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In fact she was just about to mention her affliction when Gaetano sat up to say quietly, ‘Possibly part of the reason it felt so amazing was that it was the very first time I’ve had sex bareback.’
‘Bareback?’ she queried.
‘I didn’t use protection. I had a health check a couple of weeks ago to ensure that I’m clean and you’re guarded against pregnancy,’ he reminded her. ‘I couldn’t resist the temptation to try it.’
Poppy made no comment because she knew that he would be ultra-careful with her in the protection stakes because to be careless and risk a pregnancy would come at too high a price for either of them.
‘I’m really hungry now...aren’t you?’ Gaetano admitted, thrusting back the sheet and vacating the bed.
‘Not really, no.’ Indeed the thought of forcing food past her aching throat made her wince. ‘But I could murder a cup of tea.’
‘You’ll have to make it for yourself,’ he warned her. ‘I sent the staff home.’
‘I’ve been making tea for myself since I was a child,’ she told him wryly.
‘I forgot.’ Faint colour enhancing the exotic slant of his cheekbones, Gaetano frowned. ‘Your voice sounds funny...’
‘I’m getting a cold.’ Poppy sighed. ‘I hope you don’t get it too.’
‘I never catch colds.’ Gaetano vanished into the bathroom and a moment later she heard the shower running.
Poppy was so exhausted that she really didn’t want to move, but exhaustion was something she had become practised at shaking off and working through in recent months when she had spent all day cleaning Woodfield Hall and then had stood at the bar serving drinks all evening. Sliding out of bed, she went into the dressing room to pick an outfit and padded off to find another bathroom to use.
Gaetano hadn’t hurt her much, she thought tiredly as she dressed. He had been considerate. He had made it incredibly enjoyable. Why did the knowledge that he had learned how to make sex enjoyable with other women stab her like a knife? She blinked, feeling hot and more than a little dizzy. Clearly she had caught an absolute doozy of a cold but she didn’t want to be a burden by admitting to Gaetano that she felt awful. A good night’s sleep would make her feel much better.
Casually clad in cotton palazzo pants and a tee shirt, she went downstairs, located the kitchen and put on the kettle. She heard Gaetano talking to someone and her brow pleated as she walked to the doorway to see who it was. She almost groaned out loud when she finally realised that he was talking into his phone in tones that sounded angry. As his brilliant dark golden eyes landed on her she froze at the chilling light in his gaze.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her voice fracturing into roughness.
Gaetano thrust his phone back in the pocket of his jeans and stared at her angrily, almost as if he’d never seen her before. ‘That was Rodolfo calling to warn me about something some tabloid newspaper plans to print tomorrow. One of his old friends in the press tipped him off...’
‘Oh..?’ Poppy heard the kettle switching off behind her and turned away, desperate to ease her sore throat with a hot drink.
Gaetano bit out a sharp, unamused laugh. ‘When were you planning to tell me that you once worked as a nude model?’
Poppy spun back, wide-eyed with astonishment. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘That filthy rag is going to print photos of you naked tomorrow. My wife naked in a newspaper for the world to see!’ Gaetano launched at her in outrage. ‘Madonna diavolo...how could you cheapen yourself like that?’
‘I’ve never worked as a nude model. There couldn’t possibly be photos of me naked anywhere...’ Poppy protested and then she stilled, literally freezing into place, sudden anxiety filling her eyes.
‘Oh, you’ve just remembered doing it, have you?’ Gaetano derided harshly. ‘Well, thanks for warning me. If I’d known I would’ve bought the photos to keep them off the market.’
‘It’s not like you think,’ Poppy began awkwardly, horrified at the idea that illegal shots might have been taken of her at the photographic studio while she was unaware. But what else could she think?
As something akin to an anxiety attack claimed her already overheated body Poppy found it very hard to catch her breath. She dropped dizzily down into the chair by the scrubbed pine table. ‘I’m not feeling well,’ she mumbled apologetically.
‘If you think that feigning illness is likely to get you out of this particular tight corner, it’s not,’ Gaetano asserted in such a temper that he could hardly keep his voice level and his volume under control.
The mere idea of nude photos of Poppy being splashed all over the media provoked a visceral reaction from Gaetano. It offended him deeply. Poppy was his wife and the secrets of her body were his and not for sharing. He wanted to punch walls and tear things apart. He was ablaze with a dark, violent fury that had very little to do with the fact that another scandal around his name would once again drag the proud name of the Leonetti Bank into disrepute. In fact his whole reaction felt disturbingly personal.
‘Not feigning,’ Poppy framed raggedly, pushing her hands down on the table top to rise again.
‘I want the truth. If you had told me about this, I would never have married you,’ Gaetano fired at her without hesitation.
Poppy flopped back down into the seat because her legs refused to support her. She felt really ill and believed she must have caught the flu. He would never have married her had he known about the photo. Who would ever have thought that Gaetano, the notorious womaniser, would be that narrow-minded? And why should she care? And yet she did care. A lone stinging tear trickled from the corner of her eye and once again she tried to get up and leave but she couldn’t catch her breath. It was as though a giant stone were compressing her lungs. In panic at that air deprivation her hands flailed up to her throat, warding off the darkness that was claiming her.
Gaetano gazed in disbelief at Poppy as she virtually slithered off the chair down onto the floor and lay there unconscious, as pale and still as a corpse. And all of a sudden the publication of nude photos of his wife was no longer his most overriding concern...
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u64add7af-088c-5c29-8c3d-b5c50158759f)
‘NO, I DON’T think that my wife has an eating disorder,’ Gaetano bit out between gritted teeth in the waiting room.
‘Signora Leonetti is seriously underweight, dehydrated...in generally poor physical condition,’ the doctor outlined disapprovingly. ‘That is why the bacterial infection has gained such a hold on her and why we are still struggling to get her temperature under control. That she contrived to get through a wedding and travel in such a state has to be a miracle.’
‘A miracle...’ Gaetano whispered, sick to his stomach and, for the very first time in his brilliantly successful, high-achieving life, feeling like a failure.
How else could he feel? Poppy had collapsed. His wife was wearing an oxygen mask in the IC unit, having drugs pumped into her. All right, she hadn’t told him how she was feeling but shouldn’t a normal, decent human being have noticed that something was wrong?
Unfortunately he clearly couldn’t claim to be a normal, decent human being. And his analytical mind left him in no doubt of exactly where he had gone wrong. He had been too busy admiring his bride’s tiny waist to register that she was dangerously thin. He had been too busy dragging her off to bed to register that she was unwell. And when she had tried to tell him, what had he done? Porca miseria, he had shouted at her and accused her of feigning illness!
‘May I see her now?’ he asked thickly.
He stood at the foot of the bed looking at Poppy through fresh eyes, rigorously blocking the sexual allure that screwed with his brain. Ironically she had always impressed him as being so lively, energetic and opinionated that he had instinctively endowed her with a glowing health that she did not possess. Now that she was silent and lying there so still, he could see how vulnerable she really was. It was etched in the fine bones of her face, the slenderness of her arms, the exhaustion he could clearly see in the bluish shadows below her eyes.
And what else would she be but exhausted? he asked himself grimly. For months she had worked two jobs, managing the hall and working at the bar. She had been so busy looking after her mother and her brother that she had forgotten to look after herself. He suspected that she had got out of the habit then of taking regular meals and rest. And even when both food and rest had been on offer in London she had still chosen to work every day at that café. In truth she was as much of a workaholic in her proud and stubborn independence as he was, he acknowledged bleakly. He could only hope that he was correct in believing that she did not suffer from an underlying eating disorder.
‘Your grandfather is waiting outside...’ a nurse informed him.
‘There was no need for you to leave your bed,’ Gaetano scolded the older man. ‘I only texted you so that you would know where I was.’
‘How is she?’ Rodolfo asked worriedly.
And Gaetano told him, withholding nothing. ‘I’ve been a pretty lousy husband so far,’ he breathed in grim conclusion, conceding the point before it could be made for him.
‘You have a steep learning curve in front of you.’ His grandfather sighed. ‘But she’s a wonderful girl and well worth the effort. And it’s not where you start out that matters, Gaetano...it’s where you end up.’
Rodolfo could not have been more wrong in that estimate, Gaetano reflected austerely. Where you started out mattered very much if you had previously blocked the road to journey’s end. His marriage was not a marriage and the relationship was already faltering. He had put up a roadblock with the word divorce on it and used that as an excuse to behave badly. He had screwed up. He had been shockingly selfish and with Poppy of all people, Poppy who had trailed round after him and his dog, Dino, on the estate when they were both kids. And what had she been like then?
Like an irritating little kid sister. Kind, madly affectionate, his biggest fan. He exhaled heavily. He had had more compassion as a boy than he had retained as an adult and he had not lived up to Poppy’s high expectations. Worse still, he had taken advantage of her despair over her family’s predicament. He had forced through the terms he wanted, terms she should have denied for her own sake, terms only a complete selfish bastard would have demanded. But it was a little too late to turn that particular clock back.
Was the selfishness a Leonetti trait? His father had been the ultimate egotist and his mother had never in her life, to his knowledge, put anyone’s needs before her own. Had his dysfunctional parents made him the ruthless predator that he was at heart? Or had wealth and success and boundless ambition irrevocably changed him? Gaetano asked himself grimly.
* * *
Poppy surfaced to appreciate that her head had stopped aching. She discovered that she could swallow again and that her breath was no longer trapped in her chest. She opened her eyes on the unfamiliar room, taking in the hospital bed and the drip attached to her arm before focusing on Gaetano, who was hunched in the chair in the corner.
Gaetano looked as if he had been dragged through hell and far removed from the sophisticated, exquisitely groomed image that was the norm for him. His black curls were tousled, his jaw line heavily stubbled. His jacket was missing. His shirt was open at his brown throat and his sleeves were rolled up. As she stared he lifted his head and she collided with glorious dark golden eyes.
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