mistake was in allowing that party to be held here!’ Gaetano slung back at her grittily. ‘And don’t drag my background or my wealth into this conversation. It’s unfair—’
‘Then don’t be so superior!’ Poppy advised. ‘But maybe you can’t help being the way you are.’
‘Do you really think hurling insults at me is likely to further your cause?’
‘You haven’t even given me the chance to tell you what my cause is,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re so argumentative, Gaetano!’
‘I’m...argumentative?’ Gaetano carolled in disbelief.
‘I want you to give Mum another chance,’ Poppy admitted doggedly. ‘I know you’re not feeling very generous. I know that having your kinky party preferences splashed all over the media has to have been embarrassing for you—’
‘I do not have kinky preferences—’
‘It’s none of my business whether you do or not!’ Poppy riposted. ‘I’m not being judgemental.’
‘How very generous of you in the circumstances,’ Gaetano murmured icily.
‘And if you’re not being argumentative, you’re being sarcastic!’ Poppy flared back at him with raw resentment. ‘Can you even try listening to me?’
‘If you could try to refrain from commenting about my preferences, kinky or otherwise,’ Gaetano advised flatly.
‘May I take my shoes off?’ she asked him abruptly. ‘I’ve been standing all night and my feet are killing me!’
Gaetano shifted an impatient hand. ‘Take them off. Say what you have to say and then go. I’m bored with this.’
‘You’re so kind and encouraging,’ Poppy replied in a honeyed tone of stinging sweetness as she removed her shoes and dropped several crucial inches in height, unsettled by the reality that, although she was five feet eight inches tall, he had a good six inches on her and now towered over her in a manner she instinctively disliked.
As she flexed those incredible long legs sheathed in black lace, Gaetano watched, admiring her long toned calves, neat little knees and long slender thighs. A flash of white inner thigh as she bent in that short skirt and her small full breasts shifting unbound below the clinging top sent his temperature rocketing and made his teeth grit. Was she teasing him deliberately? Was the provocative outfit a considered invitation? What woman dressed like that came to see a man at midnight with clean intentions?
‘Talk, Poppy,’ he urged very drily, infuriated at the way his brain was rebelling against his usual rational control and concentration to stray in directions he was determined not to travel.
‘Mum has had it tough the last few years—’
Gaetano held up a silencing hand. ‘I know about the stillbirth and of course your father’s death and I’m heartily sorry for the woman, but those misfortunes don’t excuse what’s been happening here.’
‘Mum needs help, not judgement, Gaetano,’ Poppy argued shakily.
‘I’m her employer, not her family and not a therapist,’ Gaetano pointed out calmly. ‘She’s not my responsibility.’
In a more hesitant voice, Poppy added, ‘Your grandfather always said we were one big family here.’
‘Please don’t tell me that you fell for that old chestnut. My grandfather is an old-fashioned man who likes the sound of such sentiments but somehow I don’t think he’d be any more compassionate than I am when it comes to the security of his home. Leaving an untrustworthy and unstable alcoholic in charge here would be complete madness,’ he stated coolly.
‘Yes, but...you could give Mum’s job to me,’ Poppy reasoned in a desperate rush. ‘I’ve been doing it to your satisfaction for months, so you’ve actually had a free trial. That way we could stay on in the flat and you wouldn’t have to look for someone new.’
Discomfiture made Gaetano tense. ‘You never wanted to do domestic work... I’m well aware of that.’
‘We all have to do things we don’t want to do, particularly when it comes to looking out for family,’ Poppy argued with feeling. ‘After Dad died I went back to my nursing course and left Damien looking after Mum. He couldn’t cope. He didn’t tell me how bad things had got here and because of that he got into trouble. Mum is my responsibility and I turned my back on her when she needed me most.’
Gaetano, who was unsurprised that she had sought a career outside domestic service, thought she had a ridiculously overactive conscience. ‘It wouldn’t work, Poppy. I’m sorry. I wish you well and I’m sorry I can’t help.’
‘Won’t help,’ she slotted in curtly.
‘You’re not my idea of a housekeeper. It’s best that you make a new start somewhere else with your family,’ he declared.
No, he definitely didn’t want Poppy with her incredibly alluring legs in his house, even though he didn’t visit it very often. She would be a dangerous temptation and he was determined that he would never go there. Never muck around with staff was a maxim etched in stone in Gaetano’s personal commandments. When a former PA had thrown herself at him one evening early in his career he had slept with her. For him it had been a one-night stand on a business trip and nothing more, but she had been far more ambitious and it had ended messily, teaching him that professional relationships should never cross the boundaries into intimacy.
‘It’s not that easy to make a new start,’ Poppy told him tightly. ‘I’m the only one out of the three of us with a job and if I have to move I’ll lose that.’
Gaetano expelled his breath on an impatient hiss. ‘Poppy... I am not going to apologise for the fact that your mother breached her employment contract and plunged me into a scandal. You cannot lay her problems at my door. I have every sympathy for your position and, out of consideration for the years that your family worked here and did an excellent job, I will make a substantial final payment—’
‘Oh, keep your blasted conscience money!’ Poppy flung at him, suddenly losing her temper, her fierce pride stung by his attitude. He thought that she and her mother and her brother were a sad bunch of losers and he was so keen to get them off his property that he was prepared to pay more for the privilege. ‘I don’t want anything from you. I won’t take anything more from you!’
‘Losing your temper is a very bad idea in a situation like this,’ he breathed irritably as she bent down to scoop up her shoes and turned on her heel, her short skirt flaring round her pert behind.
Poppy turned her head, green eyes gleaming like polished jewels. ‘It’s the only thing I’ve got left to lose,’ she contradicted squarely.
Gaetano threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘Then why the hell are you doing it? Put yourself first and leave your family to sort out their own problems!’
‘Is that what the ruthless, callous banker would do to save his own skin?’ Poppy asked scornfully as she reached the door. ‘Mum and Damien are my family and, yes, they’re very different from me. I take after Dad and I’m strong. They’re not. They crumble in a crisis. Does that mean I love them any less? No, it doesn’t. In fact it probably means I love them more. I love them warts and all and as long as there’s breath in my body I’ll look after them to the best of my ability.’
Gaetano was stunned into silence by her emotive words. He couldn’t imagine loving anyone like that. His parents had been both been weak and fallible in their different ways. His father had chased thrills and his mother had chased money and Gaetano had only learned to despise them for their shallow characters. His parents had not had the capacity to love him and once he had got old enough to understand that he had stopped loving them, ultimately recognising that only his grandparents genuinely cared about him and his well-being. For that reason, the concept of continuing to blindly love seriously flawed personalities and still feel a duty of care