man’s world and dropped when she’d ceased to be of interest to him. Poppy was sure that was what had shattered her mother—the public humiliation of being rejected, discarded like a toy that no longer held any appeal. Poppy’s playboy father had denied paternity when her mother had told him she was pregnant, and in those days it hadn’t been as easy to prove or disprove as it was today when you could buy a testing kit online. Her mother had been painted as a social-climbing, gold-digging slut who wanted to land herself a rich husband.
Wouldn’t the same be said about Poppy if she were seen in the press with Rafe Caffarelli?
‘Why are you so worried about what people will think?’ he asked.
Poppy chewed at her lower lip. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re used to it. I bet hardly a day goes by without an article appearing somewhere with you at the centre of it. I hate having my photo taken even when I’m prepared for it. Some unscrupulous photographer will probably catch me off-guard with parsley stuck in my teeth, or without make-up, or dressed in my shabbiest tracksuit or something.’
He was looking at her with a smile tilting the edge of his mouth. ‘I quite liked how you looked in that tracksuit the other night.’
‘It had lint balls all over it.’
‘I think you looked stunning in it.’
Poppy picked up her champagne flute for something to do with her hands. He was lethally charming in this playful, flirty mood. But she mustn’t forget she had something he wanted—the dower house. He had tried other means to get her to sell it to him. Maybe this new approach was nothing to do with how attractive or unique or cute he found her, but rather another clever ploy of his to achieve his goal. ‘I suppose you think that if you flatter me enough I’ll change my mind and sell you my house?’
‘I think you’re mistaking my motives.’
She gave him an arch look. ‘Oh really? So you’re going to sit there and tell me you asked me out to dinner, not as a ploy to get me to change my mind, but just because you find my company scintillating?’
That sexy half-smile was still lurking around the edges of his mouth. ‘I find your company electrifying. You’re so unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.’
Poppy felt her belly do a complicated tumble turn as his wicked gaze held hers. ‘I guess I must be even more of a challenge to you now.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I’m...you know...what I told you before.’
He cocked his head quizzically. ‘What did you tell me before?’
Poppy blew out a breath. Did she really have to spell it out for him? She felt the heat of embarrassment ride up from her neck as the silence continued.
Finally, she let out a little breath and dropped the V-bomb. ‘I’m still a virgin.’
RAFE PICKED HIS jaw up from the table where he felt it had dropped. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I told you before...’
‘You told me you hadn’t slept with your ex. You didn’t tell me you hadn’t slept with anyone.’
Her expression was defensive. ‘Go on—call me a dinosaur. Call me a pariah.’
Rafe couldn’t get his head around it. He had slept with dozens of women and not one of them had ever been without experience. Some had had much more than him, particularly those he had slept with in his teens.
He liked to think he didn’t operate a double-standard; he liked to think he was as twenty-first-century, open and progressive about sex as everyone else. But something about Poppy’s inexperience struck a chord of something terribly old-fashioned deep inside him that he hadn’t even been aware of possessing until now.
A virgin.
In this day and age!
Rafe looked at her taking careful sips of her champagne, her toffee-brown gaze meeting his every now and again, as if she was trying to act normal in a totally abnormal situation. Or at least, it was abnormal for him.
He had the routine down pat: dinner and sex. It was a combo that always worked. He couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t.
He always got the girl.
But Poppy Silverton was another story. From the moment he had walked into that tearoom of hers he had seen her as the enemy that he would eventually conquer, but somehow she had the edge on him now. It was laughably ironic. He was known for his steely determination, for his merciless intent, yet in this case he felt totally ambushed.
He had not seen this coming. He had been totally unprepared for it. She was the most fascinating and intriguing woman he had ever encountered.
And she hated him.
OK, so that was a minor problem, but he could work on that—get to know her, charm her a little and get her to feel a little more comfortable around him.
Get her to sell him her house.
That was still his goal. Nothing was going to sway him from it. He didn’t back down from his goals, not for anyone. He wanted that house because without it the Dalrymple Estate would not be complete. He didn’t do things in half-measures. When he set his sights on something he got it. It didn’t matter what or who was standing in the way of it. The fact that a mere slip of a red-haired girl was standing in his way was immaterial. There had to be a way around this so he could win.
He always won.
Losing would be playing into his grandfather’s belief about him—that he was not good enough, not strong enough to withstand the opposition. Vittorio had instilled in him and his brothers the sense that, like their late father, they were just paltry imitations of him. That he was the patriarch that no one could or would dare to outshine.
His grandfather’s arrogance had fuelled Rafe’s determination since childhood. It was like a river of steel in his blood. He abhorred failure. It was a word that didn’t exist in his mind, let alone his vocabulary.
Rafe wasn’t supposed to like his enemy. He wasn’t supposed to respect her, or be intrigued by her, or want her like he had wanted no other woman. Desire was a pulsating force inside him even now. Just watching the way her lips cupped around the rim of her glass as she sipped from her champagne flute made him hard. He watched the rise and fall of her slim throat as she swallowed and wondered what it would feel like to have those rosy-red lips suck on him, to bring him to the brink of primal pleasure...
‘So how did you get to the age of...?’
‘Twenty-five.’
Twenty-five! He’d lost count of the number of lovers he’d had by the age of twenty, let alone twenty-five. ‘How did you get to that age without having sex?’
‘I didn’t want to end up like my mother, falling for the first guy who paid her a compliment,’ she said. ‘I guess it made me overly cautious. I just wanted
