He had only remembered the highly unsuitable bold girl with the potty mouth, and eccentric clothes, who could be depended on to embarrass him. And being Gaetano, who was never ever straightforward when he could be devious, manipulative and complicated instead, he had hoped to utilise her very obvious faults to frighten Rodolfo out of demanding that his grandson marry. And ironically, Rodolfo himself had set Poppy up for that fall by advising Gaetano to marry ‘an ordinary girl’. And just how many ordinary girls did a jet-setter like Gaetano know?
None. Until Poppy had stumbled in that night at Woodfield Hall, to demand his attention and his non-existent compassion.
An embarrassment to him? No conventional dress sense, a dysfunctional family, no idea how to behave in rich, exclusive circles. Well, nothing had changed and she would never reach the high bar of social acceptability. Poppy shuddered, sick to her stomach with a galling sense of defeat and failure. She had never cared about such things but evidently Gaetano did. Even worse, Gaetano was currently offering to stay married to his unsuitable bride because she was pregnant.
She sat down on one of the cold stone seats sited round the table and her face burned hot in spite of the cool evening air when she remembered what had happened on that table only the day before. Gaetano was like an addiction, toxic, dangerous. He had gone from infuriating her to charming her to making her fall very deeply in love with him. And yet she had still never guessed how he really saw her. The gardener’s daughter with the unfortunate family. It hurt—oh, my goodness, it hurt. But he had been right to tell her because she had needed to know the truth and accept it before she could stop weaving silly dreams about their future. So, how did she stay married to a male who had handpicked her to be an embarrassment?
The answer came swiftly. In such circumstances she could not stay married to Gaetano. Regardless of her pregnancy, she needed to leave him and go ahead with a divorce.
‘Poppy...’
Poppy stiffened. He must have walked across the grass because she would have heard his approach had he used the gravel paths. She breathed in deep, stiffening her facial muscles before she lifted her head.
‘Should I have kept it a secret?’ he asked her in a raw undertone.
He knew she was upset. His dark eyes were lingering on her, probably picking up on the dampness round her eyes even though she had quickly stopped crying. He noticed too much, knew too much about women. ‘No,’ she said heavily. ‘It was better to tell me. I don’t like you for it and it’ll be hard to live with what I now know but you can’t build a relationship on lies and pretences.’
Gaetano stilled in the shadow of the trees, his white shirt gleaming, his spectacular bone structure accentuated by the dim light. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he framed unevenly. ‘Even the idea of being without you scares me. I wouldn’t like my life without you in it.’
Poppy couldn’t imagine Gaetano being scared and she imagined his life would be a lot more normal and straightforward without her in it. Their child deserved better than to grow up with unhappily married and ill-matched parents. A divorce would be preferable to that. She would give Gaetano as much access as he wanted to their child but she didn’t have to live with him or hang round his neck like an albatross to be a good parent. They could both commit to their child while living separately.
‘I can’t stay married to you,’ she told him quietly. ‘What would be the point?’
‘I’m not good with emotions. I’m good at being angry, at being passionate, at being ambitious but I’m no good at the softer stuff. I lost that ability when I was a kid,’ Gaetano admitted grittily. ‘I loved my parents but they were incapable of loving me back and I saw that. I also saw that in comparison to them I felt too much. I learned to hide what I feel and eventually it became such a habit I didn’t have to police myself any more. Emotion hurts. Rejection hurts, so I made sure I was safe by not feeling anything.’
Involuntarily, Poppy was touched that he was talking about his parents in an effort to bridge the chasm that had opened up between them. He never ever talked about his childhood but she would never forget his determined non-reaction when his dog had died, his stark refusal to betray any emotion. ‘That makes sense,’ she conceded.
‘The only woman I ever loved after my mother left was my grandmother.’
‘I thought at some stage you and Serena...’
‘No. I walked away from her because I felt nothing and I knew there should be more.’
Poppy bowed her head, wondering why he was trying to stop her from walking away from him.
‘I’m not quite as dumb as a rock,’ Gaetano asserted heavily. ‘But I was all screwed up about you long before we even got to the wedding. Unfortunately marrying you only made me ten times more screwed up.’
‘Screwed up?’ Poppy queried, shifting uncomfortably on her hard stone seat.
‘I got really involved with the wedding.’
‘Yes, that was a surprise.’
‘I wanted it to be special for you. I became very possessive of you. I assumed it was because we hadn’t had sex.’
‘Obviously,’ Poppy chimed in because he seemed to expect it.
‘In fact I was really only thinking in terms of sex.’
Poppy sent him a rather sad smile. ‘I know that...it’s basically your only means of communication in a relationship.’
‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever had a relationship with.’
Poppy stared at him, green eyes luminous in the light. ‘How can you say that with your reputation?’
‘All those weeks after your illness when I didn’t touch you but we were together all the time...that was like my version of dating,’ Gaetano told her darkly. ‘The affairs I had with women before you went no further than dinner followed by sex or the theatre followed by sex or—’
‘OK... I’ve got the picture,’ she cut in hurriedly, her gaze clinging to the dark beauty of his bronzed features with growing fascination. ‘So...your version of dating?’
‘I wanted to get to know you—’
‘No, you were on a massive guilt trip because I fell ill. That’s why you didn’t sleep with me again and why you spent so much time entertaining me.’
‘I’m not a masochist. I spent so much time with you because I was enjoying myself,’ Gaetano contradicted. ‘And I didn’t touch you again because I didn’t want to be selfish. I thought you would be happier if I made no further demands.’
Poppy sent him a withering appraisal. ‘You got it wrong.’
‘Poppy...let’s face it,’ Gaetano muttered heavily. ‘I got everything wrong with you.’
Her tender heart reacted with a first shard of genuine sympathy. ‘No, the sex was ten out of ten and your version of dating was amazingly engaging. You made me happy, Gaetano. You definitely win points for that.’
‘I bought you something today and it wasn’t until I bought it and realised what it symbolised that I finally understood myself,’ he framed harshly, pulling a tiny box from his pocket.
Poppy studied the fancy logo of a world-famous jeweller with surprised eyes and opened the box. It was a ring, a continuous circlet of diamonds that flashed like fire in the artificial light. She blinked down at it in confusion.
‘It’s an eternity ring,’ Gaetano pointed out very quietly.
A laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all was wrenched from Poppy. ‘Kind of an odd choice when before you came home and I made my announcement you were set on eventually getting a divorce,’ she pointed out.
‘But it expresses how I feel.’ Gaetano cleared his throat in obvious discomfiture. ‘When you talk about leaving me, it tears me apart. Because somewhere along the line, somehow, I fell in love with you, Poppy. I know it’s love because I’ve never felt like this before and the idea of losing you terrifies me.’
‘Love...’ Poppy whispered shakily.
‘Never thought it could happen to me,’ Gaetano confided in a rush. ‘I didn’t want it to happen either. I didn’t want to get attached to anyone and then you came along and you were so perfect I couldn’t resist you.’
‘P-perfect?’ she stammered in a daze.
Gaetano dropped down on his knees in the dew-wet grass and reached for her hand. He tugged off the engagement ring and threaded on the eternity ring so that it rested beside her wedding ring. ‘You’re perfect for me. You get who I am, even with my faults. The money doesn’t get in the way for you, doesn’t impress you. You keep me grounded. You make me unbelievably happy. You make me question my actions and really think about what I’m doing,’ he bit out. ‘With you, I’m something more, something better, and I need that. I need you in my life.’
Her lashes fluttered. She could hear him but she couldn’t quite believe him, there on his knees at her feet, his hand trembling slightly in hers because he was scared, he was scared she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t accept that he really loved her. And that fear touched her down deep inside, wrapping round her crazy fears about Serena and the terrible insecurities that had sent her running out of the house and sealing them for ever. Suddenly none of that existed because Gaetano loved her, Gaetano needed her...