‘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.’