‘Would that influence your decision?’
Her frown deepened at the way he pounced on her unconscious show of sympathy. ‘You would really use that as a bargaining tool?’
Sebastiano shrugged. ‘If it would work.’
‘You are such a shark!’ Poppy exclaimed, both awed and shocked by his ruthlessness.
‘Probably.’ He sat forward, his green eyes intense on hers. Poppy’s heart thumped heavily behind her breastbone. ‘But my grandfather is old and I really don’t know how much time he has left.’ His lips firmed, as if that thought made him truly uncomfortable. ‘And the old goat is far too stoic and proud to admit it if he were ill.’
Poppy heard the deep caring in those terse words. Perhaps it was Maryann being sick, and the dread Poppy felt at possibly losing her some time in the near future, but in that moment she felt an unexpected connection with her big, bad boss. Caring deeply, she knew, was an avenue for pain and she didn’
t wish that on anyone.
About to tell him that she understood how he felt, he undermined that feeling of accord with his next words.
‘How about I grant you three wishes? Would that be more palatable to those prized principles of yours?’
‘What are you, a genie now?’ She snorted. The thought of seeing him wearing a turban and harem pants softened her irritation at his superior tone. ‘Or my fairy godmother?’
‘I’m hardly nice enough to be anyone’s fairy godmother.’
‘You got that right,’ she agreed. ‘You’re a ruthless wolf.’
‘I thought I was a shark.’
Poppy’s lips twitched again. ‘Shark... Wolf...’ She swallowed as his gaze lingered on her lips. ‘Anything with big teeth, really.’
The air between them suddenly pulled taut, and Poppy’s mouth went dry as his smile kicked up at one corner. The man was devastating. Devastatingly attractive and devastatingly persistent.
‘Think about it, Poppy,’ he said, his soft tone and the use of her first name lending the moment an intimacy she didn’t want to feel. ‘Three wishes. Anything you want. If they are within my power to grant them, they are yours.’
She blinked in an attempt to shake off the spell he was subtly weaving around her. Three wishes did seem strangely more palatable than a cold, hard lump of cash, though she didn’t know why it should, because in the end it would amount to the same thing.
He leaned forward, his gaze unwavering, a predator sensing weakness and homing in on the kill. ‘People marry for money and status all the time. This is merely a weekend away. Nothing more.’
But it felt like more to her. She had never thought of herself as someone who could be bought. Not when so many of her foster families had taken her and Simon in for the government grants they would collect, rather than wanting to offer them a secure home.
‘Come on, Poppy,’ he urged. ‘Tell me something you’ve longed for lately.’
Love. Companionship.
She frowned. Where had that come from? She had her career to work towards. That was more important than a transitory state such as love.
‘New shoes.’ Distracted as she was by her own thoughts and his persuasive tone, she said the first thing that came into her head.
‘New shoes?’ A sexy grin crept across his face. ‘Done. Name the designer and you can have a wardrobe full.’
‘Nike, I think.’
‘Nike?’
‘Size ten.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Yes. Do you have a problem with that?’
‘Okay, okay. Fine. Nike trainers. What else?’