‘It might be ages yet. I don’t want to make a fuss.’
‘I think it would be a bit more awkward for Gordon if you have the baby here.’ He glanced around at the guests and then went to have a word with Alberto, who soon organised transport.
‘We are going to head off,’ Raúl said when Gordon cornered them. ‘Estelle is tired…’ But then he couldn’t lie—because Estelle was bent over.
‘Oh, my!’ Gordon was beaming.
‘Please,’ Estelle begged. ‘I don’t want everyone to know.’
There was no chance of keeping it quiet as she was helped down to the swimming platform, from where she was guided onto a speedboat. They sped off to the cheers and whistles of the wedding party.
‘I wanted to have it in England…’
‘I know.’ They were supposed to have been flying there the next morning. ‘But you wanted to be at the wedding too,’ he reminded her.
‘I know.’
‘You can’t have everything,’ he teased. ‘That’s only me.’
She groaned with another pain and buried her face in his neck, wondering how much worse the pains would get, grateful that Raúl was so calm.
He was calm—he had everything he wanted right here on this small boat.
He looked up at the cliffs. He had long ago let go of that night, but there was a brief moment of memory just then. It didn’t panic him. For a minute he thought of his mother and prayed for her peace.
It was the longest night, and her labour went on well into the next day.
Estelle pushed and dug her nails into his arms, and just when she was sure she could not go on any longer, finally the end was in sight.
‘No empujen!’
‘Don’t push,’ Raúl translated.
He had been incredibly composed throughout, but he was starting to worry now, watching the black hair of his infant and realising that soon he would be a father for real.
And then he saw her.
Red, angry, with black hair and fat cheeks.
And as he held her he was more than willing to be completely responsible for this little heart.
The midwife asked if they had a name as she went to write on the wristband and he looked at Estelle. They had chosen a few names, but had opted to wait till the baby was here before they decided. There was one name that had not been suggested till now.
‘Gabriella?’ Estelle said, and he nodded, unable to speak for a moment. The name that had once meant so much pain was wrapped now in love, and his mother’s name would go on.
‘Gabriella Sanchez Connolly,’ Raúl said.
‘She needs a middle name,’ Estelle said.
‘What about your mother’s?’ Raúl said, but Estelle already had her mother’s name, and thanks to Spanish tradition Connolly was there, too.
Together they held and gazed at their very new daughter, quietly deciding what her full name would be.
‘I want to ring Andrew and tell him he’s an uncle,’ Estelle said, her eyes filling with selfish tears—because though she could not be happier still she wanted to share the news. She wanted her brother to see Gabriella, as she had held Cecelia the day she was born.
‘Why would you ring?’ Raúl asked. ‘They are waiting outside. I will go and bring them in now.’
Raúl stepped out into the waiting room.
His eyes were bloodshot, his hair unkempt, he was unshaven and there was lipstick on his collar—only this time Angela was smiling.
‘It’s a girl,’ Raúl said. ‘Both are doing really well,’ he said.
Amanda burst into tears and Andrew shook his hand.
‘Baby!’ Cecelia said, pointing to her little cousin as Estelle showed off the newest arrival to the Connolly clan and thought that Raúl had somehow made an already perfect day even better.
‘Come and see,’ Raúl said to Angela, who was standing back at the door.
‘She’s beautiful.’ Angela looked down and smiled at the chubby cheeks, seeing the eyes of Luka and Raúl. ‘Just perfect—does she have a name?’
‘Gabriella,’ Raúl said, and looked at the woman who had been like a mother to him, even if it had been from a distance. ‘Gabriella Angela Sanchez Connolly.’
Yes, Spanish names could be complicated at times, but they were very simple too.
It was a perfect day, and later came a blissful night, with Estelle sharing a drink of champagne with her family till Cecelia was drooping in Andrew’s arms.
‘We’re going to get back to the hotel,’ Andrew said, looking down at Gabriella. He gave Estelle’s hand a squeeze. ‘Mum and Dad would have been really proud.’
‘I know.’
And then it was just the two of them, lying in bed together, on their first night with Gabriella here.
‘There is a text from Luka.’ Raúl gave a brief eye-roll as he read the message. ‘I have a feeling Angela may have hijacked his phone and typed it.’ Raúl’s voice was wry. Things were still terribly strained with Luka, but Raúl, very new to being a brother, was trying to work through it.
Not that Luka wanted to.
‘You’ll get there,’ said Estelle.
‘Perhaps,’ Raúl said.
‘Thank you for today.’
Gabriella, who was snuggled up in her cot beside them, made a small noise, and Raúl thought his heart might burst with pride and love as he gazed at his sleeping daughter.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I never thought I could feel so much happiness.’
‘I meant for bringing my family over. It means so much to me to have them here.’
‘I know it does.’ He turned his gaze from his daughter to his wife. ‘I know, thanks to you, the importance of family—even a difficult one.’ He kissed her tired mouth. ‘And no matter what happens I am never going to forget it.’
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A CAFFARELLI by Melanie Milburne.
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CHAPTER ONE
‘BUT I NEVER work with male clients,’ Lily said to her boss at the south London physical therapies rehabilitation clinic. ‘You know that.’
‘I know but this is such an amazing opportunity,’ Valerie said. ‘Raoul Caffarelli is from serious money. This four-week live-in post in Normandy will be worth a year’s work to you. I can’t send anyone else. Anyway, his brother absolutely insisted on you.’
Lily frowned. ‘His brother?’
Valerie gave her eyes a little roll. ‘Yes, well, apparently Raoul isn’t too keen on working with anyone just now. He’s become a bit reclusive since coming out of hospital. His older brother Rafe read about your work with Sheikh Kaseem Al-Balawi’s daughter. He wants you to help his brother. He’s willing to pay you very handsomely. I got the impression from him when he called that you could just about name your price.’
Lily chewed at her lower lip. The money was certainly attractive, especially given her mother’s desperate circumstances right now, after ye
t another failed relationship had drained her bank account dry. But a live-in post with a man—even one currently confined to a wheelchair—was the stuff of her nightmares.
She hadn’t been anywhere near a man in five years.
‘I’m not doing it,’ Lily said, turning to put another patient’s file away. ‘It’s out of the question. You’ll have to find someone else.’
‘I don’t think saying no is a going to be an option,’ Valerie said. ‘The Caffarelli brothers are known for their ruthless determination. Rafe wants Raoul to be his best man at his wedding in September. He believes you’re the best person to get his brother back on his feet.’
Lily closed the drawer, turned and looked at her boss. ‘What does he think I am, a miracle worker? His brother might never get back on his feet, let alone in a matter of weeks.’
‘I know, but the least you could do is agree to work with him to see if it’s possible,’ Valerie said. ‘It’s a dream job—all expenses paid while you get to stay in a centuries-old château in rural Normandy. Do it, Lily. You’ll be doing me a huge favour. It will really lift the profile of the clinic. This is exactly what we need right now to build on the work you did with the Sheikh’s daughter. We’ll be known as the holistic clinic for the rich and famous. Everyone will want to come here.’
Lily swallowed a tight knot of panic in her throat. Her heart was thumping such a rapid and jerky tattoo it felt as if she had just run up a skyscraper’s flight of stairs. Her skin was clammy and her head felt as tight as if a vice were pressing against her temples. She tried to think of an escape route but each time she thought of one it was immediately roadblocked by her need to help her mother and her loyalty to her employer.
Could she do it?
‘I’ll need to see Mr Caffarelli’s scans and reports from his doctors. I might not be able to do much at all for him. It would be wrong to give him or his brother false hope.’
Valerie clicked the mouse at her computer. ‘I have the scans and reports here. Rafe emailed them to me. I’ll forward them to you.’
Lily looked at the reports a short time later in her office. Raoul Caffarelli had a spinal injury from a water-skiing accident. He had also sustained a badly broken right arm, although that was apparently healing. He had some feeling in his legs, but he was unable to stand upright without aid, and at this point in time he could not walk. The neurosurgical opinion was that he would be unlikely to regain full use of his legs, although they expected some minor improvement in his current mobility. But Lily had read similar reports before and tried not to let them influence her when dealing with a client.
Some spinal injuries could be devastatingly permanent, others relatively minor, and then there was everything in between. So much depended on the type of injury as well as a client’s attitude and general state of health.
Lily liked to use a mix of therapies—the traditional things such as structured exercise, strength-training and massage, and some which were considered a little more on the alternative side, such as aromatherapy, dietary supplements and visualisation techniques.
The Sheikh’s daughter, Halimah Al-Balawi, was one of her star clients. The young woman had been told by three neurosurgeons that she would never walk again. Lily had worked with her for three months; the improvement had been painstakingly slow at first, but finally Halimah had taken her first steps with the aid of parallel bars and she had continued to improve until she was able to walk unaided.
Lily sat back in her chair and chewed at a ragged end on her pinkie nail. For anyone else it would be a dream job to take on a man as rich and famous as Raoul Caffarelli. To spend a month in the lap of luxury working closely with a man every single woman on the planet would give ten years of her life to have one day or night with, let alone thirty-one of them. They would grab the opportunity with both hands and relish every minute of it.
But for her it would be a form of torture.
Her stomach recoiled at the thought of putting her hands on a hard male body. Working with a client as a physical therapist meant physical contact—close physical contact. Hands on flesh. Hands on muscles and tendons, stroking and massaging... Touching.
Her mobile rang from where it was sitting on her desk. She saw her mother’s face come up on the screen and pressed the answer button. ‘Hi, Mum. Are you OK?’
‘Darling, I hate to bother you when you’re at work, but the bank’s been on the phone to me again. They’re going to foreclose on the house if I don’t come up with the last three months’ mortgage payments. I tried to explain that it was Martin who siphoned off my account but they wouldn’t listen.’
Lily felt her blood boil at how her mother had been scammed by a man she had met through an online dating service. Never a great judge of character at the best of times—although she was hardly one to talk, given what had happened to her on the night of her twenty-first birthday—her mother had foolishly trusted her new partner and was now paying heavily for it. That lowlife pond-scum had hacked into her mother’s accounts and stolen her life savings.
Was fate twisting Lily’s arm? How could she knock back this job when her mother was in such desperate need of financial support? Her mother had stalwartly stood by her during her lowest point. Those terrible dark days after her twenty-first birthday had almost sent her to the edge of sanity. But her mother had stood by her, putting her own life on hold to help Lily come out of that black hole of despair and self-loathing. Didn’t she owe this to her mother?
It was only for a month.
Four weeks.
Thirty-one days.
It would feel like a lifetime.
‘It’s all right, Mum.’ She took a scratchy little breath. ‘I’m taking on a new client. It’ll mean I’ll be away in France for the whole of August but I’ll ask them to pay me up-front. That will sort out the bank. You’re not going to lose the house. Not if I can help it.’
* * *
Raoul scowled at his brother. ‘I thought I told you I want to be left alone.’
Rafe blew out a breath of frustration. ‘You can’t spend the rest of your life holed up here like a recluse. What is wrong with you? Can’t you see this is your best chance—maybe your only chance—of a recovery?’
Raoul wheeled his chair with his one good arm so he didn’t have to face his brother. He knew Rafe meant well but the thought of having some young Englishwoman fussing over him with her snake-oil remedies was anathema to him right now. ‘The best doctors in Italy said this is as good as it’s going to get. I don’t need to have this Archer woman wasting my time and your money pretending it’s going to be otherwise.’
‘Look, I know you’re still smarting about Clarissa breaking off your engagement, but you can’t hold it against all women just because she—’
‘This has nothing to do with Clarissa,’ Raoul snapped as he wheeled back round.
Rafe gave him a look that spoke volumes. ‘You weren’t even in love with her. You just thought she ticked all the boxes. The accident showed you her true colours. The way I see it—and Poppy says the same—you had a very lucky escape.’
Raoul’s left hand gripped the chair so tightly he thought his knuckles were going to explode through his skin. ‘You think I’ve been lucky? Look at me, Rafe. I’m stuck in this chair! I can’t even dress myself. Don’t insult me by saying I’m lucky.’
Rafe rubbed a hand over the top of his head. ‘Sorry. Bad choice of words.’ He dropped his hand back by his side. ‘Will you at least meet her?
Give her a trial run for a week or even a couple of days? If it doesn’t work out then you can call it quits. You’ll be the one in control of whether she stays or goes.’
Raoul wheeled back over to the window to look at the view over the fields where some of his most prized thoroughbreds were grazing. He couldn’t even go out to them and stroke their velvet noses. He couldn’t walk over the soft springy grass. He was trapped in this chair, trapped in his own body, in the body that for the last thirty-four years had defined him as a person—as a man. The doctors had told him he was luckier than most; he still had feeling in his legs and full bladder and bowel function. He supposedly still had sexual function, but what woman would want him now?
Hadn’t Clarissa made that starkly clear?
He wanted his body back. He wanted his life back.
Who was to say this Archer woman was the miracle worker Rafe suggested? She could be the biggest charlatan out there. He didn’t want to be taken for a ride, to be given false hopes only to have them dashed in the end. He was slowly coming to terms with his situation. He needed this time at the château to get his head around how life was going to be from now on. He wasn’t ready to face the world just yet. The thought of the paparazzi tailing him to get the best pity shot made him sick to his stomach.
He just wanted to be left alone.
‘One month, Raoul,’ Rafe said into the silence. ‘Please. Just give it a try.’
Raoul knew both of his brothers were worried about him. Remy, his younger brother, had been there the day before, doing his best to jolly him along like a male version of Pollyanna. His grandfather, Vittorio, had been less supportive, but Raoul had come to expect that from him. Vittorio was not the sort of man to offer sympathy or support. His speciality was to blame and to castigate.
‘I’d like a week or two to think about it.’
The Playboy of Puerto Banus Page 16