Tempting Fate by Kerrigan Byrne (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

his brother, Raphael had the appearance of someone much younger. Even without the scars, Gabriel wouldn’t have been as effortlessly handsome as his brother. Whereas Gabriel’s features were brutal and striking, Raphael might as well have been the arch angel he’d been named for. A glimmer of mischief in his hazel eyes, and a charm and confidence only the devil himself might possess, made for a potently compelling combination.

No wonder Mercy had fallen for him so quickly. They must endlessly challenge and entertain each other.

Felicity didn’t know this man. But she ought to. And, technically, he’d done nothing to wrong her.

“Very well, come in.” She motioned to a pair of high-backed arabesque chairs drawn close to the fireplace.

He took one seat, and she perched on the one opposite him.

Leaning forward, his features set in an intent and earnest expression of concern. “Let me assure you, I’m not here to talk you out of being angry with Gabriel…”

Felicity stared into the fire. “I’m angrier at myself than anything.”

“No, dear Felicity, there is no cause for that—”

“I’ve met the man twice, how did I not recognize him?” she asked bitterly. “His size alone is tremendously unique.”

“But not unheard of. You said yourself, you were allowed to believe he was dead. And surely you recall how he looked before… little more than scars clinging to a misshapen skull. His nose completely gone, his eyelid dropping so low he could barely open it. That macabre half-smile of a scar. He had to keep his hair shorn so his mask didn’t tug at it and give him terrible headaches. Now, he has a better mane than even me.”

She’d reveled in the feel of his hair sifting through her fingers.

“It will take time even for me to get used to him,” Raphael confided. “He doesn’t look like he did before the— his injuries. So do not punish yourself for not seeing him for who he is.”

“You are kind,” she replied gratefully. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m so dreadfully gullible. So blind and eager. There is something very wrong with me if my entire family, including him, thought I was too stupid or too weak to know the truth.”

Raphael sat back against the chair, plunking his head against the headrest with a rueful sigh. “I agree that keeping things from you was wrong of everyone. I would be furious in your position, because, though everyone’s intentions were based in love, it did rather denote a lack of respect. And that, in my world, is the greatest insult. Especially when you are a woman who deserves that regard.”

His validation did a great deal to cool her tempestuous emotions.

“After the Masquerade, everyone wanted you to remain untouched by my— and by extension Gabriel’s— intrusion into the family. Especially since it had no immediate effect on you because we were both supposed to be across the entire globe from each other. And you had so many things here to worry about.” He huffed out a sound of sardonic wonder. “I knew that Gabriel… that he was drawn to you. But I will say that no one in the world, including me, could have predicted that he would approach you. That he would take this position…”

“He didn’t,” she admitted, plucking at a stray bit of lace on her wrapper. “Not really. Now that I think about it, I rather wrangled him inside and offered him the job without even asking for references.” Standing, she reached for the poker and stabbed at the fire. “I am a fool. He told me as much that day. I deserve everyone’s derision.”

“Why did you hire him? This large, scarred, obviously malevolent man, devoid of charm or a pretty vocabulary, let alone a face that is a pleasure to look at.”

“You’re being cruel to him.”

“I’m being honest. And I’m asking you to do the same.” His words were sharp, stabbing like barbs into her back. “Do you love him?”

She jabbed rather viciously at a glowing white log, sending sparks showering up the chimney. “How can I answer that? I don’t know him.”

“But you know how you feel,” he pressed.

She searched her heart, which beat like the wings of a trapped bird refusing to land. “Right now, I feel a little bit of everything, and cannot identify one particular emotion.”

“That is fair enough.”

At that, she turned back and reclaimed the edge of her seat. “Why did you come here?” she asked, sensing his reluctance. “If it wasn’t to plead your brother’s or your wife’s case?”

The look he gave her was one of approval. “Do you know what happened to my brother? Why he looked the way he did— the way he does?”

Struck by the memory of his pitiable face, she closed her eyes against a well of sorrow. “He said he was protecting someone.”

“Me.” The word was a low lamentation. “He was protecting me. Gabriel was always so large, so fiendishly strong. When my father needed money, he put Gabriel into the fighting pits and bet on him.”

Felicity gripped the arm of the chair, never once considering their story could be so contemptable.

“One time,” Raphael’s gaze became unfocused as he looked into the past, “my father put me in the ring, and then bet that I would lose. I was a small lad. I could fight, but I hadn’t the brute strength or killer instinct Gabriel had developed. Upon learning of this, Gabriel locked me in a trunk and took my place in the pit. That night, someone hit Gabriel with a plank of heavy wood, and tore his nose clean off. It would have crushed me. I was all but thirteen. He was fifteen.”

A tear fell for the boys before she even knew it had welled within.

“And after, he still fought in the ring as a freak they dubbed the Monster of Monaco. Once my father founded the Fauves, he relieved Gabriel of the pits, but he then groomed us to be gangsters. We extorted people out of money, we beat them to