Poppy was so shocked at the thought that anyone could mistake her for this man’s anything that she couldn’t take any of this seriously. ‘You’re so desperate to impress him you’re prepared to lie?’
‘I like to think of it as taking advantage of an opportunity when it arises. And, believe me, I spent most of those wasted hours last night trying to come up with an alternative plan. I failed.’ His sculpted mouth quirked at one corner. ‘Something I don’t admit to easily.’
Poppy let the subtle insult that he would rather do anything else than pretend he was in a relationship with her slide. She felt a little drunk herself at the thought of all that money. Five hundred thousand pounds? That kind of offer only happened in the movies, didn’t it?
She stood up. ‘I... I can’t take your money.’
‘Really? You’ll do it for free?’
She heard the mockery in his tone and frowned. ‘No, of course not, I—’
‘Which is as I suspected. So, what is your price?’
‘I’m not a prostitute,’ she informed him sharply, those early schoolyard taunts about her biological mother coming back to haunt her.
‘There’s no reason to get in a temper,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m not suggesting we sleep together.’
Poppy scowled. ‘Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it?’
‘I’m a businessman, Miss Connolly, and I have a problem. Like it or not, you’re my solution.’
‘You’re out of your mind.’ Poppy shook her head. ‘I won’t do it.’
He regarded her steadily, making her feel hot in her navy suit. ‘You’re knocking back half a million pounds?’ His toned was loaded with arrogant disbelief and it only made Poppy more determined to deny him. ‘In cash.’
‘I just...’ She frowned. Growing up poor and without a proper family made a half a million pounds seem like a dream come true. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
‘It doesn’t feel right?’ She had no doubt that if he’d been a car he would have blown a head gasket by now. ‘Are you seriously turning me down because it doesn’t feel right?’
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ she shot at him, thinking of the devastated woman on the end of the phone the day before. ‘You’d need to have feelings for that.’
‘I have feelings,’ he shot at her.
Poppy might have debated that but she still had a week left of her internship and she wanted to get a good reference—and, frankly, she felt a little dizzy. Five hundred thousand pounds was a lot of money. What she could do with it was mind-boggling.
Buy Simon new trainers, for one. The poor kid had been wearing hand-me-downs for as long as she had. But he was fifteen and the right trainers were integral to a teenager’s self-esteem. With five hundred thousand pounds he would never have to go without anything again!
And five hundred thousand would be enough to help Maryann, whom she’d spent the rest of Sunday visiting. She’d also been researching MS on the computer to see if there was something she could do to help. Unfortunately the information had been depressing. Once the effects of the disease set in, Maryann would need a flat on the ground floor and, with no family or funds at her disposal, moving was going to be difficult. Poppy had already thought of asking Maryann to move in with her and Simon, but Maryann was as fiercely independent as Poppy was herself, so she knew she wouldn’t take to that idea easily.
But with half a million pounds Poppy might be able to buy her a flat rather than have her continue to rent. She could pay Maryann back for all the help she had given her over the last eight years. Or could she? She had no idea how far half a million pounds would stretch.
For a moment she was tempted to take the money, oh, so tempted, but she knew there was no such thing as a free lunch. Taking money for nefarious reasons would always come back to haunt her. It would make her feel as cheap as her beginnings.
‘Well?’
Poppy felt a jolt go through her as Sebastiano impatiently advanced into her personal space with the lazy grace of a man who had it all.
‘Well, what?’ she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘Your answer?’ he said in his rich bedroom voice.
Holding her ground against his intimidating force, Poppy shook her head. ‘I’m not for sale, Mr Castiglione.’
‘I know that.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not asking for this to be real. It’s a few days of your time. A trip to Italy.’ He pinned her to the spot with his stare alone. ‘I’ll even throw in a new wardrobe. No budget. It’s every woman’s dream. Not to mention you could buy yourself jeans that aren’t about to fall apart.’
The fact that he had noticed her unfashionably worn jeans made Poppy feel unclean. The fact that he was so arrogant, and thought he could buy anyone with his money, made her even more resolved to hold her own against him.
‘No.’ Poppy stepped back from him, feeling immediately cold without his body heat radiating close to hers. ‘You’ll have to find someone else.’