Michael arched a dark brow. ‘“Someone”?’
‘Someone,’ Rafe insisted. ‘Is it true?’
Michael gave the idea some thought. ‘Maybe,’ he finally conceded. ‘As the eldest I always felt I had to be more responsible than you and Gabe.’
‘Not much fun for you, though?’
‘Has being the middle brother, feeling as if you have something to prove all the time, or constantly being the joker in order to grab your share of the attention, been any more fun?’
Rafe grimaced. ‘Not really.’
Michael looked at him searchingly. ‘You really are tired of that role, aren’t you?’
Yes, he really was, and if he wasn’t careful Michael was very soon going to ask why it was he suddenly felt that way. ‘Let’s order dinner, hmm?’ he encouraged lightly, determined to change the subject and not to think about Nina, or anything she had said, again tonight.
Tomorrow night at the gala opening of her father’s jewellery collection would be soon enough for that.
* * *
‘If you have something to say, Papa, then I really wish you would just say it!’ Nina frowned across at her father as the two of them travelled in the back of the limousine together on their way to the gala opening at the Archangel gallery on Saturday evening. The New York traffic was as dense and noisy as usual, the early evening sun shining into the smoked glass windows of the car through the gaps in the surrounding skyscrapers.
‘About what, maya doch?’ Her father returned her gaze steadily, his expression unreadable.
Nina gave a shake of her head. ‘Don’t be coy, Papa.’
He raised grey brows. ‘In what way am I being coy?’
She sighed. ‘You haven’t said anything, but let’s neither of us pretend you don’t know about my having spent Thursday night at Rafe D’Angelo’s apartment.’
It was a statement rather than a question. After all, she had been waiting thirty-six excruciating hours for her father to so much as mention the subject of her having spent the night with Rafe.
Her father shrugged. ‘That is your affair, no?’
Her eyes widened. ‘The other evening you warned him to stay away from me,’ she reminded.
‘Ah, he told you about that.’ Her father nodded ruefully.
‘Oh, yes,’ she recalled with feeling.
‘He was not pleased by my warning.’ Her father nodded. ‘As I fully expected he would not be.’
‘And you knew I wouldn’t like it either, so why do it?’ Nina frowned.
‘To see how Rafe would respond, of course,’ he answered with satisfaction.
She stared at her father incredulously. ‘You were testing him?’
‘I was attempting to see what manner of man he is, yes,’ her father acknowledged unapologetically.
‘And?’
Dmitri gave a half-smile. ‘And by inviting you out to dinner, spending the night with you, despite that warning, he has obviously shown himself to be a man who is not cowed, by me, or the Palitov name.’
Knowing Rafe, as she now did, Nina knew he was a man who wouldn’t be cowed by much at all, least of all her father or the Palitov name.
And, much as she loved her father and didn’t want to hurt him, she knew it was time for her to do the same.
She drew in a determined breath. ‘Rafe approves of the display cabinets I designed for your collection, so much so he’s asked me if I would design more for all the Archangel galleries,’ she revealed huskily.
Unreadable emotion flickered in her father’s eyes before it was quickly masked. ‘And you wish to do this?’
Nina sat back as she met those guarded eyes a paler green than her own. ‘I do, yes.’
‘You now like him.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘Enough to spend the night with him, at least!’
‘Perhaps we should discuss this further once we have returned home later this evening?’ her father suggested as the limousine pulled up at the back of the Archangel gallery.
Her father had expressed a wish to be lifted from the car and into his wheelchair there, rather than in the full glare of the photographers crowded about the front steps of the gallery, eagerly snapping photographs for tomorrow’s newspapers of the glittering array of personalities invited to attend this private showing of the Palitov jewellery collection.
‘There is much I still need to tell you. About the past, maya doch,’ he continued huskily. ‘But this is not the place or time in which to do it.’
Nina gave her father a searching glance, noting the pained expression in his pale green eyes, the lines of tension beside his nose and mouth, the pallor of his hollowed cheeks. ‘Are you quite well, Papa?’ She placed a hand on his arm, feeling the way it trembled slightly beneath her fingertips. ‘If you’re unwell we don’t have to attend the gala.’