Standing very still, Gaetano lost colour and watched her intently. ‘There probably is. But I want very badly for you to stay.’
‘No, you don’t, not really,’ Poppy reasoned thinly. ‘You think our baby would be the icing on the cake for Rodolfo but you don’t want to be married and you don’t want to be a father.’
‘I do want to be married to you.’ Gaetano flung back his shoulders and studied her with strained dark eyes. ‘And I know that I can learn how to be a good father. I meant that the situation of being unprepared for a child was a nightmare. I’m not good with surprises but I can roll fast with the punches that come my way. And believe me, watching you pack to leave me is a hell of a punch.’
The firm resolution in that response surprised her. She paused to roughly fold up a dress before thrusting it into the case, sending an unimpressed glance at his lean, darkly handsome face. She wasn’t listening to him, she told herself urgently. She had made her decision. It was better for her to leave him with her head held high than to consider giving him another chance...wasn’t it?
‘Is it? Are you really capable of changing your outlook to that extent? Accepting being married without feeling that you’re somehow doing me a favour and settling for second best?’ she queried with scorn. ‘Accepting our child as the gift that a child is?’
‘I know that I was difficult when I married you.’ Gaetano compressed his lips on that startling admission. ‘I’m not easy-going but I am adaptable and I do learn from my mistakes. Dio mio, bella mia...my attitude to you has changed most of all.’
‘How?’ Poppy prompted, needing him to face up to the major decision he was trying to make for both of them. She didn’t want Gaetano deciding that they should stay married and then changing his mind again because he felt trapped by the restrictions. She had to know and understand exactly what he was thinking and feeling and expecting. How else could she make a decision?
His wide sensual mouth twisted. ‘I don’t want to discuss that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because sometimes silence is golden and honesty can be the wrong way to go,’ he framed grudgingly. ‘And knowing my luck, I’ll say the wrong thing again.’
‘But you should be able to tell me anything. We shouldn’t have secrets between us. How has your attitude to me changed?’ Poppy persisted, curiosity and obstinacy combining to push her on.
Gaetano glanced heavenward for a brief moment and then drew in a ragged breath. ‘I asked you to pretend to be engaged to me because I thought you would be a huge embarrassment as a fiancée.’
Shock gripped Poppy in a debilitating wave only to be swiftly followed by a huge rush of hurt. ‘In what way?’
‘I was the posh bloke who made unjustified assumptions about you,’ Gaetano admitted, his deep voice raw-edged with regret. ‘I assumed you’d still be using a lot of bad language. I expected you to be totally lost and unable to cope in my world. In fact I believed that your eccentric fashion sense and everything about you would horrify Rodolfo and put him off the idea of me getting married, so that when the engagement broke down he would be relieved rather than disappointed...’
Gaetano had finished speaking but his every word still struck through the fog of Poppy’s shell-shocked state like lightning on a dark stormy night. She felt physically sick.
Gaetano had watched the blood drain from below her skin and fierce tension now stamped his lean dark features. ‘So that’s the kind of guy I really am, the kind of guy you get to stay married to and the father of your future child. I know it’s not pretty but you have earned the right to know the truth about me. Most of the time I’m an absolute bastard,’ he stated bleakly. ‘I tried to use you in the most callous way possible and it didn’t once occur to me to wonder how that experience would ultimately affect you...or Rodolfo.’
Poppy wrapped her arms round her slim body as if she were trying to hold the dam of pain inside her back from breaking its banks. She couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. He had seen from the outset how unworthy she was to be even his fiancée and he had planned to use her worst traits and the handicap of her poor background as an excuse to dump her again without antagonising his grandfather. In short he had handpicked her as the fake fiancée most likely to mortify him.
Poppy cringed inside herself. His prior assumptions appalled her, for she had not appreciated how prejudiced he had still been about her. Shattered by his admission, she felt humiliated beyond bearing. He had seen her flaws right at the beginning and had pinned his hopes on her shaming him. How could he then adapt to the idea of staying married to her for years and years? Raising a child with her? Taking her out in public?