the world, Sam. It’s better than the Pope’s visit to Dublin back in the seventies.’
Suddenly the low, powerful throb of an engine became obvious outside. To Sam’s chagrin she found that she was automatically trying to analyse the nuances of the sound, figuring out the components of the engine.
Milo’s ears must have pricked up, because he came into the kitchen excitedly and announced, ‘Car!’
They didn’t have a car themselves, much to his constant disappointment, and Sam couldn’t stop him running towards the door now. When the bell rang her palms grew sweaty. Before she could move, though, Bridie was beating her to it, and Sam only noticed then that Bridie, who never wore an apron, had put one on. She wanted to roll her eyes.
But then the door opened and Sam’s world condensed down to the tall dark figure filling the frame against the dusky evening. She hadn’t seen him since Monday and she hated the way her heart leapt in her chest.
Milo said with some surprise from beside Bridie, ‘It’s the man.’ And then, completely oblivious to the atmosphere, ‘Do you have a car?’
Rafaele’s gaze had zeroed in immediately on Sam, and she was glad now that she had the buffer of Bridie at the door. Bridie was doing her thing now, extending her hand, introducing herself, practically twinkling with Irish charm. Lots of ‘sure’ and ‘Won’t you come in out of that cold?’. Ridiculously, Sam felt betrayed.
Rafaele stepped in and Sam’s chest constricted. He looked so alien, foreign. Too gorgeous for this environment. Finally she found her legs and moved forward to pick Milo up. His eyes were huge as he took Rafaele in, again.
Milo repeated his question. ‘Do you have a car, mister?’
Rafaele looked at Milo and Sam could see how his cheeks flared with colour. His eyes took on a glow that she’d never seen before...or maybe she thought she had...once. Her arms tightened fractionally around Milo. Bridie had bustled off somewhere, saying something about tea and coffee. Now it was just the three of them.
His voice was so deep it resonated within Sam.
‘Yes, I do have a car... I’m Rafaele...and what’s your name?’
The fact that Rafaele’s voice had gone husky made Sam’s guilt rush to the fore again. Milo buried his head in Sam’s neck, his little arms tight around her neck.
She said to Milo’s obscured face, ‘Don’t you remember me telling you that Mr Falcone would be moving in to live with us for a while?’ Milo nodded against her neck, still hiding. She looked back at Rafaele. ‘He’s just a bit shy with strangers at first.’
Rafaele’s eyes flashed dangerously at that reminder of his status and Sam said quickly, ‘You can leave your jacket and things in the hall.’
He started to divest himself of his expensive black coat, revealing a dark suit underneath. Bridie reappeared then, unusually pink in the cheeks, and took Milo from Sam’s arms, saying, ‘I think it’s bedtime for someone...there’s refreshments in the drawing room.’
Sam wanted to roll her eyes again. Since when had Bridie referred to the main reception room as the drawing room? Or said refreshments? Or got pink in the cheeks from preparing tea?
She called after them. ‘I’ll be up to read a story in a little while.’
All she could hear, though, was Milo’s plaintive, ‘I want to see the car,’ and Bridie reassuring him briskly that he could see it in the morning if he was a good boy and brushed his teeth before bed.
Hating Rafaele right then, for imposing himself on them like this and upsetting their equilibrium, Sam forced herself to look at him and bit out, ‘I’ll give you a tour, shall I?’
Rafaele smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘That would be lovely.’
As perfunctorily as she could, while uncomfortably aware of Rafaele breathing down her neck, Sam showed him around the ground floor of the house.
He stopped in the study and took in the impressive array of equipment set up for his benefit, surprising her by saying, ‘This was your father’s study?’
‘Yes,’ Sam answered, more huskily than she would have liked, caught by a sudden upsurge of emotion at remembering her scatty, absent-minded father spending hours on end in here, oblivious to everything. Her chest tightened. Oblivious to his daughter.
‘They should not have set up in here...it’s not appropriate.’
Sam looked at Rafaele, surprised by this assertion. By this evidence of sensitivity.
‘No...it’s fine. It’s been lying empty. It should be used.’ Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘Believe me, you could have set all this up here while he was still alive and he wouldn’t have even noticed.’
Feeling exposed under Rafaele’s incisive green gaze, Sam backed out of the room.
‘Upstairs. I’ll show you your room.’
She hurried up the stairs, very aware of Rafaele behind her, conscious of her drab work uniform. Again.
She opened and closed doors with almost indecent speed, and they passed where Milo was chattering nineteen to the dozen with Bridie as she helped him brush his teeth in the bathroom, standing on a little box so he could reach the sink.
Rafaele stopped outside for a long moment, and when he finally turned to keep following Sam she shivered at the look of censure in his eyes. That brief moment of sensitivity had evidently passed.
When she didn’t open the door to her bedroom, but just gestured at it with clear reluctance, Rafaele pushed past her and opened the door. He looked in for a long moment, before slanting her an unmistakably mocking look. She burned inside with humiliation and hated to imagine what he must think of the room. It hadn’t been redecorated since she’d left home for college and still sported dusky pink rose wallpaper.
The faded décor now seemed to scream out her innermost teenage fantasies of not being the school nerd, of her deeply secret wish to be just like all the other girls. No wonder Rafaele had seduced her so easily. He’d unwittingly tapped into the closet feminine romantic that Sam had repressed her whole life in a bid to be accepted by her father, turning herself into a studious tomboy.
Aghast to be thinking of this now, she swallowed her mortification, reached past Rafaele and pulled the door firmly closed in his face. Then she led him to his room.
Thankfully it was at the other end of the house from her room and Milo’s, which was opposite hers. And, even better, it had an en suite bathroom. After that cataclysmic moment in the university the other day she had no intention of running into a half-naked Rafaele on his way to the bathroom.
Rafaele barely gave the room a cursory once-over. As she led him back downstairs Sam sent up another silent prayer that he was already chafing to get back to his own rarefied world, where his every whim was indulged before he’d even articulated it out loud.
Bridie had indeed set out tea and coffee in the front room. Sam poured coffee and handed it to him, watching warily as he sat down on the comfy but decidedly threadbare sofa.
He looked around, taking in the homely furnishings. ‘You have a nice house.’
