Page 192 of Modern Romance Collection May 2024 Books 1-4

‘Are you going somewhere?’ he demanded, quickly stalking back indoors.

She flashed him a look that said it was obvious. ‘To do what I came here to do. Press pause on my life for the next six months.’ Turning her back on him, she reached for the door handle. ‘I’ll be back in a while.’

‘That’s a little vague for my liking, Rae.’

Her shoulders stiffened and Domenico had the distinct impression she was counting to three and taking a deep breath before responding. Not for the first time, he caught himself reflecting that she was much spikier than she’d been before. Quicker to argue and sharper with her retorts. Thinking back to the way she had challenged him about the particulars of her return, forcing him to hastily rearrange his schedule to accompany her to London, he couldn’t say he appreciated the argumentativeness but, for reasons unknown to him, he was somewhat intrigued by her new gutsy spirit. He wondered where she’d been hiding it throughout their marriage.

‘I’m going to hand in my notice at work and then I’m going home to see my sisters and to pack up my things.’

Domenico searched her expression for any sign of deceit, though he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to recognise it. She had, after all, fooled him for a long number of months into thinking that she was as invested in their marriage as he was.

‘Very well.’ He set down his cup and reached for his phone. ‘I’ll call for the car.’

‘I don’t need the car.’

‘You may feel like traipsing across London with luggage. I, however, do not.’

‘Since you’re not coming with me, I don’t see why whatyoufeel like is relevant,’ she riposted with a flash of temper, crossing her arms defensively over her chest, which was rising and falling with each flustered breath. Much to his frustration, the movement only drew his attention to the generous shape of her breasts beneath her shirt and abruptly all he could think about was how responsive they’d been to his touch. How Rae had loved him to flick and lick and suck. How she would writhe beneath him and beg breathlessly for him to keep going.

‘It’s relevant because Iamcoming with you,’ he snapped, breaking free from those thoughts, but only with great effort.

Outrage glowed in her eyes like sudden flames, enhancing their naturally bright hue. ‘No.’

‘Yes.’ Lifting his jacket from the back of the chair, he pulled it on.

‘I don’t need an escort, Domenico.’ When he didn’t bother to respond to her jibe, she huffed out an irritated sigh. ‘I gave you my word that I would go through with this charade. So what is it that you think I’m going to do? Disappear into the crowds of the city and never be seen again?’

‘No, I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ he responded, rapidly losing patience, ‘because I’m not going to allow it. You may have given your word, Rae, but surely you can understand why it doesn’t count for much.’

He might be foolish enough to still desire her, but he was not such a fool that he would trust her ever again. Not after what she had done.

So he would not be letting her out of his sight, at least not until she had proven herself. And on one level he was curious about the life she had chosen over him. Masochistically eager to see what had been so much more worthwhile than him. Thanthem.

‘So,’ he said, forcing himself to ignore the hurt clawing its way into her gaze and gesturing for her to precede him out of the door. ‘After you.’

So this was what she had left him for.

It was the sole thought in Domenico’s head as the car pulled away from the kerb outside the bistro in her home suburb of Wandsworth, where Rae had seemingly been working, and set off towards her house.

To be a hostess in a high street restaurant and live back in the house she had grown up in with her sisters.

It was unfathomable! He could give her the world and she had picked this?

Turning his face away from the window with a barely suppressed breath of anger, he dug his phone from his inner jacket pocket and with a frustrated jab accessed his emails, questioning afresh how he had made such an error in judgement in granting Rae access to his life. That he had ever considered her different from the women from his past was perplexing to him now, and there was little comfort in recognising that she had fooled Elena just as convincingly.

His aunt had often remarked that she thought Rae possessed a similar spirit to her own, but Rae’s actions had thoroughly debunked that. Elena had been one of the wisest, kindest, most loyal people he’d ever known. She had never turned her back on him, or anyone in need, and although Domenico sometimes questioned if she had only taken him in to fill her barren life after her husband Raphael’s premature death, and to give herself a once longed-for heir, he’d never doubted her affection for him.

However, it was that ugly question that drove him to work so hard, to build The Ricci Group—Raphael’s business—into something even bigger than Raphael Ricci or Elena had dreamed of. To prove to Elena that she had been right to take him in when no one else had wanted him. To show her that, out of all the lost boys in the world, he was deserving of the good fortune she’d bestowed on him. Even ifhenever quite felt deserving of it, of the love and attention she had offered.

It was as though his abandonment as a newborn baby had stained him, marking him out as unwanted, and nothing he did, however hard he worked or how much he gave, could erase that mark, or the feeling that sometimes crawled beneath his skin because of it.

It was a feeling not helped by the world he inhabited, where it was never clear if the people who flocked to his side and fussed and flirted in the hope of earning his favour did so because they actually wanted to know him, or because they could not resist the lure of his wealth and status.

He’d never had that concern with Rae. Whilst instantly recognisable in Italy and other countries across the Continent, his profile in England had been relatively low when they’d met. Rae had known nothing of his wealth or the Ricci name. Her interest had been solely in Domenico, the man. For a short while, at least, and when that had waned, even the wealth and luxury he could offer hadn’t been enough of an incentive to cajole her into staying.

She just hadn’t wanted him. Like so many others before her.

He hated that it hurt him, like a scalpel splitting his skin open and tearing it back so he felt exposed. Vulnerable. Domenico thought he had excised all those feelings long ago. Whatever small splinters had remained had been dealt with in the aftermath of Rae’s departure, plucked out like thorns. But he could feel a fresh spill of that poison, spreading outwards and infecting his thoughts and his mood, propelling him back to that day when he had stood in the freezing, pouring rain, pleading for the chance to know his family, only to have the door slammed in his face.

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