womaniser, would be that narrow-minded? And why should she care? And yet she did care. A lone stinging tear trickled from the corner of her eye and once again she tried to get up and leave but she couldn’t catch her breath. It was as though a giant stone were compressing her lungs. In panic at that air deprivation her hands flailed up to her throat, warding off the darkness that was claiming her.
Gaetano gazed in disbelief at Poppy as she virtually slithered off the chair down onto the floor and lay there unconscious, as pale and still as a corpse. And all of a sudden the publication of nude photos of his wife was no longer his most overriding concern...
‘NO, I DON’T think that my wife has an eating disorder,’ Gaetano bit out between gritted teeth in the waiting room.
‘Signora Leonetti is seriously underweight, dehydrated...in generally poor physical condition,’ the doctor outlined disapprovingly. ‘That is why the bacterial infection has gained such a hold on her and why we are still struggling to get her temperature under control. That she contrived to get through a wedding and travel in such a state has to be a miracle.’
‘A miracle...’ Gaetano whispered, sick to his stomach and, for the very first time in his brilliantly successful, high-achieving life, feeling like a failure.
How else could he feel? Poppy had collapsed. His wife was wearing an oxygen mask in the IC unit, having drugs pumped into her. All right, she hadn’t told him how she was feeling but shouldn’t a normal, decent human being have noticed that something was wrong?
Unfortunately he clearly couldn’t claim to be a normal, decent human being. And his analytical mind left him in no doubt of exactly where he had gone wrong. He had been too busy admiring his bride’s tiny waist to register that she was dangerously thin. He had been too busy dragging her off to bed to register that she was unwell. And when she had tried to tell him, what had he done? Porca miseria, he had shouted at her and accused her of feigning illness!
‘May I see her now?’ he asked thickly.
He stood at the foot of the bed looking at Poppy through fresh eyes, rigorously blocking the sexual allure that screwed with his brain. Ironically she had always impressed him as being so lively, energetic and opinionated that he had instinctively endowed her with a glowing health that she did not possess. Now that she was silent and lying there so still, he could see how vulnerable she really was. It was etched in the fine bones of her face, the slenderness of her arms, the exhaustion he could clearly see in the bluish shadows below her eyes.
And what else would she be but exhausted? he asked himself grimly. For months she had worked two jobs, managing the hall and working at the bar. She had been so busy looking after her mother and her brother that she had forgotten to look after herself. He suspected that she had got out of the habit then of taking regular meals and rest. And even when both food and rest had been on offer in London she had still chosen to work every day at that café. In truth she was as much of a workaholic in her proud and stubborn independence as he was, he acknowledged bleakly. He could only hope that he was correct in believing that she did not suffer from an underlying eating disorder.
‘Your grandfather is waiting outside...’ a nurse informed him.
‘There was no need for you to leave your bed,’ Gaetano scolded the older man. ‘I only texted you so that you would know where I was.’
‘How is she?’ Rodolfo asked worriedly.
And Gaetano told him, withholding nothing. ‘I’ve been a pretty lousy husband so far,’ he breathed in grim conclusion, conceding the point before it could be made for him.
‘You have a steep learning curve in front of you.’ His grandfather sighed. ‘But she’s a wonderful girl and well worth the effort. And it’s not where you start out that matters, Gaetano...it’s where you end up.’
Rodolfo could not have been more wrong in that estimate, Gaetano reflected austerely. Where you started out mattered very much if you had previously blocked the road to journey’s end. His marriage was not a marriage and the relationship was already faltering. He had put up a roadblock with the word divorce on it and used that as an excuse to behave badly. He had screwed up. He had been shockingly selfish and with Poppy of all people, Poppy who had trailed round after him and his dog, Dino, on the estate when they were both kids. And what had she been like then?
Like an irritating little kid sister. Kind, madly affectionate, his biggest fan. He exhaled heavily. He had had more compassion as a boy than he had retained as an adult and he had not lived up to Poppy’s high expectations. Worse still, he had taken advantage of her despair over her family’s predicament. He had forced through the terms he wanted, terms she should have denied for her own sake, terms only a complete selfish bastard would have demanded. But it was a little too late to turn that particular clock back.
Was the selfishness a Leonetti trait? His father had been the ultimate egotist and his mother had never in her life, to his knowledge, put anyone’s needs before her own. Had his dysfunctional parents made him the ruthless predator that he was at heart? Or had wealth and success and boundless ambition irrevocably changed him? Gaetano asked himself grimly.
* * *
Poppy surfaced to appreciate that her head had stopped aching. She discovered that she could swallow again and that her breath was no longer trapped in her chest. She opened her eyes on the unfamiliar room, taking in the hospital bed and the drip attached to her arm before focusing on Gaetano, who was hunched in the chair in the corner.
Gaetano looked as if he had been dragged through hell and far removed from the sophisticated, exquisitely groomed image that was the norm for him. His black curls were tousled, his jaw line heavily stubbled. His jacket was missing. His shirt was open at his brown throat and his sleeves were rolled up. As she stared he lifted his head and she collided with glorious dark golden eyes.
Snatches of memory engulfed her in broken bits and pieces. She remembered the passion and the pleasure he had shown her. Then she remembered his fury about the nude photos, his refusal to credit that she was ill. But she remembered nothing after that point.
Gaetano stood up and pressed the bell on the wall. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better than I felt when I fainted...er...did I faint?’
‘You passed out. Next time you feel ill, tell me,’ he breathed with grim urgency.
Poppy grimaced. ‘It was our first night together.’
‘That’s irrelevant. Your health comes first...always,’ he stressed. ‘I’m not a little boy. I can deal with disappointment.’
She was relieved to see that his anger had gone. A nurse came in and went through a series of checks with her.
‘Why did I pass out?’ Poppy asked Gaetano once the nurse had departed.
‘You had an infection and it ran out of control. Your immune system was too weak to fight it off,’ he shared flatly. ‘From here on in you have to take better care of yourself. But first, give me an honest answer to one question...do you have an eating disorder?’
‘No, of course not. I’m naturally skinny...well, I have lost weight over the last few months,’ she conceded grudgingly.
‘You have to eat more,’ Gaetano decreed. ‘No more skipping meals.’
‘I didn’t eat on our wedding day because I wasn’t feeling well,’ she protested.
‘Am I so intimidating that you couldn’t tell me that?’ Gaetano asked, springing restively upright again to pace round the spacious room.
‘Come on, Gaetano. All those guests, all that fuss. What bride would have wanted to be a party pooper?’
‘You should have told me that night,’ Gaetano asserted.
Poppy’s lashes lowered over her strained eyes. ‘You weren’t in the mood