Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

surge of something so primal and protective that he just knew without question, instantly, that he would do anything to prevent his son from coming into harm’s way.

      From far too early an age Rafaele had been made aware that the absence of a father corroded at your insides like an acid.

      Resolve firmed like a ball of concrete inside him. There was no way on this earth that he was going to walk away from his son now and give him a taste of what he’d suffered.

      Cutting off Sam’s boss curtly, Rafaele stood up and muttered an excuse, and left the room. There was only one person he wanted to hear talk right now.

      * * *

      Sam’s stomach felt raw after she’d lost her breakfast, minute as it had been, into a toilet in the ladies’ room. She felt shaky, weak, and looked as pale as death in the reflection of the cracked mirror. She splashed water on her face and rinsed her mouth out, knowing that she had to go back out there and face—

      The door suddenly swung open and Sam stood up straight, hands gripping the side of the sink. For once she prayed it might be Gertie, even though she knew it wasn’t when every tiny hair seemed to prickle on her skin.

      She turned around and saw Rafaele, looking very tall and very dark as he leant back against the door, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Even now her body sang, recognising the man who had introduced her to her own sensuality, and she clamped down on the rogue response, bitterly aware that not even the harsh fluorescent lighting could strip away his sheer good looks.

      Welcome anger rose up and Sam seized on it, crossing her arms over her chest. Her voice felt rough, raw. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Rafaele? How dare you come in here and use your might to get back at me? These are people you’re playing with—people who have invested long years of study into their area—and suddenly you sweep in and promise them a glimpse of future success when we both know—’

      ‘Enough.’

      Rafaele’s voice sounded harsh in the echoing silence of the cavernous tiled ladies’ bathroom.

      ‘I am fully committed to following through on my promise of funding and support to this university.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Unless you’ve already forgotten, I had contacted you initially to ask you to work for me. I had every intention of using your expertise to further this very research for my own ends.’

      He shrugged minutely. ‘There’s nothing new in that—any motor company worth its salt is on the lookout for new research and ways of beating the competition with new technology. You have single-handedly elevated this research to a far more advanced level than any other facility, in a university or otherwise.’

      His words sent Sam no sense of professional satisfaction. She was still in shock. ‘That may be the case,’ she bit out tightly, ‘but now that you know about Milo you’re seeking to get back at me personally.’

      She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

      ‘It just so happens that you have the means to be able to come in and take over the entire department to do your bidding.’

      Fresh panic gripped her when she recalled her boss saying something about Sam herself going to work from his factory. Her arms grew tighter over her chest when she recalled the hothouse environment of working in Rafaele’s Milan factory four years ago and how easily he’d seduced her. The thought of going back into a similar environment, even if Rafaele would prefer to throttle her than sleep with her, made her clammy.

      ‘I will not be going to work for you. I will remain here at the university.’

      Rafaele took a few paces forward and Sam saw the light of something like steel in his eyes and his expression. Her belly sank even as her skin tightened with betraying awareness.

      ‘You will be coming to work for me—or I will pull out of this agreement and all of your colleagues are back to square one. Your boss has informed me that if I hadn’t come along with the promise of funding he was going to have to let some people go. He can’t keep everyone on the payroll due to reduced projected funding this year. You would have been informed of that at this very meeting.’

      Vaguely Sam was aware of the veracity of what he said. It had been rumoured for weeks. Once again she was struck by how little she’d appreciated how ruthless Rafaele was. ‘You bastard,’ she breathed.

      Rafaele looked supremely unperturbed. ‘Hardly, when I’m saving jobs. It’s very simple if you do the right thing and accede to my wishes. And this is just the start of it, Samantha.’

      Ice invaded her bloodstream. ‘Start of what?’

      To her shock she realised belatedly how close Rafaele had come when he reached out a hand and cupped her jaw. She felt the strength of that hand, the faint calluses which reminded her of how he loved tinkering with engines despite his status. It was one of the things that had endeared him to her from the start.

      In an instant an awful physical yearning rose up within her. Every cell in her body was reacting joyously to a touch she’d never thought she’d experience again. She was melting, getting hot. Damp.

      Softly, he sliced open the wound in her heart. ‘The start of payback, Samantha. You owe me for depriving me of my son for more than three years and I will never let you forget it.’

      * * *

      For a moment Rafaele almost forgot where he was, who he was talking to. The feel of Sam’s skin under his hand was like silk, her jaw as delicate as the finest spun Murano glass. He had an almost overwhelming urge to keep sliding his hand around to the back of her neck, to tug her towards him so that he could feel her pressed against him and crush that pink rosebud mouth under his— Suddenly Rafaele realised what he was doing.

      With a guttural curse he took his hand away and stepped back. Sam was looking at him with huge grey eyes, her face as pale as parchment with two pink spots in each cheek.

      She blinked, almost as if she’d been caught in a similar spell, and then something in her eyes cleared. The anger was gone.

      She changed tack, entreated him. She held out a hand and her voice was husky. ‘Please, Rafaele, we need to talk about this—’

      ‘No.’ The word was harsh, abrupt, and it cut her off effectively. Everything within Rafaele had seized at her attempt to try and take advantage of a moment when she might have perceived weakness on his part. To play on his conscience. With the shadows under her eyes making her look fragile and vulnerable.

      He’d witnessed his mother for years, using her wiles to fool men into thinking she was vulnerable, fragile. Only to see how her expression would harden again once they were no longer looking and she’d got what she wanted. She’d been so cold the day she’d left his father, showing not an ounce of remorse.

      Once, he mightn’t have believed Sam was like that, but that was before she’d kept his son from him, demonstrating equal, if not worse, callousness.

      Rafaele took another step back and hated that he felt the need to do so. That volcanic anger was well and truly erupting now. He gritted out, ‘If you were a man...’

      Sam tensed and her chin lifted. Gone was the soft look of before, the husky entreaty.

      ‘If I were a man...what? You’d thrash me? Well, what’s stopping you?’

      Rafaele could see where her hands had clenched to fists by her side. He looked at her disgustedly. ‘Because I don’t raise my hands to women—or anyone, for that matter. But I felt like it for the first time when I realised that boy was my son.’

      He couldn’t stop the words spilling out. That initial shock was infusing him all over again.

      ‘My son, Sam, my flesh and blood. He’s a Falcone. Dio. How could you have played God like that? What gave you the right to believe you had the answer? That you alone could decide to just cut me out of his life?’

      Sam seemed to tense even more, her chin going higher. Those spots of