Cinderella's Scandalous Secret. Melanie Milburne
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hospital when everything he believed about himself and his family was found to be false. A pack of lies. Secrets and lies. He hadn’t realised he was capable of such anger until it hit him in sickening, gut-shredding waves. Why hadn’t he seen it coming? Surely there must have been a sign. Or had Isla deliberately misled him, lulling him into a false sense of security just as his father had done for all those years? Pretending, lying, misleading—the three deadly sins of any relationship.
He had called Isla as soon as he’d read the note and left a message. It wasn’t a message he was particularly proud of, but he was not one to hand out second chances. She hadn’t called him back and, in a way, he had been glad. Clean breaks were always to be advised. But nothing about their breakup felt clean to him. It felt rough around the edges, torn instead of neatly cut, ripped and raw instead of resolved.
Rafe paced the floor of the penthouse until he was sure he would wear his way through the carpet to the suite below. Something was off about her now. Her body language, her averted gaze, her caginess. Why had Isla had given up her Fine Arts degree and moved back to Scotland? She had been so passionate about her art and had said how much she enjoyed living in London. He had seen some of her drawings and he’d been amazed at her talent. What had made her turn her back on her dreams and work for a friend in a job that didn’t maximise her creativity? Had something happened in the time since their breakup? Something that had poisoned her artistic aspirations. But what?
He turned and looked at the neatly made bed, picturing her in it with her slim limbs wrapped around his. He let out a filthy curse and swung away, his guts twisting and tangling in disgust. Disgust at himself for allowing her to still get under his skin.
Isla was by far the feistiest and most fascinating woman he had ever been involved with and he couldn’t help wondering if that was why no one else since had measured up. He had found Isla’s quick wit and hair-trigger temper entertaining as well as frustrating. So few people stood up to him. So few women treated him as an equal instead of a meal ticket.
Isla had been different. She had made it virtually impossible for him to be satisfied by anyone else. He had enjoyed their heated debates, enjoyed how all their fights were settled between the sheets. He’d enjoyed goading her to get a rise out of her just so he could have her quaking and shuddering in his arms.
She looked the same but different somehow. Her figure was still slim but some of her curves had ripened, making him ache to touch her, to feel her, to smell and taste her. Her breasts were a little fuller. Dio. He had to stop thinking about her gorgeous breasts. How soft they felt in his hands, under his lips and tongue. How it felt to have her moving, thrashing beneath him as he took her screaming all the way to paradise.
The new energy that surrounded her now intrigued him. Her gaze blazing with defiance one minute and skittering away from his the next. Her skin paling and then flushing, her body turned away when before it had always turned towards him like a compass point finding true north.
Isla’s rejection was like a scabbed-over sore. Seeing her again had ripped off the scab and left the wound smarting, stinging, festering. He had to expunge her from his system so he could finally move forward. One drink with her and he would walk away without a backward glance. He owed it to himself to leave what they’d shared in the past where it belonged.
It was over and the sooner he accepted it the better.
ISLA CHANGED OUT of her work uniform and back into her street clothes. Gone were the designer threads Rafe had bought her. She had left everything behind, wanting no reminders of their fling—other than the one she carried within her body. These days she wore practical and cheap off-the-peg casual outfits.
She stepped into her black leggings and pulled on her long-sleeved jersey top, but rather than disguise her shape, her clothes drew attention to it. She stroked her hand over the bulge of her belly. Surely the baby hadn’t grown in the last few minutes? She pulled the garment away from her abdomen but as soon as she let it go it lovingly draped across her body as if to say, Look at my baby bump!
Isla picked up her jacket even though it was a little warm to wear it inside. She fed her arms through the sleeves and tied the waist ties around her middle. She glanced at herself again in the changing room mirror, doing her best to ignore the niggling of her conscience over the lengths she was going to in order to keep her pregnancy concealed from Rafe.
She took out her small make-up kit from her tote bag and did what she could to freshen up her features. Concealer—her new best friend—was first, followed by a tinted moisturiser and some strategically placed eyeshadow to bring out the blue in her eyes. She followed that up with bronzer, highlighter, lip-gloss and a decent coat of mascara, a part of her wondering why she was going to so much trouble. But, in a way, make-up was another form of armour and, God knew, she needed a heck of a lot of armour around Rafe Angeliri.
Isla released the ties of her jacket and skimmed her hand over her belly again. Was it her imagination or was her baby more active than usual? She was so used to calling it her baby but it was Rafe’s baby too. The prod from her conscience was like the stab of a dart to the heart. Rafe’s baby. Of course, he had a right to know. Hadn’t she always believed that to be the case? His New York deal was finalised now, so why shouldn’t she tell him about the baby? There was a risk he might reject the child, but she wouldn’t insist on his involvement if he didn’t wish it.
The thought of her baby being rejected by Rafe made her heart tighten. The last thing she wanted for her child was a reluctant father. Isla had experienced one of those and look how that had turned out. Rejection. It might as well have been her middle name instead of Rebecca. Years and years in and out of foster homes, never belonging to anyone, never being chosen for an open adoption. Never feeling loved.
No. Her baby deserved better and she would do everything in her power to give her child the best upbringing she could, with or without Rafe’s support.
Isla drew in a shuddering breath and retied her jacket around her waist. She would look for an opportunity to tell him during their catch-up drink rather than dump it on him straight away. She knew that much about him—he didn’t like surprises.
The hotel bar was downstairs on a mezzanine level and Isla walked in with a tight band of tension around her head and her stomach like a nest of agitated ants. Rafe was seated in a quiet corner on one of two burgundy-coloured leather chesterfield tub chairs and, as if he sensed the precise moment she arrived, he looked up from his phone and locked gazes with her. A zap of awareness shot through her body. They might as well have been the only people in the bar—the only people on the planet. The only people in the universe. She couldn’t look away if she tried. Her gaze was tethered by his, her body under his command as if he had programmed her to his particular coordinates.
He was still wearing the dark blue business suit and white shirt but he had since put on a silver and black striped tie. That small gesture had a strange effect on her, momentarily ambushing her feelings. Feminist she might be, but she had always admired his attention to the old-fashioned manners of dating. During their fling, she hadn’t opened a single car door for herself. He had always walked on the road side of the footpath...he had never sat down before she was seated. It was so starkly different from the way other men in her past life had treated her and she had lapped it up, enjoying every moment of feeling like someone of value.
Rafe rose from the chair as she approached, his gaze sweeping over her in an assessing manner. ‘You look very beautiful but I quite liked you in that sexy housemaid outfit.’ His voice had a rough edge and his rich Italian accent seemed even more pronounced.
Isla had always been a sucker for his accent. She had worked on her regional Scottish accent for years, doing all she could to rid herself of any trace of her chaotic and underprivileged childhood. These days, no one would ever guess she hadn’t been educated at an exclusive fee-paying Edinburgh school and that was the way she wanted it.
Isla gave him a stiff-lipped, no-teeth smile