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?
As they mingled she noticed Rodolfo chatting to Serena Bellingham. The blonde was wreathed in charming smiles. Poppy scolded herself for thinking bitchy thoughts. And why? Just because Serena had once shared a bed with Gaetano? Just because Serena had the looks, the social background and the education that would have made her the perfect wife for Gaetano? Or because Gaetano had once freely chosen to have a relationship with Serena when he had merely ended up with Poppy by accident and retained her for convenience?
Deliberately catching her eye, Serena strolled over to Poppy’s side. ‘I can see that you’re curious about me,’ she drawled in her cut-glass accent. ‘I’m Gaetano’s only serious ex, so it’s natural...’
‘Possibly,’ Poppy conceded, determined to be very cautious with her words and ashamed of the explosive mixture of inexcusable envy and resentment she was struggling to suppress.
‘We were too young when we first met,’ Serena declared. ‘That’s why we broke up. Gaetano wasn’t ready to commit and I was, so I rushed off and married someone else instead.’
‘Everyone matures at a different rate,’ Poppy remarked non-committally.
‘Maturity is immaterial,’ Serena responded with stinging confidence. ‘You and Gaetano won’t last five minutes. You don’t have anything to offer him.’
Disconcerted by that sudden attack coming at her out of nowhere, Poppy froze. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘But you’ll do very well for a short-lived first marriage. Gaetano is the last man alive I would expect to stay married to a Goth bride. You don’t fit in and you never will...’
As that bitingly cold forecast hit her Poppy was silenced by Gaetano’s arm closing round her spine. She encountered a suspicious sidewise glance and her temper flared inside her. Evidently, Gaetano was so far removed from the reality of Serena’s barracuda nature that it was Poppy he didn’t trust to behave around Serena. Entrapped there in Gaetano’s controlling hold, Poppy silently seethed and brooded over what Serena had said.
Sadly, the blonde’s assurance that Poppy would never fit in as Gaetano’s wife had cut deep—particularly because Poppy had quite deliberately made conventional choices when it came to what to wear for her wedding day. Why had she done that? she suddenly asked herself angrily. And there it was—the answer she didn’t want. She had done it for Gaetano’s benefit in an effort to please him and make him proud of her, make him appreciate that the housekeeper’s daughter could get it right for a big occasion. Serena’s automatic dismissal of all that Poppy had to offer had seriously hurt and humiliated her.
Fortunately from that point on their wedding day seemed to speed up and race past. Poppy’s throat was sore and she put that down to the amount of talking she had to do. She ate little during the meal even though she was trying to regain the weight she had lost in recent months while she had worked two jobs. Unfortunately her appetite had vanished.
She changed into white cropped trousers and a cool blue chiffon top for their flight to Italy. The luxurious interior of the Leonetti private jet stunned her into silence. She studied the glittering ruby cluster nestling next to the wedding band on her finger and Serena’s wounding forecast of her marriage seemed to reverberate in her ears. You don’t fit in and you never will.
And why should that matter when they didn’t plan to stay married? Poppy asked herself wearily, unsettled by the nagging insecurities tugging at her. Why should she care what Serena thought? Or what Serena truly wanted from Gaetano? She reckoned that Serena was already planning to be Gaetano’s second, rather more permanent wife. So what?
It wasn’t as though she had any feelings for Gaetano beyond tolerance, Poppy reminded herself. Lust was physical, not cerebral.
‘STOP... STOP THE CAR!’ Poppy yelled as the Range Rover wound down the twisting Tuscan country road.
Startled, Gaetano jumped on the brake. He frowned in astonishment as Poppy leapt out of the car at speed and assumed that she felt sick. But to his surprise and that of the security men climbing out of the car behind, Poppy ran back down the road and crouched down.
Bloodstains and dust had smeared her white cropped jeans by the time she stood up again cradling something hairy and still in her arms as tenderly as if it were a baby. ‘It’s a dog...it must’ve been hit by a passing car.’
‘Give it to my security. They’ll deal with this,’ Gaetano advised.
‘No, we will,’ Poppy told him. ‘Where’s the closest veterinary surgery?’
The dog, a terrier mix with a pepper and salt coat and a greying snout, licked weakly at her fingers and whined in pain. Fifteen minutes later they were in the waiting room at the local surgery while Gaetano spoke with the vet in Italian.
‘The situation is this...’ Gaetano informed Poppy. ‘The animal is not microchipped, has no collar and has not been reported missing. Arno can operate and I can obviously afford to cover the cost of the treatment but it may be more practical simply to put the animal to sleep.’
‘Practical?’ Poppy erupted.
‘Rather than put the dog through the trauma of surgery and a prolonged recuperation when the local pound is already full, as is the animal rescue sanctuary. If there is no prospect of the dog going to another home—’
‘I’ll keep him,’ Poppy cut in curtly.
Gaetano groaned. ‘Don’t be a bleeding heart for the sake of it.’
‘I’m not. I want Muffin.’
His gorgeous dark eyes widened in surprise, black lashes sky-high. ‘Muffin?’
‘Ragamuffin... Muffin,’ she explained curtly.
‘But I can buy you a beautiful pedigreed puppy if you want one,’ Gaetano murmured with unconcealed incredulity. ‘Muffin is no oil painting and he’s old.’
‘So? He needs me much more than a beautiful puppy ever would,’ Poppy pointed out defiantly. ‘Think of him as a wedding gift.’
Having made arrangements for Muffin’s care, they drove off again.
‘You’ve become so cold-hearted,’ Poppy whispered ruefully, studying his lean dark classic profile. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I grew up. Don’t be a drama queen,’ Gaetano urged. ‘When you care too much you get hurt. I learned that from a young age.’
‘But you’re shutting yourself off from so many good things in life,’ she argued.
‘Am I? Rodolfo enjoyed a long and happy marriage but he was so wretched after my grandmother passed that he too wanted to die.’
‘That was grief. Think of all the happy years he enjoyed with his wife,’ Poppy urged. ‘Everything has a downside,
