When Falcone's World Stops Turning

By Abby Green

One woman has the power to change everything for a brooding Italian billionaire in this second chance romance from the USA Today–bestselling author.

Rafaele Falcone runs his luxury auto empire and private life with the same ice-cold ruthlessness. Emotions play no part in his decisions, and he always demands the best, so he doesn’t hesitate to ask brilliant engineer Samantha Rourke to join his company—even though he walked away from her years before.

That sexy Italian accent still sends shivers down her spine, but gutsy Sam knows it’s not just about her impossible desire to feel his hands on her body once again. Because Falcone is about to discover her deepest secret—one that will send his world into a spin!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781460325537

Abby Green

Abby Green spent her teens reading Mills & Boon romances. She then spent many years working in the Film and TV industry as an Assistant Director. One day while standing outside an actor's trailer in the rain, she thought: there has to be more than this. So she sent off a partial to Harlequin Mills & Boon. After many rewrites, they accepted her first book and an author was born. She lives in Dublin, Ireland and you can find out more here: www.abby-green.com

Book preview

PROLOGUE

RAFAELE FALCONE LOOKED at the coffin deep inside the open grave. The earth they’d thrown in was scattered on top, along with some lone flowers left by departing friends and acquaintances. Some of them had been men, inordinately upset. Evidently there was some truth to the rumours that the stunning Esperanza Christakos had taken lovers during her third marriage.

Rafaele felt many conflicting emotions, apart from the obvious grief for his dead mother. He couldn’t say that they’d ever had a close relationship; she’d been eternally elusive and had carried an air of melancholy about her. She’d also been beautiful. Beautiful enough to send his own father mad with grief when she left him.

The kind of woman who’d had the ability to make grown men completely lose all sense of dignity and of themselves. Not something that would ever happen to him. His single-minded focus was on his career and rebuilding the Falcone motor empire. Beautiful women were a pleasant diversion—nothing more. None of his lovers were ever under any illusions and expected nothing more than the transitory pleasure of his company.

His conscience pricked at this confident assertion—there had only been one lover who had taken him close to the edge but that was an experience he didn’t dwell on...not any more.

His half-brother, Alexio Christakos, turned to him now and smiled tightly. Rafaele felt a familiar ache in his chest. He loved his half-brother, and had done from the moment he’d been born, but their relationship wasn’t easy. It had been hard for Rafaele to witness his brother growing up, sure in the knowledge of his father’s success and support—so different from his own experience with his father. He’d felt resentful for a long time, which hadn’t been helped by his stepfather’s obvious antipathy towards the son that wasn’t his.

They both turned and walked away from the grave, engrossed in their own thoughts. Their mother had bequeathed to both her sons her distinctive green eyes, although Alexio’s were a shade more golden than Rafaele’s striking light green. Rafaele’s hair was thicker and a darker brown next to his brother’s short-cut ebony-black hair.

Differing only slightly in height, they were both a few inches over six foot. Rafaele’s build was broad and powerful. His brother’s just as powerful, but leaner. Dark stubble shadowed Rafaele’s firm jawline today, and when they came to a stop near the cars Alexio observed it, remarking dryly, ‘You couldn’t even clean up for the funeral?’

The tightness in Rafaele’s chest when he’d stood at the grave was easing slightly now. He curbed the urge to be defensive, to hide the vulnerability he felt, and faced his brother, drawling with a definite glint in his eye, ‘I got out of bed too late.’

He couldn’t explain to his brother how he’d instinctively sought the momentary escape he would find in the response of an eager woman, preferring not to dwell on how his mother’s death had made him feel. Preferring not to dwell on how it had brought up vivid memories of when she’d walked out on his father so many years ago, leaving him a broken man. He was still bitter, adamantly refusing to pay his respects to his ex-wife today despite Rafaele’s efforts to persuade him to come.

Alexio, oblivious to Rafaele’s inner tumult, shook his head and smiled wryly. ‘Unbelievable. You’ve only been in Athens for two days—no wonder you wanted to stay in a hotel and not at my apartment...’

Rafaele pushed aside the dark memories and quirked a mocking brow at his brother, about to dish out some of the same, when he saw a latecomer arrive. The words died on his lips and Alexio’s smile faded as he turned to follow Rafaele’s gaze.

A very tall, stern-faced stranger was staring at them both. And yet...he looked incredibly familiar. It was almost like looking into a mirror. Or at Alexio...if he had dark blond hair. It was his eyes, though, that sent a shiver through Rafaele. Green, much like his and Alexio’s, except with a slight difference—a darker green, almost hazel. Another take on their mother’s eyes...? But how could that be?

Rafaele bristled at this stranger’s almost belligerent stance. ‘May we help you?’ he asked coolly.

The man’s eyes flickered over them both, and then to the open grave in the distance. He asked, with a derisive curl to his lip, ‘Are there any more of us?’

Rafaele looked at Alexio, who was frowning, and said, ‘Us? What are you talking about?’

The man looked at Rafaele. ‘You don’t remember, do you?’

The faintest of memories was coming back: he was standing on a doorstep with his mother. A huge imposing door was opening and there was a boy, a few years older than him, with blond hair and huge eyes.

The man’s voice sounded rough in the still air. ‘She brought you to my house. You must have been nearly three. I was almost seven. She wanted to take me with her then, but I wouldn’t leave. Not after she’d abandoned me.’

Rafaele felt cold all over. In a slightly hoarse voice he asked, ‘Who are you?’

The man smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m your older brother—half-brother. My name is Cesar Da Silva. I came today to pay my respects to the woman who gave me life...not that she deserved it. I was curious to see if any more would crawl out of the woodwork, but it looks like it’s just us.’

Alexio erupted beside Rafaele. ‘What the hell—?’

Rafaele was too stunned to move. He knew the Da Silva name. Cesar was behind the renowned and extremely successful Da Silva Global Corporation. His mind boggled to think that he might have met him and not known that they were brothers. With a sickening sense of inevitability, he didn’t doubt a word this man had just said. Their fraternal similarities were too obvious. They could be non-identical triplets.

That half-memory, half-dream had always been all too real—he’d just never known for sure, because whenever he’d mentioned it to his mother she’d always changed the subject. Much in the way she had never discussed her life in her native Spain before she’d met his father in Paris, where she’d been a model.

Rafaele gestured to his brother, ‘This is Alexio Christakos...our younger brother.’

Cesar Da Silva looked at him with nothing but ice in his eyes. ‘Three brothers by three fathers...and yet she didn’t abandon either of you to the wolves.’

He stepped forward then, and Alexio stepped forward too. The two men stood almost nose to nose, with Cesar topping his youngest brother in height only by an inch.

Cesar, his jaw as rigid as Alexio’s, gritted out, ‘I didn’t come here to fight you, brother. I have no issue with either of you.’

Alexio’s mouth thinned. ‘Only with our dead mother, if what you say is true.’

Cesar smiled, but it was thin and bitter. ‘Oh, it’s true, all right — more’s the pity.’

He stepped around Alexio then, and walked to the open grave. He took something out of his pocket and dropped it down into the dark space, where it fell onto the coffin with a distant hollow thud. He stood there for a long moment and then came back, his face expressionless.

After a charged silent moment between the three men he turned to stride away and got into the back of a waiting dark silver limousine, which moved off smoothly.

Rafaele turned to Alexio, who looked back at him, gobsmacked.

‘What the...?’ he trailed off.

Rafaele just shook his head. ‘I don’t know...’

He looked back to the space where the car had been and reeled with this cataclysmic knowledge.

CHAPTER ONE

Three months later...

‘SAM, SORRY TO bother you, but there’s a call for you on line one...someone with a very deep voice and a sexy foreign accent.’

Sam went very still. Deep voice...sexy foreign accent. The words sent a shiver of foreboding down her spine and a lick of something much hotter through her pelvis. She told herself she was being ridiculous and looked up from the results she’d been reading to see the secretary of the research department at the London university.

Kind eyes twinkled mischievously in a matronly face. ‘Did you get up to something at the weekend? Or should I say someone?’

Again that shiver went down Sam’s spine, but she just smiled at Gertie. ‘Chance would be a fine thing. I spent all weekend working on Milo’s playschool nature project with him.’

The secretary smiled and said indulgently, ‘You know I live in hope, Sam. You and Milo need a gorgeous man to come and take care of you.’

Sam gritted her teeth and kept smiling, restraining herself from pointing out how well she and Milo were doing without a man. Now she couldn’t wait to take the call. ‘Did you say line one?’

Gertie winked and disappeared, and Sam took a deep breath before picking up the phone and pressing the flashing button. ‘Dr Samantha Rourke here.’

There was silence for a few seconds, and then came the voice. Low, deep, sexy—and infinitely memorable. ‘Ciao, Samantha, it’s Rafaele...’

The prickle of foreboding became a slap in the face. He was the only one apart from her father who had ever called her Samantha—unless it had been Sam in the throes of passion. All the blood in her body seemed to drain south, to the floor. Anger, guilt, emotional pain, lust and an awful treacherous tenderness flooded her in a confusing tumult.

She only realised she hadn’t responded when the voice came again, cooler. ‘Rafaele Falcone...perhaps you don’t remember?’

As if that was humanly possible!

Her hand gripped the phone and she managed to get out, ‘No... I mean, yes. I remember.’

Sam wanted to laugh hysterically. How could she forget the man when she looked into a miniature replica of his face and green eyes every day?

‘Bene,’ came the smooth answer. ‘How are you, Sam? You’re a doctor now?’

‘Yes...’ Sam’s heart was doing funny things, beating so hard she felt breathless. ‘I got my doctorate after...’ She faltered and the words reverberated in her head unspoken. After you came into my life and blew it to smithereens. She fought valiantly for control and said in a stronger voice, ‘I got my doctorate since I saw you last. How can I help you?’

Again a bubble of hysteria rose up in her: how about helping him by telling him he has a son?

‘I am here in London because we’ve set up a UK base for Falcone Motors.’

‘That’s...nice,’ Sam said, a little redundantly.

The magnitude of who she was talking to seemed to hit her all of a sudden and she went icy all over. Rafaele Falcone. Here in London. He’d tracked her down. Why? Milo. Her son, her world. His son.

Sam’s first irrational thought was that he must know, and then she forced herself to calm down. No way would Rafaele Falcone be calling her up sounding so blasé if he knew. She needed to get rid of him, though—fast. And then think.

‘Look...it’s nice to hear from you, but I’m quite busy at the moment...’

Rafaele’s voice took on a cool edge again. ‘You’re not curious as to why I’ve contacted you?’

That sliver of fear snaked down Sam’s spine again as an image of her adorable dark-haired son came into her mind’s eye.

‘I...well...I guess I am.’ She couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic.

Rafaele’s voice was almost arctic now. ‘I was going to offer you a position with Falcone Motors. The research you’re currently conducting is exactly in the area we want to develop.’

Sheer blind panic gripped Sam’s innards at his words. She’d worked for this man once before and nothing had been the same since. Her tone frigid, she said, ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. I’m committed to working on behalf of the university.’

Silence for a few taut seconds and then Rafaele responded with a terse, ‘I see.’

Sam could tell that Rafaele had expected her to drop at his feet in a swoon of gratitude, even just at the offer of a job, if nothing more personal. It was the effect he had on most women. He hadn’t changed. In spite of what had happened between them.

The words he’d left lingering in the air when he’d walked away from her resonated as if it had happened yesterday: ‘It’s for the best, cara. After all, it wasn’t as if this was ever anything serious, was it?’

He’d so obviously wanted her to agree with him that Sam had done so, in a flat and emotionless voice. Her body had seemed drained of all feeling. Relief had been a tangible force around him. It was something that she hadn’t forgotten and which had helped her to believe she’d made the right decision to take full responsibility for Milo on her own. Even so, her conscience pricked her now: you should have told him.

Panic galvanised Sam, so that Rafaele Falcone’s offer of a job barely impinged on her consciousness. ‘Look, I really am quite busy. If you don’t mind...?’

‘You’re not even interested in discussing this?’

Sam recalled the bile that had risen within her when Rafaele had made his uninterest in her all too clear and bit out curtly, ‘No, I’m not interested. Goodbye, Signor Falcone.’

* * *

Goodbye, Signor Falcone, and this from a woman he knew intimately.

Rafaele looked at the phone in his hand for a long moment. Not comprehending the fact that she had just hung up on him. Women did not hang up on him.

Rafaele put the phone down and his mouth firmed. But Samantha Rourke had never been like other women. She’d been different from the start. He felt restless and got up from his seat to pace over to the huge window that overlooked operations at his new UK base on the outskirts of London. But for once his attention wasn’t on operations.

She’d come to his factory in Italy as an intern after completing her Masters in Mechanical Automotive Engineering. The youngest and only woman in a group of men. Scarily bright and intelligent. He would have had no compunction hiring her on the spot and paying her whatever she asked just to keep her working for him...but he’d become distracted.

Distracted by her sexily studious air and her tall, slim body. Distracted by the mannish clothes she’d insisted on wearing which had made him want to peel them off to see the curves hinted at but hidden underneath. Distracted by her flawless pale Celtic skin and those huge almond-shaped eyes set in delicate features. Grey eyes...like a stormy sea.

Distracted by the way she would look at him and blush when he caught her eye, the way she would catch her lower lip between small white teeth. Distracted by that fall of inky black hair which she’d kept tucking behind her ear. And, as time had worn on, distracted by the slow-burning licking flames of desire that had grown hotter and stronger every time he saw her.

Rafaele had fought it. He hadn’t liked it—and especially not in the workplace. There were plenty of females working in his factory and yet none of them had ever turned his head. His life was run on strict lines and he’d always kept his personal life well away from his work. But she had been so far removed from the kind of woman he normally went for: polished, sophisticated. Worldly wise. Women who were sexy and knew it and knew what to do with it. Cynical, like him.

Sam had been none of those things. Except sexy. And he’d known she didn’t know that. She’d seemed to have absolutely no awareness of the fact that men’s gazes lingered on her as she passed by. It had enraged Rafaele. The hot spurt of possessiveness had been an alien concept to him. Before they’d even kissed!

In the end sexual frustration had been such a tight ball of need inside him that one day he’d called her to his office and, without being able to say a word, had taken her face in his hands and kissed her, drowning in an intoxicating sweetness he’d never tasted before.

Even now that memory alone had an effect on Rafaele’s libido and body. He cursed. He’d thought of her months ago, at his mother’s funeral. He thought of her more often than he liked to admit. Sam was the one who had taken him too close to the edge. They had shared more than just a brief sexual history. They had almost shared...a child.

Even now a shiver of fear snaked down Rafaele’s spine. How close he’d come to dealing with something he never wanted to deal with. That was what he needed to remember.

He swung around and stared blankly into his huge office. Clearly she wanted nothing to do with him, and he should want to have nothing to do with her.

He should not have given in to the compulsion to track her down. He should steer well clear of Samantha Rourke and put her out of his mind. For good.

* * *

Samantha woke up on Saturday morning when a

Reviews for When Falcone's World Stops Turning

[janet126 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Rafaele Falcone shows up suddenly in London to open a UK base for his motor company, he reaches out to his former lover, Dr. Samantha Rourke, a mechanical engineer, and finds that Sam has managed to build a life for herself and the young son Rafaele did not realize she gave birth to. Though their lives have gone in separate directions in the four years of separation, they find their chemistry is stronger than ever. A strong, smart heroine and a hero with a walled-off heart which slowly yet believably thaws make this rocky journey of mixed signals and miscommunication an enjoyable and recommended read.