of the lack of logic in his recent behaviour. He couldn’t answer his own questions, never mind explain or defend his decisions to her. He had honestly believed that for once he was doing the honourable thing and that she would appreciate his restraint. Evidently he had got that badly wrong. She was accusing him of depriving her. Diavelos...no doubt it was sexist but he was the one who had felt most deprived. And being deprived of the joy of her body had eased his conscience.
His brooding silence nagged at Poppy’s nerves. Perhaps even though he enjoyed the physical release of her body he had preferred the distance provided by their lack of intimacy. Maybe he was worried she was getting too attached. Maybe she wasn’t as good an actress as she liked to believe.
‘It was just sex, you know,’ she mumbled as lightly as she could. ‘It doesn’t have to mean anything.’
‘I know,’ Gaetano fielded drily while also knowing that he could never, ever have imagined having a wife who would admit that she had just used him for sex.
It felt wrong to him and downright offensive but he was willing to admit that getting married to Poppy and living with her while struggling to stay out of her bed had played merry hell with his values. One hint of encouragement from her and he had shelved honour without a backward glance. In fact he’d been a pushover, he conceded grimly. He craved her like a drug. He was already thinking of early nights, dawn takeovers and afternoon siestas, hopefully the kinkier, the better, because his bride was still on a wonderful learning curve. Did it really matter if she only wanted him for sex?
Why complicate something simple? She was right. It was just sex, not something he had ever felt the need to agonise over or attach labels to. Maledizione! What was she doing to his brain? Why was he dwelling on something so basic?
‘I BELIEVE THE medication you received in hospital may have disrupted your birth control. Of course, no contraceptive pill is foolproof either. It’s an interesting conundrum,’ Mr Abramo remarked as if the development were purely one of academic interest. ‘Fortunately you’re in much better health than you were a month ago...absolutely blooming, in fact!’
Poppy’s smile felt stiff because she was still in shock. She was pregnant, one hundred per cent with no room for error pregnant and Gaetano was likely to go into even greater shock over that reality. One night, one bout of passion, one baby. Obviously, Gaetano would feel that he had been very unlucky. What were the odds of such a development? What would he want to do? How would he react? She was already praying that he would not hope that she might be willing to consider a termination.
While it was true that she hadn’t planned on a baby, she still wanted the child that was now on its way. Her baby and Gaetano’s, a little piece of Leonetti heritage that even Gaetano couldn’t take off her again, divorce or otherwise. A little boy, a little girl, Poppy wasn’t fussy about the gender. Indeed she was getting excited about the prospect of motherhood and feeling guilty about the fact. How could she dare to look forward happily to an event that would probably seriously depress and infuriate Gaetano, who preferred to plan everything and liked to believe that he could control everybody and everything in his life? The baby would be a wildly out-of-control event. And Gaetano had been frank from the outset that he did not want to risk a conception when they were planning to part. Having foreseen that scenario, he had set out to prevent that situation arising.
Before her conscience could claim her and stifle her natural impulses, Poppy paid a visit to a very exclusive baby shop in Florence where without the smallest encouragement she purchased an incredibly expensive shawl and a tiny pair of exquisite white lace bootees. When she emerged again, clutching a cute beribboned bag, she saw her pair of bodyguards exchanging knowing looks and, scolding herself for her mindless compulsion, made a hurried comment about needing wrapping paper for her gift.
When she returned to La Fattoria for lunch, Gaetano was still in Paris. But he might well have fallen asleep during the flight there, Poppy thought with a wicked little smile. Quite deliberately she had exhausted him. A sexually satiated tired male was unlikely to be tempted by the offer of sex on the side. She had kept him up half the night and had awakened him at dawn in a manner that he had sworn was the ultimate male fantasy. His response had been incredibly enthusiastic. But then Gaetano had remarkable stamina, she reflected sunnily. She ached all over. She ached in places she hadn’t known she could ache but it had all been in a good cause. Surely Serena could no longer be considered a threat?
Given the smallest excuse, Gaetano would have abandoned Serena at the airport. Her incessant flirtatiousness had begun to irritate him during the flight back. Raunchy jokes about bankers and the mile-high club had fallen on stony ground. Gaetano had partied on board when he’d acquired his first private jet but those irresponsible days were far behind him now that he was in the act of becoming the new CEO of the Leonetti Bank. He was quietly satisfied by the attainment of that long-held ambition but he had spent far more time choosing a gift for Poppy during a break between meetings than he had spent considering his lofty rise in status. Ironically now that he had that status it meant less than he had expected to him. His focus in life had definitely shifted in a different direction.
Poppy got sleepy in the late afternoon and went for a nap. She lay on the bed wondering about how best to share her news with Gaetano and tears prickled her eyes because she feared his reaction. He wasn’t likely to be happy about her pregnancy and she had to accept that. It would drive them apart, not keep them together. Fate had thrown them something that couldn’t be easily worked around.
* * *
Gaetano was strangely disappointed when Poppy didn’t greet him downstairs as Muffin did. Muffin hurled himself cheerfully at Gaetano’s legs, refused to sit when told and barked like mad. Muffin didn’t discriminate. Everyone who came through the front door received the same boisterous, undisciplined welcome. Dolores informed Gaetano that Poppy had gone up to lie down and concern quickened the long strides with which he mounted the stairs. Suddenly Gaetano was worrying about what the doctor might have told his wife about her health because taking forty winks in the evening was more Rodolfo’s style.
As Gaetano entered the bedroom, Poppy, roused by Muffin’s barks, pushed herself up on her elbows and smiled, tousled red hair falling round her sleep-flushed face.
‘I exhausted you last night,’ Gaetano assumed with a wolfish grin of all-male satisfaction as he stood at the foot of the bed. ‘I wondered what you were doing in bed and started worrying about what Mr Abramo might have said but that was before I remembered that you had another very good reason to need some extra rest.’
‘It’s the heat. It makes me feel drowsy.’ Butterflies danced to a jungle beat in her tummy while she studied him.
In his beautifully tailored designer suit, Gaetano was a vision of masculine elegance and sex appeal. He was gorgeous with dark stubble outlining his strong jaw line and those intense dark eyes below his extraordinary lashes. Her breasts tingled and heat simmered low in her pelvis.
‘It’s weird because I’ve only been away a few hours...but I missed you,’ Gaetano confided in a constrained undertone. ‘What did Mr Abramo have to say?’
Poppy tensed and swung her legs off the side of the bed so that she was half turned away from him. ‘He had some news for me after the tests,’ she told him tautly.
‘What sort of news?’ Gaetano prompted, shedding his jacket and jerking loose his tie while wondering if she would consider him excessively demanding and greedy if he joined her on the bed.
‘Unexpected news,’ Poppy qualified tightly.
