Cute? He didn’t think she was stunningly beautiful or gorgeous, just cute, like a puppy or a kitten. ‘Thank you.’ She gave him a tight, on-off smile. ‘Um...the kitchen’s this way.’
Poppy went through the motion of putting on the kettle but the whole time she was aware of Rafe’s impossibly dark gaze resting on her. She told him how it was important to fill the kettle with fresh cold water each time, and how it was important to warm the teapot before spooning in the leaves—one for each person and one for the pot. ‘Tea always tastes nicer from a china cup,’ she said. ‘Cheap thick, chunky mugs just don’t cut it, I’m afraid.’
He was looking at her with a smile lurking in those coal-black eyes. ‘Fascinating.’
‘Yes, well, I admit I’m a bit old-school about it, but there you go.’ She put a hand-knitted cosy on the teapot and placed it on the tray she had laid out earlier.
‘Let me carry that for you.’
She felt the brush of his fingers against hers as he took the tray. It felt like a charge of electricity shooting to that secret place between her thighs.
Her eyes locked with his for a pulsing moment.
His eyes were so dark she couldn’t see where his pupils began or ended. She could smell the clean, male scent of him—the subtle hint of lemon and lime with an understory of something woody and fresh, like a native pine forest. This close she could see the individual pinpoints of his cleanly shaven jaw. Within a few hours it would be dark and prickly around that sculptured mouth and determined chin. Even now it would rasp if she touched it with the softness of her fingertips...
Poppy curled her fingertips into her palm and shifted her gaze away from his. ‘Right... Well, let’s go and have tea.’
Once the table was set up, Rafe guided her to her seat with a hand at her elbow. Poppy felt another shiver shimmy up her spine at the contact of his skin on hers. She couldn’t recall a time when she had been more acutely aware of a man. Everything about him stirred her senses until she could hardly get her brain to focus on the task at hand.
‘Um...do you take milk?’
‘I don’t know.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘Should I?’
‘It rather depends on the type of tea,’ Poppy said. ‘I drink English breakfast with milk, but I drink Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Russian Caravan and Jasmine black. But at the end of the day, it’s all a matter of personal taste.’
‘Give it to me straight, just like my coffee.’
She poured him a cup and watched as he took a taste. He wrinkled up his nose and put the cup back down in its saucer.
‘Well?’
‘It’s a bit flavourless.’
‘Flavourless?’
‘Bland.’
‘It’s the highest quality Ceylon tea, for God’s sake,’ Poppy said. ‘What is wrong with your taste buds?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with my taste buds. I just don’t like tea.’
‘How about if you try it with some milk and sugar?’
‘I’ll try the milk but not the sugar.’ He gave her a heart-stopping smile. ‘I’m sweet enough.’
Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘Here.’ She handed him his cup again. ‘Taste it now.’
He went through the same routine, wrinkling up his nose as he took a tentative sip. He put the cup back down again. ‘Doesn’t float my boat, I’m afraid.’
‘You don’t like it?’
‘It’s nondescript.’
‘It’s not nondescript,’ she said. ‘It’s subtle.’
‘It’s just not my cup of tea.’ He flashed her that grin again. ‘Sorry, no pun intended.’
Poppy shook her head at him, trying not to smile. He could be incredibly charming when he put his mind to it. She would have to be careful not to let her guard down. He was the enemy. It wouldn’t do to think of him as anything else. ‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘That’s what my mother used to say.’
There was something almost wistful about his tone. She wondered if he was close to his family. She picked up her own cup and took a sip. ‘Where do your parents live? In France or Italy?’
The light had gone out of his eyes. ‘They don’t.’
‘Pardon?’
‘They don’t live anywhere. They’re dead. They were killed when I was ten.’
‘I’m sorry...’ Poppy bit her lip. Maybe she should have done a little more research on him. The article she had come across had mentioned nothing about his childhood, only about his playboy status, wealth and the latest lover he’d been with.
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘What happened?’
He picked up his teaspoon and began toying with it between his finger and thumb like one would do a pen. ‘They had a high-speed collision with another motorboat on the French Rivera. My mother was killed instantly. My father died in hospital three days later from internal injuries.’
‘I’m so sorry... It must have been a terrible time for you and your brothers.’
A flicker of pain passed through his eyes before he lowered them to look at the spoon he was holding. ‘Yes. It was.’
‘What happened afterwards? I mean...where did you go? Who looked after you and your brothers?’
‘My paternal grandfather took us in.’ He put down the spoon, picked up his teacup and cradled it in his hands.
‘Is he still alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you close to him?’
His lip curled but not in a smile. ‘No one is close to my grandfather.’
Poppy could tell he wasn’t keen to reveal too much about his background. But his cryptic comment about his grandfather was rather intriguing. What sort of man was Vittorio Caffarelli? Had he made the lives of the three bereaved boys even more miserable in his handling and rearing of them? ‘What about your grandmother? Was she involved in your upbringing?’
‘No, she died of cancer when my father was a teenager.’
‘What about your maternal grandparents?’
Rafe turned the cup around in its saucer. ‘They died before I was born.’ He picked up the cup and took a sip, grimacing at the taste before he put it back down again. ‘Tell me about your childhood. You said you lost your parents when you were seven. How did they die?’
Poppy
