His Private Mistress Read online

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she whispered, a husky sob leaving her when he continued to stare down at her, his body held still. ‘What is it, Rafe—do you want to hear the words, do you want to hear me beg? All right,’ she threw at him, her anger suddenly matching his, ‘please don’t stop, please make love to me…Rafe.’ Her words were lost beneath his lips as with a muffled oath he initiated a kiss that drugged her senses, hot and passionate, demanding her response. She had no thought to deny him and kissed him back with a hunger that bordered on desperation, her body arching as he began to move within her, thrusting deeper and deeper, driving her to the edge, and she sobbed his name as he sent her hurtling over. He was right behind her, her name a savage imprecation torn from his throat as he slumped on top of her. But seconds later he rolled off the bed and marched into the ensuite, slamming the door behind him, and only then did she bury her head in the pillows, determined that he wouldn’t hear her cry.

  They had flown to Indianapolis on a chartered plane with the rest of the team rather than on his private jet, and on the journey home he avoided her, spending the time talking to the chief engineer. Eden was glad. They had nothing to say to one another, apart from goodbye, because he couldn’t have demonstrated more clearly that their relationship was over.

  As they were coming in to land he slid into the seat next to her and she instantly stiffened. He was invading her personal space and, worse still, the heat that emanated from his body and the clean, fresh scent of him made her want to bury her face against his chest.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked in a low, husky voice that even now did strange things to her insides. ‘I behaved like an animal last night and I…’ He hesitated and raked his hand through his hair. If he hadn’t been so damned arrogant, she would have sworn he felt awkward. ‘I should apologise.’

  ‘Well, don’t make a meal of it, I know how hard you find it to admit you’re in the wrong.’

  ‘I’m in the wrong?’ He bristled with outraged pride, and heads turned at the sound of his raised voice. With a supreme effort he took a deep, calming breath and tried again. ‘I’m trying to, how do you say, pour oil on the fire?’

  ‘The expression is pour oil on troubled waters—pour oil onto a fire and it’ll burn itself out, rather like our relationship, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘We need to talk,’ he muttered, and she gave a hollow laugh.

  ‘We needed to talk,’ she corrected. ‘It’s a bit late for that now. I don’t know what terrible crime I’ve committed to make you so brutal, but I refuse to play mind games. You won’t say what’s bugging you, and after last night I really don’t care any more.’

  He visibly flinched at the word ‘brutal,’ his eyes dark and tortured, and she quickly looked away, fighting the compassion that was seeping through her. He’d always had a hot temper, her mind pointed out. He was a volatile Latin male and his mood swings were legendary, but although he hadn’t hurt her physically last night, the mental wounds ran deep. She was his mistress, useful for only one thing, and she didn’t think she could live that way for much longer.

  At the airport they were whisked through Security but as they entered the main concourse she was blinded by flash bulbs as they were surrounded by a frenzied pack of Press reporters. It wasn’t an unusual situation—Rafe was a national hero in Italy, and he only had to sneeze and it was headline news—but today the paparazzi’s interest seemed to be focused on her.

  Rafe hurled a stream of instructions to his bodyguards as he slung his arm around her shoulders and hauled her close, practically carrying her across the vast hall, but the reporters dogged them insistently, snapping at their heels like a pack of hyenas. This was a side of journalism she loathed, Eden thought as someone thrust a copy of that day’s paper into her hands, and as she glanced at it the world tilted on its axis.

  It would be hard to find a more unflattering photograph of her, she thought sickly as she studied the front page. It had been taken on the steps of the hotel in Indianapolis. Rafe looked every inch the playboy heartthrob in his dinner suit, and she was slightly behind him, hanging on to his arm and staring up at him with bleary eyes. She looked drunk, she noted disgustedly, although in fact she had been tired and miserable and had just tripped over a step.

  Inside the front cover it got worse: pictures of her in her bikini that left little to the imagination and a horrific closeup of her scarred leg. But the photo that hurt most of all was the one taken in Venice. She was lying back in a gondola, seemingly smiling up at the camera, although in reality she’d been smiling at Rafe, and what had been one of the most romantic moments of their trip appeared tacky and distasteful. She looked like a hooker about to sell her wares.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she whispered, and Rafe snatched the paper out of her hands.

  ‘Ignore it, it means nothing.’

  ‘It means a lot to me—the pictures are horrible. I feel…defiled. I can’t imagine how they got hold of them. It’s as if someone was spying on us.’

  ‘The paparazzi are everywhere,’ he told her bluntly when they finally reached the car and the chauffeur opened the door for them to bundle in. ‘Their intrusion is just part of life.’

  ‘Not my life,’ she said quietly as she scanned the paper. She didn’t speak much Italian but the written word was easier to follow and it was quite obvious that the article was a scurrilous, no-holds-barred account of their love life.

  ‘Life in a goldfish bowl,’ he murmured almost to himself, and she frowned, trying to remember where she’d heard the phrase before.

  ‘They didn’t get hold of this information by chance. Someone must have fed it to them, tipped them off about our trip to Venice. But who knew about it—only me and you?’ She came to an abrupt halt, nausea churning in her stomach. For reasons she didn’t understand he had been angry with her, but he wouldn’t hurt her so cruelly, would he? ‘Rafe, you didn’t…?’

  ‘Madre de Dio! That you could think even for one minute that I would do such a thing emphasises how little trust there is between us,’ he said savagely.

  ‘Then who, Rafe? Because someone has tried to humiliate me and they’ve damn well succeeded. Who else knew we were going to Venice?’

  His father had known, whispered the insidious voice in Rafe’s head, and he furiously blanked it. Not his father, no way. Fabrizzio might have disapproved of his relationship with Eden four years ago, but things were different now; he’d demonstrated that at the dinner party when he’d been so friendly towards her.

  ‘Did you tell your father?’ They arrived at the villa and she followed him up the front steps, her face a mask of misery that tugged at his heart even as he angrily refuted her suggestion.

  ‘Leave my father out of this. Is it insecurity that makes you so jealous of my closeness to him, in the same way that you resented the bond I shared with Gianni?’

  ‘No,’ she denied furiously, ‘but he doesn’t like me. To him I’m just your whore.

  He told me that on the night of the dinner party,’ she added shakily, quailing at the bitter contempt in Rafe’s eyes.

  ‘Was that during the conversation I overheard, in which you told him you were prepared to prostitute yourself for the sake of a house—I assume the Dower House?’ he added silkily, and her legs buckled so that she collapsed in a heap on the marble floor of the hallway.

  He made no move towards her, simply stared, his face a mask of arrogant indifference, and she bit back a sob. ‘It wasn’t what you think,’ she whispered sadly. ‘Fabrizzio’s greatest fear is that you might choose to marry me rather than an upper-class Italian girl. I’m convinced he was behind Gianni’s lies four years ago and I was certain he’d try to break us up again. I was trying to convince him that I’m not a threat.’

  ‘You didn’t need to go to such extraordinary lengths, cara,’ he told her coldly.

  ‘I could have told him that myself. You’re the last woman on earth I’d choose for my wife.’

  Eden sat at the kitchen table and cried until the
tears ran dry and she was left with a pounding headache and red eyes. Rafe had disappeared into his office, the resounding slam of the door warning her she wouldn’t be welcome, but she had no intention of trying to speak to him. It would be a waste of time. She didn’t know exactly how much he had heard of her conversation with Fabrizzio, but obviously enough to condemn her without giving her the chance to explain how she really felt about him.

  The bitter truth was that he wasn’t interested and, even if she could find the evidence to prove Fabrizzio had been behind the Press tip-off, Rafe didn’t want to know. He was a Santini and he would defend his family above all else. He adored his father and even now, when her heart was in pieces, she couldn’t hurt him by forcing him to accept Fabrizzio’s darker side.

  ‘Signorina.’ A tentative voice broke through her misery and she forced a watery smile as Sophia set down a cup of frothy cappuccino in front of her. She had established a firm friendship with Rafe’s housekeeper but she was startled by the trace of tears on Sophia’s cheeks. ‘It is my fault,’ Sophia sobbed, followed by a stream of Italian that Eden couldn’t comprehend. ‘The newspaper stories are so unkind and you are so upset, and it is my fault, I think,’ Sophia managed to explain in her broken English.

  ‘But how?’ Eden queried gently. Sophia might have inadvertently revealed information about her life with Rafe to the media, but she would not have knowingly spoken to a reporter when she knew how much Rafe loathed the paparazzi.

  ‘Signor Santini—we were talking, joking a little about how you were always too busy to eat the meals I prepared,’ she confided with an embarrassed air. ‘And he was interested to know when you were going to Venice.’

  ‘Which Signor Santini?’ Eden asked carefully. Rafe had made the arrangements for the trip; he’d hardly have needed to discuss it with his housekeeper.

  ‘Signor Fabrizzio,’ Sophia whispered fearfully, glancing around the kitchen as she spoke, and Eden put a reassuring hand on her arm.

  ‘Thank you for telling me. I promise you won’t get into any trouble, Sophia.’

  It only confirmed what she had already thought, she mused as she dragged herself upstairs and pulled her clothes out of the wardrobe. Fabrizzio had somehow been behind the newspaper article, but she would never convince Rafe of that. She spent the rest of the day alternating between misery and a growing anger that history was repeating itself. Fabrizzio had done his best to oust her from Rafe’s life once before and she had let him do it without a fight, without defending herself. Against all the odds, Rafe had searched for her, he’d wanted to give their relationship another chance, and despite everything that had passed between them since she couldn’t forget the closeness they’d shared in Venice.

  He had been so tender, so loving, she recalled as a tiny flicker of hope burned in her chest once more. The exquisite attention he paid to making love to her and the softly spoken words he’d whispered in his native Italian were not the actions of a man who just wanted sex. Surely it had meant something special to him, as special as it had been to her, and she couldn’t walk away from him again without one last attempt to bridge the chasm that had opened up between them.

  As Eden took her place at the dinner table that evening, Sophia imparted the news that Rafe wouldn’t be joining her. He’d left in a hurry an hour before, the housekeeper explained, and he’d given no indication of when he would be coming back. By midnight Eden had worked herself into a state of emotional meltdown, filled with a new determination to force Rafe to listen to her. His non-appearance stretched her already overwrought nerves and she paced the floor of the guest bedroom she had moved into, listening for the sound of his footsteps on the landing.

  By one o’clock her imagination had clicked into overdrive as she pictured him with one of the gorgeous blondes who followed him avidly whenever he went out.

  He had to have found a bed somewhere, she reasoned, although it was debatable that he was sleeping in it. The thought of him making love to another woman made her feel physically sick and she hurried downstairs, wondering if he’d left a clue to his whereabouts in his study.

  The sight of him sitting behind his desk knocked the air from her lungs as she stumbled to a halt in the doorway. But it was the haggard, almost shell-shocked expression on his face, and the emptiness in his black eyes, that made her gasp.

  ‘Do you know what the time is? Where have you been?’ Trepidation, mingled with relief that he was home, lent a sharp edge to her voice, and he stared at her, his eyes narrowing at the sight of her slender form.

  ‘You sound like a nagging wife rather than an obedient mistress,’ he murmured unpleasantly, and she flushed.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  He glanced at the half-empty bottle of whisky on his desk and poured a liberal amount into a glass before downing it in one gulp. ‘I would say so, wouldn’t you, cara?’

  She should leave things until the morning, when they might both be in a calmer frame of mind, but she’d been working herself up for a showdown all night and the temptation to fight her corner was too strong to deny.

  ‘You have to listen to me,’ she demanded, walking across the room to stand in front of his desk. ‘I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I can prove your father was behind the revolting articles in the papers. I know he set Gianni up to lie to you four years ago, and even persuaded him to kiss me in an effort to convince you to end our relationship.’

  ‘He’s obviously a busy man,’ Rafe said with dangerous calm, and too late she recognised the burning fury in his eyes, her reactions too slow as he shot round the desk and gripped her shoulders. ‘But not any more,’ he continued, his temper barely constrained, and she winced as his fingers bit into her tender flesh as he shook her. ‘My father suffered major heart failure late this afternoon. He’s on a life-support machine and it’s debatable whether he’ll make it through the night.’

  ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ She covered her trembling lips with her hand as the full horror of Rafe’s words hit her. What if she had accused Fabrizzio unfairly? In her heart she knew she hadn’t; he would have done anything to wreck her relationship with his son, and the clinical part of her brain noted that he’d even managed to suffer a heart attack at the right moment. Rafe would never listen to her now, and in all fairness she couldn’t expect him to. All that mattered was that his father recovered, and, desperate to comfort him, she reached up and touched his face.

  He recoiled as if she had struck him, and she shivered at the contempt in his eyes. ‘Don’t you dare offer meaningless words of sympathy when we both know how much you hate him. My father is dying and still you insist on trying to poison my mind against him,’ he hissed, his teeth clenched as he sought to control his fury. ‘But you’re wasting your breath, Eden. I gave you the benefit of the doubt over Gianni—don’t expect me to do it again.’

  Chapter 10

  How could the sun still shine with its usual brilliance? Rafe thought as he stepped out onto the terrace. How could the bougainvillaea bloom with such fiery colour? His life was falling apart, yet the world looked on indifferently.

  His parents’ house had always been dark, but today it seemed like a mausoleum, and he was glad to escape its gloom, even though the sunshine affronted him.

  Children’s voices, high-pitched with laughter, jarred the still air, followed by the hushed tones of their nanny as she tried to quell them. They were his cousin’s two little boys—Marisa was in the house with his mother—and as he watched them playing he snatched a glimpse of the past. He saw two boys racing across the lawn on their bikes, each so determined to win that hurtling over the handlebars into the fishpond was a small price to pay for victory. He heard the booming laughter of the man who had urged them on, and the impish chuckles of his little brother.

  ‘Il Dio li benedice—God bless you, Gianni,’ he whispered huskily, past the boulder that had lodged in his throat. There was a curious pain in his gut—he felt as if he had been punched in the stomach—and his eyes
were gritty and sore from the lack of sleep that was impossible while his father’s life hung in the balance.

  ‘Rafe!’

  He tensed as a voice as cool and clear as a mountain stream slid over him, and for a moment he closed his eyes in despair. Eden! Wherever he turned she was there, quiet, gentle, bringing an air of calm to the huge, extended Santini family, who had gathered at his father’s house to wait for news. Somehow, incredibly, since the night of Fabrizzio’s heart attack a shaky truce had developed between them, down entirely to her steady insistence that she would not leave him while his father fought for life.

  He wanted to shout and rave and tell her he didn’t need her false pity, but, God help him, he needed her the way he needed oxygen to breathe and nothing, it seemed, could shake his intrinsic belief that she was the other half of his soul.

  ‘The hospital just phoned with an update. No significant change,’ she said softly, coming to stand beside him, and as he caught the drift of her perfume some of his tension drained away.

  ‘You should go back to the villa,’ he growled. ‘It’s a madhouse here.’

  ‘I want to stay with you…I want to help.’

  ‘I must go back in, my mother…’

  ‘Is with the priest and her sisters. She wants you to go back to the villa for a few hours, Rafe. You need to eat and get some sleep.’

  She was so beautiful, Rafe thought, so gentle in her compassion that his heart turned over. He had been unnecessarily cruel in Indianapolis, had behaved like a barbarian, and he closed his eyes, trying to shut out the knowledge that he must have hurt her, although even then she had been so responsive he ached at the memory.