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‘You haven’t even given me the chance to tell you what my cause is,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re so argumentative, Gaetano!’
‘I’m...argumentative?’ Gaetano carolled in disbelief.
‘I want you to give Mum another chance,’ Poppy admitted doggedly. ‘I know you’re not feeling very generous. I know that having your kinky party preferences splashed all over the media has to have been embarrassing for you—’
‘I do not have kinky preferences—’
‘It’s none of my business whether you do or not!’ Poppy riposted. ‘I’m not being judgemental.’
‘How very generous of you in the circumstances,’ Gaetano murmured icily.
‘And if you’re not being argumentative, you’re being sarcastic!’ Poppy flared back at him with raw resentment. ‘Can you even try listening to me?’
‘If you could try to refrain from commenting about my preferences, kinky or otherwise,’ Gaetano advised flatly.
‘May I take my shoes off?’ she asked him abruptly. ‘I’ve been standing all night and my feet are killing me!’
Gaetano shifted an impatient hand. ‘Take them off. Say what you have to say and then go. I’m bored with this.’
‘You’re so kind and encouraging,’ Poppy replied in a honeyed tone of stinging sweetness as she removed her shoes and dropped several crucial inches in height, unsettled by the reality that, although she was five feet eight inches tall, he had a good six inches on her and now towered over her in a manner she instinctively disliked.
As she flexed those incredible long legs sheathed in black lace, Gaetano watched, admiring her long toned calves, neat little knees and long slender thighs. A flash of white inner thigh as she bent in that short skirt and her small full breasts shifting unbound below the clinging top sent his temperature rocketing and made his teeth grit. Was she teasing him deliberately? Was the provocative outfit a considered invitation? What woman dressed like that came to see a man at midnight with clean intentions?
‘Talk, Poppy,’ he urged very drily, infuriated at the way his brain was rebelling against his usual rational control and concentration to stray in directions he was determined not to travel.
‘Mum has had it tough the last few years—’
Gaetano held up a silencing hand. ‘I know about the stillbirth and of course your father’s death and I’m heartily sorry for the woman, but those misfortunes don’t excuse what’s been happening here.’
‘Mum needs help, not judgement, Gaetano,’ Poppy argued shakily.
‘I’m her employer, not her family and not a therapist,’ Gaetano pointed out calmly. ‘She’s not my responsibility.’
In a more hesitant voice, Poppy added, ‘Your grandfather always said we were one big family here.’
‘Please don’t tell me that you fell for that old chestnut. My grandfather is an old-fashioned man who likes the sound of such sentiments but somehow I don’t think he’d be any more compassionate than I am when it comes to the security of his home. Leaving an untrustworthy and unstable alcoholic in charge here would be complete madness,’ he stated coolly.
‘Yes, but...you could give Mum’s job to me,’ Poppy reasoned in a desperate rush. ‘I’ve been doing it to your satisfaction for months, so you’ve actually had a free trial. That way we could stay on in the flat and you wouldn’t have to look for someone new.’
Discomfiture made Gaetano tense. ‘You never wanted to do domestic work... I’m well aware of that.’
‘We all have to do things we don’t want to do, particularly when it comes to looking out for family,’ Poppy argued with feeling. ‘After Dad died I went back to my nursing course and left Damien looking after Mum. He couldn’t cope. He didn’t tell me how bad things had got here and because of that he got into trouble. Mum is my responsibility and I turned my back on her when she needed me most.’
Gaetano, who was unsurprised that she had sought a career outside domestic service, thought she had a ridiculously overactive conscience. ‘It wouldn’t work, Poppy. I’m sorry. I wish you well and I’m sorry I can’t help.’
‘Won’t help,’ she slotted in curtly.
‘You’re not my idea of a housekeeper. It’s best that you make a new start somewhere else with your family,’ he declared.
No, he definitely didn’t want Poppy with her incredibly alluring legs in his house, even though he didn’t visit it very often. She would be a dangerous temptation and he was determined that he would never go there. Never muck around with staff was a maxim etched in stone in Gaetano’s personal commandments. When a former PA had thrown herself at him one evening early in his career he had slept with her. For him it had been a one-night stand on a business trip and nothing more, but she had been far more ambitious and it had ended messily, teaching him that professional relationships should never cross the boundaries into intimacy.
