The cheek of her too…a little nobody like her making up to the boss!’
Summoning up a recollection of how Poppy behaved in his vicinity, Santino decided she very probably was the culprit. He knew he made her nervous. Around him, she was more than usually clumsy, tongue-tied to the point of idiocy and enveloped in a continual hot blush. She also had a way of looking at him that suggested that with very little effort he might walk on water. Other women treated him to the same look but where they were concerned it was deliberate flattery, whereas Poppy’s expressive face paraded her every thought like a banner. He was relieved that she had not signed the card. She would not have appreciated that her trade-mark perfume and love of flowers might be a give-away and would undoubtedly cringe if she realised that she was even under suspicion. Instantly, Santino regretted allowing Craig to read the card.
‘I doubt that Poppy Bishop sent it,’ Santino murmured in a bored tone of dismissal as he dropped the card straight into the bin. ‘She’s just not the type. I imagine it’s more likely to have come from some schoolgirl, possibly the daughter of one of my friends. Now, since we’ve had our entertainment for the day, could you get me the MD of Delsen Industries on the phone?’
Later that morning, Santino’s attention wandered back to the bin where the card lay forlorn and rejected. A groan of exasperation escaped his wide, sensual mouth. What on earth had possessed her? His PA hated her guts and would do her a bad turn if he got the chance. Why? Craig was famous for hitting on the youngest, newest female employees, treating them to a one-night stand and then dumping them.
But when his PA had tried his routine on Poppy, she had turned him down and admitted that she had been told that he was the office romeo on her first day, a put-down that had hit Craig’s ego right where it hurt. Craig would have been more humiliated, however, had he realised that Santino had been the one to issue that warning. He still didn’t know why he had bothered. Maybe it was the fact that his father had warmed to the girl; maybe it was the sheer naivety he had seen in her blue pansy-coloured eyes…
Around ten o’clock that morning, Poppy had to stock up the stationery cupboard. She was glad that she had to trek down to the floor below to get fresh supplies. Anything capable of taking her mind off the valentine card she had sent was welcome.
To say that she had got cold feet about that card would have been a major understatement. It had been an insane impulse and she hadn’t stopped to think about what she’d been doing. Suspecting that Santino could hardly be looking forward to the staff party when it would only remind him of his father’s sudden demise at Christmas, she had overflowed with sympathy for, as far as she knew, Santino had no other close relatives. And although her own family were still alive, they had emigrated to Australia and she rarely heard from them.
Even so, her far-too-emotional frame of mind the night before last was no excuse for the personal message she had inscribed on that card. She also had the sinking suspicion that Santino, who was the very image of ruthless workplace cool and efficiency, might very much have disliked receiving a huge pink envelope at the office. Surely some of the executive staff must have commented on that bright envelope? And possibly laughed, which was not something she felt that Santino would have enjoyed either.
That idiotic declaration of love had been her biggest misjudgement of all. Why had she let herself get so carried away? Why hadn’t she had the wit to just sign it with only a question mark? Then the card might have been interpreted in a dozen ways and even as a harmless joke. But her statement of undying love had put that crazy card into an entirely different realm and might well rouse much greater curiosity.
Clutching a sheaf of paper and several bags of pens, Poppy headed back towards the lift, her steps slowing when she saw Santino chatting to several other men in the reception area. Her heartbeat quickened, her chest tightened, her mouth ran dry, symptoms that always assailed her when Santino Aragone was in view or even within hearing. The dark, deep timbre of his honeyed, accented drawl sent a positive tingle down her backbone. Santino could voice the most prosaic statistics and make them sound like poetry.
While pretending great interest in the supplies she was carrying, Poppy glanced up and stole a look at him. Bang…the full effect of Santino just exploded on her. She was entranced by the commanding angle of his dark head, the gloss of his black hair beneath the lights, the sheer height and breadth of him in a dark formal business suit that exuded classic designer tailoring. Yet when he moved he was as fluid as a big cat, and as graceful. As he turned his head to address someone she caught his profile, strong and distinctive from his lean, sculpted cheekbones to the proud jut of his nose and the aggressive angle of his jawline. His golden skin was stretched taut over his superb bone structure.
He made her ache. Just looking at Santino made her ache. As one of the bags of pens escaped the damp clutch of her nerveless fingers and fell to the floor Santino swung round and she collided with his incredible eyes, black as sloes below these harsh interior lights but the same shade as polished bronze in daylight. His gaze narrowed, spiky black lashes curling down to zero in on her. Then, instead of looking away again as she expected, he stared almost as if he had never seen her before.
It was as if time stopped dead for Poppy. Her heart was pumping blood so hard, she was as out of breath as if she had been running. There was a singing sound in her eardrums and her whole body felt oddly light and full of leaping energy. She looked back at him, wide, very blue eyes steady for possibly the very first time, and sank without trace in the glittering golden intensity of his appraisal.
Someone stooped and swept up the bag she had let fall, blocking her from Santino’s gaze and breaking that spell. She focused with dizzy uncertainty on Craig Belston, absorbed the sneer etched on his self-satisfied features and almost recoiled, her fair skin reddening.
‘You’re making a patsy of yourself,’ Craig murmured very low. ‘The old dropped hanky routine went out with the ark!’
Her face tightened in shaken disconcertion. ‘Sorry?’
Faint colour demarcating the hard slant of his cheekbones, Santino strode into the lift, hit the button to close the doors and left all his companions behind without even thinking about it. Poppy Bishop’s hair was a vibrant golden auburn and very unusual. Just for a moment under the lights her hair had looked quite dazzling and she had beautiful eyes. For once, although he was quite certain that it would have been something that would have jarred on him, he had not noticed what she was wearing. But he was not attracted to her; of course, he wasn’t.
Poppy was an employee, he reminded himself with relief. Not even if Cleopatra joined the staff would Santino have allowed himself to be tempted into an unsuitable liaison. That stupid card was still on his mind, that was all! He began with cool logic to list all Poppy’s flaws. She was only about five feet three and he preferred tall blondes. She was twenty-one and he liked women closer to his own age. She had such dreadful dress sense that she stuck out like a canary bird among the suits at a meeting. She talked too much, knocked things over, messed up royally on the computer on a regular basis. He was a technical whizz, a perfectionist, she was an accident that just kept on happening. She was also the kind of woman men married and he would die single. The prospect of the funeral he had to attend that afternoon was stressing him out. What he ought to have was a drink.
Poppy hurried back to the marketing department and went to fetch Desmond’s coffee. She was in turmoil. Why had Santino stared at her that way? Or had that just been her imagination? She was so ridiculously obsessed with him that her mind had probably played tricks on her. Why had she got this horrible suspicion that he knew she had sent that card? How could he possibly know? He couldn’t read minds, could he?
And why had Craig attacked her that way when he usually behaved as though she was beneath his lofty notice? For goodness’ sake, what had got into him? Craig Belston never deigned to speak to her, at least
