скачать книгу бесплатно
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.
CHAPTER FIVE (#u64add7af-088c-5c29-8c3d-b5c50158759f)
‘WHY ARE YOU in such a hurry?’ Gaetano frowned as Poppy sped away from him towards the bedroom. His grandfather had outmanoeuvred him and he needed to have a serious conversation with his fake fiancée.
‘I have to get changed and get out in the next...er...ten minutes!’ she exclaimed in dismay, hastening her step after checking her watch.
Gaetano took his time about strolling down to the bedroom where Poppy was engaged in pulling on a pair of jeans, lithe long legs topped by a pair of bright red knickers on display. Her face flushing, she half turned away, wriggling her shapely hips to ease up the jeans. The enthusiastic stirring at his groin was uniquely unwelcome to Gaetano at that moment. ‘Where do you have to be in ten minutes?’ he asked quietly.
‘Work. I picked up a waitressing shift at the café round the corner. I’ll be back by midnight,’ she told him chirpily.
In the doorway, Gaetano went rigid, convinced that he could not have heard her correctly. ‘You applied for a job as a waitress...’ his dark deep drawl climbed tellingly in volume and emphasis as he spoke that word ‘...while you’re pretending to be engaged to me?’
‘Why not? Bartending is better paid but the café was closer and the hours are casual and flexible and that would probably suit you better.’
Brilliant dark eyes landed on her with the chilling effect of an ice bath. ‘You working as a waitress doesn’t suit me in any way.’
‘I don’t see why you should object,’ Poppy reasoned, thrusting her feet into her comfy ankle boots. ‘I mean, you’re still working and what am I supposed to do with myself while you’re busy all day? It’s not even as if pretending to be your fiancée is a full-time job.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, it is full-time and you will go to the café now and tell them that you’re sorry but you won’t be working there tonight,’ Gaetano told her with raking impatience. ‘Diavelos! Do I have to spell every little thing out to you? I’m a billionaire banker. You can’t work in a café or a bar for peanuts while you’re purportedly engaged to me!’
An angry flush had lit up Poppy’s cheeks. ‘Then what am I supposed to do for money?’
‘If you need money, I’ll give it to you,’ Gaetano declared, pulling out his wallet, relieved that the problem could be so easily fixed. But seriously, where was her brain? Working as a waitress while living in a mansion?
Poppy backed away a step and then snaked past him in the doorway to trudge down to the hall. ‘I don’t want your money, Gaetano. I work for my money. I don’t take handouts from anyone.’
‘But I’m the exception to that rule,’ Gaetano slotted in grimly as he followed her with tenacious resolve. ‘While you are engaged to me, you are not allowed to embarrass me by working in a low-paid menial job.’
Outraged by that decree, Poppy whirled round to face him again, the hank of hair from her ponytail falling over her shoulder in a bright colourful stream. ‘Is that a fact?’ she prompted. ‘Well, I’m sorry, you’re out of luck on this one. As far as I’m concerned, any kind of honest work is preferable to living off charity and I don’t care if you think waitressing is menial—’
‘We have a deal!’ Gaetano raked at her with raw bite. ‘You’re breaking it!’
‘At no stage did you ever mention that I would not be able to take paid work,’ Poppy flung back at him in furious denial. ‘So, don’t try to deviously change the rules to suit yourself. I’m sorry if you see me working as a waitress at Carrie’s coffee shop as a major embarrassment. Don’t you have enough status on your own account? Does it really matter what I do? I would remind you that I am an ordinary girl who needs to work to live and that’s not about to change for you or anyone else!’
‘It’s totally unnecessary for you to work...in fact it’s preposterous!’ Gaetano slammed back at her loudly, dark eyes flaring as golden as the heart of a fire now, his anger unconcealed. ‘Particularly when I have already assured you that I will cover your every expense while you are staying in London.’
‘Just as I’ve already told you,’ Poppy proclaimed heatedly, ‘I will not accept money from you. I’m an independent woman and I have my pride. If our positions were reversed, would you want me keeping you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Gaetano roared back, all control of his temper abandoned in the face of her continuing refusal to listen to him and respect his opinion. Never before in his life had a woman opposed him in such a way.
More intimidated than she was prepared to admit or show by the depth of his anger and the sheer size of him towering over her while he gave forth as if he were voicing the Ten Commandments, Poppy brought up her chin. ‘I’m not being ridiculous,’ she countered obstinately. ‘I’m standing up for what I believe in. I don’t want your money. I want my own. And as only a few people know I’m engaged to you, I don’t see how it’s going to embarrass you. Especially as you don’t embarrass that easily.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ he demanded.
Poppy dealt him an accusing look. ‘You should’ve given me some pointers on what to wear at the birthday party. Once I saw how the other women were dressed, I felt stupid.’
Gaetano shrugged. ‘It wasn’t important. I want you to be yourself,’ he repeated dismissively. ‘As for the waitress job—’
‘I’m keeping it!’ Poppy incised, lifting her chin combatively because she was needled by his assurance that being the odd one out in the fashion stakes at the party was something she should simply be able to shrug off. Had that been a rap on the knuckles? Was she oversensitive? Too prone to feeling inadequate?
‘And that’s your last word on the subject?’ Gaetano growled as she yanked open the front side door, which serviced his wing of the house.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Poppy declared before she raced off at speed, pulling the door shut behind her.
‘If you don’t watch out, you’ll lose her,’ a voice said from behind Gaetano.
In consternation, he swung round to focus on his grandfather, who was wedged in the doorway communicating between the two properties. ‘How much of that did you hear?’ Gaetano asked tautly.
‘With this door open I couldn’t help overhearing the last part of your argument,’ Rodolfo Leonetti advanced. ‘I’ll admit to hearing enough to appreciate that my grandson is a hopeless snob. She was correct, Gaetano. There can never be shame in honest work. Your grandmother insisted on selling her father’s fish at a stall until the day she married me.’
‘Your wife was raised on a tiny backward island in a different era. Times have changed,’ Gaetano parried thinly.
Rodolfo laughed with sincere appreciation. ‘Women don’t change that much. Poppy’s not interested in your money. Do you realise how very lucky you are to have found such a woman?’
In silence, Gaetano jerked his aggressive chin in acknowledgement. He was still climbing back down from the dizzy heights of the unholy rage Poppy’s defiance had lit inside him, marvelling at how angry she had made him while being disconcerted by his loss of control. His lean hands flexed into fists before slowly loosening again.
‘And as her temper seems to be as hot as your own it may well take some very nifty moves on your part to keep her,’ his grandfather opined with quiet assurance as he strolled back through the communicating door.
Gaetano struck the wall with a knotted fist and swore long and low beneath his breath. Poppy set his temper off like a rocket, not a problem he had ever had with a woman before. That’s because you date ‘clingy airheads’, a voice chimed in the back of his mind, an exact quote of Poppy’s text that sounded remarkably like her. He gritted his teeth, tension pulling like tight strings in his lean, powerful body to tauten every muscle group. It was stress caused by the lack of sex, he decided abruptly. A wave of relief for that rational explanation for his recent irrational behaviour engulfed him. Gaetano didn’t like anything that he couldn’t understand. Yet Poppy fell into that category and he knew he didn’t dislike her.
* * *
Poppy worked her shift in the café, her mind buzzing like a busy bee throughout. Had she been too hard on Gaetano? It was true that he was a snob but what else could he be after the over-privileged life he had led since birth? But Rodolfo’s clear desire to rush his grandson into marriage had shocked Gaetano and naturally that had put him in a bad mood, she conceded ruefully. Evidently when Gaetano had suggested their fake engagement he had seriously underestimated the extent of his grandfather’s enthusiasm for marrying him off. Only an actual wedding was going to satisfy Rodolfo Leonetti and move Gaetano up the last crucial step of his career ladder. An engagement wasn’t going to achieve that for him, which pretty much meant that everything Gaetano had so far done had been for nothing.
When Poppy finished work, she was astonished to glance out of the window and see Gaetano waiting outside for her. Street light fell on his defined cheekbones, strong nose and stubbled jaw line. One glance at his undeniable hotness and he took her breath away. Why had he come to meet her? Colour washing her face, she pulled her coat out of the back room and waited for the manager to unlock the door for her exit. Gaetano’s gaze, dark, deep-set and pure gold, flamed and he moved forward.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked to fill the tense silence.
‘You can’t walk back to the house on your own at this time of night,’ Gaetano told her.
‘Well, I suppose you would think that way,’ Poppy remarked, inclining her head to acknowledge his bodyguards ranged across the pavement mere yards from them. Gaetano was never ever alone in the way that other ordinary people were alone. ‘Why didn’t you just send one of them to look out for me?’
‘I owed you,’ Gaetano breathed, unlocking the sleek sports car by the kerb. ‘I was out of line earlier.’
‘You get out of line a lot...but that’s the first time you’ve admitted it,’ Poppy said uncertainly.
Gaetano swung in beside her and in the confined space she stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat, heartbeat thumping very loudly in her eardrums. Black-lashed eyes assailed hers and she fell still, her mouth running dry. He lifted a hand, framed her face with spread fingers and kissed her. Her hand braced on a strong masculine thigh as she leant closer, helplessly hungry for that connection and the heat and pressure of his strong sensual mouth on hers. Her body went haywire, all liquid heat and response as his tongue delved and tangled with hers, and a deep quiver thrummed through her slender length. The wanting gripping her was all powerful, racing through her to swell her breasts and ignite a feverish damp heat between her thighs. In a harried movement, Poppy yanked her head back and forced her trembling body back into the passenger seat. ‘What was that for?’ she asked shakily.
‘I have no excuse or reason. I can’t stop wanting to touch you.’
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this...with us,’ she mumbled accusingly through her swollen lips.
Long brown fingers circled over the top of her knee and roved lazily higher, skating up her inner thigh. ‘Tell me, no,’ Gaetano urged in a harsh undertone.
‘No,’ she framed without conviction, legs involuntarily parting because with every fibre of her being she craved his touch.
‘You’re pushing me off the edge of sanity,’ Gaetano growled, shifting position to claim her mouth again. With little passionate nips and licks and bites he took her mouth in a way it had never been taken and sent hot rivers of excitement rolling into her pelvis.
Long fingers stroked over the taut triangle of fabric stretched tight between her thighs, lingering to circle over her core. A warm tingling sensation of almost unbearable excitement gripped her and she bucked beneath his hand, helplessly, wantonly inviting more. Give me more, her body was screaming, shameless in the grip of that need. The fabric that separated her most sensitive flesh from him was a torment but he made no attempt to remove or circumvent its presence. She ground her hips down on the seat, nipples straining and stiff and prickling, the hunger like a voracious animal clawing for more inside her. That hunger was so terrifyingly strong and her brain felt so befogged with it she shivered, suddenly cold and scared of being overwhelmed.
‘This is not cool,’ Gaetano whispered against her lips. ‘We’re in a car in a public street. This is not cool at all, bella mia.’
‘It’s just lust,’ she tried to say lightly, dismissively, and she tried to summon a laugh but found she couldn’t because there was nothing funny about the power of the physical urges engulfing her or the nasty draining aftermath of blocking and denying those urges.
‘Lust has never made me behave like a randy teenager before,’ Gaetano growled. ‘Around you I have a constant hard-on.’
‘Stop it...stop talking about it!’ Poppy snapped, ramming her trembling hands into the pockets of her flying jacket.
‘That’s impossible when it’s all I can think about.’ With a stifled curse he fired the engine of the car. ‘But we have more important things to discuss.’
‘Yes. Rodolfo called your bluff,’ she breathed heavily, struggling to return to the real world again.
‘That’s not how I would describe what he did. I’ve been mulling it over all evening,’ Gaetano admitted grittily. ‘I’m afraid you hit the target last night when you accused me of ignoring the human dimension. I’m great with figures and strategy, not so good with people. But this afternoon looking at Rodolfo and listening to him talk I saw a man aware of his years and afraid he wouldn’t live long enough to see the next generation. All my adult life I’ve read him wrong. I thought all I had to do to please him was to become a success and be everything my father wasn’t but it wasn’t enough.’
‘How wasn’t it enough?’
‘Rodolfo would have been a much happier man if I’d married straight out of university and given him grandchildren,’ Gaetano breathed wryly.
‘Why regret what you can’t change? Obviously you didn’t meet anyone you wanted to marry.’
‘No, I didn’t want to get married,’ Gaetano contradicted drily. ‘I’ve seen too many of my friends’ marriages failing and my own parents fought like cat and dog.’
Poppy grimaced and said nothing. Gaetano was very literal, very black and white and uncompromising in his outlook. He had probably decided as a teenager that he would not get married and had never revisited the decision. But it did go some way towards explaining why he never seemed to stay very long with any woman because clearly none of his relationships had had the option of a future.
‘At some stage you must have met at least one woman who stood out from the rest?’ she commented.
‘I did...when I was at university. Serena ended up marrying a friend and I was their best man. They divorced last year,’ Gaetano volunteered with rich scorn. ‘When I heard about that, I was relieved I had backed off from her.’
‘That’s very cold and cynical. For all you know you and she could have made a success of marriage,’ Poppy commented tongue in cheek, mad with curiosity to know who Serena had been and whether he still had feelings for her now that she was free. Her face burned because she was so grateful he had not persevered with the wretched woman. She was just then discovering in consternation that she couldn’t bear to think of Gaetano with any other woman, let alone married to one. When had she become that sensitive, that possessive of him? She had no right to feel that way and that she did mortified her. Was this some pitiful hangover from her infatuation with him as a teenager?
As she walked into the hall Gaetano pushed the door open into a dimly lit reception room. ‘Before I went out I ordered supper for us. I thought you’d be hungry because unless you ate while you were working, you missed dinner.’
She was strangely touched that it had even occurred to Gaetano to consider her well-being. But then Poppy wasn’t used to anyone looking out for her. In recent years she had acted as counsellor and carer for her family. Neither her mother nor her brother had ever had the inclination to ask her how she was coping working two jobs or whether she needed anything. Removing her coat, she sank down into a comfy armchair, glancing round at the stylish appointments of the spacious room. An interior designer had probably been employed, she suspected, doubting that such classy chic was attainable in any other way. She poured the tea and filled her plate with sandwiches.
For a few minutes she simply ate to satisfy the gnawing hunger inside her. Only slowly did she let her attention roam back to Gaetano. The black stubble framed his jaw, accentuating the lush curve of his full mouth, and he could work magic with that mouth, she conceded, inwardly squirming at that intimate thought and the longing behind it while ducking her head to evade the cool gold intensity of his gaze. Her body, still taut and tender from feverish arousal, recalled the stroke of his fingers and she tingled, dying inside with chagrin that she had lost her control to that extent.
‘So, what do you want to talk about?’ she prompted in the humming silence.
‘I think you already know,’ Gaetano intoned very drily.
‘You have to decide what to do next,’ Poppy clarified reluctantly, disliking the fact that he read her with such accuracy and refused to allow her to play dumb when it suited her to do so.
After all, so much hung on the coming discussion and it was only natural that she should now be nervous. Of what further use could she be to Gaetano? Their fake engagement was worthless because Rodolfo Leonetti wanted much more than a fake couple could possibly deliver. They couldn’t set a wedding date because they weren’t going to get married. And if she was of no additional value to Gaetano, maybe he wanted her to leave his home and maybe, quite understandably, he would also expect to immediately stop paying the bills for her mother’s treatment at the clinic? A cold trickle of nervous perspiration ran down between Poppy’s breasts and suddenly she was furious with herself for not thinking through what Rodolfo’s declaration would ultimately mean to her and the lives of those who depended on her.
‘I had no problem deciding what to do next. I’m very decisive but unfortunately what I do next is heavily dependent on what you decide to do,’ Gaetano admitted quietly, disconcerting her while his extraordinarily beautiful eyes rested on her full force.
‘What I decide...?’
‘Only a fake fiancée can become a fake bride!’ Gaetano derided, watching her pale.
‘You can’t seriously be suggesting that we carry this masquerade as far as a wedding!’ Poppy exclaimed with a look of disbelief.
‘Rodolfo likes you. He’s really excited and happy about our relationship,’ Gaetano breathed grimly. ‘In fact it’s many years since I saw him this enthusiastic about anything or anyone. I would like to give him what he wants even if it’s not real and even though it can’t last.’
‘You love your grandfather. I understand that you don’t want to disappoint him, but—’
‘We could get married for a couple of years while I continue to pay for your mother’s care.’
Poppy leant forward to say sharply, ‘If Mum does well, she will probably be released from the clinic next month.’
Gaetano shook his handsome dark head slowly as if in wonder at her naivety. ‘Poppy... Jasmine is most probably a long-term rehabilitation project. To stay off alcohol for the foreseeable future she’s going to need regular ongoing professional support.’
It was true, Poppy conceded painfully. What Gaetano was saying was true, horribly true, but until that moment Poppy had not thought that far ahead. Indeed she had dreamt only of the day when she hoped and prayed that her newly sober parent would walk out of the clinic and back into the real world. Sadly, however, the real world offered challenges Jasmine Arnold might struggle to handle. And Poppy already knew that she did not have the power to stop her mother drinking because she had already tried that and had failed abysmally.
‘If you agree to marry me I will faithfully promise to take care of your mother’s needs for however long it takes for her to regain her health and sobriety,’ Gaetano swore. ‘At the same time I will make it possible for you to return to further education. That would mean that by the time we divorce you would be in a position to pursue any career you chose.’
Poppy sucked in a steadying breath because he was offering to deliver momentous benefits and security. But she still didn’t want to sell herself out for the money that would empower her to transform her mother’s life and give them both the best possible chance of a decent future. ‘I can’t take your money or your support. It’s immoral,’ she argued jaggedly. ‘Stop trying to tempt me into doing what I know would be wrong.’
‘I’m offering you the equivalent of a job. All right...’ Gaetano shifted an expressive bronzed hand in the air with the fluid arrogance that came as naturally as breathing to him. ‘Taking on the role of being my wife would be an unusual job but it’s not a job you want, so why shouldn’t you be paid for sacrificing your freedom? Because make no mistake—you would be giving up your freedom while you were pretending to be my wife.’
‘Fooling your grandfather, faking and pretending. It wouldn’t be right,’ Poppy protested vehemently.
‘If it makes Rodolfo genuinely happy, why is it wrong?’ Gaetano fired back at her in challenge. ‘It’s the best I’ve got to offer him. I can’t give him the real thing. I can’t give him a real marriage when I don’t want one. Marrying you, a woman he has readily accepted and approved, is as good as it’s likely to get from his point of view.’
Poppy was pale and troubled. ‘You’re good in an argument,’ she allowed ruefully. ‘But I’m never going to win a trophy for my acting skills.’
‘You don’t need to act. Rodolfo likes you as you are. Think about what I’m offering you. You can reclaim your life and return to being a carefree student,’ Gaetano pointed out, his persuasion insidious. ‘No more fretting about your mother falling off the wagon again, no more scrubbing floors or serving drinks.’
‘Shut up!’ Poppy told him curtly, leaping to her feet to walk restively round the room while she battled the tempting possibilities he had placed in front of her.
Gaetano studied her from below heavily lashed eyelids. She would surrender, of course she would. She had had a very tough time coping with her mother over the past couple of years and it had stolen her youthful freedom of choice. As a teenager she had been ambitious and he could still see that spirited spark of wanting more than her servant ancestors had ever wanted glowing within her.
‘And how long would this fake marriage have to last to be worthwhile?’ she demanded without warning.
Gaetano almost grinned and punched the air because that was when he knew for sure that he had won. ‘I estimate around two years with three years being the absolute maximum. By that stage both of us will be eager to reclaim our real lives and I would envisage that divorce proceedings would already have begun.’
