Ignoring his sarcasm, she kept strictly to the point. ‘Instead he chose to let the subject drop.’
‘Generous man,’ he drawled. ‘Or a sadly besotted one.’
The idea of Leo being either generous or besotted was so alien to Rachel that she had to stop and think about it and still couldn’t get either scenario to fit the Leo she knew.
‘Things have been—strained between the two of them ever since, and now…’Rachel gathered herself in before she revealed the next bit. ‘Elise has just found out that she’s pregnant.’
Raffaelle responded to this with an abrupt stiffening of his long body. The glass clenched between his fingers, he turned a narrowed look on her face.
‘Do go on,’ he invited softly.
Rachel wished she didn’t have to go on but she knew that she did. ‘W-with the timing and—everything, there’s a big chance that Leo might not believe the baby is his.’
‘You mean he does not know about it yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Rachel murmured.
‘And is it his baby?’
‘Yes!’ she cried out. ‘Unless you are wondering if it might be your baby?’ she then could not resist hitting back.
‘I know it isn’t.’ His mouth was as hard now as his eyes were like ice.
Rachel shivered. ‘It’s Leo’s baby,’ she repeated firmly. ‘Conceived during one of his flying visits home. He’d only been there one night when he was telling Elise over the breakfast table that he was flying back to Chicago the next day. S-so she rebelled at his arrogant assumption that he could just fly in and—’ The rest was cut off and smothered. But once again she knew that he knew what she was getting at. ‘So Elise decided to punish him by telling him she had started her period and so was off limits…’
Because, as Elise had said, if Leo thought he could fly in just to ease his libido, then he could go back to Chicago and to libido hell!
‘Dio,’ Raffaelle muttered. ‘The sly machinations of a selfish woman never cease to impress me.’
‘Nor am I impressed by the casual attitude of a man on the hunt for sex!’
‘Was that remark aimed at me?’ he demanded.
‘Does it fit?’ Rachel lanced back. ‘Did you or did you not hit on my sister because you fancied your chances in her bed?’
Guilty as charged. His teeth came together. ‘I did not know that she was married,’ he declared stiffly.
‘And that’s your excuse?’ Rachel denounced. ‘Why didn’t you know she was married?’ she demanded. ‘She was a famous exmodel, for goodness’ sake! Her face used to be seen everywhere. Her marriage made the front pages of every glossy there is!’
‘Does she look like the famous model any more?’ he hit back. ‘You know she does not! She carries more weight now and her face has altered. And she did not exactly go out of her way to tell me who she was!’
‘What did she do then—pretend to be Catwoman, complete with rubber mask?’
Rachel saw him make a grab at his temper. ‘She used a different name,’ he said.
A different name—? That was one small detail Elise had left out of her account of her reckless rebellion against Leo.
‘What name—?’ She frowned at him.
He looked at her, then dared to laugh, though it wasn’t a very pleasant-sounding laugh. ‘Does—Rachel Carmichael mean much to you?’
Rachel suddenly needed to sit down again. Walking on trembling legs to the nearest sofa, she sank into its soft black leather and put the glass to her equally trembling mouth.
‘I see you recognise the name,’ he drawled hatefully.
‘Shut up!’ she whipped back; she was trying to think.
The devious witch, the calculating madam! She’d gone out there on the town stuffed full of rebellion, using her name as a cover-up, while insisting that Leo’s precious security guards remained at the house to guard her son!
‘No wonder Mark dragged me back here,’ she mumbled.
‘Who the hell is Mark?’ Raffaelle Villani rapped out.
‘My half-brother—the one with the camera,’ she enlightened.
‘You mean you are related to one of the paparazzi?’
Rachel shifted uncomfortably. ‘Mark and Elise are twins.’
He didn’t bother to say anything to that, but just stood there glaring into space. The atmosphere was pretty much too thick to breathe now and Rachel was wishing she was wearing armour plating because she had a horrible feeling she was going to need it soon.
‘From where?’ he demanded suddenly.
Looking up at him, she just blinked.
‘You said that your brother dragged you back,’ he enlightened her. ‘From where—?’
‘Oh—Devon,’ Rachel responded. ‘I work there on the family farm—organic,’ she added for no reason she could think of.
His raking scan of her was downright incredulous. ‘You…are a farmer?’
Her chin shot up. ‘What’s the matter with that, Mr Villani?’ she challenged. ‘Does it bruise your precious ego to know you’re about to be intimately linked to a poor farming girl instead of some rich chick with a three-hundred-year-old pedigree—?’
Silence clattered—no, it thundered down as both of them realised at the same time what it was she had just said.
‘“Intimately linked—?”’he fed into that rumbling thunder.
Rachel bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering. The thickened air in the room began to curdle—or was it the vodka she wasn’t used to drinking that was beginning to make her feel slightly sick?
‘Explain that,’ he raked out.
‘I w-will in a minute,’ she whispered. ‘I just need to—get my head together to…’ say what still had not been said.
Abandoning what was left of the glass of vodka and her bag to the floor at her feet, she made herself stand up again, preferring to meet what was about to come back at her from an upright position with her hands free rather than have him loom over her like a threatening thunderclap.
Why did he have to be so intimidatingly tall and big?
She found herself sending him a plea for understanding with her eyes as she lurched back into speech. ‘Elise provided this d-dress and the invitation to the charity thing tonight,’ she explained. ‘Then she was packed off to Chicago with her son this afternoon f-for a surprise visit to Leo, while Mark and I…’
