Susanna Carr - Modern Romance February 2016 Editor's Choice

‘Well...that was interesting,’ she remarked shakily, feeling the need to say something, anything that might suggest that she had regained control when she had not.

Gaetano, who never, ever did PDAs with women, was horribly aware of his bodyguards standing by staring as if a little Martian had taken his place. In short, Gaetano was in shock but he also knew that if he had been parked somewhere private he would have had Poppy spread across the bonnet while he plunged into her lithe body hard and fast and sated the appalling level of hunger coursing through his lower body. He ached; he ached so bad he wanted to groan out loud. Dark colour etched the line of his high cheekbones.

‘Let’s go inside,’ he suggested in a driven undertone. ‘Just take your lead from me, bella mia.’

And won’t doing exactly as Gaetano tells you be fun? a little devil enquired inside Poppy’s bemused head. If it had related to kissing, she would have been queuing up, she conceded numbly. Nobody had ever made her feel so much with one kiss. In fact she hadn’t known it was even possible to be that turned on by a man after just one kiss. Gaetano had hidden depths, dark, sexy depths, but she had not the smallest intention of plumbing those depths...

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I SAW YOU ARRIVE,’ Rodolfo Leonetti volunteered, disconcerting his grandson. ‘It looked as though you were having words.’

Poppy almost froze by Gaetano’s side, her discomfiture sweeping through her like a tidal wave. Gaetano’s grandfather didn’t look his age. With his head of wavy grey hair and the upright stature of a much younger man, not to mention a height not far short of Gaetano’s, he still looked strong and vital. He greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks and smiled warmly at her before unleashing that unsettling comment on Gaetano.

‘We were having a row,’ Poppy was taken aback to hear Gaetano admit. ‘Poppy doesn’t like her engagement ring. Perhaps I should have taken her with me to choose it...’

Rodolfo widened his shrewd dark eyes. ‘My grandson left you out of that selection?’

Pink and flustered by the speed with which Gaetano plotted and reacted in a tight corner, Poppy said, ‘I’m afraid so...’ In an uncertain movement she extended her hand for the older man to study the ring.

‘You could see that diamond from outer space,’ Rodolfo remarked, straight-faced.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Poppy hastened to add.

‘Be honest, you hate it,’ Gaetano encouraged, having told the story, clearly happy to go with the flow.

‘It’s too bling for me,’ she murmured dutifully, sinking down into the comfortable seat Rodolfo had indicated. Her nerves were strung so tight that her very face felt stiff with tension. She barely had the awareness to take in the beautiful big reception room, which strongly resembled the splendour of the reception rooms at Woodfield Hall.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your mother’s problems,’ Gaetano’s grandfather said while Poppy was pouring the tea, having been invited to do the hostess thing for the first time in her life. She almost dropped the teapot at Rodolfo’s quietly offered expression of sympathy. Evidently Gaetano had been honest about her mother’s predicament. ‘I’m sure the clinic will help her.’

‘I hope so.’ Poppy compressed her lips as Rodolfo got to his feet and excused himself. As the door swung in his wake, Poppy groaned out loud. ‘I’m no good at this, Gaetano—’

‘You’ll improve. He must’ve seen us kissing. That will have at least made us look like a proper couple,’ he pointed out soft and low. ‘Sometimes not having a script is better.’

‘I would work better from a script.’ She slanted a glance at him, encountering smouldering dark golden eyes, and pink surged into her cheeks.

Rodolfo reappeared and sank back into his seat. He had a small box in his hand, which he opened. ‘This was your grandmother’s ring. As all her jewellery will go to your wife I thought it would be a good idea to let Poppy have a look at Serafina’s engagement ring now.’

Poppy stared in astonished recognition at the fine diamond and ruby cluster on display. ‘I remember your wife taking it off when she was baking,’ she shared quietly. ‘It’s a fabulous ring.’

‘It belongs to you now,’ Rodolfo said with gentle courtesy and the sadness in his creased eyes made her eyes sting.

‘She was a lovely person,’ Poppy whispered shakily.

Gaetano couldn’t credit what he was seeing. His fake fiancée and Rodolfo were having a mutual love-in, full of exchanged glances and sentimental smiles of understanding. His grandfather was sliding his beloved late wife’s ring onto Poppy’s finger as if she were Cinderella having the glass slipper fitted.

‘I believe she would have been happy for you to wear it,’ the old man said fondly, admiring it on Poppy’s hand, the giant diamond solitaire purchased by Gaetano now abandoned on the coffee table.

‘Thank you very much,’ Poppy responded chokily. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

‘And it comes with a very happy history in its back story,’ Rodolfo shared mistily.

Gaetano wanted to groan out loud. He wanted his grandfather to disapprove of Poppy, not welcome her with open arms and start patting her hand while he talked happily about his late wife, Serafina. Of course, a little initial enthusiasm was to be expected, he reasoned shrewdly, and Rodolfo would hardly feel critical in the first fine flush of his approval of the step that Gaetano had taken.

Afternoon tea stretched into dinner, by which time Gaetano was heartily bored with family stories. With admirable tact and patience, however, Poppy had listened with convincing interest to his grandfather recount Leonetti family history. She had much better manners than Gaetano had expected and her easy relaxation with the older man was even more noteworthy because few people relaxed around Rodolfo, who was considerably more clever and ruthless than he appeared. If Poppy had been his real fiancée, Gaetano would have been ecstatic at the warmth of her reception. Indeed one could have been forgiven for thinking that Rodolfo had waited his entire life praying for the joy of seeing his grandson bring the housekeeper’s daughter home and announce that he was planning to marry her. Only when Poppy began smothering yawns did Gaetano’s torture end.

‘Time for us to leave.’ Gaetano tugged a drooping Poppy out of her seat with a powerful hand.

‘Hope we don’t have to go far,’ she mumbled sleepily.

Encountering the older man’s startled glance at his bride-to-be’s ignorance, Gaetano straightened and smiled. ‘She hasn’t been here before,’ he pointed out. ‘I wanted to surprise her.’

‘What surprise?’ Poppy pressed as he walked her out of the drawing room.

‘Rodolfo had an entire wing of this house converted for me to occupy ten years ago,’ he told her, throwing wide a door at the foot of the corridor. ‘All we have to do is walk through a connecting door and we’re in my space.’

And even drowsy as she was it was very obvious to Poppy that Gaetano’s part of the house was a hugely different space. Rich colours, heavy fabrics and polished antiques were replaced by contemporary stone floors, pale colours and plain furniture. It was as distinct as night was to day from his grandfather’s house. ‘Elegant,’ she commented.

‘I’m glad you think so.’ Gaetano showed her upstairs into the master bedroom. ‘This is where we sleep...’

Poppy froze, her brain snapping into gear again. ‘We?’

‘We can’t stay this close to Rodolfo and pretend to be engaged without sharing a room,’ Gaetano fired back at her impatiently. ‘His staff service this place as well as his.’

‘But you didn’t warn me about this!’ Poppy objected. ‘Naturally I assumed you had an apartment somewhere on your own where I’d have my own room.’