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 looked down at her hands for a moment as she began folding and refolding her napkin. ‘I never met my father. He deserted my mother before I was born. Apparently she wasn’t good enough for him so he married someone else.’
‘So your grandmother raised you?’
She nodded as she met his gaze again. ‘She was wonderful, stepping in to take care of me after my mother died. I had a good childhood, all things considered. Lord Dalrymple was incredibly kind to me. He was a bit of a recluse but he always had time for me.’
‘Were you disappointed he didn’t leave you and your grandmother the manor as well as the dower house when he died?’
Poppy blinked at him in shock. ‘Of course not. Why would we be? We weren’t blood relatives. My gran was just his housekeeper.’
He gave a shrug of one broad shoulder. ‘Your grandmother worked for him a very long time.’
‘She loved working for him. She loved him.’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘Loved him?’
Poppy let out a breath in a little whoosh. ‘I think maybe she did love him a little bit like that. Not that he would ever have noticed. He was living in the past, grieving for his dead wife Clara. But my gran never expected anything from him. She wasn’t like that. It was a total shock to her when he left us the dower house. It was a nice gesture. It meant a lot to her. She’d never owned anything in her life, not even a car. She had grown up dirt poor and relatively uneducated. She’d been a cleaner since she was fifteen. To suddenly find herself the owner of a house was such a dream come true.’
‘It must have been a shock to his family that he left the dower house to his housekeeper and her granddaughter.’
‘Yes, there was a bit of a fuss over the separation of the deeds.’ Poppy looked at him again but his expression was inscrutable. ‘But Lord Dalrymple had made it clear in his will that we were to have it.’
‘And then when she died her share of the house went to you.’
‘Yes.’
There was a loaded silence.
‘It’s just a house, Poppy.’
She threw him a flinty look. ‘It’s not just a house. It’s much more than that.’
‘You can buy a much better place with the money I’m offering you. A place three times the size and with little or no upkeep.’
Poppy resented how he had gone from attentive listener to hard-nosed businessman in a heartbeat. She had been momentarily lulled into thinking he had a softer side underneath that ruthlessly tough exterior.
He was not soft.
He was as hard as steel and she had better not forget it. ‘Why is the dower house such an issue for you? Isn’t the manor enough? You have properties all over the globe. Why are you being so pigheaded and stubborn about a little dower house in a tiny little village in the English countryside?’
His mouth was set in an intractable line. ‘I want that house. It belongs to the estate. It should never have been taken off the deeds.’
Poppy gave him a challenging glare. ‘That house belongs to me. You can’t have it. Get over it.’
His diamond-hard eyes bored like a drill into hers. ‘Don’t mess with me, Poppy. You have no idea how ruthless I can be if I have to.’
She got to her feet with an ear-piercing screech of chair legs against the floorboards. ‘Get out of my shop.’
He gave her an imperious smile. ‘It’s my shop now—remember?’
Fury coursed through her body like a flash of hot fire. She wanted to slap him. She had never felt so tempted to resort to physical violence. She clenched her hands into fists, her body shaking with impotent rage. ‘What are you going to do—charge me an exorbitant rent? Go ahead. Make me pay. I’ll go public with it. I’ll tell everyone you tried to blackmail me to sleep with you. I’ll speak to every newspaper. Don’t think I won’t do it, because I will.’
He laughed, which made her all the more furious. ‘I really like your spirit. No one has ever stood up to me quite like you do. But you’re not going to win this. I always get what I want.’
Poppy glowered at him. ‘Get out.’
His eyes glinted at her goadingly as he leisurely got to his feet. ‘Call the papers. Tell them what you like. They’ll just think you’re another wannabe gold-digger after money and fame. You’ll be the one with mud on your face, not me.’ He took out his wallet. ‘How much do I owe for the tea?’
Poppy gave him a look that would have stripped graffiti off a wall. ‘It’s on the house.’
He held her gaze for a long, throbbing moment. ‘I meant what I said about the rent. I don’t intend to make any changes to the arrangements you made with John Underwood.’
She flashed him another caustic glare. ‘Am I supposed to thank you? Kiss your feet? Prostrate myself before you? Go on, lay one finger on me and see what happens. I dare you— Oomph!’
His hands had grasped her upper arms so quickly she didn’t have time to do much more than snatch a quick breath before his mouth came down on hers.
It was a hard, possessive kiss, a hot fizzing pressure against her lips that made them tingle as if high-voltage electricity was passing directly from his body to hers.
Poppy had intended to fight him, but somehow as soon as his mouth connected with hers her lips softened and became totally pliant, melting beneath the fiery purpose of his. She opened to his command and tasted the full potent heat of him, the bold thrust of his tongue going in search of hers with erotic intent. He explored every corner of her mouth with spine-tingling thoroughness, leaving her breathless and barely able
