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She didn’t want Sebastiano to like her or approve of her; she just needed to convince his family she was someone he could fall in love with. Her gaze fell to her Mickey Mouse watch. So far she’d never had any cause to take it off and, since it was more playful than garish, she stubbornly decided that she wasn’t going to now. No matter that Sebastiano would not date a woman who wore it. As she’d said to him, he could invite someone more sophisticated to Italy if image was so important to him!
Hearing a text come in on her phone, she smiled as she opened Simon’s message telling her all about the movie he had just seen. Texting back made her feel more like her usual self, and she was so absorbed she didn’t even hear Sebastiano until he bit out a terse. ‘Let me know when you’re done.’
Whirling around, her heart skipped a beat when she saw him standing in the open doorway.
‘I did knock, but you were too busy on your phone to hear it.’
Poppy took in his black trousers and matching shirt that was rolled to his elbows. He looked every inch the arrogant bad boy that he was and she warned her heart to settle down. A woman would have to be mad—or incredibly sure of herself—to take on a man like him. And she was neither.
Still, she was only human, and an unwilling awareness flared inside her, along with that old feeling of wanting to desperately hold on to something but knowing it would never be yours to keep.
‘Right.’ She moistened her dry lips. ‘I take it it’s show time?’
His eyes fell on the unopened bags by the bed and his lips tightened. ‘Like I said, follow my lead and everything will be fine.’
Poppy smoothed down the skirt of her dress and walked towards him. ‘What does “follow your lead” mean, exactly?’
‘It means stop fretting.’ He glanced at her fingers that were pleating a fold into her skirt.
‘I’m not fretting,’ she said, feeling uncomfortably exposed by the fact that he had picked up on her nervous habit. ‘Okay, maybe I am a little, but—’ A wave of panic assailed her and she grabbed on to his forearm without meaning to. ‘But I really don’t think—’
‘This will work?’
He raised a brow and Poppy scowled.
‘Well, I don’t see how it can,’ she said hotly, annoyed that he wasn’t taking her concerns seriously. ‘We’re from different worlds, Sebastiano, and I feel badly about lying to your family. They’re really nice and I’m not that great an actress. They’ve probably already seen through me.’
‘So, if they were fire-breathing dragons, that would make it easier?’
She glared at him. ‘I’m being serious.’
‘So am I.’ He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. ‘To address your first concern about us being from different worlds, my nonna worked in my nonno’s kitchen when they met so, believe me, you working for me will just seem romantic to them. As to your second concern...’ He shrugged. ‘We won’t lie.’
Poppy blinked as she absorbed his words. ‘I think you might have to clarify what you mean,’ she said warily. ‘Your cousin already said she couldn’t wait to hear the details of how I landed you!’
‘All you need to do is pretend that we’re in a relationship but as to the details...we stick to the truth as much as possible. We met six weeks ago when you came to work for me—’
‘Technically we met a week ago.’
‘A minor detail.’ He shrugged. ‘We can say we only got together recently—which is true—so our relationship is still new.’
She frowned. ‘I thought you wanted me to pretend that you’re the light of my life?’
Sebastiano’s lip curled sardonically. ‘Since seeing Nicole’s unbounded enthusiasm, I think it’s too difficult to pull off the whole “desperately in love” angle. It will have to be enough that my family thinks we are a couple. If my grandfather interprets that as a lifetime commitment, that’s his problem, not mine.’
Poppy bit her bottom lip, expecting to feel relief at his words, but somehow feeling slightly deflated instead. Why she should, though, she didn’t know. Of course a man like Sebastiano would find it difficult to pretend to be desperately in love with a woman like her. Hadn’t he already said as much?
‘Fine,’ she managed in a falsetto voice. ‘But what if that’s not enough for him to hand you the CEO position?’
It was a good reminder of why they were both here and Sebastiano grabbed on to it so that he wasn’t tempted to grab onto her and show her all the reasons it would be a good idea for them to forget dinner and share his very comfortable, very big bed behind them. ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.’
‘Okay,’ she said, grabbing a brightly coloured shawl from the back of a chair. ‘It’s your show.’
Sebastiano looked down at her as she came to stand beside him. It was his show, so why didn’t he fee
l like he was running things?
Frowning, he deliberately invaded her space, fascinated by the tiny pulse point that started fluttering in her creamy throat. ‘It is my show, and what I need from you is no unnecessary touching, no inquisitive questions and no elaborating on our story. Do you think you can do that, intern?’
