MELANIE MILBURNE - Tempted By A Caffarelli - Never Say No to a Caffarelli

‘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 know...’ 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?’