Italian Mavericks: In The Italian's Bed: Leonetti's Housekeeper Bride / Inherited by Ferranti / Best Man for the Bridesmaid

‘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?