al now.’
‘Wow.’ She blinked up at him. ‘You’re totally ruthless.’
Sebastiano took a deep breath. He couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed a woman with so little self-control. And self-control was something he prided himself on. ‘Not so ruthless,’ he growled. ‘If I was completely ruthless, I’d already have you upstairs. Naked.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘IF I WAS completely ruthless, I’d already have you upstairs. Naked.’
Poppy’s heart thudded inside her chest as those growly words once more replayed inside her head. She rolled over for the hundredth time and punched her pillow into a new shape, hoping that might help propel her towards sleep. Five minutes later, she gave up and again listened for signs that Sebastiano was having similar trouble sleeping.
Of course there was nothing but silence coming from the other room. And why would he have trouble sleeping? He probably kissed women like that for breakfast, while she—she truly understood for the first time how a woman could become stupid over a man. Something she had arrogantly assumed would never happen to her. Well, it just had. And her insides still felt quivery at the memory.
What she would like to know was how this had happened. Sure, he was sensationally good-looking and loved his family, but he was the ultimate megalomaniac bad boy who treated women poorly and whom she shouldn’t feel anything for.
But she did feel something. She felt...she felt... God, she didn’t know how she felt other than completely shaken by the memory of that powerful kiss. She shivered as she mentally replayed the scene moment by moment—the feel of his fingers in her hair, his tongue filling her mouth, his hand on her breast! Her own hand rose to her still sensitive flesh and she pressed her fingers against herself as he had done.
Stop! she ordered herself sharply; reliving something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place wasn’t going to get her to sleep any quicker. But her brain wouldn’t listen. Which was just annoying. Poppy might have an inherently sunny disposition but she had always been a sensible person, even as a child. Her own mother had lamented that side of her nature and none of her foster families had liked it any better. But it had worked for her. It allowed her to compartmentalise the things that happened in her life, and it allowed her to pick herself up and move on when bad things happened.
Not that kissing Sebastiano had been bad. Quite the contrary. It had been heavenly. Earth-shattering... Poppy punched her pillow again. The truth was she had never kissed a man like that in her life. Had never felt the inclination before; too aware of her mother’s under-age pregnancy and the devastation it had caused. But for those brief, wild moments in Sebastiano’s arms she would have happily thrown all her cautious principles to the wind. She would have happily slaked the wild hunger he had induced in her and that still made her knees feel weak without any thought to her heart, or to Simon’s welfare.
Which was completely incomprehensible and was an indication of how tired she was, and how much pretending to be his girlfriend this weekend had stressed her. In her desire not to fail at the role she was playing and displease him, she’d thrown herself into the part a little too enthusiastically. That surely helped explain her absolute abandon when he’d kissed her?
Didn’t it?
Sighing heavily she closed her eyes against the faint night shadows. The thing to do was to banish the incident from her mind and make sure they were never in a position where it was likely to happen again.
* * *
For the first time in fifteen years Sebastiano woke up on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths and they weren’t the first thing on his mind.
Poppy Connolly was.
He didn’t know whether to be pleased about that or put out.
What he did know was that somewhere between two and four am he had reached a decision to treat Poppy as if she was still one of his employees. Sebastiano never mixed business with pleasure and if he thought of her in a professional capacity he was unlikely to be tempted to kiss her again.
And pigs might fly. Backwards.
Ignoring the mocking voice in his head, he pushed to a sitting position and stretched the stiffness out of his neck. He’d lied to Poppy the day before when he’d said he’d slept on worse than this sofa. Nothing could be worse than this sofa.
Hearing that Poppy was already up and in the shower, Sebastiano beat back the urge to join her and grabbed his running shorts.
Work was usually his go-to panacea when this day dawned. Work and Scotch. Unfortunately Poppy would no doubt interrupt his work, and his grandparents would frown if he downed a bottle of Scotch before breakfast. So exercise it was.
Taking the back stairs to avoid any nosy family members he set off, grimly setting himself a challenging pace along the narrow, winding path that ran along the outskirts of the harbour village and wove in and around ancient vineyards until his lungs were heaving. It was fifteen years since he had been home at this time of the year. After today he’d make it another fifteen and send his grandparents an enormous anniversary present as compensation.
Grimacing at a twinge in his calf, he pushed himself harder, hoping that physical exertion would keep the demons at bay just as easily as alcohol.
Sex would, his unhelpful brain informed him.
Yeah, well, sex wasn’t on the cards. Erotic dreams about plucky interns notwithstanding.
Another grimace shot across his face. He hadn’t had a dream about a woman he couldn’t have since he was a teenager. The image of Poppy coming over the top of him in a pale pink slip that slithered over her ripe breasts, her hair unbound and falling around her face as she lowered herself over him and took him deep, was now front and centre in his mind.
‘Damn!’ He stumbled as his foot twisted on a pebble, but at least it had jerked him out of his X-rated fantasy. Turning back, he pushed himself even harder until he came to a halt at the edge of the terraced gardens that skirted the villa. Pausing, he stretched out his calf. He had to stop thinking about Poppy. He hadn’t brought her here this weekend to have sex with her. He’d brought her here to convince his grandfather that he was a changed man who deserved to take over the family company.
Deserved?