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She stood up. ‘I... I can’t take your money.’
‘Really? You’ll do it for free?’
She heard the mockery in his tone and frowned. ‘No, of course not, I—’
‘Which is as I suspected. So, what is your price?’
‘I’m not a prostitute,’ she informed him sharply, those early schoolyard taunts about her biological mother coming back to haunt her.
‘There’s no reason to get in a temper,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m not suggesting we sleep together.’
Poppy scowled. ‘Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it?’
‘I’m a businessman, Miss Connolly, and I have a problem. Like it or not, you’re my solution.’
‘You’re out of your mind.’ Poppy shook her head. ‘I won’t do it.’
He regarded her steadily, making her feel hot in her navy suit. ‘You’re knocking back half a million pounds?’ His toned was loaded with arrogant disbelief and it only made Poppy more determined to deny him. ‘In cash.’
‘I just...’ She frowned. Growing up poor and without a proper family made a half a million pounds seem like a dream come true. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
‘It doesn’t feel right?’ She had no doubt that if he’d been a car he would have blown a head gasket by now. ‘Are you seriously turning me down because it doesn’t feel right?’
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ she shot at him, thinking of the devastated woman on the end of the phone the day before. ‘You’d need to have feelings for that.’
‘I have feelings,’ he shot at her.
Poppy might have debated that but she still had a week left of her internship and she wanted to get a good reference—and, frankly, she felt a little dizzy. Five hundred thousand pounds was a lot of money. What she could do with it was mind-boggling.
Buy Simon new trainers, for one. The poor kid had been wearing hand-me-downs for as long as she had. But he was fifteen and the right trainers were integral to a teenager’s self-esteem. With five hundred thousand pounds he would never have to go without anything again!
And five hundred thousand would be enough to help Maryann, whom she’d spent the rest of Sunday visiting. She’d also been researching MS on the computer to see if there was something she could do to help. Unfortunately the information had been depressing. Once the effects of the disease set in, Maryann would need a flat on the ground floor and, with no family or funds at her disposal, moving was going to be difficult. Poppy had already thought of asking Maryann to move in with her and Simon, but Maryann was as fiercely independent as Poppy was herself, so she knew she wouldn’t take to that idea easily.
But with half a million pounds Poppy might be able to buy her a flat rather than have her continue to rent. She could pay Maryann back for all the help she had given her over the last eight years. Or could she? She had no idea how far half a million pounds would stretch.
For a moment she was tempted to take the money, oh, so tempted, but she knew there was no such thing as a free lunch. Taking money for nefarious reasons would always come back to haunt her. It would make her feel as cheap as her beginnings.
‘Well?’
Poppy felt a jolt go through her as Sebastiano impatiently advanced into her personal space with the lazy grace of a man who had it all.
‘Well, what?’ she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘Your answer?’ he said in his rich bedroom voice.
Holding her ground against his intimidating force, Poppy shook her head. ‘I’m not for sale, Mr Castiglione.’
‘I know that.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not asking for this to be real. It’s a few days of your time. A trip to Italy.’ He pinned her to the spot with his stare alone. ‘I’ll even throw in a new wardrobe. No budget. It’s every woman’s dream. Not to mention you could buy yourself jeans that aren’t about to fall apart.’
The fact that he had noticed her unfashionably worn jeans made Poppy feel unclean. The fact that he was so arrogant, and thought he could buy anyone with his money, made her even more resolved to hold her own against him.
‘No.’ Poppy stepped back from him, feeling immediately cold without his body heat radiating close to hers. ‘You’ll have to find someone else.’
‘Admit it,’ he demanded quietly, his voice preventing her from turning around and walking out. ‘You’re tempted.’
‘Of course I’m tempted,’ she shot at him. He was so sure of himself. So sure of her. ‘I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t tempted, but...’ She smoothed her already neat hair into place and noticed her hand was shaking. Turning it into a fist at her side, she raised her chin. ‘I don’t think I would like myself very much if I agreed to take your money to pretend to be something I’m not.’
Sebastiano blew out a beleaguered breath. ‘Dio, save me from martyrs.’
‘I’m not a martyr.’ She tilted her head back to glare up at him, wishing he wasn’t quite so tall. ‘I just have principles.’
He nodded and she felt that finally she’d penetrated his shallow exterior. It should have only taken the flick of her nail, given his lack of depth. Somehow finding out that he really wasn’t a man of substance, but a self-absorbed rat like the rest of his ilk, had seriously disappointed her.
‘Will that be all?’ she asked stiffly, a picture of five hundred thousand pounds flashing like a neon sign inside her head.
Sebastiano stuck his hands in his pockets, his thunderstruck expression priceless. ‘You’re really turning me down?’
‘Yes.’ She tilted her chin higher, wondering if she wasn’t being an idiot to do so. But then she thought about what she would have to do to get that money. Pretend to be this man’s girlfriend. There was no way she could carry that off. Not for a million pounds!
His eyes gleamed predator-like as he watched her, and Poppy had the distinct impression she was in danger. Run, her inner voiced urged. So she did, reversing out of his office with the pace of a teenager texting on a phone.
When she was safely on the other side of the door she blew out a breath and walked on unsteady legs towards the lift. Since Paula’s husband had indeed broken his ankle, she wasn’t in the office, and Poppy was glad she didn’t have to face the older woman’s knowing gaze. Various employees had already warned her that every woman who came into contact with Sebastiano fell in love with him, and Poppy didn’t want anyone to think that she had joined their adoring ranks when she hadn’t.
Taking her phone from her handbag, she decided to duck into the ladies powder room before heading downstairs and facing her colleagues. She was tempted to call Maryann—Lord knew she could use the pep talk, and Maryann had been there for her right from the start. Well, not the start, exactly. Maryann had found her and Simon after Poppy had made the mistake of trusting a man that she shouldn’t have. She had met him on the long train ride to London and somehow he had wheedled out of her that she was underage and that she and Simon were runaways with no place to stay.
At first Poppy had thought him a knight in shining armour. And he had been for two weeks. He’d been everything she could have asked for: complimenting her at every turn, giving them a place to stay and buying Simon little gifts. Then one night he’d come to her bedroom to extract payment for his many kindnesses, and when she’d refused he’d grown angry. He’d made her wake Simon and had turfed them both out into the wintry night, shouting that there was no one who would take her on anyway. Not with her ‘idiot brother’ in tow.
Finding out that he had stolen all her hard-earned savings was the lowest point and had shattered her trust altogether. Unable to go to the police for fear they would take Simon from her, they had been forced to slum it, sleeping in train stations and eating out of rubbish bins. Simon had only been seven at the time, to Poppy’s seventeen, and she had cried silent tears every night, praying to God that an angel would come down and rescue them.
And one had. Without batting an eyelid, Maryann had taken them in, fed them, clothed them and given them the kind of affection they had missed out on for most of their early life. Through Maryann Poppy had learned real kindness and respectability and that was what she wanted for herself. For Simon.
But Maryann, who had lost her dear husband many years earlier, was a proponent of true love and would most likely ask Poppy all sorts of probing questions about her boss’s offer that she’d rather not answer. Questions such as: Is this the sexy boss whose photo you showed me? The one with more women than hot dinners? The one who makes you blush every time his name is mentioned?
To which Poppy would have to answer yes, yes, and double yes.
She stared down at her phone and screwed up her nose. Probably best not to call her.
‘Miss Connolly, are you in here?’
Poppy gave a small yelp when her boss’s voice broke the heavy silence.
‘Maybe.’ She gripped her phone in both hands as if it were a sword, making no attempt to open the door.
‘Are you planning to come out any time soon?’
Poppy rolled her eyes. Was it too much to ask to have a moment of privacy? ‘Do I have to?’
‘I prefer having conversations face-to-face. So, yes.’
‘I thought we were done.’
‘No.’ He narrowed his eyes on her as she reluctantly opened the stall door. ‘It ends when you say yes.’
‘God, you’re relentless. You should have been a barrister.’
He leaned his perfect butt against the basin, a killer grin on his face, his muscular arms braced either side of his lean hips as if he was totally relaxed. Yeah, right.
‘If that was supposed to be an insult, it failed,’ he drawled. ‘I respect people who go after what they want and succeed.’
‘In other words, you’re pushy.’
‘Determined.’
Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘You know you’re in the ladies’ loo right?’
His grin widened. ‘I’m aware.’
‘Well, I was having a private moment, and I’d like to go back to it.’
‘It looks like you were about to have a meltdown. But you shouldn’t. In my world women know what they want and go after it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
A shiver snaked down her spine. ‘Why does that sound so cold?’
His half-smile turned mocking. ‘I don’t have a problem with it and I won’t think badly of you for taking my offer.’
‘You’re all heart.’
‘Actually, I’m all business.’
‘Yes, well, it’s an awful lot of money.’
‘It isn’t to me.’
Poppy shook her head. ‘You could sound a little humble when you say that,’ she said, a touch of exasperation in her tone.
‘Why? It’s the truth. I’m a wealthy man. That brings with it certain perks.’
‘Like buying fake girlfriends.’
His green eyes glittered down into hers. He was too tall for her. His grandparents would notice that right away. ‘I think I might have insulted you when I offered you five hundred thousand pounds,’ he said.
Poppy blinked, hearing that figure again. Five hundred thousand was an amount of money she had never thought to see in one lump sum in her lifetime. The temptation to take it was wicked, and she finally understood those fairy tales where the hapless princess was lured to her doom by the evil villain. ‘Yes, you did,’ she murmured, holding firm to her flagging principles. ‘Because I—’
‘So I’m willing to up it to a million.’
‘I am not—Did you just say a million pounds?’
He smiled at her smugly, victory lighting his green eyes. ‘I did.’
Poppy stared at him blankly. She was sure that what he was offering must be immoral, and if she said yes she’d be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life, expecting to see someone pointing a finger and accusing her of coming by the money unethically. It would be like being back at school all over again, when kids had whispered behind her back and called her ‘Poor Poopy Poppy’. The memory put some much-needed steel in her voice. ‘Stop. I already told you that I’m not for sale.’
His smiled dimmed and he stared at her for a long, tense minute before releasing a harsh breath. ‘But you are exactly what I need. Okay, what do you want, then? What’s your end goal?’
Poppy’s head was spinning with so many pound signs she doubted she could even spell ‘end goal’ right now. She frowned. Did merely surviving each day count as an end goal? ‘I don’t really think in terms of end goals,’ she said.
‘Then you should start.’ He paced away from her and glared at his reflection in the mirror with distaste. Or was that her reflection he was glaring at? ‘Can we take this back to my office?’ He held the door open for her, automatically expecting her to obey his request, his commanding demeanour suggesting that if she didn’t he’d be happy to make her. ‘The ladies’ bathroom is hardly the place to have this conversation.’
Poppy stopped beside him. ‘I’d rather not have this conversation at all.’
‘I can see that. Be careful you don’t knock yourself on the door.’
He steered her around the door she’d nearly walked into and Poppy found herself reluctantly seated on the opposite side of his desk before she thought better of it.
‘So, if a lump sum is too difficult a concept for you to grasp, let’s get to what it is that you do want.’
Too many things to count, Poppy thought, but none she would share with him. Especially not the number of wakeful hours she had spent last night reliving every hard angle of his torso. Sheesh! She had even imagined what it would have felt like if she had stretched up onto her toes and kissed him. ‘I don’t want anything.’
Sebastiano snorted at her prim response. ‘That’s patently untrue. Everyone wants something.’ He glared at her. ‘Even me. In fact, I find myself in the rare position of being a desperate man. So, what is it going to take, bella, to get you to give me one weekend out of your life to help an old man?’
Poppy’s gaze sharpened. ‘Is your grandfather unwell?’
‘Would that influence your decision?’
Her frown deepened at the way he pounced on her unconscious show of sympathy. ‘You would really use that as a bargaining tool?’
Sebastiano shrugged. ‘If it would work.’
‘You are such a shark!’ Poppy exclaimed, both awed and shocked by his ruthlessness.
‘Probably.’ He sat forward, his green eyes intense on hers. Poppy’s heart thumped heavily behind her breastbone. ‘But my grandfather is old and I really don’t know how much time he has left.’ His lips firmed, as if that thought made him truly uncomfortable. ‘And the old goat is far too stoic and proud to admit it if he were ill.’
Poppy heard the deep caring in those terse words. Perhaps it was Maryann being sick, and the dread Poppy felt at possibly losing her some time in the near future, but in that moment she felt an unexpected connection with her big, bad boss. Caring deeply, she knew, was an avenue for pain and she didn’t wish that on anyone.
About to tell him that she understood how he felt, he undermined that feeling of accord with his next words.
‘How about I grant you three wishes? Would that be more palatable to those prized principles of yours?’
‘What are you, a genie now?’ She snorted. The thought of seeing him wearing a turban and harem pants softened her irritation at his superior tone. ‘Or my fairy godmother?’
‘I’m hardly nice enough to be anyone’s fairy godmother.’
‘You got that right,’ she agreed. ‘You’re a ruthless wolf.’
‘I thought I was a shark.’
Poppy’s lips twitched again. ‘Shark... Wolf...’ She swallowed as his gaze lingered on her lips. ‘Anything with big teeth, really.’
The air between them suddenly pulled taut, and Poppy’s mouth went dry as his smile kicked up at one corner. The man was devastating. Devastatingly attractive and devastatingly persistent.
