Italian Mavericks: In The Italian's Bed: Leonetti's Housekeeper Bride / Inherited by Ferranti / Best Man for the Bridesmaid. Кейт Хьюит
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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.’
‘Well, you can’t have your own room here,’ Gaetano informed her without apology. ‘Doubtless Rodolfo would like to think you’re the vestal-virgin type, but he wouldn’t find it credible that I had asked you to marry me...’
Poppy studied the huge divan sleigh bed and her soft mouth compressed. ‘For goodness’ sake, there’s only one bed...and I’m not sharing it with you!’
‘You have to sleep in here with me. There’s a downside for both of us in this arrangement,’ Gaetano countered grimly.
‘And what’s your downside?’ Poppy asked with interest.
‘Celibacy,’ Gaetano intoned very drily. ‘I can’t risk being seen or associated with any other woman while I’m supposed to be engaged to you.’
‘Oh, dear...’ Poppy commented without an atom of sympathy. ‘From what I’ve read about your usual pursuits in the press, that will be a character-building challenge for you.’
Exasperation laced Gaetano’s lean, darkly handsome features. He would never ever hurt a woman but there were times when he wanted to plunge Poppy head first into a mud bath. ‘There’s a lot of rubbish talked about my private life in the newspapers.’
‘That line might work with one of your socialites, Gaetano...but not with me. I know that party did take place and what happened at it.’
Gaetano fought the urge to defend himself and collided with her witchy green eyes and momentarily forgot what he had been about to say. ‘I’m going for a shower,’ he said instead and began to undress.
Leonetti flesh alert! screamed a little voice in Poppy’s head as Gaetano shed his shirt without inhibition. And why would he be inhibited when he was unveiling a work of art? He was all sleek muscle from the vee above his lean hips to the corrugated muscular flatness of his abdomen and the swelling power of his pectoral muscles. Her mouth ran dry. She might not be the vestal-virgin type but she was a virgin and she had never shared a room with a half-naked male before. That was not information she planned to share with Gaetano, especially as she pretty much blamed him for the reality that she had yet to take that sexual plunge in adulthood.
At sixteen, after his rejection, she had almost decided to have sex with someone else but had realised what she was doing in time and had called a halt before things got out of hand. She wasn’t proud of that episode, well aware that she had acted like a bit of a tease with the boy concerned. Her real lesson had been grasping that going off to have mindless sex with someone else because Gaetano didn’t want her was pathetic and silly. While she was at college doing her nursing training she had had boyfriends and occasional little moments of temptation but nobody had tempted her as much as Gaetano had once tempted her. And Poppy was stubborn and had decided that she would only sleep with someone when she really, really wanted to. She wasn’t going to have sex just because some man expected it of her, nor was she planning to have sex just for the sake of it.
Poppy opened one of her cases and only then appreciated that her luggage had already been unpacked for her. So this was how the rich lived, she thought ruefully, wondering what she was going to use as pyjamas when she didn’t ever wear them because she preferred to sleep naked. She had nothing big enough to cover her decently in mixed company and she rifled through Gaetano’s drawers to borrow a big white tee shirt that was both large and sexless. He might have forgotten that kiss, that terrifying surge of limitless hunger...but she hadn’t and she had no plans to tempt fate.
* * *
Gaetano was thinking about sex in the shower and wondering if Poppy would consider broadening their agreement. He wanted her and she wanted him. To his outlook that was a simple balanced equation and it made sense that they should make the most of each other for the duration of their relationship. It was the practical solution and Gaetano was always practical, particularly when it came to his high sex drive.
A towel knotted round his lean hips, Gaetano trod back into the bedroom. Poppy took one look at all that bronzed skin still sprinkled with drops of water and realised that she wanted to lick him like a postage stamp. With a stifled groan at her own atrocious weakness, she pushed past him and went into the bathroom to get changed.
Gaetano pulled on boxers on the grounds that it never paid to take anything for granted with women and that doing so only annoyed them. Poppy emerged from the bathroom wearing what could only be one of his tee shirts because it hung off her slender frame in loose folds. Even so, it still couldn’t hide the prominent little peaks of her breasts, the womanly curve of her hips or the perfection of the long shapely legs below the hem.
‘I have a suggestion to make,’ Gaetano murmured huskily.
‘Do I want to hear this?’ Poppy wisecracked, pushing back the bedding and scrambling into the bed, feeling her limbs settle into an incredibly soft and supportive mattress that was a far cry from the ancient lumpy bed of her youth. Wearing only silk boxers Gaetano was an outrageously masculine presence and very hard for Poppy to ignore. She was trying to respect his space by not looking at him and hoping he would award her the same courtesy of acting as though she were still fully clothed.
‘We have to pretend to be lovers,’ Gaetano pointed out.
Wondering in what possible direction that statement could be travelling, Poppy prompted, ‘Yes...so?’
‘Why don’t we make it real?’ Gaetano drawled, smooth as melted honey.
Her vocal cords went into arrest and respecting his space suddenly became much too challenging. ‘Real?’ Poppy exclaimed loudly. ‘What exactly do you mean by real?’
‘You’re not that innocent,’ Gaetano assured her lazily as he sprang into bed beside her.
‘So, you’re suggesting that we have sex because you don’t fancy celibacy?’ Poppy enquired, delicate auburn brows raised in disbelief.
‘We are stuck in this situation,’ Gaetano reminded her.
‘I can live without sex,’ Poppy told him tightly, feeling colour climb hotly towards her hairline because even saying ‘sex’ in Gaetano’s presence made her feel horribly self-conscious.
‘I can as well but not happily,’ Gaetano told her bluntly. ‘We’re very attracted to each other. We might as well make the most of it.’
‘Any port in a storm?’ Poppy remarked without amusement. ‘I’m here in the bed and, as you see it, available, so I should be interested?’
Gaetano leant closer, his stubbled jaw line propped on the heel of his upraised hand as he gazed down at her with absolutely gorgeous dark golden eyes. ‘I’m good, bella mia. You wouldn’t be disappointed.’
Poppy was as frozen with fear as a woman facing a hungry cannibal might be. But insidious heat and dampness were welling in