LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TEN

      THE FOLLOWING DAY Rafaele saw them off at the airport. They had been booked onto a scheduled flight home, albeit first class.

      Milo was confused and kept saying, ‘Why is Daddy not coming too, Mummy?’

      Sam repeated for the umpteenth time, praying that she wouldn’t start crying, ‘Because he has to work. We’ll see him again soon.’ Probably in a courtroom! she thought half hysterically.

      She’d gone straight to her bedroom last night when she’d got in, and locked the door. Not that Rafaele would be banging it down to get in. Rafaele’s cold proposal had shown her that nothing had changed. He wanted Milo and he merely saw her as a way to get to him.

      Once she’d said no to him he’d revealed his true colours. She felt sick to think that perhaps even the physical side of things had been a monumental act for him. Going through the motions so that he could use that as one more thing to bind them together.

      Sam caught a worried glance from Bridie and forced a smile. She couldn’t take Bridie’s maternal inquisitiveness now. Better that she think nothing was wrong and everything was as per schedule—Rafaele had told them on the flight over that he would be staying on in Rome for work. Sam’s head hurt when she thought of what would happen in the immediate future, with regard to Rafaele staying in her house.

      Rafaele had Milo in his arms and was saying in a low, husky voice that managed to pluck at Sam’s weak and treacherous heartstrings, ‘Ciao, piccolino. I’ll see you very soon.’

      Milo threw his small chubby arms around Rafaele’s neck and Rafaele’s eyes met Sam’s over Milo’s shoulder. His green gaze was as cold as ice and it flayed Sam. Their flight was called and she put her hands out for Milo. After a long moment he handed him over.

      Then Bridie was saying goodbye to Rafaele, and gushing again over her trip to the Vatican, and Sam was walking away towards the gate, feeling as if her heart was being ripped to pieces.

      * * *

      ‘I thought I might stay on here for a while, if you don’t mind?’

      Rafaele curbed the urge to snarl at his father. It had been a week since Sam and Milo had returned home and an aching chasm of emptiness seemed to have taken up residence in his chest.

      ‘Of course,’ he said curtly. ‘This is your home as much as mine.’

      The old man smiled wryly. ‘If it hadn’t been for you it would have remained in ruins, owned by the bank.’

      Rafaele said gruffly, ‘That’s not important. Everything is different now.’

      ‘Yes,’ Umberto said. ‘Milo is...a gift. And Sam is a good woman. She is a good woman for you, Rafaele. Real. Honest.’

      Rafaele emitted a curt laugh and said, ‘Don’t speak of what you don’t know, Papa. She kept my son from me for nearly four years.’

      Rafaele stood up from the dining table then and paced to the window. He’d only come back to Milan to check on the factory and now he felt rootless. He wanted to go back to England to see Milo but was reluctant because... Sam. She brought up so many things for him.

      ‘She must have had good reason to do so.’

      Yes, she did. You gave her every reason to believe you couldn’t wait to see the back of her.

      Rafaele’s conscience slapped him. It slapped him even harder when he thought of the resolve that had sat so heavily in his belly when he’d decided that he would have to let her go. Of her face when he’d confirmed that he didn’t want to see her any more. It was the same feeling he’d had in his chest the other night in the street.

      His jaw was tight as he answered his father. ‘Once again, it’s none of your business.’

      He heard his father’s chair move behind him but stayed looking out the window, feeling rigid. Feeling that old, old anger rise up even now.

      ‘I’m sorry, Rafaele...’

      Rafaele tensed all over and turned around slowly. ‘Sorry for what?’

      Umberto was looking at him, his dark gaze sad. ‘For everything. For being so stupid as to lose control of myself, for gambling away our fortune, for losing the business. For begging your mother not to leave in front of you... I know seeing that must have had an effect...’

      Rafaele smiled and it was grim, mirthless. It hid the awful tightening in his chest, which made him feel as if he couldn’t draw enough breath in. ‘Why did you do it? Why didn’t you just let her go? Why did you have to beg like that?’

      His father shrugged one shoulder. ‘Because I thought I loved her. But I didn’t really love her. I just didn’t know it then. I wanted her because she was beautiful and emotionally aloof. By then I’d lost it all. She was the one thing left and I felt that if she went too then I’d become vapour. Nothing.’

      Rafaele recalled his words as if it was yesterday. ‘How can you leave me? If you leave I’m nothing. I have nothing.’

      ‘I wanted you, you know,’ he said now in a low voice. ‘I wanted to take you back when I got a job and was making a modest living. But your mother wouldn’t let me near you. I was only allowed to see you on those visits to Athens.’

      Rafaele remembered those painfully tense and stilted meetings. His mother had been vitriolic in her disgust at the man who had once had a fortune and had lost it, compounding Rafaele’s sense of his father as a failure and compounding his own ambition to succeed at all costs.

      ‘Why are you telling me this now?’ Rafaele demanded, suddenly angry that his father was bringing this up.

      ‘Because I can see the fear in you, Rafaele. I know that it’s driven you to become successful, to build Falcone Industries from the ground up again. But you don’t have to be afraid. You’re not like me. You’re far stronger than I ever was. And you won’t do to Milo what I did to you. He will never see you weak and humiliated.’

      Rafaele felt dizzy now, because he knew that he did have the capacity to repeat exactly what his father had done. He’d almost done it the other evening, albeit not in front of his son. Thank God.

      Umberto wasn’t finished, though. ‘Don’t let fear ruin your chance of happiness, Rafaele. I lived with bitterness for a long time and it makes a cold bedfellow. You have proved yourself. You will never be destitute... Don’t be afraid to want more.’

      Rafaele saw his father then, slightly hunched, his face lined with a sadness he’d never truly appreciated before.

      ‘I’m not afraid,’ he said, half defiantly. But he knew it was a lie. He realised he was terrified.

      * * *

      ‘Come on, you, it’s time for bed.’

      ‘No. Don’t want to go to bed.’

      Sam sighed. Milo had been acting up ever since they’d got home, and every single day he asked for Rafaele.

      ‘Where’s my daddy? When is he coming back in the car? Why can’t we have a car? Where is Grandpapa?’

      Sam shared a look with Bridie, who was helping to clear up Milo’s things, just as the doorbell rang. They looked at each other and immediately Milo ran for the door, shrieking, ‘Daddy, Daddy!’

      Sam went after him, her heart twisting. ‘Milo, it won’t be him...’

      She pulled him back from the door and opened it, fully expecting to

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