Rafaele asserted, ‘I don’t think I need to point out that affording childcare would be the least of your worries if you let me organise it.’
Sam was tense enough to crack, and all of a sudden she felt incredibly light-headed. She must have shown it, because immediately Rafaele was beside her, holding her arm and frowning.
‘What is it? Dio, Sam, you look like death warmed up.’
His use of Sam caught her somewhere vulnerable. She cursed herself inwardly. She was no wilting ninny and she hated that Rafaele was seeing her like this. She pulled away from his strong grip jerkily. ‘I’m fine...’
Rafaele all but forcibly manoeuvred her to the couch and made her sit down again. Then he went to the drinks cabinet and poured some brandy into a glass. Coming back, he handed it to her.
Hating herself for needing the fortification, Sam took it.
She took a sip, and as the pungent and strong alcohol filtered down her throat and into her belly, felt a bit steadier. She put the glass down and looked directly at Rafaele, where he too had taken his seat again, opposite her.
‘Look, you’ve said yourself that you’re just renting this place. It would be insane to uproot Milo from the only home he’s known since he was a baby.’ She pressed on, ‘My father’s house is perfectly comfortable. Bridie lives right next door. His playschool is at the end of the road. We have a nearby park. He goes swimming at the weekends to the local pool. He plays with the children from the surrounding houses. It’s a safe area. Everyone looks out for everyone and they all love Milo.’
Rafaele’s face was unreadable. Sam took a breath. She’d just spoken as if in a lecture, in a series of bullet points. Never more than right now did she appreciate just how much Rafaele could upset their lives if he wanted to. And it was entirely her fault.
He drawled, ‘The picture you paint is positively idyllic.’
She flushed at the sarcasm in his voice. ‘We’re lucky to be in a good area.’
‘How have you managed financially?’
Rafaele’s question blindsided Sam for a minute. ‘It...well, it wasn’t easy at first. I had to defer my PhD for a year. My father was ill... But I had some savings to tide us over. And he had his pension. When he died the mortgage was protected, so that was paid off. Bridie looked after Milo while I did my doctorate and I was lucky enough to be taken onto the research programme soon afterwards. We get by. We have enough.’
Unmistakable pride straightened Sam’s spine. Rafaele could see it in the set of her shoulders and he had to hand it to her—grudgingly. She hadn’t come running to him looking for a hand-out as soon as she’d known her pregnancy was viable. He didn’t know any woman who wouldn’t have taken advantage of that fact. And yet Sam had been determined to go it alone.
‘Would you have come to me if you’d needed money?’
Rafaele could see her go pale at the prospect and something dark rushed to his gut. She would have preferred to struggle than to see him again. Since last Saturday’s cataclysmic revelation Rafaele had been avoiding looking at the fact that he’d felt so compelled to see Sam again he’d ignored his earlier warning to himself to stay away and had gone to her house with more than a sense of anticipation in his belly. It had been something bordering much closer to a need. He’d tried to ignore it, but he’d been incensed that she’d been so dismissive. Uninterested.
Rafaele stood up. ‘I fail to see what all this has to do with me getting what I want—which is my son.’
Sam stood up too, her cheeks flushing, making her eyes stand out like glittering pools of grey. Desire, dark and urgent, speared Rafaele.
‘That’s just it. You don’t get it, do you? It’s not about you or me. It’s about Milo and what’s best for him. He’s not a pawn, Rafaele, you can’t just move him around at will to get back at me. His needs must come first.’
Rafaele felt stung at her tirade. She had the right to maternal indignation because she’d experienced the bonding process. He hadn’t. But he knew that she was right. He couldn’t just waltz in and pluck his son out of his routine, much as he wanted to. But he hated her for this.
Tightly he asked, ‘So what is your suggestion, then?’
The relief that moved across her expressive fine features made him even angrier. Did she really think it would be this easy?
‘We leave Milo where he is, at home with me. And you can come and see him...we’ll work something out while you’re here in England...and then, once we see how it goes, we can work out a longer term arrangement. After all, you won’t be here for ever...’
He could see her spying her bag nearby and she moved to get it. His eyes were drawn against his will to her tall, slim form as she bent and then straightened, her breasts pushing against her shirt, reminding him of how badly he’d ached to touch them for the first time, and what it had felt like to cup their firm weight, made perfectly to fit his palms. The fact that the memory was so vivid was not welcome.
Sam was the only woman who’d ever had this ability to make him feel slightly out of his comfort zone. Coasting on the edge of extreme danger. And not the kind he liked, where he ultimately had control, say in a car.
Danger zone or no danger zone, something primal gripped Rafaele deep inside at seeing Sam preparing to leave, looking so relieved—as if she could just lay it all on the line like this and he’d agree.
She was backing away, tucking some loose hair behind her ear, and it was that one simple familiar gesture that pushed Rafaele over an edge. ‘Do you really think it’s that easy? That I’ll simply agree to your terms?’
She stopped. ‘You can’t do this, Rafaele—insist on having it your way. It’s not fair on Milo. If he’s going to get to know you then it should be in his own safe environment. He’s going to be confused as it is.’
Rafaele moved closer to Sam, almost against his will. ‘And whose fault is that?’ he reminded her, as an audacious plan formed in his brain. ‘What do you hope for, Sam? That after a couple of visits I’ll grow bored and you’ll be left in peace?’
She swallowed visibly and looked faintly guilty. ‘Of course not.’
But she did. He could tell. She hoped that this was just a passing display of anger and might. She was probably congratulating herself on the fact that he now knew and that she and her son—his son—would be left in peace to get on with their lives once he’d lost interest.
Suddenly Rafaele wanted to insert himself deep into Sam’s life. Deep into her. He remembered what that had felt like too—that moment of exquisite suspension when neither of them could draw in a breath because he was embedded so deep inside her—
‘This will work my way or no way,’ he gritted out, ruthlessly crushing those incendiary images, exerting a control over his body he rarely had to call on.
‘Rafaele—’
‘No, Samantha. I will concede that you are right that Milo must come first, so I agree that he should stay where he is most secure.’
‘You do?’
Rafaele
