by Lynne Graham
Poppy studied the huge divan sleigh bed and her soft mouth compressed. ‘For goodness’ sake, there’s only one bed…and I’m not sharing it with you!’
‘You have to sleep in here with me. There’s a downside for both of us in this arrangement,’ Gaetano countered grimly.
‘And what’s your downside?’ Poppy asked with interest.
‘Celibacy,’ Gaetano intoned very drily. ‘I can’t risk being seen or associated with any other woman while I’m supposed to be engaged to you.’
‘Oh, dear…’ Poppy commented without an atom of sympathy. ‘From what I’ve read about your usual pursuits in the press, that will be a character-building challenge for you.’
Exasperation laced Gaetano’s lean, darkly handsome features. He would never ever hurt a woman but there were times when he wanted to plunge Poppy head first into a mud bath. ‘There’s a lot of rubbish talked about my private life in the newspapers.’
‘That line might work with one of your socialites, Gaetano…but not with me. I know that party did take place and what happened at it.’
Gaetano fought the urge to defend himself and collided with her witchy green eyes and momentarily forgot what he had been about to say. ‘I’m going for a shower,’ he said instead and began to undress.
Leonetti flesh alert! screamed a little voice in Poppy’s head as Gaetano shed his shirt without inhibition. And why would he be inhibited when he was unveiling a work of art? He was all sleek muscle from the vee above his lean hips to the corrugated muscular flatness of his abdomen and the swelling power of his pectoral muscles. Her mouth ran dry. She might not be the vestal-virgin type but she was a virgin and she had never shared a room with a half-naked male before. That was not information she planned to share with Gaetano, especially as she pretty much blamed him for the reality that she had yet to take that sexual plunge in adulthood.
At sixteen, after his rejection, she had almost decided to have sex with someone else but had realised what she was doing in time and had called a halt before things got out of hand. She wasn’t proud of that episode, well aware that she had acted like a bit of a tease with the boy concerned. Her real lesson had been grasping that going off to have mindless sex with someone else because Gaetano didn’t want her was pathetic and silly. While she was at college doing her nursing training she had had boyfriends and occasional little moments of temptation but nobody had tempted her as much as Gaetano had once tempted her. And Poppy was stubborn and had decided that she would only sleep with someone when she really, really wanted to. She wasn’t going to have sex just because some man expected it of her, nor was she planning to have sex just for the sake of it.
Poppy opened one of her cases and only then appreciated that her luggage had already been unpacked for her. So this was how the rich lived, she thought ruefully, wondering what she was going to use as pyjamas when she didn’t ever wear them because she preferred to sleep naked. She had nothing big enough to cover her decently in mixed company and she rifled through Gaetano’s drawers to borrow a big white tee shirt that was both large and sexless. He might have forgotten that kiss, that terrifying surge of limitless hunger…but she hadn’t and she had no plans to tempt fate.
*
Gaetano was thinking about sex in the shower and wondering if Poppy would consider broadening their agreement. He wanted her and she wanted him. To his outlook that was a simple balanced equation and it made sense that they should make the most of each other for the duration of their relationship. It was the practical solution and Gaetano was always practical, particularly when it came to his high sex drive.
A towel knotted round his lean hips, Gaetano trod back into the bedroom. Poppy took one look at all that bronzed skin still sprinkled with drops of water and realised that she wanted to lick him like a postage stamp. With a stifled groan at her own atrocious weakness, she pushed past him and went into the bathroom to get changed.
Gaetano pulled on boxers on the grounds that it never paid to take anything for granted with women and that doing so only annoyed them. Poppy emerged from the bathroom wearing what could only be one of his tee shirts because it hung off her slender frame in loose folds. Even so, it still couldn’t hide the prominent little peaks of her breasts, the womanly curve of her hips or the perfection of the long shapely legs below the hem.
‘I have a suggestion to make,’ Gaetano murmured huskily.
‘Do I want to hear this?’ Poppy wisecracked, pushing back the bedding and scrambling into the bed, feeling her limbs settle into an incredibly soft and supportive mattress that was a far cry from the ancient lumpy bed of her youth. Wearing only silk boxers Gaetano was an outrageously masculine presence and very hard for Poppy to ignore. She was trying to respect his space by not looking at him and hoping he would award her the same courtesy of acting as though she were still fully clothed.
‘We have to pretend to be lovers,’ Gaetano pointed out.
Wondering in what possible direction that statement could be travelling, Poppy prompted, ‘Yes…so?’
‘Why don’t we make it real?’ Gaetano drawled, smooth as melted honey.
Her vocal cords went into arrest and respecting his space suddenly became much too challenging. ‘Real?’ Poppy exclaimed loudly. ‘What exactly do you mean by real?’
‘You’re not that innocent,’ Gaetano assured her lazily as he sprang into bed beside her.
‘So, you’re suggesting that we have sex because you don’t fancy celibacy?’ Poppy enquired, delicate auburn brows raised in disbelief.
‘We are stuck in this situation,’ Gaetano reminded her.
‘I can live without sex,’ Poppy told him tightly, feeling colour climb hotly towards her hairline because even saying ‘sex’ in Gaetano’s presence made her feel horribly self-conscious.
‘I can as well but not happily,’ Gaetano told her bluntly. ‘We’re very attracted to each other. We might as well make the most of it.’
‘Any port in a storm?’ Poppy remarked without amusement. ‘I’m here in the bed and, as you see it, available, so I should be interested?’
Gaetano leant closer, his stubbled jaw line propped on the heel of his upraised hand as he gazed down at her with absolutely gorgeous dark golden eyes. ‘I’m good, bella mia. You wouldn’t be disappointed.’
Poppy was as frozen with fear as a woman facing a hungry cannibal might be. But insidious heat and dampness were welling in the tender place between her thighs, striving to work their wicked seductive magic on her resistance. In fact she could feel her whole body literally wake up, sit up and take notice of Gaetano’s offer. He was offering her what she had once desperately wanted but on terms she could never accept. ‘I don’t want to be used.’
‘I’m surprised you’re so narrow in your outlook. Wouldn’t you be using me to scratch the same itch?’ Gaetano enquired softly.
Her whole face flamed and she flipped over on her side, turning her narrow back defensively on him. Get thee behind me, Satan, she thought helplessly. ‘No, thanks,’ she said chokily, unsure whether she wanted to laugh or cry at his blunt proposition. ‘If I want meaningless sex I imagine I can get it just about anywhere.’
Gaetano stroked a long brown forefinger down her taut spinal cord. ‘Sex with me wouldn’t be meaningless. It would be amazing. You set me on fire, gioia mia.’
Poppy rolled her eyes. He was so slick and full of confidence but that caressing touch lingered with her, lighting up little pockets of melting willingness inside her treacherous body. ‘I’ll keep it in mind. If my itch has to be scratched I will seriously consider you,’ she lied stonily.
‘What more do you want from me?’ Gaetano asked silkily. ‘I’m honest. I’m clean. I don’t lie or cheat.’
‘It doesn’t stop you from being a four-letter word of a man,’ Poppy told him roundly. ‘I thought Italian lovers were supposed to be the last word in seduction. You just turned me off big time.’
‘I was respecting your intelligence by not shooting you a line,�
�� Gaetano traded with husky amusement that laced through his dark deep drawl in a sexy, accented purr.
Poppy pictured herself flipping over and slapping him so hard his perfect teeth rattled in his too ingenious head. Her own teeth gritted aggressively. Without warning she was also imagining easing back into the hard, allmale heat of him while his arms closed round her and his hips moved against hers. And that sensual imagery was so energising that she felt boiling hot all over. Her nipples swelled and prickled and the heat in her pelvis mushroomed. Her face burned with shame in the darkness. Wanting was wanting, she reasoned with the sexual side of her nature, but it wasn’t enough on its own. Gaetano wasn’t the man for her, she reminded herself doggedly.
‘You know, if you were a nice guy—’
‘When did I ever say I was a nice guy?’ Gaetano cut in sharply.
‘You didn’t,’ Poppy conceded grudgingly, turning over to pick out the powerful silhouette of his head and shoulders in the dim light. ‘But you shouldn’t be thinking about your sex life. Right now you should be worrying more about how your grandfather is going to feel when this engagement falls through. Because he’s making such an effort to be welcoming and accepting of someone like me, I think he’ll be devastated when our relationship comes to nothing.’
‘Allow me to know my own grandfather better than you.’
‘You’re too focused on your career plan to see beyond it. What I saw today was that Rodolfo was incredibly happy about you getting engaged. How could he be anything other than upset when it breaks down?’
Gaetano grimaced and flung his dark head back against the pillows. She didn’t understand. How could she? He could hardly tell her that she was supposed to bomb as a fiancée so that her disappearance from his life again would be more worthy of celebration than disappointment. Time would take care of that problem. After all, she had most likely been on her very best behaviour at her first meeting with his grandfather and sooner rather than later she would probably let herself down.
‘You used to swear a lot,’ he remarked out of the blue.
‘I picked it up at school because everyone used bad language. For a while I did it deliberately because I was being bullied and I was desperate to fit in,’ she confided.
‘Did it make a difference?’
‘No,’ she admitted with a wry laugh. ‘Nothing I wore or did or said could make me cool. Being plump with red hair and living at Woodfield Hall with “those posh bastards” was a supreme provocation to the other pupils.’
‘What did the bullies do?’
Thinking of her getting bullied, Gaetano was experiencing an extraordinary desire to pull her into his arms and comfort her. But he didn’t do comforting. Indeed he was downright unnerved by that perverse impulse and he actually shifted as far away from her as he could get and still be in the same bed.
‘All the usual. Name calling, tripping me up, nasty rumours and messages and texts,’ she recited wearily. ‘I hated school, couldn’t wait to get out of there. Once I was out, I stopped swearing as soon as I realised it offended people.’
He was tempted to tell her that she had never been plump. She had simply developed her womanly curves before she shot up in height. But right then he didn’t want to talk and he didn’t want to think about curves, womanly or otherwise. His hunger for her was making him uncomfortable and that infuriated him because Gaetano had never hungered that much for one particular woman. Beautiful women had always been pretty much interchangeable for him. It was the challenge, he told himself impatiently. He only wanted her because she was saying no. But that simplistic belief didn’t ease his tension in the slightest. It was, he decided grimly, likely to feel like a very long engagement.
*
First thing in the morning, Poppy looked amazing, Gaetano conceded hours later, studying her from across the bedroom. Her red hair streamed like a banner across the pale bedding, framing her delicate face and the rosebud pout of her lips. A narrow shoulder protruded from below his slipped tee shirt and the sheet was pushed back to bare one leg from knee to slender ankle. And that easily, that quickly, Gaetano had a hard-on again and gritted his teeth in annoyance. What the hell was it about her? He felt like a man trying to fight an invisible illness!
‘Poppy…?’
She shifted in the bed, lashes fluttering up on luminous green eyes. ‘Gaetano…?’ she whispered drowsily.
‘I left that prompt sheet I meant you to study last night on the desk in my home office. I’ll see you at Rodolfo’s party at three.’
Poppy sat up in a panic. ‘What will I wear?’
‘Your usual clothes. Be yourself,’ he reminded her as he vanished out of the door.
Poppy scrambled out of bed to follow him. ‘Where are you going?’
Gaetano swung round and sent her a pained appraisal. ‘Work…the bank.’
‘Oh…’ Having asked what appeared to be a stupid question, Poppy ducked hastily back into the bedroom and went for a shower while planning her own day.
First of all she had to go and buy the ingredients for her present for Rodolfo’s seventy-fifth. She could only hope that she wasn’t getting it wrong in the gift department. After that she had a rather more pressing need to attend to: finding work for herself. She had just about enough money in her purse to make Rodolfo’s cake but she had nothing more and no savings to fall back on.
The sleek granite-topped kitchen had a fridge packed with food and a very large selection of chocolate cereals that made her smile. Gaetano had remembered her preference. She ate while she studied the prompt sheets he had mentioned. It was like a CV written for a job: qualifications listed, sports pursuits outlined, not a single reference to any memorable moments. He just had no idea of the sort of things that a woman in love would want to know about him, Poppy reflected ruefully. When was his birthday? What was his favourite colour?
She texted him to ask.
Gaetano suppressed a groan when his phone buzzed yet again and lifted it to see what the latest irrelevant question was.
Who was the first woman you fell in love with?
He had never been in love and he was proud of it.
What do you value most in a woman?
Independence, he texted back.
As Poppy walked round the supermarket with her shopping list she raised her brows. If he liked independent women why did he always date clingy airheads? So, she asked that too and they began to argue by text until she was laughing. Gaetano had an image of himself that did not always match reality. She could have told him that he dated clingy airheads because they did as they were told, accepted his workaholic schedule and made few demands.
Noticing a ‘help wanted’ sign in the window of a café she called in, enjoyed an interview on the spot and was hired to work a shift that very evening. Relieved to have solved the problem of being broke, she returned to the town house by the separate entrance at the side and proceeded to mess up Gaetano’s basically unused kitchen with her baking session. She settled the cake into the cake carrier she had bought for the purpose and set the birthday card on top of it before going to get changed.
She wore a tartan skirt with black lace stockings and high heels. Gaetano wolf-whistled the instant he saw her. ‘Wow…’ he breathed with quiet masculine appreciation. ‘Your legs are to die for…’
‘Really?’ Poppy grinned and then frowned doubtfully. ‘Is this phase one of the Italian seduction routine?’
‘You’re very suspicious.’
‘I don’t trust you,’ Poppy told him truthfully. ‘I think being sneaky would come naturally to you.’
‘I’ve never had to be sneaky with women,’ Gaetano told her truthfully.
*
The drawing room was crowded with guests when they arrived. The instant Poppy saw the fancy cocktail-type frocks and delicate jewellery that the other women sported and the stares that her informal outfit attracted, she paled in dismay. She stuck out like a sore thumb and hated the feeling, squirming discomfiture taking her by s
torm and reminding her of her days at school when no matter how hard she’d tried she had always failed to fit in. Remembering that Gaetano had urged her to be herself was not a consolation because her unconventional appearance had to be an embarrassment to him. How could it be anything else?
Gaetano’s grandfather made a major production out of welcoming them and announcing their engagement. Poppy’s guilt over their deception sent colour flying into her cheeks but she saw only satisfaction in Gaetano’s brilliant smile and from it she deduced that everything was going the way he had planned.
But Poppy was wrong in that assumption. She served Rodolfo with the strawberry layer cake with mascarpone-cheese icing that was his favourite and which she had learned to bake at his wife’s side. His eyes went all watery and he gave her an almost boyish grin as he took up the cake knife she passed him and cut himself a large helping.
‘So, when’s the big day?’ he asked Poppy within Gaetano’s hearing.
Gaetano tensed. ‘We haven’t set a date as yet…’
‘You don’t want to risk a treasure like Poppy getting away,’ his grandfather warned him softly, shrewd eyes resting on his grandson’s lean, darkly handsome face. ‘I don’t believe in long engagements.’
‘We don’t want to rush in either,’ Poppy remarked carefully, instinct sending her to Gaetano’s rescue.
‘Next month would be a good time for me before I head off to Italy for the summer,’ Rodolfo pointed out calmly.
‘We’ll talk it over,’ Gaetano fielded smoothly.
‘And when you get back from your honeymoon,’ the old man delivered cheerfully, ‘it will be as CEO.’
Gaetano nodded, thoroughly disconcerted and fighting not to betray the fact that he knew that his promotion was now a marriage step away from him. He studied Poppy from below his black lashes. Against all the odds, Rodolfo adored her. Trust Poppy to bake his grandmother’s signature cake. She couldn’t have done anything more likely to please and impress. She had ticked his grandfather’s every box. Not only was she beautiful, kind and thoughtful, she could actually cook. Gaetano experienced a hideous ‘hoist with his own petard’ sensation and wondered how the hell he was going to climb back out of the hole he had dug.