by Lynne Graham
‘You’re a tease,’ Gaetano told her darkly.
‘No, I’m a sure thing,’ Poppy contradicted, helpless in the grip of the need throbbing and pulsing through her trembling length.
She felt the sudden give at her neck as he tugged loose the tie of her dress. As the bodice dropped to her waist his hands closed to her hips and he lifted her up onto the stone table before reaching below the skirt to close his hands into the waistband of her lace knickers and yank them down.
‘Out here?’ she whispered, shaken by the concept as he dug her discarded underwear into his pocket with single-minded efficiency.
‘Out here because I couldn’t make it back indoors…and I believe I can promise you a very active night,’ he husked, bending her backwards to capture a rosy nipple between his lips and lash it with his tongue while his fingers stroked and teased the delicate pink folds at her core.
‘I want you,’ she framed jaggedly, her breath strangled in her throat by a responsive gasp as his thumb rubbed over her and then a long finger tested her readiness.
He slid a single digit into her lush opening and her body jackknifed, spine arching, hips lifting off the cold stone surface. And the coldness below her only added to the intense heat punching through her quivering body, steamrollering over her inhibitions and heightening every sensation to an unbearable level.
‘So wet, so tight,’ Gaetano growled, yanking down his zip with a lack of cool that even in the state he was in astounded him. On some level the hunger was so all-consuming that he honestly thought he might die of overexcitement if he didn’t get inside her.
His mouth roved between the straining mounds of her perfect breasts, tugging at the swollen buds, arrowing lower, letting her feel the long, slow glide of his tongue while he pulled her to the edge of the table to position her.
He plunged in and drove the breath from her body with the intensity of his entrance. She whimpered as he stretched her, her body clenching round him like a hot velvet glove.
‘So good,’ Gaetano ground out between gritted teeth as he pulled back and slammed back into her with delicious force.
Poppy couldn’t think, she could only feel and she was riding a torrent of excitement she couldn’t control, her entire being pitched to crave the peak of his every powerful thrust. The heat and the hunger and the pleasure all melded together into one glorious, overwhelming rush of sexual ecstasy. Her climax claimed her in an explosive surge of intense sensation and her teeth bit into his shoulder as the exquisite convulsions shook her violently in his arms.
In the aftermath she was as limp as a floppy doll. He fed her feet back into her underwear, retied her dress and lifted her down to the ground again where she swayed, utterly undone by the sheer primal wildness of their joining.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No, you blew me away,’ she whispered truthfully.
‘You bring out the animal in me, delizia mia,’ he admitted raggedly, pressing his sensual mouth to the top of her down-bent head in what felt like a silent apology.
‘And I like it,’ Poppy admitted shakily. ‘I like it very much.’
‘What the hell have we been playing at, then, for the last few weeks?’ he demanded.
Poppy shot him a teasing glance. ‘You were depriving me of sex. Why, I have no idea.’
But Gaetano was in not in the mood to talk. He was already painfully aware 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?
CHAPTER NINE
‘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 begu
n 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 allmale 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. ‘You’re going to be surprised.’
‘So, go ahead and surprise me,’ Gaetano urged, unsettled by her uncharacteristic reluctance to meet his eyes and shelving the sexual trail to force his brain to focus.
‘I’m pregnant.’ She framed the words curtly, refusing to sound apologetic or nervous, putting it out there exactly like the fact of life it was.
‘How could you possibly be pregnant?’ Gaetano shot at her with an incredulous frown. ‘If it had only just happened, it would be too soon to know and the one and only other time…it isn’t possible…’
‘It is possible. I fell ill that same day and I missed taking my pill. Mr Abramo also believes the drugs I was given could have interfered with my birth control,’ she told him flatly.
‘You got pregnant on our wedding night?’ Gaetano queried in astonishment. ‘From one time? What are you? The fertility queen?’
‘You didn’t use a condom,’ she reminded him.
‘There shouldn’t have been a risk.’
‘If you’re having sex there’s always a risk,’ she pointed out ruefully. ‘The odds weren’t good that night because I ended up in hospital. In any other circumstances we’d probably have got away with it.’
‘Pregnant,’ Gaetano repeated, expelling his breath on a long slow hiss as he paced over to the windows, the taut muscles in his lean behind and long, powerful legs braced rigid with tension. ‘You’re pregnant.’
Although there was little expression in his dark, deep drawl Poppy took strength from his lack of anger and his ability to joke. Gaetano was dealing with it, wasn’t he? He was good in a crisis, very cool-headed and logical and what they had right now was undeniably a huge crisis. A baby nobody had counted on was on the way, a baby she would nonetheless love and protect to the best of her ability.
Gaetano was still feeling light-headed with shock. A baby! He was going to be a father? Dio mio…he was in no way prepared to be a parent. Having a child was a massive responsibility. It had proved a challenge too much for his own parents and even Rodolfo had struggled with the test of raising Gaetano’s good-for-nothing father. How the hell would he manage? What did he have to offer a child?
‘Gaetano?’ Poppy probed in the tense silence.
He swung round and raked long brown fingers through his cropped black hair in a gesture of frustration. ‘A baby… I can’t believe it. That’s some curve ball to be thrown.’
‘Yes,’ Poppy agreed stiffly. ‘For both of us.’
‘In fact it’s a nightmare,’ Gaetano framed, shocking her with that assessment, which was so much more pessimistic than her own.
Poppy stiffened but fought not to take that comment too personally. ‘Not much I can do to change your outlook if that’s how you feel.’
‘I don’t like the unexpected, the spontaneous,’ he admitted grimly. ‘A baby will turn our lives upside down.’
‘But there’s a positive side as well as a negative side,’ Poppy murmured.
‘Is there?’ Gaetano traded in stark disagreement. ‘We had a divorce planned.’
Poppy lost colour and screened her eyes. A nightmare? That had been a body blow but that his second comment on their situation should refer to their divorce was even tougher. But what had she expected from him? A bottle of champagne and whoops of satisfaction? It could have been a lot worse, she told herself urgently. Gaetano could have lost his temper. He could have tried to imply that the pregnancy was somehow more her fault than his. But then possibly he hadn’t reached that stage yet. After all, he was still pretty much stunned, studying her with brilliant dark eyes that had an unusually unfocused quality. We had a divorce planned. He had gone straight for the jugular.
‘But, obviously I couldn’t possibly leave you to raise my child alone,’ Gaetano completed without skipping a beat. ‘Looks like we’re staying together, bella mia.’
Poppy stiffened at his bleak intonation. ‘So, you’re suggesting that we should forget about getting a divorce now?’
‘What else would I suggest?’ Gaetano asked very drily. ‘You’re carrying the next generation of the Leonetti dynasty. Nobody expects you to do that alone, least of all me. Even though I had two parents they did a fairly rubbish job of raising me. To thrive, our child will need both of us and a stable home to grow up in.’
‘But it’s not what we planned,’ Poppy reminded him while anger simmered like a pot bubbling on the hob beneath her careful surface show of calm.
There was nothing to be gained from losing her temper, she told herself fiercely, but his practical approach was downright insulting. Yes, she agreed that ideally a child should have both parents and a steady home but at what cost? If the parents themselves made sacrifices that resulted in unhappiness how could that be good for anyone? Poppy did not want an unwilling husband and reluctant father by her side. That was not a cross she was prepared to bear for years knowing that it wouldn’t benefit anyone. If that was the best Gaetano had to offer, he could keep it and the wedding ring, she thought painfully. She w
anted more, she needed more than a man who would only keep her as a wife because she had fallen pregnant.
‘We couldn’t possibly make a bigger mess of our marriage than my parents did,’ he pointed out wryly. ‘We can only try our best.’
‘As a goal, that just depresses me, Gaetano,’ Poppy admitted.
‘How? We’ll continue on as we are now but at least we won’t be living a lie for Rodolfo’s benefit any longer.’
‘No, you won’t need to live a lie any longer,’ Poppy agreed tightly as she walked towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
Powered by a furious mix of anger and pain, Poppy ignored the question and stalked up the stairs to the next floor where the luggage was stored. From the room used for that purpose she grabbed up two cases.
From his stance on the landing, Gaetano stared at her in bewilderment. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘Your nightmare is leaving you!’ Poppy bit out squarely.
‘I did not call you a nightmare,’ Gaetano argued vehemently.
‘No, you called the baby I’m having a nightmare, which was worse,’ Poppy countered fiercely. ‘This baby may be unplanned and a big unexpected surprise but I love it already!’
‘Dio mio, Poppy!’ Gaetano exclaimed as she yanked garments out of the built-in closets in the dressing room, hangers falling in all directions. ‘Will you please calm down?’
‘Why would I calm down? I’m pregnant and my husband thinks it’s a nightmare!’
‘I didn’t mean it that way.’
‘And you seem to believe that I have no choice but to stay married to you. Well, here’s some news for you, Gaetano… I can have a baby and manage perfectly well without you!’ Poppy slung at him from between gritted teeth. ‘I don’t need you. I deserve more. I don’t intend to stay married to a guy who’s only with me because he thinks it’s his duty!’
