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* * *
Rafaele stood for a long moment after Sam had left, his heart still racing. She had no idea how close he’d come to reaching for her, pulling her into him so that he could taste her again.
Sooner or later you’ll have to forgive me.
For the first time Rafaele didn’t feel the intense anger surge. Instead he thought of Sam’s stricken pale features that day in the clinic. He remembered his own sense of panic, and the awful shameful relief when he could run away, far and fast, and put Sam and the emotions she’d evoked within him behind him.
For the first time he had to ask the question: if he’d been in her position would he have done the same thing? If he’d believed that his baby was unwanted by one parent? It wasn’t so black and white any more. Rafaele had to admit to the role he’d played.
Completely unbidden a memory came to him of something Sam had told him one night while they’d been lying in bed. It was something he avoided like the plague—the post-coital intimacy that women seemed engineered to pursue—but this hadn’t been like that. Sam had started telling him something and then stopped. He’d urged her on.
It was her mention of her relationship with her father just a short while before that had brought it back to him. She’d told him then of how one night, when she’d been about six, she’d not been able to sleep. She’d come downstairs and found her father weeping silently over a picture of his late wife—Sam’s mother.
Sam had said, ‘He was talking to her...the picture...asking her what to do with me, asking her how he could cope because I was a girl. He said, “If she was a boy I’d know what to do...but I don’t know what to do or say to her.”’
Sam had sighed deeply. ‘So I went upstairs to the bathroom that night, found a pair of scissors and cut all my hair off. It used to fall to my waist. When our housekeeper saw me in the morning she screamed and dropped a plate.’
Sam’s mouth had twisted sadly. ‘My father, though, he didn’t even notice—too distracted with a problem he was trying to solve. I thought I could try to be a son for him...’
Rafaele could remember a falling sensation. Sam’s inherent lack of self-confidence in her innate sensuality had all made sense. He too had known what it was like to have an absentee father. Even though he’d spent time with his father growing up, the man had been so embittered by his wife leaving him that he’d been no use to Rafaele and had rarely expressed much interest in his son. In some small part Rafaele knew that even resurrecting the family car industry had been a kind of effort to connect with his father.
It had been that weekend that Rafaele had let Sam stay in his palazzo. It had been that weekend that he’d postponed an important business trip because he’d wanted her too much to leave. And it was after that weekend, once he’d gained some distance from her, that he’d realised just how dangerous she was to him.
And he’d just proved that nothing had changed. She was still just as dangerous and he must never forget it.
* * *
The following day Milo was practically bursting with excitement at being in Rafaele’s car. It was the latest model of the Falcone road car—the third to be rolled out since Rafaele had taken control of the bankrupt company.
It was completely impractical as far as children went, but Rafaele had surprised Sam. She’d seen that he’d got a child’s car seat from somewhere and had it fitted into the backseat. Every time Sam looked around Milo just grinned at her like a loon. She shook her head ruefully as Rafaele negotiated out of the driveway and onto the main road with confident ease.
Sam tried to ignore his big hands on the wheel and gearstick. But there was something undeniably sexy about a man who handled a car well—and especially one like this, which was more like an art form than a car. Rafaele was a confident driver, and not the kind of person who felt the need for speed just to impress.
Happy sounds were coming from the back of the car—Milo imitating the engine. Sam felt a flutter near her heart and blocked it out. Dangerous. She still felt tense after that impassioned exchange the previous evening. Predictably, she hadn’t been able to sleep well and she felt fuzzy now. She’d avoided looking directly at Rafaele this morning over breakfast, preferring to let Milo take centre stage, demanding the attention of this new, charismatic person in their midst.
Rafaele had seemed equally keen to be distracted, and Sam could only wonder if he’d taken anything of what she’d said to heart. Was he prepared to forgive her at all?
Sam noticed that Milo had gone silent behind them and looked back to see that he’d fallen asleep. Rafaele glanced her way and Sam quickly looked forward again, saying a little too breathlessly for her liking, ‘He was so excited about today... He doesn’t really nap any more but sometimes it catches up with him.’
She was babbling, and the thought of increased proximity to Rafaele when she started working with him tomorrow made her feel panicky. She steeled herself and turned to his proud profile. The profile of a great line of aristocratic Italian ancestors.
‘Look, Rafaele...about me working at the factory...’ She saw his jaw clench and rushed on. ‘You said yourself last night that you’re only doing it to keep me where you can see me. I can work perfectly well from the university. After last night I can’t see how our working together will improve things.’
His hands clenched on the wheel now, and Sam looked at them, so strong and large. She recalled how hot they’d felt exploring her body.
Distracted, she almost missed it when Rafaele said in a low voice, with clear reluctance, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t entirely true.’
Sam gulped and looked back at him. ‘It wasn’t?’ Somewhere a tiny flame lit inside her, and against every atom of self-preservation she couldn’t douse it.
‘After all,’ he reminded her, ‘I contacted you about working for me before I knew about Milo and you refused to listen.’
The panic she’d felt then was still vivid. ‘Yes,’ she said faintly. ‘I...it was a shock to hear from you.’
Rafaele slanted her a look and said dryly, ‘You don’t say.’ He looked at the road again. ‘But the fact remains that I knew about your research. You were mentioned in an article in Automotive Monthly and I realised that you were leading the field in research into kinetic energy recovery systems.’
The little flame inside Sam sputtered. Of course he hadn’t been motivated by anything other than professional interest. ‘I see,’ she responded. ‘And that’s why you wanted to contact me?’
Rafaele shrugged minutely, his broad shoulders moving sinuously under his leather jacket, battered and worn to an almost sensual texture. Dammit... Sam cursed herself. Why did everything have to return to all things physical even when he was wounding her with his words? She looked away resolutely.
