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Tempted By A Caffarelli: Never Say No to a Caffarelli
Tempted By A Caffarelli: Never Say No to a Caffarelli
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Tempted By A Caffarelli: Never Say No to a Caffarelli

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Her caramel eyes met his with deep, dark seriousness. ‘Her chocolate brownies.’

Rafe blinked. ‘Pardon?’

She gave him an impish smile. ‘Just kidding. I really had you there for a minute, didn’t I?’

You had me the first moment I met you.

Hang on, what was he thinking? Had him? Had him in what way? Sure, he was attracted to her. What full-blooded man wouldn’t be? But she wasn’t his type. She was the homespun type. He was the hardboiled, been-around-the-block-too-many-times type. His world was of fast cars, fancy hot spots and easy women who knew the rules and always played by them.

Her world was a small, out-of-the-way village, baking cakes and scones and making cups of tea for lonely old gentlemen while waiting for Mr Right.

She was innocent and sweet; he was jaded and cynical.

It was a recipe for disaster.

‘I miss her for her wisdom,’ Poppy went on. ‘She taught me more about food and cooking than any hospitality college could do. The thing most people don’t get about cooking is it’s not just a collection of ingredients, and hey presto, out comes a five-star meal. It’s so much more than that.’

‘So what does make a meal special?’

‘The love that goes into it.’

‘Love?’

‘The best restaurants are where the chefs love the food they prepare and the people they feed,’ she said. ‘It’s a symbiotic relationship.’

‘So what you’re telling me is you actually love the people who come to your tearoom?’

She gave him a pert look. ‘Maybe not all of them.’

Rafe laughed. ‘So what do I have to do to win your love? Have my cake and eat it too?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t want my love. You just want my house.’

I want much more than your house.

Rafe pushed the thought aside as Morgan approached with their meals. He had to stay focused. The goal was the dower house; that was what he was after. He didn’t want or need anything else. He wouldn’t be around long enough to invest in anything other than building a top-notch hotel that would make him loads and loads of money.

Goal.

Focus.

Win.

Sure, it would be fun to have Poppy Silverton in his bed for the short time he was here, but he wasn’t about to offer her anything else. She was looking for her fairy-tale prince, someone to sweep her off her feet and carrying her off into a happy-ever-after sunset.

Rafe’s princely attributes leaned more to the darker side.

That whole domestic scene women like Poppy were after was nothing like the life he had carved for himself. He didn’t do picket fences, puppies and sweet-smelling babies. He was never in the same place more than a week or two. He never stayed with a lover more than a month; six weeks max. He didn’t do commitment. Maybe he was more like his grandfather than he cared to admit.

Not evil, but not squeaky-clean either.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u1ab9e895-62cb-5648-9281-8abc9e3d533f)

AFTER THEY LEFT the restaurant, Rafe drove Poppy back home and walked her to the front door of the dower house. She hadn’t expected to enjoy the night out, but Rafe had been nothing but charming, and even though Oliver’s restaurant wouldn’t have been her first choice of venue, in the end it had given her a sense of closure.

But it niggled at her that yet again Rafe had achieved what he’d set out to achieve. He’d got her to agree to cook for him while he stayed on site at Dalrymple Manor. It showed how incredibly shrewd he was. He knew how to turn things to his advantage, to find an opponent’s weak spot and then go in for the kill.

And she’d done exactly as he had hoped she would do. She had snapped up the bait and now was committed to seeing him every night as she delivered his food to his door. Was she so predictable, or was he particularly clever at reading her?

Poppy turned to face him on her doorstep. ‘Do you have any preferences for meals? Any particular cuisine you’d prefer over another or are you happy with whatever I come up with?’

His dark eyes flicked to her mouth for a brief moment. ‘That’s not why I asked you out tonight.’

She arched a brow at him. ‘Is it not?’

‘No.’ His voice seemed deeper than normal, almost husky.

Poppy’s eyes were almost on a level with his as she was standing two steps above him, and she was wearing her highest heels. She could see the wide black circles of his pupils in those impossibly deep brown eyes. She could see the way his lips were pressed firmly together as if he was fighting some sort of private internal battle. She could sense the tension in him and in the fragrant night air that circled them. ‘Then why?’

‘I asked you out so I could sleep with you.’

Poppy’s eyes widened at his blunt honesty. ‘You don’t pull your punches, do you?’

His mouth tilted wryly. ‘Your honour is safe, Poppy. I’m not going to have my wicked way with you tonight.’

‘That’s very reassuring.’ It was downright disappointing, but to admit that to him would be rather perverse of her.

He captured one of her loose corkscrew curls and wound it round his finger, his eyes holding hers in an intimate lock that made the base of her spine tingle like sherbet sprinkled in a glass of soda water. ‘I had it all planned. I was going to wine and dine you, flatter you with compliments and then bring you back here and have wild, bed-wrecking sex with you.’

Poppy swallowed a gulp. ‘Y-you were?’

He unwound her hair and tucked it neatly behind her left ear as if she was about seven years old. ‘You’re a nice girl, Poppy Silverton. But here’s the thing... I don’t mess with nice girls.’

Mess with me! Mess with me! ‘So...what changed your mind?’

‘I’ve had more lovers than you’ve cooked hot dinners,’ he said. ‘I don’t even remember most of their names.’

‘I bet they don’t forget yours in a hurry.’

He gave a rather Gallic shrug, as if to say that was just the way things were. ‘I’m not what you’re looking for. It would be wrong to give you the wrong impression or mislead you into thinking any alliance between us could turn into something more permanent.’

‘You’re surprisingly honourable for a playboy.’

He brushed the underside of her chin with his index finger in a barely touching movement that set every nerve alight with longing. ‘Bonsoir, ma petite.’

Poppy snatched in a scratchy little breath as she watched him walk down the path to his car. She’d been expecting another kiss. Her anticipation of it had been building from the moment they had left the restaurant. Actually, it had been building from the moment he had picked her up that evening and looked at her as if she had just stepped off a Paris catwalk. She wanted to feel that firm, cynical mouth pressed against hers again. She had been staring at his mouth all evening, wondering when he was going to do it. Maybe she should have taken matters into her own hands. What would have been wrong with a quick peck on the lips to thank him for a lovely night out?

It wouldn’t have been a quick peck, that was why.

Once his mouth connected with hers another explosion would be detonated, and this time one or both of them might not be able to step back. Hadn’t she felt that simmering tension from the very first moment he had walked into her tearoom? She had never experienced anything like it before. It was a rhythm in her body that only he was able to set going. For all these years she had been waiting for the right man to unlock her senses. She had wanted to find someone who could make her heart race; someone who could make her skin sing with longing; someone who could make her sizzle with a desire so unstoppable it would totally consume her. Hadn’t his potently hot kiss given her a taste of what he was capable of doing to her?

She wasn’t without an understanding of the workings of her body. She had explored it and had been rather fascinated by how it reacted to stimulation. But she thought of sex as being like sightseeing—it was far more pleasurable to see the spectacular sights with someone else rather than all on your own.

He had said he wasn’t going to act on his desire for her. Did he mean just for tonight, or never? She had seen the way his eyes had been drawn to her mouth time and time again, as if he was remembering how it felt beneath his own. Was he going just to ignore the pull of attraction that pulsed between them? He might have the strength of will to do it, but Poppy wasn’t so sure she could. At least, not for much longer.

* * *

Chloe was agog when she came bursting through the door of the tearoom the next morning. ‘Have you seen the paper?’ She thrust a tabloid in front of Poppy. ‘Everyone’s saying you’re Rafe Caffarelli’s new love interest. That was fast work! I thought you didn’t even like him. What the hell happened last night? Did you sleep with him?’

Poppy snatched the paper out of Chloe’s hands. ‘Of course I didn’t sleep with him. I didn’t even kiss him. We had dinner, that’s all.’

She looked down at the society section Chloe had opened. There was a photo of them sitting at the table last night. Rafe’s hand was covering hers and their gazes were locked as if in a deeply intimate conversation.

‘So?’ Chloe prompted.

Poppy closed the paper and handed it back to her. ‘So nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Zilch.’

Chloe’s brow was knitted. ‘Not even a kiss?’

‘Nope.’

‘A peck on the cheek?’

‘No.’

Chloe pursed her lips in thought. ‘Did you have an argument with him or something?’

‘No. In fact I agreed to provide meals for him while he’s here.’

‘Gosh, he must have really laid on the charm. I thought you would rather see him starve.’

‘Yes, well, it was either agree to it or let Oliver do it.’ Poppy tied her apron around her waist. ‘Do you know Oliver had my passionfruit crème brûlée on the menu last night?’

‘Did Rafe order it?’

‘No, he doesn’t have a sweet tooth.’

Chloe looked at her musingly. ‘People’s tastes can change.’

Poppy gave a little secret smile as she headed to the kitchen. ‘We’ll see.’

* * *

Rafe looked at the preliminary plans he’d drawn up but something wasn’t sitting well with him. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Normally he was so clear-cut on this stuff. He bought a property with development potential and sketched out plans to present to his design team to fine tune.

But this time something wasn’t quite right.

The doorbell rang and he got up wearily from his chair. He’d lost track of time. He’d been sitting for hours going nowhere fast. He scraped a hand through his hair to put it in some semblance of order and opened the door.

‘I have your dinner.’ Poppy was standing on the doorstep with her three little dogs at her feet like miniature bodyguards. She was holding a tray in her hands from which delicious savoury smells were emanating.

Rafe had never seen a more beautiful sight, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was starving. ‘It smells divine,’ he said. ‘But it looks like you’ve got enough here to feed a football team.’

‘I wasn’t sure how big your appetite was.’ Her cheeks immediately turned a deep shade of pink.

‘Why don’t you join me?’ He pushed the door open a bit wider with his shoulder as he took the tray from her. ‘You’d be doing me a favour. I’ve been having one of those incredibly frustrating unproductive days. I could do with some company other than my own.’

She hesitated on the doorstep. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude.’ She glanced at the dogs at her feet. ‘And I’ve got the guys with me.’

Rafe put the tray on the hall table as Chutney had already rushed up to greet him, wriggling his little body in glee. Relish was whining in delight in case he got overlooked. But Pickles, with his cute overshot jaw that looked like a drawer that hadn’t been closed properly, was eyeing him with that same beady look. However, Rafe thought he saw his stumpy tail wag just the once as he bent down to administer pats and scratches to the other two. ‘The guys are more than welcome.’ He finally straightened and met her gaze once he had closed the door. ‘I guess you saw the paper? I think it was only in the one.’

She bit down on her lip and then released it. Rafe felt a punch of lust slam him in the groin. Her mouth was so full and ripe, so incredibly sweet. He had dreamt of those lips. It had kept him awake thinking how much he wanted to feel them on his again.

‘Yes...’ she said. ‘But can’t we make them retract it or something?’

He picked up the tray and carried it through to the kitchen. ‘No point. They’d just make something else up. I ignore it mostly. They’ll soon find someone else to target. Our “affair” will be tomorrow’s fish-and-chips wrapper.’

‘But I don’t want people thinking I’m...you know...sleeping with you, when I’m not.’

He smiled down at her lopsidedly. ‘Ironic, don’t you think?’

Her big brown eyes looked up at him with a twinkle of amusement. ‘Very.’

How was he going to resist her?

‘Where would you like me to dish up dinner?’ she asked, suddenly turning brisk and housekeeper-efficient. ‘Lord Dalrymple used to take most of his meals in the morning room but I can set up here in the kitchen, or the formal dining room if you’d prefer.’

‘This will probably come as a bit of a surprise to you but I can’t remember the last time I ate in the kitchen,’ Rafe said. Actually he could, but the memory of it was too painful to recall: his pretty mother, just two days before she had died, dressed in a flowery apron with a swipe of flour across one cheek as she’d bent down to offer him a teaspoon of thick, sweet cake batter to taste...

He pushed the vision away and added, ‘It wasn’t the way my brothers and I were brought up. Our grandfather didn’t believe in fraternising with the domestic staff. Not in the kitchen at least.’

‘He doesn’t sound like a very nice person to me,’ Poppy said as she set about laying the table in the kitchen.

Rafe watched as she set two places with the cutlery neatly aligned before turning to find glasses and napkins. She seemed to know her way about the place, but then he recalled she had spent a great deal of her childhood there. ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked. ‘I have wine, both red and white.’

She looked up from placing napkins on the side plates. ‘Do you have lemonade?’ But before he could answer she said, ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. It’s far too sweet.’

‘I have mineral water or soda water.’

‘That would be lovely.’

Rafe wondered if she was avoiding alcohol in order to keep a clear head. God knew he should take a leaf out of her book. He was having trouble keeping his hands off her as it was. She was dressed in a cotton skirt that emphasised the slimness of her waist. Her three-quarter-length-sleeved sweater skimmed her small perfect breasts lovingly. She wasn’t wearing much make-up—just a hint of shadow, mascara that made her lush lashes look all the more Bambi-like and a light shimmer of lip-gloss on her mouth. She was wearing ballet flats on her feet, making the height ratio between them all the more disparate. Her daintiness made him feel far more aware of his masculinity than any other woman he had ever encountered before.

The trouble was, he was feeling more than a little conflicted about acting on it. Would it be right to seduce Poppy, knowing he was not the man to give her what she was truly looking for?