Raffaele: Taming His Tempestuous Virgin. Sandra Marton

was a brief silence. Then Dante said, “So, it’s over with you and the Valkyrie?”

      Rafe thought of saying everything from “No” to “What makes you think that?” Instead, he shrugged.

      “She said it was time to reassess our relationship.”

      Dante offered a succinct, one-word comment. It made Rafe laugh; he could almost feel his black mood slipping away.

      “I’ve got a cure for Relationship Reassessment,” Dante said.

      “Yeah?”

      “I’ve got a date with that redhead in half an hour. Want me to call, see if she’s got a friend?”

      “I’m off women for a while.”

      “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before. Well, if you’re certain…”

      “On the other hand, what is it they say about getting right back on a horse after you fall off?”

      Dante laughed. “I’ll call you back in ten.”

      Wrong. He called back in five. The redhead had a friend. And she’d be delighted to meet Rafe Orsini.

      Well, hell, Rafe thought smugly as he hailed a cab, what woman wouldn’t?

      He overslept the next morning, showered quickly, skipped shaving, pulled on a black cotton sweater, faded jeans and sneakers and got to his parents’ place before Dante.

      Cesare and Sofia lived in a town house in Greenwich Village. Half a century ago, when Cesare had bought the house, the area had actually been part of Little Italy. Times had changed. The narrow streets had turned upscale and chic.

      Cesare had changed, too. He’d gone from being a low ranking mobster to being first a capo—the head of the syndicate—and then the boss. A don, though in Sicilian vernacular, the old Italian title of respect had a meaning all its own. Cesare owned a private sanitation company and half a dozen other legitimate businesses, but his true profession was one he would never confirm to his wife, his sons, his daughters.

      Rafe went up the steps of the town house and rang the bell. He had a key but never used it. This place had not been his home for many years; he had not even thought of it as home long before he’d left it.

      The house was enormous, especially by Manhattan standards. Cesare had used the increasingly large amounts of money brought in by his various enterprises to buy the houses on either side and convert the three buildings into one. Sofia presided over it all with no domestic help. A proper Sicilian housewife, she had always cooked and cleaned for her family. Rafe suspected it helped her cling to the fiction that her husband was just an everyday businessman.

      Sofia greeted him as she always did, with a kiss on each cheek and a hug, as if she had not seen him in months instead of a couple of weeks. The she stepped back and gave him a critical look.

      “You have not shaved this morning.”

      To his chagrin, Rafe felt himself blush. “Sorry, Mama. I wanted to be sure I got here on time.”

      “Sit,” she commanded, as she led him into the vast kitchen. “Have breakfast.”

      The oak table was covered with bowls and platters. Telling her he’d already had the half grapefruit and black coffee that was his usual morning meal would have invited a lecture on nutrition, Orsini-style, so Rafe took a little of this, a little of that and put them on a plate. Dante sauntered in a couple of minutes later. Sofia kissed him, told him he needed a haircut and pointed him at the table.

      “Mangia,” she commanded, and Dante, who took orders from no one, sheepishly complied.

      The brothers were on their second espresso when Cesare’s capo, a man who had served him for years, appeared.

      “Your father will see you now.”

      The brothers put down their forks, patted their lips with their napkins and stood. Felipe shook his head.

      “No, not together. One at a time. Raffaele, you are first.”

      Rafe and Dante looked at each other. “It’s the prerogative of popes and kings,” Rafe said with a tight smile, his words soft enough so they wouldn’t reach the ears of Sofia, who was stirring a pot of sauce at the stove.

      Dante grinned. “Have fun.”

      “Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”

      Cesare was in his study, a dark room made even darker by its overabundance of heavy furnishings, walls crowded with melancholy paintings of madonnas and saints and framed photographs of unknown relatives from the old country. Winecolored drapes hung at the French doors and windows that overlooked the garden.

      Cesare himself was seated behind his mahogany desk.

      “Shut the door and wait outside,” he told Felipe, and motioned Rafe to a chair. “Raffaele.”

      “Father.”

      “You are well?”

      “I am fine,” Rafe said coolly. “And you?”

      Cesare seesawed his hand from side to side. “Cosi cosa. I am all right.”

      Rafe raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s a surprise.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and rose to his feet. “In that case, since you’re not at death’s door—”

      “Sit down.”

      Rafe’s dark blue eyes deepened in color until they were almost black.

      “I am not Felipe. I am not your wife. I am not anyone who takes orders from you, Father. I have not done so for many years.”

      “No. Not since the day you graduated from high school and told me you were going to a fancy university on a scholarship, and told me what I could do with your tuition money,” Cesare said blandly. “Did you think I had forgotten?”

      “You have your dates wrong,” Rafe said, even more coldly. “I haven’t taken orders from you since I discovered how you earned your money.”

      “So self-righteous,” Cesare mocked. “You think you know everything, my son, but I promise you, any man can step into the darkness of passion.”

      “I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about and, frankly, I don’t care. Goodbye, Father. I’ll send Dante in.”

      “Raffaele. Sit down. This will not take long.”

      A muscle knotted in Rafe’s jaw. Hell, why not? he thought. Whatever his father wanted to tell him this time might be amusing. He sat, stretched out his long legs, crossed them at the ankles and folded his arms over his chest.

      “Well?”

      Cesare hesitated. It was remarkable to see; Rafe couldn’t recall ever seeing his father hesitant before.

      “It is true,” his old man finally said. “I am not dying.”

      Rafe snorted.

      “What I wished to discuss with you that last time, I did not. I, ah, I was not prepared to do so, though I thought I was.”

      “A mystery,” Rafe said, his tone making it clear that nothing his father could say would be of interest.

      Cesare ignored the sarcasm. “As I said, I am not dying.” Another beat of hesitation. “But I will, someday. No one ever knows the exact moment but it is possible, as you know, that a man in my, ah, my profession can sometimes meet an unanticipated end.”

      Another first. Cesare had never made even token acknowledgment of his ties before.

      “Is this your not-so-subtle way of telling me something’s coming? That Mama, Anna and Isabella might be in danger?”

      Cesare laughed. “You have seen one too many movies, Raffaele. No. Nothing is, as you put it, ‘coming.’ Even if it were,