Never Say No to a Caffarelli

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Poppy took the key and closed her fingers around it as he moved past her. ‘Hey, guys,’ she called out to the dogs who were slavishly following Rafe. ‘Remember me? The owner who loves and feeds you?’

  Their toenails clicked on the polished floor as they came back to her with sheepish looks and wagging tails.

  ‘Traitors,’ she muttered as she bent down to tickle their ears.

  * * *

  ‘I’d love to have you and the dogs stay, but Mum’s allergic to dogs,’ Chloe said at work an hour later. ‘Anyway, why are you so against staying at the manor? You lived there with your gran for years and years.’

  ‘I know, but it’s different now.’

  ‘Yes, because you’ve got the world’s hottest, most eligible bachelor sharing it with you,’ Chloe said with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

  Poppy frowned as she put on her apron. ‘It’s not what you think. Anyway, he’s not going to be there much longer. He’s off to London this afternoon. He has other fish to fry.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Chloe asked. ‘Anyone can see you two have a little thing going on.’

  ‘We do not have a little thing going on,’ Poppy said. ‘I don’t even like the man. He’s too arrogant for my liking.’

  ‘That’s confidence, not arrogance,’ Chloe said. ‘He knows what he wants and goes out and gets it. And I reckon it’s not just the dower house on his acquisition list. You’re right up there at the top of his must-have items.’

  Poppy shrugged off Chloe’s comment. ‘I don’t think so. I told you before, I’m not sophisticated enough for the likes of him.’

  ‘Ah yes, so you keep saying, but I was watching him when he came to see me this morning,’ Chloe said. ‘He was so concerned about what happened to you last night. I could see it in his eyes. I think he’s more than halfway to falling in love with you. He just doesn’t realise it yet. Maybe that’s why he’s heading back to town. He’s trying to get his head around it.’

  Poppy choked out a scornful laugh. ‘Men like Rafe Caffarelli don’t fall in love. They fall in lust and they just as quickly fall out of it, too.’

  ‘Call me a hopeless romantic, but I think you’re exactly the sort of girl a hardened playboy like him would fall for,’ Chloe said. ‘He hasn’t been seen with anyone else since he met you. That’s a bit of a record, since he usually has a new lover every week or so.’

  ‘I bet the papers tell a different story tomorrow,’ Poppy said. ‘He’ll probably have a couple of wild nights of sex with some glamorous starlet or model. He won’t give me a second thought.’

  * * *

  Rafe called an end to the board meeting at six p.m. but his middle brother Raoul hung back to speak to him after the others had left. ‘A no-show from Remy as usual.’

  Rafe grunted. ‘One day I’m going to throttle him, I swear to God. He could have sent a text or an email. Where the hell is he?’

  ‘I think he’s in Vegas.’

  Rafe rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s hope it’s a showgirl he’s with this time, not sitting at a gaming table with a billionaire oil baron ready to toss for the lot.’

  Raoul grimaced in agreement. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. Don’t know how that boy wins more than he loses.’

  ‘He’ll lose one day,’ Rafe said.

  Raoul arched a brow in mock surprise. ‘Lose? That word doesn’t exist in our vocabulary, remember? You’ve been drumming that into us since we were kids: goal. Focus. Win. The Caffarelli credo.’

  Rafe frowned as he recapped his fountain pen. ‘I worry about Remy. He’s like a loose cannon.’

  ‘You worry too much about both of us, Rafe,’ Raoul said as he perched on the edge of the boardroom table. ‘You’re our brother, not our father. You don’t need to take so much on your shoulders. Loosen up a bit. You seem overly tense today. What’s happening with that dower house in Oxfordshire you were after? Have you convinced the owner to sell it yet?’

  Rafe gathered his papers together with brisk efficiency. He didn’t want to get drawn into any discussions about his private life, even with his brother. He’d only been in the city a couple of hours and all he could think of was getting back to the manor. He refused to acknowledge it was because Poppy was staying there.

  He liked the place. It had a homely feel about it. He enjoyed the space and the peace of it. He wanted to keep working on the plans in situ.

  ‘I’m still working on it.’

  ‘I saw your photo with her in the paper a few days back,’ Raoul said. ‘She’s not your usual type, is she?’

  Rafe snapped the catch closed on his briefcase. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘You looked pretty cosy in that restaurant,’ Raoul said. ‘You slept with her yet?’

  Rafe’s brow jammed together. ‘What sort of question is that?’

  Raoul leaned back as he held up his hands. ‘Hey, don’t bite my head off.’

  Rafe clenched his fist around the handle of his briefcase as he lifted it off the table. Normally he would have no trouble with a bit of ribald humour between his brothers over his latest lover, but talking about Poppy like that felt totally wrong. ‘I’m not sleeping with her.’

  Raoul raised his brows. ‘You losing your touch or what?’

  Rafe gave him a look. ‘So who are you sleeping with?’ he asked. ‘Is it still that tall blonde with the endless legs?’

  Raoul grinned. Slipping off the desk, he punched Rafe on the upper arm. ‘You got time for a beer?’

  Rafe pretended to glance at his watch. ‘Not today,’ he said. ‘I have some more paperwork to see to when I get home.’

  ‘Home being where the heart is?’ Raoul said with a teasing smile.

  ‘You’re a jerk,’ Rafe said, scowling. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  Raoul dodged his older brother’s playful punch. ‘Always said you’d be the first to go down.’

  ‘The first to go down where?’

  ‘Down the aisle.’

  Rafe felt his spine tighten. ‘I’m not going down the aisle.’

  ‘You’re the eldest,’ Raoul said. ‘Makes sense that you’d be the one to set up a family first.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ Rafe said. ‘I’m fine the way I am. I like my life. It’s a great life—I have total freedom; I don’t have to answer to anyone. What more could I want?’

  Raoul gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t know... I’ve been thinking lately about what Mama and Papa had. It was good. They were so happy.’

  ‘Hindsight is always in rose-coloured vision,’ Rafe cut him off. ‘You were only eight years old. You remember what you want to remember.’

  ‘I was nine. My birthday was the day of the funeral, remember?’

  How could he forget? Rafe had watched his brother bravely hold himself together as their parents’ coffins had been carried out of the cathedral. Remy had been crying and Rafe had put an arm around him, but Raoul had stood stoically beside him, shoulder to shoulder, not a single tear escaping from his hazel eyes. He often wondered if the roots of his brother’s death-defying pursuits had been planted that day. They were a way of letting off steam from all that self-containment. ‘I remember.’

  ‘You don’t think they were happy?’

  Rafe let out a breath. ‘They were happy, but who’s to say what they would’ve been like in a few more years?’

  Raoul shifted his mouth from side to side in a reflective fashion. ‘Maybe...’

  ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Raoul gave a smile that looked a little forced.

  ‘Come on,’ Rafe said, putting his briefcase down again. ‘Something’s eating at you. You hide it from most people but I can always tell. You’re like a Persian cat with a fur-ball stuck in its throat.’

  ‘I don’t kn
ow...’ Raoul picked up a glass paperweight and passed it from one hand to the other. ‘I guess I’ve been thinking about things. I don’t want to end up like Nonno. He has to pay people to be with him.’

  ‘You’ve seen him recently?’

  ‘I spent the weekend there.’

  ‘And?’

  Raoul lifted a shoulder in a non-committal shrug. ‘It was sad...you know?’

  Rafe did know. He had been having the same thoughts. His grandfather spent most of his time alone with just a band of people he employed to take care of the villa and his needs. It was a sterile life. There was no love or mutual enjoyment. His grandfather went from meal to meal with no real social contact, no real affection or connection. He got what he paid for: obsequious and obedient service.

  ‘He’s brought it on himself,’ he said with the rational part of his brain. ‘He’s pushed everyone who cared about him aside. Now he has to make do with the people who will only do it for the money.’

  Raoul put down the paperweight and slid off the boardroom table with a little frown. ‘Do you ever think about it...about life? About what it’s all about?’

  Rafe hid behind his usual shop-front of humour. ‘Of course I do. It’s about making money and making love. It’s what us Caffarellis do best.’

  ‘We make money and have sex, Rafe. Love has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘So?’

  Raoul looked him in the eye. ‘Do you ever wonder if the woman who is with you is with you because of who you are or because of what’s in your bank account?’

  Rafe felt an eerie shiver move over the back of his neck at the chilling familiarity of those words. Hadn’t Poppy asked him the very same thing the first day she met him? ‘Come on, man. What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Last time I looked, you were out there partying like the best of them. What’s changed?’

  ‘Nothing. But I’ve been thinking about Clarissa, the girl I’ve been dating recently.’

  ‘You’re not serious about her?’ Rafe gave his brother an incredulous look. ‘I admit she’s attractive but surely you can do better than that?’

  ‘It solves the gold-digger problem, though, doesn’t it?’ Raoul said. ‘Clarissa wouldn’t be marrying me for my money because her old man has plenty of his own and she’s his only heir.’

  Rafe picked up his briefcase again. ‘One beer, OK? After that I have to get going.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  POPPY WAS IN the smaller of the two sitting rooms, wiping copious tears from her eyes as the credits rolled on one of her favourite classic romance movies, when Rafe suddenly appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, frowning as he came towards her. ‘Why are you crying? Has something happened?’

  Poppy sprang off the sofa guiltily. She stuffed her sodden tissue up the sleeve of her pink teddy-bear pyjamas and wished she didn’t have a red nose and red eyes to match her cheeks, not to mention her hair. ‘It’s just a movie. I always cry even though I’ve watched it about a gazillion times.’

  He bent down and picked up the DVD case. ‘An Affair to Remember... I don’t think I’ve seen that one. What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s about a spoilt, rich playboy who meets this girl on a cruise...’ Poppy felt her blush deepen. ‘Never mind. You wouldn’t like it. It was made decades ago. I bet you only like movies with lots of car chases and heaps of CGI and over-the-top action.’

  He put the case down again, his expression unreadable. ‘I didn’t think you’d still be up. It’s almost one in the morning.’

  ‘I had to bake some extra things for one of my customers,’ Poppy said. ‘She’s having some guests over for a dinner party tomorrow. I made the desserts for her.’

  ‘That’s sounds like a good little money-spinner for you.’

  Poppy averted her gaze as she popped the DVD back in its case and clicked it shut. ‘I wasn’t expecting you back tonight. I thought you’d make the most of the nightlife in London while you were there.’

  ‘After my meeting I had a quiet beer with my middle brother, Raoul.’

  ‘So, no hot date or shallow pick-up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must be losing your touch.’

  His look was unreadable. ‘That’s what my brother said.’

  There was a little silence.

  ‘You do charge people for cooking those extras, don’t you?’ he asked.

  Poppy blew out a little breath. ‘I always say I’m going to...’

  ‘But you’re trying to run a business, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘Your goal is to make a profit. That should be your focus, not trying to be everyone’s best friend.’

  ‘I know, I know. Do you think I haven’t been told this a hundred times?’

  ‘Do you want me to help you?’ he asked. ‘I can have a look over your books. I can see where the leaky holes are and put the necessary plugs in place. You won’t have to lose any sleep or friends over it.’

  She looked up at him gratefully. ‘Would you do that?’

  He gave her a slow smile that made her legs go weak. ‘I’d be glad to.’

  Another little silence fell between them.

  Poppy hugged her elbows with her crossed over arms. ‘It’s been funny being here tonight—funny weird, not funny hilarious.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I spent so much of my childhood here, right in this room. Lord Dalrymple let Gran and me use it. He said it was because the television reception was better here than at the dower house, but I think he liked having us around in the background.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘This is the first time I’ve been in here since Gran died.’

  He came over and placed his hands gently on the tops of her shoulders. ‘I should’ve realised it might be tough coming back here. I should have postponed my meeting and stayed with you.’

  Poppy looked up into his deep, dark eyes. He was standing very close; close enough to smell the citrus base of his aftershave and the hint of late-in-the-day male sweat that was equally intoxicating. ‘I don’t need babysitting.’

  A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. ‘So says the pint-sized girl who’s wearing pink teddy-bear pyjamas, and hippopotamus slippers on her feet.’ One of his hands moved from her shoulder to cup the nape of her neck. ‘Which should be enough to stop me doing this.’

  She swallowed. ‘Doing...what?’

  His mouth came down towards hers. ‘I think you know what.’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t want to...?’

  He pressed a soft-as-air kiss to her lips. It barely touched her but it set every nerve longing for more. ‘I want to,’ he said in a rough, sexy tone. ‘I want to very much. I’ve thought of nothing but you the whole time I was in London. How you taste, how you smell, how you feel.’

  Poppy’s breath hitched on something sharp in her chest as his mouth came back down to hers. The kiss was longer this time and deeper. She felt the first brush-stroke of his tongue against her mouth and her spine liquefied. She opened to him on a little whimper of approval, her hands winding up around his neck, her body pressing closer to the hard warmth of his.

  His tongue played with hers, cajoling it into a dance that was brazenly erotic. He moulded her to him, his hands pressing against her bottom to hold her against his aroused body. He felt so thick and strong pulsing there against her neediness. The empty, achy feeling inside her was almost unbearable, especially when the answer to it was so temptingly close.

  He broke the kiss to move his lips down to the side of her neck where a thousand nerves were trembling in anticipation. ‘You should tell me to stop before this gets out of hand.’

  ‘What if I don’t want you to stop?’ She angled her neck to give him better access.

  He framed her face in his hands, looking deep into her passi
on-glazed eyes. ‘I could hurt you.’

  Her heart kicked against her ribcage at the concern in his gaze. ‘I’m sure you won’t.’

  He leaned his forehead against hers, his warm breath mingling intimately with hers. ‘This is crazy...’ He drew in a breath as if to steady himself. ‘Everything about this is crazy.’

  ‘I feel a little crazy around you,’ Poppy confessed as she planted a soft, teasing kiss to his mouth.

  He kissed her back, a light play of his lips upon hers, pressing, nibbling, caressing. ‘Do you have any idea how out of my depth I’m feeling right now?’

  She gave him a wry look. ‘Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be feeling?’

  He cupped her face in his hands again. ‘How do you feel?’

  Poppy shivered as his dark eyes centred on her mouth. ‘Nervous, excited... A little worried I might disappoint you...’

  His gaze held hers with a look that was surprisingly tender. ‘You have no need to be worrying about that. This first time is all about you. I don’t want you to feel concerned about anything else but your needs.’

  Poppy touched his lower lip with the tip of her finger. ‘I do know what an orgasm is. I’ve had them...you know...? By myself...’

  His eyes darkened. ‘Do you want to show me what works for you or would you prefer me to discover it for myself?’

  Poppy felt a hot blush storm into her cheeks. ‘I think I’d feel more comfortable with you discovering it...’

  His thumbs stroked her cheeks in a slow and gentle caress. ‘Making love with someone for the first time is all about discovering what works and what doesn’t. I want you to tell me if you want to stop at any point. If you don’t feel comfortable then we can call a halt. You’re the one in control, OK?’

  Poppy wondered if she could have chosen a better first lover. He seemed so concerned for her, so adamant that she was not to be pressured or frightened or pushed out of her depth. For someone with such a racy reputation, he was showing a softer, gentler side that was powerfully seductive. She wanted to melt into his hard male body, to lose herself in his sensual expertise.