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CHAPTER THREE

‘THAT...ER...’ POPPY hastily revised the word she had been about to employ for a more tactful one. ‘That remark you made about there being no food in the house... We didn’t know you were coming to the hall,’ she reminded him.

Gaetano watched a waiter pull out a chair for Poppy before taking his own seat. Sunshine was cascading through the windows, transforming her bright hair into a fiery halo. She clutched her menu and ordered chocolate cereal and a hot-chocolate drink. He was astonished that the vast number of menu options had not tempted her into a more adventurous order.

‘The hall is supposed to be kept fully stocked at all times,’ Gaetano reminded her, having ordered.

Poppy shifted in her seat. ‘But this way is much more cost-effective, Gaetano. When I took over from Mum I was chucking out loads of fresh food every week and it hurt me to do it when there are people starving in this world. Until yesterday, someone always phoned to say you’d be visiting, so I cancelled the food deliveries... Oh, yes, and the flowers as well. I’m not into weekly flower arranging. I’ve saved you so much money,’ she told him with pride.

‘I don’t need to save money. I expect the house to always be ready for use,’ Gaetano countered drily.

Poppy gave him a pained look. ‘But it’s so wasteful...’

Gaetano shrugged. He had never thought about that aspect and did not see why he should consider it when he gave millions to charitable causes every year. Convenience and the ability to do as he liked, when he liked, and at short notice, were very important to him, because he rarely took time away from work. ‘I’m not tight with cash,’ he said wryly. ‘If the house isn’t prepared for immediate use, I can’t visit whenever I take the notion.’

Poppy ripped open her small packet of cereal and poured it into the bowl provided. Ignoring the milk on offer, she began to eat the cereal dry with her fingers the way she always ate it. For a split second, Gaetano stared but said nothing. For that same split second she had felt slightly afraid that he might give her a slap across the knuckles for what he deemed to be poor table manners and she flushed pink with chagrin, determined not to alter her behaviour to kowtow to his different expectations. The rich were definitely different, she conceded ruefully.

‘I will eat chocolate any way I can get it,’ she confided nonetheless in partial apology. ‘I don’t like my cereal soggy. Now this proposition you mentioned...’

‘My grandfather wants me to get married before I can become Chief Executive of the Leonetti Bank. As I don’t want to get married, I believe a fake engagement would keep him happy in the short term. It will convince Rodolfo that I am moving in the right direction and assuage his fear that I’m incapable of settling down.’

‘So, why are you telling me this?’ Poppy asked him blankly.

‘I want you to partner me in the fake engagement.’ Gaetano lounged lithely back in his seat to study her reaction.

‘You and me?’ A peal of startled laughter erupted from Poppy’s lush pink mouth beneath Gaetano’s disconcerted gaze. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. No one, but no one, would credit you and me as a couple!’

‘Funny, you didn’t see it as being that amusing when you were a teenager,’ Gaetano derided softly.

‘You are such a bastard!’ Poppy sprang out of her chair, all pretence of cool abandoned as she stalked away from the table. She had never quite contrived to lose that tender, stinging sense of rejection and humiliation even though she knew she was being ridiculous. After all, she had been far too young and naïve for him as well as being the daughter of an employee, and for him to respond in any way, even had he wanted to, would have been inappropriate. But while her brain assured her of those facts, her visceral reaction was at another level.

A few weeks after his rebuff, the annual hall summer picnic had been held and Gaetano had put in his appearance with a girlfriend. Poppy had felt sick when she’d seen that shiny, beautifully dressed and classy girl who might have stepped straight out of a glossy modelling advertisement. She had seen how pathetic it had been to harbour even the smallest hope of ever attracting Gaetano’s interest and as a result of that distress, that horrid feeling of unworthiness and mortification, she had plunged herself into a very unwise situation.

‘Poppy...’ Gaetano murmured wryly, wishing he had left that reminder of the past decently buried.

Poppy spun back to him, eyes wide and accusing. ‘I was sixteen years old, for goodness’ sake, and you were the only fanciable guy in my radius, so it’s hardly surprising that I got a crush on you. It was hormones, nothing else. I wasn’t mature enough to recognise that you were totally the wrong kind of guy for me—’

‘Why?’ Gaetano heard himself demand baldly, although no sooner had he asked than he was questioning why he had.

Poppy was equally surprised by that question. Her colour high, she stared at him, her clear green eyes luminescent in the sunlight. ‘Why? Well, I’ve no doubt you’re a great catch, being both rich and ridiculously good-looking,’ she told him bluntly. ‘You’re a fiercely ambitious high achiever but you don’t have heart. You’re deadly serious and conventional too. We’re complete opposites. People would only pair the two of us together in a comic book. Sorry, I hope I haven’t insulted you in any way. That wasn’t my intention.’

An almost imperceptible line of colour had fired along the exotic slant of Gaetano’s spectacular cheekbones. He felt oddly as though he had been cut down to size and yet he couldn’t fault what she had said because it was all true. There was an electric little silence. He glanced up from below his lashes and saw her standing there in the bright sunshine, her hair a blazing nimbus of red, bronze and gold in the light to give her the look of a fiery angel. Or in that severe black dress, a gothic angel of death? But it didn’t matter because in that strange little instant when time stopped dead, Gaetano, rigid with raw arousal, wanted Poppy Arnold more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life and it gave him the chills like the scent of a good deal going bad. He breathed in slow and deep and looked away from her, battling to regain his logic and cool.

‘I still want you to take on the role of playing my fake fiancée,’ he breathed in a roughened undertone because just looking at her, drinking in that clear creamy skin, those luminous green eyes and that pink succulent mouth, was only making him harder than ever. ‘Rodolfo always wanted me to choose an ordinary girl and you are the only one I know likely to fit the bill.’

Something in the way he was studying her made Poppy’s mouth run dry and her breath hitch in her throat. She was suddenly aware of her body in a way she hadn’t been aware of it in years. In fact, her physical reactions were knocking her right back to the discomfiting level of the infatuated teenager she had once been and that galled her, but the tight, prickling sensation in her breasts and the dampness between her thighs were uniquely memorable testaments to the temptation Gaetano provided. Falling for a very good-looking guy at sixteen and comparing every other man she had met afterwards to his detriment was not to be recommended as a life plan for any sensible woman, she reflected ruefully, ashamed of the fact that she couldn’t treat Gaetano as casually as she treated other men.

‘An ordinary girl?’ she questioned with pleated brows, returning to the table to succumb to the allure of the melted marshmallows topping her hot chocolate. While she sipped, Gaetano filled her in on his grandfather’s fond hopes for his future.

Poppy almost found herself laughing again. Gaetano would never genuinely want an ordinary girl and no ordinary girl would be able to cope with his essentially cold heart.

‘So, why me?’ she pressed.

‘You’re beautiful enough to convince him that I could be tempted by you—’

Guileless green eyes assailed his. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes, you’re beautiful but, no, I’m not tempted,’ Gaetano declared with stubborn conviction. ‘When I say fake engagement I mean fake in every way. I will not be touching you.’

Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t let you. I’m very, very picky, Gaetano.’

Gaetano resisted the urge to toss up the name of that young estate worker she had entertained in the shrubbery. Odd how he had never forgotten those details, he conceded, while recognising that such a crack would be cruelly inappropriate because she was as entitled to have enjoyed sex as any other woman. His perfect white teeth clenched together. He loathed the way Poppy somehow knocked him off-balance, tripping his mind into random thoughts, persuading his usually controlled tongue into making ill-advised remarks, turning him on when he didn’t want to be turned on. Each and every one of those reactions offended Gaetano’s pride in his strength of will.

‘You’ve got to be wondering what would be in this arrangement for you,’ Gaetano intoned quietly. ‘Everything you want and need at present. Rehabilitation treatment for your mother, a fresh start somewhere, a new home for you all as security. I’ll cover the cost of it all if you do this for me, bella mia.’

Straight off, Poppy saw that he was throwing her and her family a lifebelt when they were drowning and for that reason she didn’t voice the refusal already brimming on her lips. Treatment for her mother. You couldn’t put a price on such an offer. It was what she had dreamt about but knew she would never be able to afford.

‘You’ve got to have a selfish bone somewhere in your body,’ Gaetano declared. ‘If you get your mother sorted out you can get your own life back and complete your nursing training, if that is still what you want to do.’

‘I’m not sure I could be convincing as your ordinary-girl fiancée—’

‘We’ll cover that. Leave the worrying to me. I’m a skilled strategist,’ Gaetano murmured, lush black lashes low over his beautiful dark golden eyes.

Her chest swelled as she dragged in a deep breath because really there was no decision to be made. Any attempt to sort out the mess her mother’s life had become was worth a try. ‘Then...where do I sign up?’

She had agreed. Having recognised that Poppy was pretty much between a rock and a hard place, Gaetano was not surprised by her immediate agreement. In his opinion she had much to gain and nothing at all to lose.

‘So...er...’ Poppy began uncertainly. ‘You’ll want me to dress up more...?’

A sudden wolfish smile flashed across Gaetano’s lean, darkly handsome features. ‘No, that’s exactly what I don’t want,’ he assured her. ‘Rodolfo would see straight through you trying to pretend to be something you’re not. I don’t want you to feel the need to change anything—just be yourself.’

‘Myself...’ Poppy repeated a tad dizzily as she collided with shimmering dark golden eyes fringed by those glorious spiky black lashes of his.

‘Be yourself,’ Gaetano stressed, severely disconcerting her because she had expected him to want to change everything about her. ‘My grandfather, like me, respects individuality.’

Poppy wondered how it was then that, even in recent years, she had noticed from reading the papers, and catching a glimpse or two of past companions at the hall, Gaetano’s women all seemed to be formed from the same identikit model. All were small, blonde and blue-eyed arm-clingers, who appeared to have no personality at all in his presence. The sort of women who simpered, hung on his every word and acted super-attentive to their man. No, Gaetano had definitely never struck her as a male likely to appreciate individuality.

‘I would have another request,’ she said daringly. ‘My brother’s a fully qualified mechanic. Find him a job.’

Gaetano frowned. ‘He’s an—’

‘An ex-con. Yes, we are well aware of that, but he needs a proper job before he can hope to rebuild his life,’ she pointed out. ‘I’d be very grateful if there was anything you could do to help Damien.’

Gaetano’s beautifully shaped mouth tightened. ‘You drive a hard bargain. I’ll make enquiries.’

* * *

Almost a full month after that breakfast, Poppy was sitting in the kitchen with her mother. Jasmine was studying her daughter and looking troubled, an expression that had become increasingly frequent on her face as she slowly emerged from the shrouding fog of alcoholic dependency and realised what had been happening in the world around her. Initial assessment followed by several sessions with trained counsellors and medication for her depression had brought about an improvement in Jasmine’s state of mind. The older woman was trying not to drink, not doing very well so far but at least trying, something she had not even been prepared to contemplate just weeks earlier. This very afternoon Poppy and her mother were heading to London where Poppy would join Gaetano and take up her role as a fake fiancée while Jasmine embarked on a residential stay in a top-flight private clinic renowned for its success with patients.

‘I just don’t want to see you get hurt,’ the older woman repeated, squeezing her daughter’s hand. ‘Gaetano is a real box of tricks. I appreciate his help, but I would never fully trust him. He’s too clever and he hasn’t got his granddad’s humanity. I can’t understand what’s in this masquerade for Gaetano—’

‘Climbing the career ladder at the bank—promotion. Seems that Rodolfo Leonetti is a real stick-in-the-mud about Gaetano still being single.’ Poppy sighed, having already been through this dialogue several times with her mother and wishing the subject could simply be dropped.

‘Yes, but how will it benefit Gaetano when your engagement is broken off again?’ Jasmine prompted. ‘That’s the bit I don’t get.’

Poppy didn’t really get it either but kept that to herself. How was she supposed to know what went on in Gaetano’s multifaceted brain? Apart from anything else she’d had hardly any contact with him since that hotel breakfast they’d shared. He had phoned her with instructions and information about arrangements for her mother and travel plans, but he had not returned to the hall. In the meantime, a new housekeeper had moved into Woodfield Hall and Poppy assumed that the giant refrigerator was being kept fully stocked and vases of flowers were now once again decorating the mansion for the owner who never visited. Gaetano had dismissed Poppy’s opinions with an assurance that made it clear that his household arrangements were not and never would be any of her business.

The helicopter picked them up at two in the afternoon. Poppy had packed for both her and her mother, who was being taken to the clinic. Jasmine was nervous and not entirely sober when they boarded and fairly shaky on her legs by the time they landed in London, leaning on her daughter’s arm for support.

Gaetano, however, didn’t even notice Jasmine Arnold. He was too busy watching Poppy stroll towards him with that lithe, lazy walk of hers. She wore black and red plaid leggings and a black tee, her hair falling in wind-tousled curls round her heart-shaped face. He saw other men taking a second glance at her and it annoyed him. She was unusual and it gave her a distinction that he couldn’t quite put a label on but one quality she had in spades and that was sex appeal, he acknowledged grimly, struggling to maintain control of what lay south of his belt. He would get accustomed to her and that response would fade because nothing, not one single intimate thing, was going to take place between them. This was business and he was no soft touch.

The staff member from the clinic designated to pick up Jasmine intercepted Poppy and her mother. The women parted with a hug and tears in their eyes, for the guidelines of Jasmine’s treatment plan had warned that the clinic preferred there to be no contact between their patients and families during the first few weeks of treatment. That was why Poppy’s first view of Gaetano was blurred because she had been watching her mother nervously walk away and, while knowing that she was doing the best thing possible for her troubled parent, she still felt horribly guilty about it.

‘Poppy...’ Gaetano murmured, one of his security men taking immediate charge of her luggage trolley.

His lean, darkly handsome features swam through the glimmer of tears in her wide eyes and sliced right through her detachment. He looked utterly gorgeous, sheathed in designer jeans and a casual white and blue striped shirt that accentuated the glow of his bronzed skin colour. For a split second, Poppy simply stared in search of a flaw in his classically beautiful face. At some stage she stopped breathing without realising it and, connecting with dark golden eyes the same shade as melting honey, she suddenly felt so hot she was vaguely surprised that people didn’t rush up with fire extinguishers to put out the blaze. Her heartbeat thumped as the noise of their surroundings inexplicably ebbed. A little tweaking sensation in her pelvis caused her to shift her feet while her nipples pinched full and tight below her tee.

‘G-Gaetano...’ she stammered, barely able to find her voice as she fought a desperate rearguard reaction to what she belatedly realised was a very dangerous susceptibility to Gaetano’s magnetic attraction.

Gaetano was taking in the tenting prominence of her nipples below her top and idly wondering what colour they were, arousal moving thickly and hungrily through his blood as he studied her lush pink mouth. ‘We’re going straight back to my house,’ he told her brusquely, snapping back to full attention. ‘You’ve got work to do this evening.’

‘Work?’ Poppy parroted in surprise as she fell into step by his side.

‘I’ve made up some prompt sheets for you to cover the sort of details you would be expected to know about me if we were in a genuine relationship,’ he explained. ‘Once you memorise all that we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ She gasped in dismay because seemingly he wasn’t giving her any time at all to practise her new role or even prepare for it.

‘It’s Rodolfo’s seventy-fifth birthday and he’s throwing an afternoon party. Obviously we will be attending it as an engaged couple,’ Gaetano explained smoothly.

Nerves clenched and twisted in Poppy’s uneasy tummy. She had probably met Rodolfo Leonetti at some stage but she had no memory of the occasion and could only recall seeing him in the distance at the hall when he had still lived there. She had known his late wife, Serafina, well, however, and remembered her clearly. Gaetano’s grandmother had been a lovely woman, who treated everyone the same, be they rich or poor, family or staff. Alongside Jasmine, Serafina had taught Poppy how to bake. Recollecting that, Poppy knew exactly what she would be doing in terms of a gift for the older man’s birthday.

Her cases were stowed in the sleek expensive car Gaetano had brought to the airport. Damien could probably have told her everything about the vehicle because he was a car buff, but Poppy was too busy marvelling that Gaetano had taken the time to come and pick her up personally and that he was actually driving himself.

His phone rang as they left the airport behind. It was in hands-free mode and the voluble burst of Italian that banished the silence in the car only made Poppy feel more out on a limb than ever. She had to toughen up, she told herself firmly, and regain her confidence. Gaetano had given her the equivalent of a high-paid job and she planned to do the best she could to meet his no doubt high expectations but secretly, deep down inside where only she knew how she felt, Poppy was totally terrified of doing something wrong and letting Gaetano down.

Gaetano was so incredibly particular, she reflected absently, recalling the look on his face when she’d eaten her chocolate cereal with her fingers. Even little mistakes would probably irritate Gaetano. He wasn’t tolerant or understanding. No, Poppy knew it wasn’t going to be easy to fake anything to Gaetano’s satisfaction. In fact she reckoned she was in for a long, hard walk down a road strewn with endless obstacles. While the animated dialogue in Italian went on for what seemed a very long time, Poppy looked out at the busy London streets. Once or twice when she glanced in the other direction she noted the aggressive angle of Gaetano’s jaw line that suggested tension and picked up on the hard edge to his dark-timbre drawl and clipped responses.

‘Our goose has been cooked,’ Gaetano breathed curtly when the phone call was over. ‘That was Rodolfo. He wants to meet you now.’

‘Now...like right now, today?’ Poppy exclaimed in dismay.

‘Like right now,’ Gaetano growled. ‘And you’re not ready.’

Poppy’s eyes flashed. ‘And whose fault is that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You shouldn’t have waited until the last possible moment to clue me up on what I’m supposed to know about you,’ Poppy pointed out without hesitation. ‘Sensible people prepare for anything important more than one day in advance.’

‘Don’t you dare start criticising me!’ Gaetano erupted, sharply disconcerting her as he flashed a look of angry, flaming censure. ‘It’s more than twenty-four hours since I even slept. We’ve had a crisis deal at the bank and this stupid business was the very last thing on my mind.’

‘If it’s so stupid you can forget about it again.’ Poppy proffered that get-out clause stiffly. ‘Don’t mind me. This was, after all, your idea, all your idea.’

‘I can’t forget about it again when I’ve already told Rodolfo I’m engaged!’ Gaetano launched back at her furiously. ‘Whether I like it or not, I’m stuck with you and faking it!’

‘Oh, goody...aren’t I the lucky girl?’ Poppy murmured in a poisonous undertone intended to sting. ‘You’re such a catch, Gaetano. All that money and success but not a single ounce of charm!’

‘Be quiet!’ Gaetano raked at her with incredulity.

‘Go stuff yourself!’ Poppy tossed back fierily as he shot the car to a halt outside a tall town house in a fancy street embellished with a central garden.

‘And you’re stuck with me,’ Gaetano asserted with grim satisfaction as he closed her wrist in a grip of steel to prevent her leaping out of the car. He flipped open the ring box in his other hand and removed the diamond engagement ring to shove it onto her wedding finger with no ceremony whatsoever.

‘Oh, dear...ugly ring alert,’ Poppy snapped, studying the huge diamond solitaire with unappreciative eyes. ‘Of course, it’s one of those fake diamonds...right?’

‘Of course it’s not a fake!’ Gaetano bit out, what little patience he had decimated by lack of sleep and her unexpectedly challenging behaviour.

‘It’s hard to believe that you can spend that much money and end up with something that looks like it fell out of a Christmas cracker.’ Poppy groaned. ‘I can’t go in there, Gaetano.’

‘Get out of the car,’ he urged, leaning across to open the door for her. ‘Of course you can go in there and wing it. Just look all intoxicated with your ring.’

‘Yes, getting drunk in receipt of this non-example of good taste would certainly be understandable.’

‘You’re supposed to be in love with me!’ Gaetano roared at her.

‘Trouble is, you’re about as loveable as a grizzly bear,’ Poppy opined, walking round the bonnet and up onto the pavement. ‘My acting skills may be poor but yours are a great deal worse.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Gaetano squared up to her, six feet four inches of roaring aggression and impatience. ‘It’s time to stop messing about and start acting.’

Poppy lifted a hand and stabbed his broad muscular chest with a combative forefinger. ‘But you said you wanted me to be myself. What exactly do you want, Gaetano?’

‘Porca miseria! I want you to stop driving me insane!’ Gaetano bit out wrathfully, backing her up against the wing of the car, long powerful thighs entrapping her. ‘I will tell you only once. If you can’t do as you’re told you’re out of here!’

‘I’m only just resisting the urge to use some very rude words,’ Poppy warned him, standing her ground with defiant green eyes. ‘This is all your fault. You’ve dragged me here straight from the airport knowing I’m not remotely prepared for this meeting.’

And for Gaetano, whose aggressive need to dominate had emerged in the nursery when he had systematically bullied his first nanny into letting him do pretty much whatever he wanted, that resistance was like a red rag to a bull. Totally unaware of anything beyond the overwhelming desire to touch her while forcing her to do what he wanted her to do, Gaetano snapped an arm round her and kissed her.

His mouth slammed down on hers and it was as if the world stopped dead and then closed round that moment. She was in such a rage with him, it was a reflex reaction for Poppy to close her teeth together, refusing him entry. He shifted against her, all lean, sinuous, powerful male, and the erection she could feel nudging against her stomach sent the most overwhelming awareness shimmying through her like a dangerous drug. The heat and strength of him against her was even more arousing and she unclamped her teeth for him, helpless in the grip of the driving hunger that had captured her and destroyed her opposition.

With a hungry groan, his tongue eased into her mouth and it was without a doubt the most heart-stopping instant of sensation she had ever experienced as his tongue teased and tangled with hers before plunging deep. An ache she had never felt in a man’s arms before hollowed almost painfully at the heart of her and she was pushing instinctively against him even as he urged her back against the car, so that they were welded together so tight a card couldn’t have slid between them. Her arms went round him, massaging up over his wide shoulders before sliding up to lace into his luxuriant black hair and then raking down again over his muscled arms to spread across his taut masculine ass. It was a mindless, addictive, totally visceral embrace.

In an abrupt movement, Gaetano stepped back from her, his breathing audible, sawing in and out of his big chest as if he had run a marathon. Poppy was all over the place mentally and she blinked, literally struggling to return to the real world while fighting a shocking desire to yank him bodily back to her. He was so hot at kissing she was ready to spontaneously combust. He might not have an ounce of charm but when it came to the sex stuff he was out at the front of the field, she decided, a burning blush warming her face as she too worked to get her breath back.

‘Well...that was interesting,’ she remarked shakily, feeling the need to say something, anything that might suggest that she had regained control when she had not.

Gaetano, who never, ever did PDAs with women, was horribly aware of his bodyguards standing by staring as if a little Martian had taken his place. In short, Gaetano was in shock but he also knew that if he had been parked somewhere private he would have had Poppy spread across the bonnet while he plunged into her lithe body hard and fast and sated the appalling level of hunger coursing through his lower body. He ached; he ached so bad he wanted to groan out loud. Dark colour etched the line of his high cheekbones.

‘Let’s go inside,’ he suggested in a driven undertone. ‘Just take your lead from me, bella mia.’

And won’t doing exactly as Gaetano tells you be fun? a little devil enquired inside Poppy’s bemused head. If it had related to kissing, she would have been queuing up, she conceded numbly. Nobody had ever made her feel so much with one kiss. In fact she hadn’t known it was even possible to be that turned on by a man after just one kiss. Gaetano had hidden depths, dark, sexy depths, but she had not the smallest intention of plumbing those depths...