Never Underestimate a Caffarelli

Raoul had waited until he was alone to vent his feelings. He always went to ground when he had to deal with things. He didn’t need people around, offering their useless platitudes and pitying looks.

But now he had Miss Lily Archer inside his bunker.

He pushed back from his desk and motored his chair to the door, but just as he was coming out of it he saw Lily coming up the corridor. She had her head down and her arms folded across her middle as if she was keeping herself tightly contained. She must have heard the faint whirr of his chair for she suddenly looked up and stopped in her tracks, her cheeks pooling with a faint blush of colour.

‘I—I thought you’d gone to bed.’

‘Not yet,’ Raoul said. ‘I refuse to lie down before eleven o’clock and even that’s far too early for me.’

Her blush deepened a fraction but the tone of her voice was starchy and disapproving. ‘I’m sure it is.’

‘Are you a night owl, Miss Archer?’

‘No.’

Her answer was so quick and so definitive. Every moment he spent with her piqued his interest a little bit more. What was going on behind the bottomless lake of those dark blue eyes? What was it with her stiff, school-marm formality? He couldn’t help imagining her without that layer of dowdy, shapeless clothes. She was on the slim side, but even so he could see the jut of her small but shapely breasts beneath that sack of a dress.

What would she look like in a swimsuit?

What would she look like naked?

‘Would you care to join me in a nightcap?’ he asked.

She looked like he had just asked her to drink from a poisoned chalice. ‘No.’

Raoul raised his brows. ‘Surely one little tipple won’t corrupt you?’

She compressed her lips until they were almost white. ‘I told you before, Monsieur Caffarelli, I don’t drink.’

‘You can call me Raoul. You don’t have to be so formal with me.’ He gave her an indolent half smile. ‘It’s not as if it’s me paying your wages.’

Her eyes moved away from his. ‘I like to keep professional boundaries in place when I’m dealing with clients.’

‘So you don’t ever get on a first-name basis?’

She huddled into herself again. She reminded him of a porcupine folding in on itself to keep away predators. ‘Sometimes, but not always.’

‘So, how can I get you to relax the boundaries enough to call me by my first name?’

Her eyes were as chilly as a Scottish tarn as they met his. ‘You can’t.’

Raoul felt the thrum of his blood as she laid down the challenge. There was nothing a Caffarelli male loved more than a challenge—a seemingly impossible obstacle to overcome. They thrived on it. It was like air—as essential to them as oxygen. It was a part of their DNA.

He remembered the pep talk Rafe had given him and Remy when things had turned ugly after their grandfather had jeopardised the family fortune with an unwise deal with a business rival a few years ago.

Goal.

Focus.

Win.

It was the Caffarelli credo.

Raoul looked at her tightly composed features. She didn’t like him and she didn’t like being here. It was only about the money. This next week could be far more entertaining than he had first realised. He would rattle her cage some more and enjoy every single minute of doing it. ‘Good night, Miss Archer.’

Her cheeks were still rosy but her eyes hardened as she raised her chin. ‘Goodnight, Monsieur Caffarelli.’

He watched as she walked on past with brisk steps that ate up the corridor like a hungry chomping mouth. The door of her bedroom closed with a snap and the sound echoed for a moment in the ringing silence.

Raoul frowned as he wheeled back into his study. It was a new experience to have a bedroom door closed on him.

He decided he didn’t like it.

* * *

Lily came down for an early breakfast the next morning to find Dominique talking to a man in his late twenties over coffee and hot, buttery croissants.

‘Ah, Mademoiselle Archer, this is Monsieur Raoul’s carer, Sebastien,’ the housekeeper said. ‘Or should I say, ex-carer?’

Sebastien rolled his eyes as he put his coffee cup down on the counter. ‘I’ve been fired as of this morning. Monsieur Caffarelli has decided he no longer needs my help.’

‘Oh...’

‘I probably should warn you, he’s in a spectacularly foul temper,’ Sebastien said. ‘I don’t think he slept at all last night.’