care enough about her to feel even a tiny bit insecure.

  Then, as more rational thought kicked in, her face fell at dramatic speed. Of course, Rafaello wasn’t insecure. But what a wonderfully devious and touching story he had dreamt up to persuade Sam to move even temporarily into Montague Park. Sam had until now been insisting that when he left Joe’s house he wanted to return to the cottage even though it was currently empty. Yet in one easy move Rafaello had got their mutual brother beneath a Grazzini roof by lowering the macho front and asking for help and support that he didn’t need!

  Archie Little would not be released from hospital until the day before the wedding. Maud had stayed on in London by his side. Both her father and her future stepmother had accepted the early-retirement package that Rafaello had offered them. Not his idea either but Maud’s. Rafaello had already thrown a team of workmen into a house in the village owned by the estate. A cosy home all on one floor. He was planning to sign it over to Archie and Maud when they married along with a small car. He was very generous, very thoughtful, Glory acknowledged, dashing tears from her eyes. She had to be the most spoilt woman in the world to think she could have love as well as passion, romance as well as kindness.

  Here she was with a sheaf of gold credit cards, the ability to move between three different dwellings that she knew of and very possibly more, and he was gorgeous and she loved him to death. So what if he still believed she had sold him down the river for five thousand pounds when she was eighteen? He no longer seemed to care. And if he had been telling the truth when he had said that he would kill Benito if he believed her version of events was the correct one, well, there were enough family divisions without that development, weren’t there?

  Mopping her damp face with a tissue, she sat down with a maternity magazine to read articles about future motherhood that were now of absorbing interest to her. While she was scrutinising outrageously expensive but very cute items of baby apparel with dreaming eyes she heard the front door slam and then voices filtering in from the echoing hall. She stuffed the magazine behind a cushion because she was embarrassed about what had become a serious secret fix.

  ‘Santo cielo!’ thundered an intimidating masculine voice. ‘I am Benito Grazzini. Are you trying to tell me that I am no longer welcome in my son’s home?’

  Glory’s blood ran cold in her veins. Almost falling off the sofa in her haste, she raced over to the door to peer round it in horror. The new housekeeper, engaged by Jon Lyons, was striving to apologise and soothe. ‘It’s only that Mr Grazzini doesn’t want Miss Little to be disturbed—’

  ‘I’m not going to disturb her…I only want to see her!’ Benito Grazzini growled, hoving into view like a big, burly silver-haired bear. ‘Surely she’s not in bed at this hour?’

  Glory plastered herself up against the wall behind the door and stopped breathing. She did not even have to think about hiding—the urge came entirely naturally. So it was a further shock when the brief silence that fell was broken by yet another infinitely more familiar voice…Rafaello’s, raised in anger. Rafaello? Where had Rafaello come from? At that moment, Glory did not care. As far as she was concerned, he was like the cavalry, riding to her rescue. She recovered the courage to peek round the door again. By that time, Rafaello and his father were exchanging staccato bursts of charged Italian in anything but a friendly way. The sight distressed her, for she knew how close they had been, and she had to intervene.

  ‘Look…I don’t know what all this is about but please stop it,’ Glory pleaded anxiously, and in the abrupt silence that fell both men wheeled round to stare at her, wearing remarkably similar expressions of discomfiture. ‘Sam’s here and I’m sure you don’t want him to hear you shouting at each other like that.’

  ‘Are you kidding? This is as good as a soap opera. Family life in the raw, Grazzini-style!’ Sam mocked from his vantage point halfway down the sweeping staircase, his attention fully lodged on the older man. But her brother was very pale, one hand gripping the bannister so tight she could see his knuckles gleaming white beneath his skin.

  Sam must have been drawn by the racket. Glory almost groaned out loud, for she could not have pictured a worse way for Sam to meet his birth father for the first time.

  ‘Just typical.’ Rafaello shot his silenced parent an exasperated appraisal. ‘You come in like a bull at a gate in spite of all my advice.’

  ‘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.

  ‘None,’ his father admitted heavily. ‘But you and Glory had been dating such a short time, I thought that you’d soon forget each other. Obviously I was wrong on that score and probably I believed what it suited me to believe.’

  ‘If I can’t trust my own father, who can I trust?’ Rafaello shot at him in complete disgust.

  Benito was grey with strain. ‘I’m sorry. I was afraid that you would turn against me if you found out about Talitha and Sam.’

  As Benito walked heavily from the room Glory looked at Rafaello with pained eyes. ‘Go after him. My father wasn’t any keener on us dating back then. If I can forgive Benito, you can too. What are you so angry about anyway? You didn’t exactly break your heart when we went our separate ways!’

  ‘Do you think all Grazzinis wear their broken hearts on their sleeves?’ Rafaello demanded with a bitterness that took her aback. ‘My father destroyed our relationship. He lied to me about you and he threatened you…I could never forgive that!’

  ‘Then think of Sam,’ Glory told him in dismay. ‘Sam relies on you and he trusts you. If you’re at odds with Benito he’s going to want to know why.’

  ‘I am in no mood to overlook what we suffered through no fault of our own five years ago.’ Rafaello framed each word with harsh, angry clarity. ‘I loved you…I was devastated by what happened between us!’

  Glory gazed back at him with very wide eyes. ‘You…loved me? But you smiled at me when I said a clean break was the best idea—’

  ‘The more I feel, the more I hide.’ Brilliant dark eyes grim, Rafaello lifted his proud dark head high. ‘Do you think I would have let you see that you were hurting me? You spoke as though we’d only been casual friends, behaved as though I had never meant anything to you—’

  ‘I didn’t know how else to behave.’ Tears clogged Glory’s response, for it savaged her to think that she had hurt him without even realising the fact and tore her apart to credit that he too had cared. ‘I knew I loved you but we’d been together just a few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks was long enough. That night I delivered you home when you were sixteen, your mother actually warned me off,’ Rafaello revealed, his wide sensual mouth twisting at the memory. ‘As I was leaving I could not resist urging her not to be too hard on you and she saw through me—’

  ‘Mum warned you off?’ Glory exclaimed in astonishment.

  ‘I didn’t need the embargo. I didn’t need to be told that you were too young for me when I had seen it for myself. But your mother wanted to be sure that I knew that she knew I was interested in you even then—’

  ‘You were thinking about me that far back…?’ Glory was enchanted by that admission and she wound her fingers round his with a possessive confidence that she had never before felt with him. ‘I used to hide behind trees and watch you on your motorbike. All my mates knew I was mad about you. When I saw you that night in the bar—’

  ‘You made a real ass of yourself…but it was kind of sweet because it was all for my benefit,’ Rafaello commented. ‘And very funny—’

  ‘Funny?’ Glory had swallowed that first less than tactful comment but was unable to tolerate that final term.

  Rafaello sent her a sudden wicked grin. ‘You looked so beautiful but you hadn’t a clue how to flirt and it was like watching a ten-year-old trying to be a vamp, every move wildly exaggerated—’

  ‘It was the drink did that.’ Glory’s cheeks were scarlet. ‘But to get back to what you were saying earlier…if you loved me when I was eighteen, why did you set me up so horribly at the restaurant that night? Letting me turn up and see you snogging that redhead—?’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have been at all surprised had you sat down at the table with us and wished me well with her,’ Rafaello admitted without the remorse she had been hoping to hear. ‘That was one of the worst nights of my life—’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly the best night of mine!’ Glory pointed out with some heat. ‘And I’m still waiting for an apology because you were really cruel!’

  ‘I was cruel?’ Rafaello exclaimed in astonishment. ‘You ditch me and then you really turn the screw by expecting me to still spend the evening with you as though absolutely nothing has happened?’

  Glory thought about that angle and winced. ‘I just wanted to spend every last possible moment with you. I didn’t ditch you because I wanted to,’ she reminded him.

  ‘But I didn’t know that. A real coward would’ve said no to the prospect of that evening but I was set on proving that I could be as cool and unfeeling as you appeared to be…’ Rafaello hesitated, slight colour springing up over his taut cheekbones. ‘So I went home and got very, very drunk. I’m a Grazzini to the backbone where love is concerned. That night I was convinced my life was ruined—’

  Glory found his other hand, finding her hold on one was insufficient to demon
strate her need to proffer support and comfort. ‘You got…drunk?’

  ‘I arrived at the restaurant in advance of you, sat down and informed the entire table that I was planning to d-drink myself under it.’ Rafaello’s dark deep drawl shook with sudden amusement at the memory of that melodramatic announcement. ‘So all my friends were feeling hugely sorry for me and your name was being taken very much in vain. The redhead saw you arrive and just grabbed me. I suppose she was trying to help me save face—’

  ‘Rafaello,’ Glory muttered shakily, her hands releasing his fingers to work up his sleeves in little comforting squeezes. ‘I was stupid. Because I didn’t know you cared, I didn’t realize what I was putting you through. I can’t bear to think I hurt you—’

  ‘But I got healthily furious when Benito told me about the five grand a couple of days later.’ Rafaello gazed down at her with lustrous dark golden eyes that made her heart skip a beat. ‘And of course my father’s lies ensured that I wasn’t tempted to go after you—’

  ‘I just can’t believe that you loved me then.’ Her lovely face mirroring the strength of her regret, Glory released an unhappy sigh. ‘In fact, I just can’t bear that you loved me and we still lost each other—’

  Linking her caressing fingers round his neck, Rafaello backed her down onto the sofa. ‘It makes a big difference to me that you didn’t throw up what we had by choice, although I still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me what Benito was threatening to do.’

  ‘I didn’t have enough confidence to do that. It seemed to me that, no matter what happened, it would be my family that suffered, so it seemed wiser just to keep quiet. I love your eyes…’ Glory confided, her mind travelling off in another direction entirely as he rearranged her against the cushions. She was blissfully lost in the smouldering dark golden depths trained on her with hungry but tender intensity. ‘We’re going to be married in forty-eight hours and I can’t wait—’