Page 5 of Her Italian Boss

A brief smile blossomed on her lips at that idea. ‘No, they were a lovely family. They treated me very well. The problem was all mine. I got far too attached to the children and when they left England and I was no longer needed, I was just devastated,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘So I decided it wasn’t the job for me and signed up for an office skills course.’

Within an ace of remarking that he considered that decision a wrong move on her part, Santino thought better of it when he registered that he could not imagine the marketing department without her.

‘The trouble is…the career change hasn’t worked out very well,’ Poppy commented rather gruffly.

Santino’s ebony brows pleated. ‘Everyone makes an occasional mistake—’

‘I’ve managed to pick up two formal warnings in six months.’ Poppy shrugged a slight shoulder, cursing her own impulsive tongue, her habit of being too candid for other people’s comfort. All she had done was bring her own failings to his notice.

Santino had to resist a strong but unprofessional urge to tell her that her head of department had been guilty of an overreaction when he’d made a complaint about her on the strength of an accident with a spilt drink. She had been unlucky. Desmond Lines was in his first week in the job, keen to make his mark and show his authority, but he had chosen the wrong event and the wrong person to clamp down on. In fact, Poppy might not know it, but that misjudged warning had even been discussed in the boardroom with varying degrees of levity and incredulity. One of Santino’s senior executives had looked in mock horror at the puddle of mineral water he had left on the table and had wondered out loud if HR were going to haul him over the coals, too.

Poppy tilted her chin. ‘I didn’t make mistakes as a nanny.’

‘But people would miss you if you weren’t here.’

Colliding with glittering dark golden eyes, Poppy felt dizzy. Did he mean he would miss her? For goodness’ sake, what was she thinking? What difference would it make to him if she went off in search of another job and moved on? She was one very humble cog in a big wheel. He was just being kind again.

Quick to recognise when a subject ought to be changed, Santino asked, ‘Do you have any family living in London?’

Poppy moistened her dry lips with her drink and sighed, ‘Not any more. My parents moved out to Australia about eighteen months back. My brother, Peter, and his wife, Karrie, live in Sydney.’

‘What’s the connection that took them all to the other side of the world?’ Santino enquired lazily, lounging back with indolent elegance against the edge of his desk.

‘Basically…Peter. He’s married to an Australian and he was offered a very prestigious teaching post at a university out there. He’s a brilliant mathematician. He was doing algebra as a toddler.’ A self-deprecating smile curved Poppy’s lips. ‘I was still struggling to do it at twelve years old.’

‘There are more important things,’ Santino quipped, opting for the sympathy vote and overlooking his own stratospheric success in the same subject. ‘So why didn’t you emigrate to Australia with your family?’

‘Well…I wasn’t asked,’ Poppy confided with a rueful grin of acknowledgement at that oversight. ‘Mum and Dad just worship the ground Peter walks on. They’ve bought a retirement home near where he and Karrie live. Mum now looks after their house and Dad keeps their garden blooming.’

‘Free labour…not bad if you can get it. Does your sister-in-law mind?’

‘Not at all. Karrie’s a doctor and works very long hours. She’s also now expecting their first child. As an arrangement, it suits them all very well.’

‘Do you have any other relatives left in the U.K.?’ Santino pressed with a frown.

‘An elderly great-aunt in Wales whom I visit for the odd weekend. What about you?’ Poppy questioned, emboldened by that dialogue.

‘Me?’

‘I suppose that if you have any relatives they live in Italy,’ Poppy answered for herself. ‘When did your mother die?’

Santino tensed, his jawline clenching. ‘She’s not dead. My parents were divorced.’

Disconcerted, Poppy nodded, thinking that that was a little known fact in Aragone Systems for most people had assumed that Maximo Aragone had been a widower.

Santino drained his glass and set it down. ‘I haven’t seen my mother since I was fifteen.’

‘How awful!’ Poppy exclaimed, her soft heart going out to him at the thought that he had been abandoned by some hard-hearted woman.

Santino shot her a look of surprise and then added drily, ‘It was my choice to cut her out of my life.’

At that explanation, Poppy surveyed him in sincere shock, and when he went on with complete cool to ask her if she wanted another drink, she said no. Although she suspected that what he had just confided was rather private, she could not rest without knowing more.

‘Was your mother cruel to you?’ Poppy asked baldly.

‘Of cours

e not. She loved me very much but she was not such a good wife to my father,’ Santino advanced on a forbidding note that would have warned the more cautious off the topic.

‘Oh…I see. You took your father’s side when they divorced.’ Poppy spoke that thought out loud without meaning to.

Raw exasperation currented through Santino. As if it were that simple! As if it weren’t possible that he had reached such a decision on the strength of his own judgement!

The silence seethed.

Recognising that she had got too personal, Poppy turned pink with discomfiture. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…you said she loved you and yet you’ve been so cruel to her.’ As she registered what she had said she actually clamped a sealing hand over her parted lips and surveyed Santino’s set features and flaring golden eyes in dismay and apology. ‘It’s time I tucked my big mouth up for the night,’ she muttered through her spread fingers.

‘No…I will defend myself against that charge first!’ Santino countered forcefully. ‘Let me tell you why I hate St Valentine’s Day…’

‘You…do?’ Her hand falling back to her lap, Poppy stared at him in a combination of surprise and confusion.

‘I adored my mother,’ Santino grated. ‘So did my father. He flew her over to Paris to her favourite hotel to celebrate St Valentine’s Day and do you know what she did?’

In silence and very much wishing she had minded her own business, Poppy shook her curly head.

‘That’s the night she chose to tell him she’d been having an affair and that she was leaving him for her lover!’ Santino ground out like an Old Testament prophet reading out the Riot Act, raw censure in every hard male angle of his striking features.

Poppy pondered that explanation. ‘She probably felt so guilty that she couldn’t help confessing…I bet she didn’t choose that night or those circumstances deliberately.’

‘Whatever…Maximo was shattered,’ Santino stressed on a note of decided finality.

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