Never Underestimate a Caffarelli by Melanie Milburne

Author:Melanie Milburne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-03T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS TOO hot to sleep. Or maybe it wasn’t the summer temperature at all but rather Lily’s overheated temper. She was packed and ready to leave, as Raoul Caffarelli had so rudely commanded, but a part of her was struggling with taking the easy way out.

To leave would be admitting defeat.

Raoul was certainly a challenge, with his forceful personality and stubborn ways, but underneath that brooding, angry and resentful exterior she sensed he was essentially a good man. Didn’t his care and support of the former street kid Etienne prove it? He treated all of his staff cordially, if a little distantly. He had not said a bad word about his ex-fiancée, publically or privately, even though she had clearly hurt him by rejecting him the way she had. Didn’t that suggest he was at heart a decent and honourable man?

He was angry and bitter and finding it hard to cope with what had happened to him. Lily understood that far more than he could ever realise. She had railed at the world, too. She had pushed everyone who cared about her away. She had felt so dreadfully alone but she had sabotaged every attempt to reach her emotionally.

Wasn’t he doing the same?

What if she could help him? It seemed a shame to walk out and leave him to his own devices. Like a lot of men with an achievement-based personality, he had a tendency to overdo things, which could compromise his recovery. But he had more feeling in his legs than the Sheikh’s daughter Halimah had at the start, and he was incredibly fit and strong.

But he had made up his mind, and she couldn’t see him changing it any time soon. She had her money and that was all that mattered. It would be embarrassing going back to London so soon, but that was hardly her fault. Raoul Caffarelli would test an angel’s patience, and she knew she was no angel, or at least not in his presence. He seemed to bring out the worst in her. She hadn’t realised she had a sharp tongue until he had made her use it.

He was rude and arrogant and she was glad to be leaving.

Of course she was glad.

She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. Her life was in London. It might be a little predictable and boring at times, but at least she didn’t have to deal with brooding, handsome men with foul tempers.

Lily threw off the bedcovers and padded over to the window to look at the moonlit gardens her bedroom overlooked. There was a swimming pool she hadn’t noticed before in a sheltered section of the back garden. Its surface shimmered in the silver light of the moon, tempting her with its promise of cool refreshment from the night’s sticky and cloying humidity.

It had been a long time since she had swum in public. The work she did with clients in the hydrotherapy pool at the clinic could hardly be called swimming. She spent most of the time standing waist-deep, guiding the client through a range of exercises.

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