The Italian's Virgin Acquisition

by Michelle Conder

  But he wouldn’t be caught. And not just because he distrusted most of the women he met, but because his life was perfect as it was. Why interfere with that?

  A pair of bold velvet-blue eyes slid into his consciousness. Was Poppy Connolly for real? He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t going to waste time wondering about it. She had agreed to go with him and that was all there was to it.

  He blew out a breath and pushed to his feet.

  In truth he didn’t need to take her to Italy with him. Yes, it would be easier to present the package his grandfather believed to get what he wanted, but it wasn’t essential. He hadn’t even confirmed that his grandfather was right in his assumptions.

  He could easily turn up to the villa alone and they could laugh at the mistake over a negroni or two. Sebastiano could then assure his grandfather that he was perfectly fine as he was, and wear the old man down without having to revert to a lie.

  The problem was that he still remembered how soft the skin was on the inside of Poppy’s wrist, and he’d enjoyed meeting a woman who hadn’t behaved as if he was the best thing since sliced bread.

  His lips twisted into a self-mocking smile. Was it just the novelty of having a woman say no to him? Surely he hadn’t become that arrogant, or full of himself?

  Or was it the thought of returning to his family home at this time of the year, alone?

  Yes, that made his stomach knot, but it had been fifteen years since the accident. And, while he might still live with the guilt and loss, it didn’t govern his actions any more. He’d mastered that years ago. Hadn’t he?

  Perhaps it was nothing more than simple lust. He’d felt it straight away, an edgy hunger to feel her against him. Feel her against him and under him and over him. Feel every soft, satiny, naked inch of her as he buried himself deep inside her. Just the thought of it aroused him to a burning point of hardness. Which was ridiculous in the extreme. His libido did not control him. He controlled his libido.

  Regardless, this relationship was fake, he reminded himself, one-hundred-percent fake. And that made Poppy Connolly one-hundred-percent off limits.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘WHERE DID YOU say you were going?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Poppy signed back to her brother, debating between packing black linen dress trousers that had seen better days or a navy skirt that was a little on the short side. ‘But it’s somewhere in Italy. I was planning to text you the details after I arrived.’

  Black trousers definitely. She didn’t want to give Sebastiano Castiglione any ideas that this relationship was anything other than phony.

  ‘Italy!’ Her fifteen-year-old brother signed excitedly, bouncing up and down on the bed as if he’d just been stung by a wasp. ‘I want to come.’

  ‘You can’t,’ she signed. ‘I already told you, it’s a work thing, and I deliberately didn’t tell you where I was going because I knew you’d want to come.’ She went to smooth his fringe back from his face like she’d used to when he was little but he moved back out of range. ‘You know I’d love to take you. Don’t make me feel guilty.’

  ‘I won’t if you at least let me stay in the flat by myself.’

  Poppy pressed her two fingers to her thumb to signal no. ‘You have to stay with Maryann. And make sure you heat up the Bolognaise I prepared for dinner tomorrow night. I don’t want her having to do any cooking this weekend.’

  Her brother gave her a belligerent stare. ‘I’m old enough to stay by myself.’

  ‘You’re fifteen.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Poppy sighed. ‘If you don’t leave now you’ll be late for school,’ she signed to him. ‘And stay off your phone this weekend. You need to read a real book instead of playing games all the time.’

  ‘I tell you what...’ He uncoiled his lanky frame from the bed, signing rapidly. ‘I’ll read a real book if I can stay here by myself.’

  Poppy grabbed a couple of tops that went with the black trousers. ‘Go to school.’ She pulled him in for a kiss. ‘I love you.’

  He gave her the shorthand sign for ‘love you’ in return before blowing out of the door like a dervish in his new trainers. Or one of the ten pairs of new Nike trainers! They had arrived the day after she had struck her devil’s pact with Sebastiano and Poppy had been forced to say she had won them in a work raffle to explain the extravagance.

  She didn’t know if Sebastiano’s generosity was a sign of the man himself, or just his desperation to get his own way. Somehow she suspected the latter.

  Straightening her bed, she padded into the bathroom and took a shower. It was still a few hours until Sebastiano was due to arrive, but she felt jittery.

  Around noon she received a phone call from her brother. Usually they used messaging, but due to a new hearing app she was able to speak into the phone and have her words converted to text. Simon wanted to know if he could go to the movies that afternoon with some friends he had made at his new school and Poppy’s heart swelled. Because her brother had been born deaf he’d had many developmental delays and those, combined with their volatile childhood, had seen him become a shy and insecure kid. Lately, though, he seemed to be coming out of his shell and it made Poppy’s heart sing to see it.

  Telling him it was fine with her, she jumped when a decisive knock sounded at her front door. Knowing who it would be, she told Simon she loved him before opening the door wide, all her nerves from earlier returning full force at the sight of her boss standing in her dank hallway.

  He was so tall, dark and utterly male he took her breath away. It just wasn’t fair that a man should look this good and yet have no decent moral fibre about him. The reminder of his poor character had her determined that she would not let him walk all over her.

  ‘Are you early, or am I late?’ she asked, raising her chin in an unconscious challenge.

  ‘I’m on time,’ he drawled. ‘But if you’re like every other woman I know, you’ll be late.’

  Poppy’s eyes narrowed. ‘For the sake of our very fake relationship I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’

  Sebastiano laughed. ‘Are you going to invite me in or are we going to conduct this conversation in the hallway?’

  ‘Better than the ladies’ toilets.’

  A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. ‘Touché.’

  He brushed past her as he entered her tiny hallway and Poppy’s eyes unconsciously drifted to the shape of his butt in the denim jeans he wore. Combined with the effect of the thick navy sweater and black boots, he looked good enough to eat. Not that she was hungry.

  ‘Coffee?’ she offered pleasantly.

  His gaze, that had been scanning her shabby living room with laser like intent, swung back to hers. ‘Cute, but I think we should skip the refreshments. Who were you on the phone to just then?’

  He asked the question as if he had every right to know and Poppy’s hackles immediately rose. It was instinctive for her to shield her brother from prying, ridiculing eyes and a deep sense of self-preservation told her that the less this man knew about her life, the better.

  ‘Nobody,’ she said.

  ‘It didn’t sound like nobody.’

  Knowing he wouldn’t let up until he had the information he wanted she relented. ‘It was Simon, if you must know.’ And she wasn’t revealing any more than that.

  His mouth firmed as he noted her belligerent expression but he didn’t push. ‘Are you ready to go? My plane is waiting.’

  His plane was waiting?

  She already felt incredibly inept standing before him in a cheap corduroy skirt, an even cheaper blouse and second-hand boots. ‘Hold up a minute, my lady’s maid is still packing my trunk.’

  His lips quirked. ‘Do I sense some hostility, Miss Connolly?’

  Poppy huffed out a breath. ‘Not really. More a change of heart.’

  He glanced at her feet. ‘What, the trainers didn’t fit?’ He scrunched his brows together. ‘I have to confess I’m struggling to picture size-ten trainer
s on those feet. Or is it that your neighbour wasn’t happy with the apartment she was shown yesterday. Is that the problem?’

  Poppy shoved her hands on her hips and glared at him. Maryann had come to her late last night in a whirlwind of excitement with news that, out of so many MS patients, she had been singled out to receive a grant to cover all her medical expenses, as well as assistance to move to a ground-floor apartment beside a park. She had kept pinching herself the whole time and didn’t know how she could have been the recipient of such good luck.

  Poppy had told her that of course she deserved every ounce of that luck, and more, to which Maryann had said that Poppy’s luck was changing as well.

  ‘I can feel it.’ Maryann had hugged her tight. ‘It started when you got that coveted internship. You’re such a smart, wonderful girl, Poppy, and a beautiful sister to Simon.’

  Poppy’s eyes had welled up and she now thought it completely heartless of Sebastiano to remind her of that part of their deal right when she was trying to figure out how to back out of it.

  ‘She loved it,’ she informed him with a sigh. ‘And thank you for arranging to have her put on the special list for the new drug trials. That was...thoughtful.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘But I still think this is a bad idea, Mr Castiglione.’

  ‘You cut a deal,’ he said with ironclad resolve. ‘And the name is Sebastiano, or Bastian. I answer to both.’

  But which did he answer to in bed?

  Horrified by that rogue thought, Poppy pressed her sweaty palms together. Therein lay one of the reasons this was a bad idea: she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sebastiano all week. In particular, his impressive naked chest! It made her feel less in control to be at the whim of someone else and she didn’t like it. And she hadn’t felt like that for a long time.

  Not since she’d picked herself up as a lost seventeen-year-old and decided she would never be at another person’s mercy again. And it wasn’t so much that she felt out of control right now, it was more that she felt...okay out of control. Totally out of control. And inferior, if she was being completely honest with herself. Lacking, in some way. It would take his family two seconds at most to realise she was an imposter.

  Especially when his family was descended from centuries-old Italian royalty. ‘They’ll see right through me,’ she implored. ‘They’ll know we’re a sham.’

  ‘Just relax, Poppy, I have this.’

  ‘But how can you?’ she asked.

  ‘I arrange multi-billion-dollar business deals all the time. Pretending that we’re a couple will be a walk in the park by comparison.’

  She wished she agreed, but she did not arrange multi-billion-dollar deals at all, so for her this was much worse.

  ‘You’ll really do anything to get control of this company won’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Surely your grandfather knows that.’

  ‘In my experience people see what they want to see. My grandfather wants me to fall in love. Since that’s his focus, that’s what he believes has happened.’ He paced around her small living room. ‘Sometimes I think I should have just bitten the bullet—isn’t that what you English would say?—and taken a wife already.’

  His cavalier attitude to something Poppy had romantically believed—hoped—led to happy ever after for some people appalled her. ‘It’s not too late,’ she drawled. ‘Perhaps you could send Paula out to Fortnum and Mason’s to pick one up for you this afternoon. Who knows, you might even find one on sale.’

  Sebastiano cast her an amused glance. ‘There’s that latent hostility again, Miss Connolly.’

  ‘What you just said was completely outrageous,’ she snapped. ‘One doesn’t just bite the bullet and get married. But why haven’t you, out of interest? Is it that you don’t believe in love or because no woman would have you?’

  Sebastiano gave her a mocking smile. ‘I’m not married because I don’t care to be married. But I’m sure love exists. In fact, I know it does, because I’ve seen it. I just don’t want it or need it for myself. My life is perfect as it is.’

  ‘Your grandfather doesn’t think so.’

  ‘My grandfather is old-world Italian. To him, family is life.’

  ‘And what about your parents? Are they happily married?’

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘My parents are dead and therefore off limits as a topic for discussion. Any other questions?’

  Immediately contrite by the wealth of hurt she picked up in his aggravated tone, Poppy’s own irritation fell away. What did she care what he thought about love and marriage? It wasn’t as if this was real. Surreal, maybe. But definitely not real.

  ‘Now I just feel bad,’ she said. ‘But if this is supposed to look legitimate then we would know certain things about each other. Like how they died.’

  His green eyes turned as murky as the waters at Loch Ness on a stormy day. ‘They died in a car accident. I was fifteen.’ He paced her small room like an angry caged tiger. Or panther. He was more panther, with his dark good looks and green, green eyes. He swung those eyes to her now and once more she felt the jolt of a strange connection in her chest. For a minute neither of them spoke, then his lips twisted in a wry grimace. ‘Satisfied?’

  No, she wasn’t satisfied. He had been around the same age as Simon when his parents had died and she knew how devastated Simon would be if something were to happen to her. The realisation made her want to go to Sebastiano, wrap her arms around him and keep him safe from the harsh realities of the world. Which was absurd. Not only would he not welcome her efforts, but if there was anyone who could take care of themselves in this world it was this man.

  She felt a little sick at having pried into his life. Lord knew there were things she didn’t want him knowing about her life. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ he bit out, running his hand through his hair and giving it that sexily mussed look she didn’t want to find attractive. ‘You’ve worked for my company for six weeks, so you already know everything you need to know about me. If you want my favourite colour or my favourite food, the answer is blue and pesto alla genovese.’

  ‘You’re that complex, huh?’

  His grin was slow. ‘I do have a voracious sexual appetite, but I doubt my grandparents will quiz you about that.’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘TMI,’ she said, making him laugh softly.

  ‘So, what about you?’ he asked.

  The simple question made her instantly wary. ‘No, I do not have a voracious sexual appetite.’

  Her cheeks stung with embarrassment, worsening when his lips kicked up at one side. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Pity,’ he drawled meaningfully. ‘But I was referring to you as a person. You drilled me about my life: turnabout is fair play.’

  Poppy swallowed heavily, even more embarrassed than before. ‘Red and rice pudding,’ she said stiffly.

  Sebastiano shook his head slowly. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, bella.’

  Noting her red face Sebastiano decided to cut her a break and moved to the roughly sanded sideboard against the cracked wall, studying the meagre number of photos on display. There was one of Poppy a few years younger, with a young boy and an older woman, and various others that were a variation on the same theme.

  ‘Who’s the boy?’

  ‘My brother.’

  Sebastiano cast her a glance over his shoulder, noting her stiff shoulders and pursed lips. So Little Miss Intrusive didn’t like being on the receiving end of probing questions. How interesting.

  Not that he really cared. He already knew her impressive academic credentials and he had no wish to learn more about a woman he found himself unwittingly attracted to and would never see again after the weekend.

  But she did have a point. If this were a legitimate relationship they would know certain things about each other. Things his g
randfather, in particular, would expect him to know.

  ‘So this woman would be your mother, yes?’ He pointed to a framed photograph, curious despite his intentions to remain detached from her.

  ‘No.’ She came to stand beside him and he could smell the faint trace of flowers clinging to her skin. He doubted it was perfume, because she didn’t seem the type, so it had to be soap. And her. He inhaled deeply, his gaze drifting to her straight hair hanging past her shoulders in a thick, lustrous curtain. It looked soft to the touch and he had to shove his hands inside his pockets to stop himself from finding out for sure.

  When she didn’t elaborate on her answer about the woman in the photo, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Just “no”?’

  She sighed. ‘That’s Maryann. My neighbour with MS.’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘They’re not around.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s fair that you get to ask me all sorts of probing questions,’ she complained, ‘when you gave me such clear back-off signals before.’

  ‘I answered your questions, didn’t I? Now you answer mine.’ He scowled down at her. ‘Anyway, you were right, my grandfather will expect me to know everything about you.’

  Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes. The Castiglione men are very protective of what is theirs. If I was truly in love with you, I would know everything about you.’

  Even as he said the words, Sebastiano knew he was being unfair but he didn’t care. This was just strategising to achieve the best outcome. And he was a master strategist.

  He wasn’t sure she was going to answer, but then she said, ‘My mother died of a drug overdose when I was twelve and I—I don’t remember my father.’

  Shocked by her matter-of-fact revelation, Sebastiano stared down at the top of her glossy head. ‘Who raised you and your brother?’