For a moment there was something naked on her face—pride? Determination? Vulnerability?—before she quickly masked it. Sebastiano felt a stab of admiration for her. This place she lived in might be small and run-down, but she’d made it a home, and it struck him that for all its negatives it was probably far more welcoming than any one of the show pieces he lived in. And why that bothered him he didn’t know.
‘It’s Sebastiano,’ he reminded her, watching as she crossed the room and disappeared through a door. She returned a moment later carrying a worn duffle bag.
His eyes narrowed on the bag. ‘That’s all the luggage you’re taking?’
‘Afraid so,’ she said. ‘Justina broke the trunk.’
‘Justina?’
‘My lady’s maid.’
‘Ah...’ He shook his head. His grandfather was right; this woman had a rod of steel running through her. And yet she looked as delicate and as untouched as a hothouse flower. ‘It’s hard to get good help nowadays,’ he agreed.
Her soft lips curled into a reluctant smile, as if she hadn’t expected him to play along with her joke. ‘You’re telling me.’
Then her gaze drifted from his and she looked so lost and alone he felt an inexplicable need to comfort her. An inexplicable need to take her into his arms, stroke her hair back from her face and tell her that whatever, or whoever, had dimmed the brightness in her beautiful blue eyes would find themselves on the wrong side of his wrath. Then he wanted to do what he’d wanted to do since he’d walked in and kiss the breath from her body.
He didn’t know what it was about her that drew him but there was no denying it existed. Or that he would have to control it. What was between them was business, not pleasure.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked, clearing the gruffness from his voice.
‘Ready as I’ll ever be. Bring on the weekend!’ She picked up her bag and pasted a wide smile on her face.
Sebastiano walked over and took the bag from her. It barely weighed enough to be holding socks. ‘Try not to look like you’re going to the gallows, bella; I promise you, everything will be fine.’
‘You know, you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.’
‘Who said I can’t keep this one?’
She gave him a superior look. ‘Sorry, I forgot, you eat billion-dollar business deals for breakfast.’
Sebastiano couldn’t hold back a laugh, inexplicably delighted by this prickly female he just couldn’t get a bead on. ‘I don’t eat them, cara, I make them.’
She rolled her eyes, something no woman had ever done to him before, and grabbed her winter coat. She shrugged into it, the fabric of her shirt pulling tight across her small, high breasts. His groin hardened and he immediately tamped down on the reaction before following her to the door. A sense of foreboding warned him that the weekend might not go as easily as he had first hoped.
CHAPTER FIVE
POPPY STARED OUT of the window as Sebastiano’s private jet levelled out above puffy white clouds floating in a perfect blue sky. The tranquillity of the view did not at all reflect the myriad of troubled emotions swirling around inside her.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was bothering her but Sebastiano’s words—that if he were in love with her he’d know everything about her—had unfurled something deep inside her.
Nursing a cup of coffee the stewardess had just handed her, the words played over and over in her mind. She had never had anyone other than Maryann take a genuine interest in her, and in many ways that had been a good thing. Having had a mother who had either been borderline unconscious or just plain absent, it had fallen to Poppy to care for her infant brother and the experience had taught her how to take care of herself. How to take care of her own.
Unfortunately it hadn’t taught her how to pretend to be in love with a man she hardly knew. A man who until today had been her boss. She screwed up her nose. Not only had she never seen a healthy adult relationship, she had never been particularly good at pretending. It was partly why she and Simon had been shipped around between so many families on a semi-regular basis.
‘There’s just something about her,’ she had overheard one of her foster mothers say. ‘We can’t explain it.’
‘She looks at you with them big, innocent blue eyes of hers...makes a person feel guilty,’ another had said. ‘And that brother of hers? I didn’t know he was retarded when I agreed to take them on.’
‘Now you listen, girl,’ a particularly obnoxious foster father had warned, pointing a finger in her face. ‘When that effing social worker turns up, you make like everything is sweet. You do that and it will work out real good for you and your baby brother.’
Poppy felt that old tightness grip behind her breastbone. She knew now that the social worker had done her a huge favour in removing her and Simon from that particular family, but it didn’t diminish that old sense of failure she struggled to shake off. That old sense that the world was a harsh place and it was every man for himself.
And now she had to pretend she was in love with a man she was stupidly attracted to, but one who was a virtual stranger. At least on a personal level. And what if she failed? Would Sebastiano withdraw the help he had already started to give Maryann? Would he take back Simon’s new trainers?
It was hard for Poppy to trust anyone, let alone a man known for his ruthless exploits, and she knew that part of her anxiety about the weekend was in knowing that she was putting herself in the way of a man who could make an unguarded woman do stupid things. Stupid things such as fall in love with him and cry over the telephone when he ended their relationship.
Not that she was in any danger of falling in love with him—that kind of thing didn’t happen after only meeting someone a week ago—but she couldn’t deny that a part of her was intrigued by him. And not just because he was the sexiest man she had ever seen. It was his self-confidence and, yes, as much as she didn’t like to admit it, his arrogance. He was just so sure of himself, it automatically made her feel safe in a way she never had before. Then there was the way he looked at a woman. As if he knew all the ways to touch her and give her more pleasure than she could ever dream about. And that he’d enjoy doing it. Now, that was definitely appealing!