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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.
