Chapter Five
Rafael
It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting in a plain black car parked in one of Athens’ narrow back streets near the Acropolis.
I have a jewelled hair clip in one hand and it glitters in the cold light that comes through the windows, all blue and red and gold.
A dragonfly. A souvenir from that night in Singapore nearly four months ago and from the woman who turned my revenge plans upside down.
I shouldn’t have kept it, but I felt I deserved something for the sacrifice I made when I made sure she left me without looking back.
Despite all my good intentions to use lust to cement an obsession with me, in the end it was I who was in danger of becoming obsessed.
And I couldn’t allow that to happen. I couldn’t even allow the possibility in case it distracted me from my ultimate goal of breaking her bastard of a brother.
So instead I made sure she walked away from me and stayed away.
Except nothing turns out the way you expect.
She’ll be coming soon—my driver is tracking her phone—and she’s close by. I called her this morning, asking her to meet and, after she’d got over her shock at hearing from me, she agreed. I didn’t tell her why I needed to see her, and she didn’t ask, but we both knew the reason.
There were consequences from our night in Singapore, consequences that I had confirmation of only a couple of days ago. I should have thought that night, should have been more aware, but she managed to make me so hungry that the thought of protection didn’t even cross my mind.
It has been nagging at the back of my brain for weeks, the sense that I missed something, that something isn’t quite right, yet it wasn’t till a couple of months had passed that I’d woken in the middle of the night with the answer front and centre in my head. No condom.
The first thing I did the next day was to attempt to contact her or someone close to her, but she’d retreated from the world again, back into her brother’s house and protected by his security. She might as well have been on the moon, that’s how unreachable she was to me.
But I’ve never been one to give up, so, after months of enquiries and bribes being exchanged for the information, I learned that she’d been to see a doctor recently, and not her usual one.
Alarm bells were already ringing by the time I finally tracked that doctor down, and again, money talked—the good doctor had debts to pay—and I received the confirmation I’d been dreading.
My dragonfly is pregnant and the child is mine.
I’d sent her away that night to keep my own goal pure, to formulate new plans that didn’t include her, but now…
Things are different now. Even though I’m no decent father for a child, I can’t abandon one I helped bring into the world.
Don’t lie. You know what you really want.
I stare at the jewelled hair clip in my hand.
It’s true. If I really was a decent father, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be providing Olympia with money should she need it, but I certainly wouldn’t be waiting for her to show, yet again with intentions far from pure.
The real truth is that I’m not a good man and this pregnancy has just handed my revenge to me on a golden platter and it’s too good an opportunity to refuse.
Ulysses Zakynthos is a famous bachelor. A famous childless bachelor, which makes Olympia his heir. It will also make my child his heir, and if I marry her, then what is hers is also mine and that includes Vulcan Energy.
I’ve spent the past couple of months congratulating myself for seeing the trap she could end up being for me and so sending her away. But when the confirmation of her pregnancy came through, it seemed as if fate had had a hand in my future after all.
The fact that she’s expecting my child has changed everything.
And I’m not a good man, not even slightly.
I’m still what I am, a man ruthless in pursuit of his goal, and so I will claim her, I will claim my child, and then I will claim Vulcan Energy, and once I have, I’ll have taken everything Ulysses Zakynthos holds dear.
Only then will my parents have justice. Only then will they have peace. And nothing is more important than that. Nothing.
‘She’s coming,’ my driver informs me.
I lift my head and stare out the window of the car.
There’s a taverna across the street and I sent her instructions to meet me there, and, despite the chill, there are crowds coming and going through its doors, celebrating Christmas Eve.
A small figure is weaving around the crowds and I know immediately it’s her.
The only reason she’s managed to escape her brother’s house is because he’s not here.
He’s in LA, arriving tomorrow, or at least that’s what the flight plan for his private jet said, and that’s good.
That has granted me time to make my own plans.
He has no idea that his world is about to come crashing down on him, because I am going to take Olympia back to my home in Sicily and I do not intend to set her free again.
As she makes her way towards the car, I take a few moments to watch her, to see if she’s the same as she was four months ago and if my reaction to her is the same too.
In my mind I’ve tried to minimise it, tried to explain it away.
It was sexual tension, nothing more, and I’ve had the same with many women.
Then again, I’ve never been so hungry for one woman that I forgot a condom, or been haunted by her for weeks on end, not as I have with Olympia.
I tried to spend a night with one of my more regular lovers not long after I returned from Singapore, but the thought didn’t excite me.
I only went through the motions, determined to scrub Olympia from my mind, and I failed. Failed utterly.
Now she’s coming closer and the blood in my veins starts to pump hard, my heartbeat accelerating.
I want her. I want her now, here, in the back of the car, with her legs spread wide and her high heels digging into my spine.
I want her panting in my ear, before screaming my name as I taste her.
I want to bind her hands and her ankles, using restraint to heighten every stroke and every lick, every kiss that I give her…
She’s just about through the crowd and preparing to cross the street, when a man lumbers down the steps of the taverna and nearly knocks her off her feet.
Instantly, I throw open the door and leap out of the car, striding across the street, my black overcoat flaring out behind me. The crowd around the taverna entrance is noisy but they fall silent as I approach.
The man who nearly knocked her over doesn’t see me, he’s too busy apologising to her, but she sees me. Her amber eyes flame as they meet mine and once again I feel it, that arrow that hits me dead centre of my chest.
Her black hair is loose over her shoulders and she’s wearing a soft-looking red coat, and all I can think is that she should always wear red. I’ll marry her in a red gown, make sure her wardrobe is full of red, and when she kneels before me, she’ll be wearing red lipstick.
The man, sensing the silence that has followed me, turns quickly, spots me and my taut expression, and pales. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see—’
I hold up a hand and he breaks off. I don’t speak. I merely go to where Olympia is standing and I slide my arm around her waist, drawing her into my side. Then, holding her close, I escort her back to the car.
She holds herself rigid, as if she’s only suffering my arm around her, but she doesn’t protest. It’s only as we get to the car that she pulls away abruptly. ‘What do you want, Rafael?’ she asks, her voice flat.
The lights shine on her lovely face, her eyes like liquid gold. She smiled at me four months ago, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, but there are no smiles for me tonight, no sparks of mischief in her gaze. She looks pale, and there are shadows under her eyes.
My chest tightens inexplicably. ‘It’s too cold to stand here,’ I say. ‘Get in the car.’
‘No.’ She folds her arms, the look on her face implacable. ‘You called me saying that we needed to talk. So. What do you want to talk about?’
She must know why I’m here—why else would I have wanted to meet? Then again, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s expecting me to ask her for another night together. What is very clear is that she doesn’t want me to know she’s pregnant.
Her brother will be in the air by now and, while it takes hours to get from LA to Athens, I can’t afford to spend too much time here. I need to be back in Sicily before he arrives.
‘Please,’ I say, trying for patience and not to let my roiling emotions leak into my voice. ‘Get in the car, dragonfly.’
She blinks at the name and her perfect mouth goes soft. But then she takes a step back. ‘No, no. You can’t just come back here acting as if—’
‘I know you’re pregnant,’ I interrupt, my remaining patience abruptly slipping. ‘Four months, to be exact, which makes me the father of your child. So, I’ll ask again. Get in the car or I will put you in it.’
She pales at my tone, yet her chin juts mutinously. I remember that steel in her. I only caught a glimpse of it four months ago, but it’s on full display now.
I think she’s not going to do it and I don’t want to have to carry out my threat, but I will if I have to. Then she lets out an angry breath and gets into the back seat of the car. I slide in beside her, shut the door, and give my driver the okay to go.
‘Wait.’ Olympia looks around a little wildly as the car pulls into the street. ‘Where are we going?’ This time when her eyes meet mine, they’re full of golden sparks. ‘What are you doing, Rafael? I thought we were just going to talk.’
I sit back in the seat next to her. ‘We will. When we get to my home in Sicily.’
‘What?’ She stares at me in shock. ‘I’m not going to Sicily with you. Are you completely mad?’
‘No.’ I turn to look at her, pinning her with my gaze. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the pregnancy?’
Sparks glitter in her eyes for a moment, then she looks away out the window of the car as we weave through the traffic and the back streets, heading towards the motorway that will take us out of the city to the airport where my jet is ready to leave.
Her hands twist in her lap. I want to pull aside her coat, see the swell of her belly where my child lies.
Cold confirmation by phone is one thing, but I want to see the evidence for myself.
‘Stop the car,’ she says. ‘Let me out.’
I reach for her chin, gripping it and turning her face towards me. ‘Answer the question, Olympia. You owe me that at least.’
Her gaze is furious, but she makes no move to pull away. ‘I haven’t told anyone, if you must know. Not even my brother.’
Protective rage presses against my throat. ‘Why not? Will he hurt you? Did he do—?’
‘Of course not.’ She jerks her chin out of my grip. ‘Why the hell would you think that?’
I shouldn’t be talking about her brother.
I’m not supposed to know anything about him or how he keeps her, yet anger and a powerful, inexplicable jealousy are choking me.
‘He keeps you a prisoner, doesn’t he?’ I demand.
‘Were you afraid to tell him? Is that why you didn’t?
’ I’m crossing my own self-imposed boundaries and yet I can’t seem to stop. ‘Were you afraid he’d hurt our child?’
Her eyes widen, shock flickering through the amber depths. She says nothing, staring blankly at me, but I can see her brain working furiously behind her eyes. This woman might have complained about her idiocy four months ago, but there is nothing idiotic about her, nothing at all.
‘What do you mean he keeps me prisoner?’ she asks.
Goddamn. She’s going to guess my motives and I know it. So much for her being sheltered and, by her own admission, coddled and cosseted. That might be true, but it doesn’t mean she’s not smart. In fact, I would hazard a guess that she’s far too smart for her own good and most certainly for mine.
‘The rumours,’ I say, attempting to be dismissive. ‘You’ve never been seen out of the house and you’re never photographed anywhere. People talk.’
She stares at me as if she’s never seen me before in her entire life. ‘Who are you?’ There’s a trace of panic in her voice. ‘What do you want?’
I don’t want to scare her, that’s the last thing I want to do, but she keeps seeing more than I want her to. She can sense there’s more to me than a man she slept with once four months ago.
My muscles are rigid, my hands wanting to reach across the gap between us and pull her close, silence her and her questions with my mouth.
I don’t understand why I’m so reluctant to tell her the truth.
What does it matter if she knows? She can’t run from me, not now I have her.
Do I really care about how she sees me? It doesn’t matter now surely?
I meet her gaze. ‘You know who I am, dragonfly. I’m Rafael Santangelo. I own Atlas Construction. And now I own you.’