Abby Green - When Falcone's World Stops Turning

‘Samantha.’ Rafaele smiled. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in? It’s cold out here.’

Sam’s hand clenched tightly around the door. Panic rushed into her blood. Finally rousing her.

‘Now isn’t a good time. I thought I made it clear that I’m not interested.’

A dull flush accentuated Rafaele’s cheekbones, but Sam was barely aware of it when she heard the high-pitched, ‘Mummy!’ which was accompanied by small feet running at full speed behind her.

She felt Milo land at her legs and could almost visualise his little round face peeping out to see who was at the door. As if she were trying in vain to halt an oncoming train, Sam said in a thready voice, ‘Now really isn’t a good time.’

Rafaele stared at Milo for what seemed like an age. He frowned and then looked as if someone had just hit him in the belly. Dazed, he glanced up at Sam and she knew exactly what he was seeing. Her eyes were wide and stricken, set in a face leached of all colour.

Panicked. Guilty.

Just like that something in his eyes turned to ice and she knew that he knew.

BLOOD BROTHERS

Power and passion run in their veins

Rafaele and Alexio have learned that to feel emotion is to be weak. Calculated ruthlessness brings them immense success in the boardroom and in the bedroom. But a storm is coming with the sudden appearance of a long-lost half-brother and three women who will change their lives for ever …

Read Rafaele Falcone’s story in: WHEN FALCONE’S WORLD STOPS TURNING February 2014

Only one woman has come close to touching this brooding Italian’s cold heart, and he intends to have her once more. But Samantha Rourke has a secret that will rock his world in a very different way…

Read Alexio Christakos’s story in: WHEN CHRISTAKOS MEETS HIS MATCH April 2014

His legendary Greek charm can get him any woman he wants—and he wants Sidonie Fitzgerald for one, hot night. But when that night isn’t enough will he regret breaking his own rules?

And coming soon …

Cesar Da Silva’s story June 2014

The prodigal son is tormented by his dark past.

Can one woman save this Spanish billionaire’s tortured soul, or is he beyond redemption?

When Falcone’s World Stops Turning

Abby Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABBY GREENspent her teens reading Mills and Boon ®romances. After repeatedly deferring a degree to study Social Anthropology (long story!) she ended up working for many years in the film and TV industry as an assistant director.

One day, while standing outside an actor’s trailer waiting for him to emerge, in the rain, holding an umbrella in gale force winds, she thought to herself, Surely there’s more than this and it involves being inside and dry?

Thinking of her love for Mills and Boon, and encouraged by a friend, Abby decided to submit a partial manuscript. After numerous rewrites, chucking out the original idea and starting again with a new story, her first book was accepted and an author was born.

She is happy to report that days of standing in the rain outside an actor’s trailer are a rare occurrence now. She loves creating stories that will put the reader through an emotional wringer (in a good way, hopefully!), and yet leave her feeling satisfied and uplifted.

She lives in Dublin, Ireland, and you can find out more about her and her books here: www.abby-green.com

Recent titles by the same author:

FORGIVEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN?

EXQUISITE REVENGE

ONE NIGHT WITH THE ENEMY

THE LEGEND OF DE MARCO

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This is for Gervaise Landy, without whose influence I would most likely still be speaking into a walkie-talkie outside an actor’s trailer in a car park somewhere, in the rain, trying to explain what the delay is. Thank you for all the great conversations about Mills & Boon, and that first memorable one in particular all those years ago. As soon as we recognised a fellow fanatic in each other we were kindred spirits. You were the one who put the idea in my head in the first place about writing for Mills & Boon, and you were the one with the tape on how to write one—which I still have, and which I will return to you as soon as you promise me you’re going to sit down and finish that manuscript. With much love and thanks for sowing the seed of a dream in my head!

In thanking Gervaise I also have to dedicate this book to Caitríona Ní Mhurchú, at whose party I first met Gervaise. From the age of sixteen I have idolised this glamorous, confident, sexy, intelligent woman, so if you see any of those traits in my heroines it comes from a deep well of inspiration.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EXCERPT

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.