Modern Romance February 2016 Editor's Choice

‘Poor Toby...’ Gaetano frowned.

‘He was very decent about it,’ Poppy muttered in mortification. ‘He’s married to one of my friends now.’

‘But there must have been someone since then?’

‘No.’

Gaetano continued to stare at her as if she were a circus freak. ‘But you’re so full of passion...’

Only with you. The words remained unspoken.

Gaetano lifted his coffee with a slightly dazed expression in his shrewd gaze. ‘I’ll be the first...really?’

Poppy shrugged a shoulder. ‘But if you think it’s likely to be a turn-off I can always go and look for a one-night stand.’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Gaetano growled.

‘That was a joke.’

‘It’s not a turn-off, simply a surprise,’ Gaetano admitted flatly. ‘OK, I’ll wait until we’re married if it’s so significant to you. But I think you’re making an unnecessary production out of it.’

Her body was all he wanted from her, Poppy interpreted painfully. At least if she was his legal wife, it would feel less demeaning, wouldn’t it?

‘I’ll organise a gynae appointment for you,’ Gaetano continued briskly. ‘Reliable birth control is important. We don’t want any slip-ups in that department when we’re not planning to stay together.’

‘Obviously not,’ she agreed, sipping with determination at her hot-chocolate drink while thinking for the very first time in her life about having a baby. She had always liked children, always assumed that she would become a mother one day, but she reckoned that day lay a long way ahead in her future.

‘And whatever you do,’ Gaetano warned with chilling precision, ‘don’t go falling for me.’

‘And why would I do that?’ Poppy demanded baldly, her cheeks hotter than hell in fear of him mentioning that so mortifying teenaged crush again. ‘Having sex with you is not going to make me fall in love with you. I know you think you’re fantastic in bed, Gaetano, but you’re not fantastic enough out of bed.’

Infuriatingly, Gaetano did not react badly to that criticism. ‘That’s good because that’s one complication I can do without. I hate it when women fall for me and make me feel that it’s my fault.’

Well, that was frank, and forewarned was forearmed, Poppy told herself squarely. ‘It’s probably your money they’re falling for,’ she suggested in a tone of saccharine sweetness. ‘You have yet to show me a single loveable trait.’

‘Grazie al cielo...thank goodness,’ Gaetano responded in a tone of galling relief. ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me or this marriage.’

‘I won’t. This marriage will be like one of those business mergers. You are so safe,’ Poppy declared brightly. ‘You will merely be the first stepping stone on my sexual path.’

Gaetano was taken aback to discover that he didn’t want to think of a string of other men enjoying her along that particular path. In fact it gave him a slightly nauseated sensation in the pit of his stomach. The acknowledgement bemused him and he put it down to the simple fact that as yet he had not enjoyed her either. He was thinking too much about something relatively unimportant, he reflected impatiently. Sex was sex and his wedding night would provide the cure for what was currently afflicting him. Since when had he ever attached so much consequence to sex? Even so, it had been entirely right to have the conversation with Poppy to ensure that they perfectly understood each other’s expectations.

‘I’ll make a start on the wedding arrangements today,’ Gaetano completed smoothly.

* * *

‘You look beautiful,’ Jasmine Arnold told her daughter warmly as she emerged from her bedroom in her wedding dress.

The older woman was attending her daughter’s wedding with a member of the clinic support staff. Although Poppy could see a big improvement in her mother’s appearance and mood, she knew how hard it was for Jasmine to return to Woodfield Hall where she had been so depressed. And while Poppy had asked her mother to walk her down the aisle, her brother was doing it instead because Jasmine could not face being the centre of that much attention.

Poppy quite understood the older woman’s reluctance because hundreds of guests were attending the wedding being staged to celebrate Gaetano’s marriage at Woodfield Hall. The Leonetti men had always got married in the church in the grounds of their ancestral home and neither Rodolfo nor Gaetano had seen any reason to flout tradition. Indeed Gaetano had expected Poppy to move straight into the main house as though she already belonged there but Poppy had returned to the small service flat where she had grown up, determined to move back and forth as required.

‘I’m still hoping that you know what you’re doing,’ Damien muttered in an admission intended only for Poppy’s ears as he emerged from his own room, smartly clad in his hired morning suit. He looked relieved when he registered that his mother and her companion had already left for the church. ‘You’ve always had a thing for Gaetano...’

‘As I’ve already explained, this is only a business arrangement.’

‘Maybe it is...for him.’ Her brother sighed. ‘But if it’s only business why are you always checking your phone and texting him?’

‘He expects regular updates on the wedding arrangements.’

‘Yeah...like his staff can’t do that for him,’ Damien responded, unimpressed.

But it was true, Poppy reflected ruefully. Gaetano was hyper about details and had a surprising number of strong opinions about bridal matters that she had mistakenly assumed he wouldn’t be interested in. Although, as he had warned her, she had barely seen him since the month-long countdown to the wedding had begun, they had stayed in constant contact by phone while Gaetano flew round Europe. Poppy had ignored his opinion of the casual job she had taken and had kept up regular shifts at the café.

Now she climbed into the limousine waiting in the courtyard to collect the bride and her brother. The chapel was barely two hundred yards away and she would have much preferred to walk there but Gaetano had vetoed that option, saying it lacked dignity.

In the same way he had vetoed the flowers she’d wanted to wear in her hair and had had a family diamond tiara delivered to her. He had also picked the bridal colour scheme as green, arguing that that particular shade would match her eyes, which had struck Poppy as ridiculously whimsical for so practical a male. And to crown his interference he had acted as though he were her Prince Charming by buying her wedding shoes the instant he saw them showcased in some high-fashion outlet in Milan. Admittedly they were gorgeous, even if they were over-the-top dramatic—delicate leather sandals ornamented with pearls and opals that glimmered and magically shone in the light. In fact Gaetano had embarrassed his bride with his choice of shoes because her selections had been considerably less fanciful. Her dress was cap-sleeved and fitted to the waist, flaring out over net underskirts to stop above her slender knees. In comparison to the Cinderella shoes, the dress, while being composed of beautiful fabric, was plain and simple in style.

‘Are you nervous?’ Damien prompted.

‘Why would I be? Well, only because the Leonettis have invited hundreds of people,’ she admitted.

‘Including most of the estate staff and locals, so you can’t fault Gaetano there. The rich are going to have to rub shoulders with the ordinary folk.’ Damien laughed.

Poppy smiled because Gaetano had kept the last promise he had made before their engagement. Within a week Damien would be starting work as a mechanic in a London garage staffed by other former offenders. Her brother’s happiness at the prospect of a complete new start somewhere he would no longer be pilloried for his past had lifted her heart. Not that her heart needed lifting, she told herself urgently. If her family was happy, she was happy. In stray moments between the wedding arrangements and spending time with Rodolfo, who got lonely in his big empty mansion, she had started looking into the option of training as a garden designer and that gem of an idea looked promising.

Closing her hand into the crook of her brother’s arm, she looked down the aisle to where Gaetano had turned round to see her arrival and she grinned. My goodness, how ridiculous all this pomp and ceremony were for a couple who weren’t remotely in love, she thought helplessly. But Gaetano certainly looked the part of bridegroom, all tall, dark and handsome, black curls cropped to his head in honour of the wedding, the usual stubble round his jaw line dispensed with, his bronzed, handsome features clean-shaven. His dark eyes glittered gold as precious ingots in the sunlight filtered by the stained-glass window behind him. He looked downright amazing, she conceded with a sunny sensation of absolute contentment.

When Poppy came into view, she took Gaetano’s breath away. Her waist looked tiny enough to be spanned by his hands and, as he had requested, her glorious hair tumbled loose round her shoulders in vibrant contrast to the white dress that displayed her incredible legs. And she was wearing the shoes, the shoes he had bought for her, having known at a glance and feeling slightly smug at the knowledge that they were the sort of theatrical feminine touch the unconventional Poppy would appreciate.

The priest rattled through the ceremony at a fair old pace. Rings were exchanged. Poppy trembled as Gaetano eased the ring down over her knuckle, glancing up to encounter smouldering golden eyes that devoured her. Colour surged into her face as she thought of the night ahead but there was anticipation and excitement laced with that faint sense of apprehension. She had decided that she was glad that Gaetano would become her first lover. Who better than the male she had fallen for as a teenager? After all, no other man had yet managed to wipe out her memory of Gaetano. There would be someone else some day, she told herself bracingly as Gaetano retained her hand and his thumb gently massaged the delicate skin of her inner wrist with the understated sensuality that seemed so much a part of him.

‘You made me wait ten minutes at the altar but you were definitely worth waiting for,’ Gaetano quipped as they walked down the aisle again.

‘I warned you I’d be late,’ Poppy reminded him. ‘Knowing you, you’d have preferred to find me waiting humbly for you.’

‘No, waiting naked would have been sufficient, late or otherwise,’ Gaetano whispered only loud enough for her ears. ‘As for humble—are you kidding? You’ve never been the self-effacing type.’

Rodolfo hugged her outside the chapel, his creased face wrinkled into a huge smile. ‘Welcome to the family,’ he said happily.

A beautiful blonde watched with raised brows of apparent surprise as, urged on by the photographer, Poppy wound her arms round Gaetano’s neck and gazed at him as if he were her sun, her moon and her stars. She was great at faking it, she thought appreciatively as Gaetano smiled down at her with that wonderful, charismatic smile that banished the often forbidding austerity from his lean, darkly handsome features.

‘Congratulations, Gaetano,’ the blonde intercepted them as they made their way to the limo to be wafted back to the hall.

‘Poppy...meet Serena Bellingham. We’ll catch up later, Serena,’ Gaetano drawled.

‘Is she the one you almost married?’ Poppy demanded, craning her neck to look back at the smiling blonde who rejoiced in the height, perfect figure and face of a top model.

‘Oh, don’t do it. Don’t make something out of nothing the way women do!’ Gaetano groaned in exasperation. ‘I didn’t almost marry Serena and, even if I did, what business is it of yours? This isn’t a real wedding.’

The colour ebbed from below Poppy’s skin to leave her pale. She felt oddly as though she had been slapped down and squashed and she felt enormously hurt and humiliated but didn’t understand why. But, unquestionably, he was right. Theirs was not a normal wedding and she was not entitled to ask nosy personal questions about exes.

As if he recognised that he had been rude, Gaetano released his breath in a slow measured hiss. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘No, it’s OK. I’m just naturally nosy,’ Poppy muttered in an undertone.

‘Serena is a very talented hedge-fund manager. She may come and work for Leonettis now that she’s single again. Her ex was envious of her success, which is—apparently—the main reason their marriage failed.’

Poppy pictured Serena’s cloyingly bright smile and her tummy performed a warning somersault. It sounded as though Gaetano had spoken to Serena recently to catch up. Confidences had been exchanged and that sent the oddest little current of dismay through Poppy. She suspected that if the beautiful blonde went to work for Gaetano, it wouldn’t entirely be a career move. But even if that was true, what business was it of hers to judge or speculate? She was Gaetano’s wife and soon she would also be Gaetano’s lover yet she had not, it seemed, acquired any relationship rights over Gaetano, which suddenly struck her as a recipe for disaster.

Woodfield Hall was awash with guests and caterers. Jasmine Arnold approached her daughter to ask if it would be all right if she took her leave. Newly sober, Poppy’s mother did not want as yet to be in the vicinity of alcohol. Understanding, Poppy hugged the older woman and they agreed to talk regularly on the phone. As Gaetano joined her Poppy smiled at one of her few school friends, Melanie, who was now married to Toby Styles, the estate gamekeeper.

Overpowered by Gaetano’s presence, the small brunette gushed into speech. ‘You and...er... Mr Leonetti? It’s so romantic, Poppy. You know,’ Melanie said, addressing Gaetano directly, ‘the whole time we were growing up Poppy never had eyes for anyone but you.’

Gaetano responded wittily but Poppy was already trying not to cringe before Toby grinned at her. ‘Nobody knows that better than me,’ he teased.

Kill me now, Poppy thought melodramatically when Gaetano actually laughed out loud and chatted to the couple about their work on the estate as if nothing the slightest bit embarrassing had been shared. And of course, why would it embarrass Gaetano to be reminded of Poppy’s adolescent crush?

As they mingled she noticed Rodolfo chatting to Serena Bellingham. The blonde was wreathed in charming smiles. Poppy scolded herself for thinking bitchy thoughts. And why? Just because Serena had once shared a bed with Gaetano? Just because Serena had the looks, the social background and the education that would have made her the perfect wife for Gaetano? Or because Gaetano had once freely chosen to have a relationship with Serena when he had merely ended up with Poppy by accident and retained her for convenience?

Deliberately catching her eye, Serena strolled over to Poppy’s side. ‘I can see that you’re curious about me,’ she drawled in her cut-glass accent. ‘I’m Gaetano’s only serious ex, so it’s natural...’

‘Possibly,’ Poppy conceded, determined to be very cautious with her words and ashamed of the explosive mixture of inexcusable envy and resentment she was struggling to suppress.

‘We were too young when we first met,’ Serena declared. ‘That’s why we broke up. Gaetano wasn’t ready to commit and I was, so I rushed off and married someone else instead.’

‘Everyone matures at a different rate,’ Poppy remarked non-committally.

‘Maturity is immaterial,’ Serena responded with stinging confidence. ‘You and Gaetano won’t last five minutes. You don’t have anything to offer him.’

Disconcerted by that sudden attack coming at her out of nowhere, Poppy froze. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

‘But you’ll do very well for a short-lived first marriage. Gaetano is the last man alive I would expect to stay married to a Goth bride. You don’t fit in and you never will...’

As that bitingly cold forecast hit her Poppy was silenced by Gaetano’s arm closing round her spine. She encountered a suspicious sidewise glance and her temper flared inside her. Evidently, Gaetano was so far removed from the reality of Serena’s barracuda nature that it was Poppy he didn’t trust to behave around Serena. Entrapped there in Gaetano’s controlling hold, Poppy silently seethed and brooded over what Serena had said.

Sadly, the blonde’s assurance that Poppy would never fit in as Gaetano’s wife had cut deep—particularly because Poppy had quite deliberately made conventional choices when it came to what to wear for her wedding day. Why had she done that? she suddenly asked herself angrily. And there it was—the answer she didn’t want. She had done it for Gaetano’s benefit in an effort to please him and make him proud of her, make him appreciate that the housekeeper’s daughter could get it right for a big occasion. Serena’s automatic dismissal of all that Poppy had to offer had seriously hurt and humiliated her.

Fortunately from that point on their wedding day seemed to speed up and race past. Poppy’s throat was sore and she put that down to the amount of talking she had to do. She ate little during the meal even though she was trying to regain the weight she had lost in recent months while she had worked two jobs. Unfortunately her appetite had vanished.

She changed into white cropped trousers and a cool blue chiffon top for their flight to Italy. The luxurious interior of the Leonetti private jet stunned her into silence. She studied the glittering ruby cluster nestling next to the wedding band on her finger and Serena’s wounding forecast of her marriage seemed to reverberate in her ears. You don’t fit in and you never will.

And why should that matter when they didn’t plan to stay married? Poppy asked herself wearily, unsettled by the nagging insecurities tugging at her. Why should she care what Serena thought? Or what Serena truly wanted from Gaetano? She reckoned that Serena was already planning to be Gaetano’s second, rather more permanent wife. So what?

It wasn’t as though she had any feelings for Gaetano beyond tolerance, Poppy reminded herself. Lust was physical, not cerebral.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘STOP... STOP THE CAR!’ Poppy yelled as the Range Rover wound down the twisting Tuscan country road.

Startled, Gaetano jumped on the brake. He frowned in astonishment as Poppy leapt out of the car at speed and assumed that she felt sick. But to his surprise and that of the security men climbing out of the car behind, Poppy ran back down the road and crouched down.

Bloodstains and dust had smeared her white cropped jeans by the time she stood up again cradling something hairy and still in her arms as tenderly as if it were a baby. ‘It’s a dog...it must’ve been hit by a passing car.’

‘Give it to my security. They’ll deal with this,’ Gaetano advised.

‘No, we will,’ Poppy told him. ‘Where’s the closest veterinary surgery?’

The dog, a terrier mix with a pepper and salt coat and a greying snout, licked weakly at her fingers and whined in pain. Fifteen minutes later they were in the waiting room at the local surgery while Gaetano spoke with the vet in Italian.

‘The situation is this...’ Gaetano informed Poppy. ‘The animal is not microchipped, has no collar and has not been reported missing. Arno can operate and I can obviously afford to cover the cost of the treatment but it may be more practical simply to put the animal to sleep.’

‘Practical?’ Poppy erupted.

‘Rather than put the dog through the trauma of surgery and a prolonged recuperation when the local pound is already full, as is the animal rescue sanctuary. If there is no prospect of the dog going to another home—’

‘I’ll keep him,’ Poppy cut in curtly.

Gaetano groaned. ‘Don’t be a bleeding heart for the sake of it.’

‘I’m not. I want Muffin.’

His gorgeous dark eyes widened in surprise, black lashes sky-high. ‘Muffin?’

‘Ragamuffin... Muffin,’ she explained curtly.

‘But I can buy you a beautiful pedigreed puppy if you want one,’ Gaetano murmured with unconcealed incredulity. ‘Muffin is no oil painting and he’s old.’

‘So? He needs me much more than a beautiful puppy ever would,’ Poppy pointed out defiantly. ‘Think of him as a wedding gift.’

Having made arrangements for Muffin’s care, they drove off again.

‘You’ve become so cold-hearted,’ Poppy whispered ruefully, studying his lean dark classic profile. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I grew up. Don’t be a drama queen,’ Gaetano urged. ‘When you care too much you get hurt. I learned that from a young age.’

‘But you’re shutting yourself off from so many good things in life,’ she argued.

‘Am I? Rodolfo enjoyed a long and happy marriage but he was so wretched after my grandmother passed that he too wanted to die.’

‘That was grief. Think of all the happy years he enjoyed with his wife,’ Poppy urged. ‘Everything has a downside, Gaetano. Love brings its own reward.’

Gaetano voiced a single rude word of disagreement in Italian. ‘It didn’t reward my mother when the husband she once adored ran round snorting cocaine with hookers. It didn’t reward me as her son when her super-rich second husband persuaded her to forget that she had left a child behind in England. But you’ll be glad to know that my mother’s second husband loved her,’ Gaetano continued with raw derision. ‘As she explained when she tried to foolishly mend fences with me a few years ago, Connor loved her so much that he was jealous of her first marriage and the child born from it.’

Poppy had paled. ‘That’s a twisted kind of love.’

‘And there’s a lot of that twisted stuff out there,’ Gaetano completed in a chilling tone of finality. ‘That’s why I never wanted anything to do with that kind of emotion.’

Poppy knew when to keep quiet. Of course, his outlook was coloured by his background, she reflected ruefully. Her parents had been happily married but his had not been. And his mother’s decision to turn her back on her son to please her second husband had done even more damage. Poppy had been surprised that Gaetano’s mother had not been invited to the wedding but Rodolfo had simply shrugged, saying only that his former daughter-in-law rarely returned to England.

Gaetano turned off the winding road onto a lane that threaded through silvery olive groves. Woods lay beyond the groves, occasionally parting to show views of rolling green hills and vineyards and an ancient walled hilltop village. Gaetano indicated another track to the left. ‘That leads down to the guest house where Rodolfo spends his summers.’

‘We’ll have to be careful to stay in role with your grandfather staying so close,’ Poppy remarked.

‘La Fattoria, the main house, is over a mile away. He won’t see us unless we visit. He is very keen not to intrude in any way on what he regards as our honeymoon,’ Gaetano said drily.

‘So this property has belonged to your family for a long time,’ she assumed.

‘Rodolfo bought it before I was born, fondly picturing it as the perfect spot for wholesome family holidays with at least half a dozen children running round.’ Gaetano sounded regretful on the older man’s behalf rather than scornful. ‘Sadly I was an only child and my parents only ever came here with parties of friends. The house was signed over to me about five years ago and I had it fully renovated.’

A magnificent building composed of creamy stone appeared round the next corner. It was larger than Poppy had expected but she was learning to think big or bigger when it came to Leonetti properties, for, while the family might only consist of Rodolfo and his one grandson, the older man did not seem to think in terms of small or convenient. Glorious urns of flowers adorned the terrace and a rotund little woman in an apron, closely followed by a tall lanky man, appeared at the front door.

‘Dolores and Sean look after La Fattoria.’ Gaetano introduced the friendly middle-aged Irish couple and their cases were swept away.

Poppy accepted a glass of wine and sat down on the rear terrace to enjoy the stupendous view and catch her breath in the sweltering heat. She was feeling incredibly tired and had tactfully declined Dolores’s invitation to do an immediate tour of the house. Worse still, she was getting a headache and she had an annoying tickle in her sore throat that had made her cough several times and was giving her voice a rough edge. It was just her luck, she thought ruefully. She was on her honeymoon in Tuscany in the most gorgeous setting, with an even more gorgeous man, and she was developing a galloping bad cold.