Modern Romance February 2016 Editor's Choice

‘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...

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I SAW YOU ARRIVE,’ Rodolfo Leonetti volunteered, disconcerting his grandson. ‘It looked as though you were having words.’

Poppy almost froze by Gaetano’s side, her discomfiture sweeping through her like a tidal wave. Gaetano’s grandfather didn’t look his age. With his head of wavy grey hair and the upright stature of a much younger man, not to mention a height not far short of Gaetano’s, he still looked strong and vital. He greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks and smiled warmly at her before unleashing that unsettling comment on Gaetano.

‘We were having a row,’ Poppy was taken aback to hear Gaetano admit. ‘Poppy doesn’t like her engagement ring. Perhaps I should have taken her with me to choose it...’

Rodolfo widened his shrewd dark eyes. ‘My grandson left you out of that selection?’

Pink and flustered by the speed with which Gaetano plotted and reacted in a tight corner, Poppy said, ‘I’m afraid so...’ In an uncertain movement she extended her hand for the older man to study the ring.

‘You could see that diamond from outer space,’ Rodolfo remarked, straight-faced.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Poppy hastened to add.

‘Be honest, you hate it,’ Gaetano encouraged, having told the story, clearly happy to go with the flow.

‘It’s too bling for me,’ she murmured dutifully, sinking down into the comfortable seat Rodolfo had indicated. Her nerves were strung so tight that her very face felt stiff with tension. She barely had the awareness to take in the beautiful big reception room, which strongly resembled the splendour of the reception rooms at Woodfield Hall.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your mother’s problems,’ Gaetano’s grandfather said while Poppy was pouring the tea, having been invited to do the hostess thing for the first time in her life. She almost dropped the teapot at Rodolfo’s quietly offered expression of sympathy. Evidently Gaetano had been honest about her mother’s predicament. ‘I’m sure the clinic will help her.’

‘I hope so.’ Poppy compressed her lips as Rodolfo got to his feet and excused himself. As the door swung in his wake, Poppy groaned out loud. ‘I’m no good at this, Gaetano—’

‘You’ll improve. He must’ve seen us kissing. That will have at least made us look like a proper couple,’ he pointed out soft and low. ‘Sometimes not having a script is better.’

‘I would work better from a script.’ She slanted a glance at him, encountering smouldering dark golden eyes, and pink surged into her cheeks.

Rodolfo reappeared and sank back into his seat. He had a small box in his hand, which he opened. ‘This was your grandmother’s ring. As all her jewellery will go to your wife I thought it would be a good idea to let Poppy have a look at Serafina’s engagement ring now.’

Poppy stared in astonished recognition at the fine diamond and ruby cluster on display. ‘I remember your wife taking it off when she was baking,’ she shared quietly. ‘It’s a fabulous ring.’

‘It belongs to you now,’ Rodolfo said with gentle courtesy and the sadness in his creased eyes made her eyes sting.

‘She was a lovely person,’ Poppy whispered shakily.

Gaetano couldn’t credit what he was seeing. His fake fiancée and Rodolfo were having a mutual love-in, full of exchanged glances and sentimental smiles of understanding. His grandfather was sliding his beloved late wife’s ring onto Poppy’s finger as if she were Cinderella having the glass slipper fitted.

‘I believe she would have been happy for you to wear it,’ the old man said fondly, admiring it on Poppy’s hand, the giant diamond solitaire purchased by Gaetano now abandoned on the coffee table.

‘Thank you very much,’ Poppy responded chokily. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

‘And it comes with a very happy history in its back story,’ Rodolfo shared mistily.

Gaetano wanted to groan out loud. He wanted his grandfather to disapprove of Poppy, not welcome her with open arms and start patting her hand while he talked happily about his late wife, Serafina. Of course, a little initial enthusiasm was to be expected, he reasoned shrewdly, and Rodolfo would hardly feel critical in the first fine flush of his approval of the step that Gaetano had taken.

Afternoon tea stretched into dinner, by which time Gaetano was heartily bored with family stories. With admirable tact and patience, however, Poppy had listened with convincing interest to his grandfather recount Leonetti family history. She had much better manners than Gaetano had expected and her easy relaxation with the older man was even more noteworthy because few people relaxed around Rodolfo, who was considerably more clever and ruthless than he appeared. If Poppy had been his real fiancée, Gaetano would have been ecstatic at the warmth of her reception. Indeed one could have been forgiven for thinking that Rodolfo had waited his entire life praying for the joy of seeing his grandson bring the housekeeper’s daughter home and announce that he was planning to marry her. Only when Poppy began smothering yawns did Gaetano’s torture end.

‘Time for us to leave.’ Gaetano tugged a drooping Poppy out of her seat with a powerful hand.

‘Hope we don’t have to go far,’ she mumbled sleepily.

Encountering the older man’s startled glance at his bride-to-be’s ignorance, Gaetano straightened and smiled. ‘She hasn’t been here before,’ he pointed out. ‘I wanted to surprise her.’

‘What surprise?’ Poppy pressed as he walked her out of the drawing room.

‘Rodolfo had an entire wing of this house converted for me to occupy ten years ago,’ he told her, throwing wide a door at the foot of the corridor. ‘All we have to do is walk through a connecting door and we’re in my space.’

And even drowsy as she was it was very obvious to Poppy that Gaetano’s part of the house was a hugely different space. Rich colours, heavy fabrics and polished antiques were replaced by contemporary stone floors, pale colours and plain furniture. It was as distinct as night was to day from his grandfather’s house. ‘Elegant,’ she commented.

‘I’m glad you think so.’ Gaetano showed her upstairs into the master bedroom. ‘This is where we sleep...’

Poppy froze, her brain snapping into gear again. ‘We?’

‘We can’t stay this close to Rodolfo and pretend to be engaged without sharing a room,’ Gaetano fired back at her impatiently. ‘His staff service this place as well as his.’

‘But you didn’t warn me about this!’ Poppy objected. ‘Naturally I assumed you had an apartment somewhere on your own where I’d have my own room.’

‘Well, you can’t have your own room here,’ Gaetano informed her without apology. ‘Doubtless Rodolfo would like to think you’re the vestal-virgin type, but he wouldn’t find it credible that I had asked you to marry me...’

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.