CHAPTER THREE
‘THAT...ER...’ POPPY hastily revised the word she had been about to employ for a more tactful one. ‘That remark you made about there being no food in the house... We didn’t know you were coming to the hall,’ she reminded him.
Gaetano watched a waiter pull out a chair for Poppy before taking his own seat. Sunshine was cascading through the windows, transforming her bright hair into a fiery halo. She clutched her menu and ordered chocolate cereal and a hot-chocolate drink. He was astonished that the vast number of menu options had not tempted her into a more adventurous order.
‘The hall is supposed to be kept fully stocked at all times,’ Gaetano reminded her, having ordered.
Poppy shifted in her seat. ‘But this way is much more cost-effective, Gaetano. When I took over from Mum I was chucking out loads of fresh food every week and it hurt me to do it when there are people starving in this world. Until yesterday, someone always phoned to say you’d be visiting, so I cancelled the food deliveries... Oh, yes, and the flowers as well. I’m not into weekly flower arranging. I’ve saved you so much money,’ she told him with pride.
‘I don’t need to save money. I expect the house to always be ready for use,’ Gaetano countered drily.
Poppy gave him a pained look. ‘But it’s so wasteful...’
Gaetano shrugged. He had never thought about that aspect and did not see why he should consider it when he gave millions to charitable causes every year. Convenience and the ability to do as he liked, when he liked, and at short notice, were very important to him, because he rarely took time away from work. ‘I’m not tight with cash,’ he said wryly. ‘If the house isn’t prepared for immediate use, I can’t visit whenever I take the notion.’
Poppy ripped open her small packet of cereal and poured it into the bowl provided. Ignoring the milk on offer, she began to eat the cereal dry with her fingers the way she always ate it. For a split second, Gaetano stared but said nothing. For that same split second she had felt slightly afraid that he might give her a slap across the knuckles for what he deemed to be poor table manners and she flushed pink with chagrin, determined not to alter her behaviour to kowtow to his different expectations. The rich were definitely different, she conceded ruefully.
‘I will eat chocolate any way I can get it,’ she confided nonetheless in partial apology. ‘I don’t like my cereal soggy. Now this proposition you mentioned...’
‘My grandfather wants me to get married before I can become Chief Executive of the Leonetti Bank. As I don’t want to get married, I believe a fake engagement would keep him happy in the short term. It will convince Rodolfo that I am moving in the right direction and assuage his fear that I’m incapable of settling down.’
‘So, why are you telling me this?’ Poppy asked him blankly.
‘I want you to partner me in the fake engagement.’ Gaetano lounged lithely back in his seat to study her reaction.
‘You and me?’ A peal of startled laughter erupted from Poppy’s lush pink mouth beneath Gaetano’s disconcerted gaze. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. No one, but no one, would credit you and me as a couple!’
‘Funny, you didn’t see it as being that amusing when you were a teenager,’ Gaetano derided softly.
‘You are such a bastard!’ Poppy sprang out of her chair, all pretence of cool abandoned as she stalked away from the table. She had never quite contrived to lose that tender, stinging sense of rejection and humiliation even though she knew she was being ridiculous. After all, she had been far too young and naïve for him as well as being the daughter of an employee, and for him to respond in any way, even had he wanted to, would have been inappropriate. But while her brain assured her of those facts, her visceral reaction was at another level.
A few weeks after his rebuff, the annual hall summer picnic had been held and Gaetano had put in his appearance with a girlfriend. Poppy had felt sick when she’d seen that shiny, beautifully dressed and classy girl who might have stepped straight out of a glossy modelling advertisement. She had seen how pathetic it had been to harbour even the smallest hope of ever attracting Gaetano’s interest and as a result of that distress, that horrid feeling of unworthiness and mortification, she had plunged herself into a very unwise situation.
‘Poppy...’ Gaetano murmured wryly, wishing he had left that reminder of the past decently buried.
Poppy spun back to him, eyes wide and accusing. ‘I was sixteen years old, for goodness’ sake, and you were the only fanciable guy in my radius, so it’s hardly surprising that I got a crush on you. It was hormones, nothing else. I wasn’t mature enough to recognise that you were totally the wrong kind of guy for me—’