LITMIR.BIZ

       PROLOGUE

      RAFAELE FALCONE LOOKED at the coffin deep inside the open grave. The earth they’d thrown in was scattered on top, along with some lone flowers left by departing friends and acquaintances. Some of them had been men, inordinately upset. Evidently there was some truth to the rumours that the stunning Esperanza Christakos had taken lovers during her third marriage.

      Rafaele felt many conflicting emotions, apart from the obvious grief for his dead mother. He couldn’t say that they’d ever had a close relationship; she’d been eternally elusive and had carried an air of melancholy about her. She’d also been beautiful. Beautiful enough to send his own father mad with grief when she left him.

      The kind of woman who’d had the ability to make grown men completely lose all sense of dignity and of themselves. Not something that would ever happen to him. His single-minded focus was on his career and rebuilding the Falcone motor empire. Beautiful women were a pleasant diversion—nothing more. None of his lovers were ever under any illusions and expected nothing more than the transitory pleasure of his company.

      His conscience pricked at this confident assertion—there had only been one lover who had taken him close to the edge but that was an experience he didn’t dwell on...not any more.

      His half-brother, Alexio Christakos, turned to him now and smiled tightly. Rafaele felt a familiar ache in his chest. He loved his half-brother, and had done from the moment he’d been born, but their relationship wasn’t easy. It had been hard for Rafaele to witness his brother growing up, sure in the knowledge of his father’s success and support—so different from his own experience with his father. He’d felt resentful for a long time, which hadn’t been helped by his stepfather’s obvious antipathy towards the son that wasn’t his.

      They both turned and walked away from the grave, engrossed in their own thoughts. Their mother had bequeathed to both her sons her distinctive green eyes, although Alexio’s were a shade more golden than Rafaele’s striking light green. Rafaele’s hair was thicker and a darker brown next to his brother’s short-cut ebony-black hair.

      Differing only slightly in height, they were both a few inches over six foot. Rafaele’s build was broad and powerful. His brother’s just as powerful, but leaner. Dark stubble shadowed Rafaele’s firm jawline today, and when they came to a stop near the cars Alexio observed it, remarking dryly, ‘You couldn’t even clean up for the funeral?’

      The tightness in Rafaele’s chest when he’d stood at the grave was easing slightly now. He curbed the urge to be defensive, to hide the vulnerability he felt, and faced his brother, drawling with a definite glint in his eye, ‘I got out of bed too late.’

      He couldn’t explain to his brother how he’d instinctively sought the momentary escape he would find in the response of an eager woman, preferring not to dwell on how his mother’s death had made him feel. Preferring not to dwell on how it had brought up vivid memories of when she’d walked out on his father so many years ago, leaving him a broken man. He was still bitter, adamantly refusing to pay his respects to his ex-wife today despite Rafaele’s efforts to persuade him to come.

      Alexio, oblivious to Rafaele’s inner tumult, shook his head and smiled wryly. ‘Unbelievable. You’ve only been in Athens for two days—no wonder you wanted to stay in a hotel and not at my apartment...’

      Rafaele pushed aside the dark memories and quirked a mocking brow at his brother, about to dish out some of the same, when he saw a latecomer arrive. The words died on his lips and Alexio’s smile faded as he turned to follow Rafaele’s gaze.

      A very tall, stern-faced stranger was staring at them both. And yet...he looked incredibly familiar. It was almost like looking into a mirror. Or at Alexio...if he had dark blond hair. It was his eyes, though, that sent a shiver through Rafaele. Green, much like his and Alexio’s, except with a slight difference—a darker green, almost hazel. Another take on their mother’s eyes...? But how could that be?

      Rafaele bristled at this stranger’s almost belligerent stance. ‘May we help you?’ he asked coolly.

      The man’s eyes flickered over them

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