Poppy breathed in deep as she marched round the side of the big house with Damien chasing in her wake.
‘It’s almost midnight!’ he hissed. ‘You can’t go calling on him now!’
‘If I wait until tomorrow I’ll lose my nerve,’ she said truthfully.
Damien hung back in the shadows, watching as she rang the doorbell and waited, her hands dug in the pockets of her faux-leather flying jacket. A voice sounded somewhere close by and she flinched in surprise, turning her head as a man in a suit talking into a mobile phone walked towards her in the moonlight.
‘I’m security, Miss Arnold,’ he said quietly. ‘I was telling Mr Leonetti who was at the door.’
Poppy suppressed a rude word. She had forgotten the tight security with which the Leonetti family surrounded themselves. Of course, calling in on Gaetano late at night wouldn’t go unquestioned.
‘I want to see your boss,’ she declared.
The security man was talking Italian into the phone and she couldn’t follow a word of what he was saying. When the man frowned, she knew he was about to deliver a negative and she moved off the step and snapped, ‘I have to see Gaetano! It’s really important.’
Somewhere someone made a decision and a moment later there was the sound of heavy bolts being drawn back to open the massive front door. Another security man nodded acknowledgement and stood back for her entrance into the marble-floored hall with its perfect proportions and priceless paintings. A trickle of perspiration ran down between her taut shoulder blades and she straightened her spine in defiance of it although she was already shrinking at the challenge of what she would have to tell Gaetano. At this juncture, coming clean was her sole option.
* * *
Poppy Arnold? Gaetano’s brain had conjured up several time-faded images. Poppy as a little girl paddling at the lake edge in spite of his warnings; Poppy sobbing over Dino with all the drama of her class and no thought of restraint; Poppy looking at him as if he might imminently walk on water when she was about fifteen, a scrutiny that had become considerably less innocent and entertaining a year later. And finally, Poppy, a taunting sensual smile tilting her lips as she sidled out of the shrubbery closely followed by a young estate worker, both of them engaged in righting their rumpled, grass-stained clothing.
Bearing in mind the number of years the Arnold family had worked for his own, he felt that it was only fair that he at least saw Poppy and listened to what she had to say in her mother’s defence. He hadn’t, however, thought about Poppy in years. Did she still live with her family? He was surprised, having always assumed Poppy would flee country life and the type of employment she had soundly trounced as being next door to indentured servitude in the modern world. Touching a respectful forelock had held no appeal whatsoever for outspoken, rebellious Poppy, he acknowledged wryly. How much had she changed? Was she working for him now somewhere on the pay roll? His ebony brows drew together in a frown at his ignorance as he lounged back against the edge of the library desk and awaited her appearance.
The tap-tap of high heels sounded in the corridor and the door opened to reveal legs that could have rivalled a Vegas showgirl’s toned and perfect pins. Disconcerted by that startlingly unexpected and carnal thought, Gaetano ripped his attention from those incredibly long shapely legs and whipped it up to her face, only to receive another jolt. Time had transformed Poppy Arnold into a tall, dazzling redhead. He was staring but he couldn’t help it while his shrewd brain was engaged in ticking off familiarities and changes. The bright green eyes were unaltered but the rounded face had fined down to an exquisite heart shape to frame slanting cheekbones, a dainty little nose and a mouth lush and pink enough to star in any male fantasy. The pulse at Gaetano’s groin throbbed and he straightened, flicking his jacket closed to conceal his physical reaction while thinking that Poppy might well get the last laugh after all because the ugly duckling he had once rejected had become a swan.
‘Mr Leonetti,’ she said as politely as though they had never met before.
‘Gaetano, please,’ he countered wryly, seeing no reason to stand on ceremony with her. ‘We have known each other since childhood.’
‘I don’t think I ever knew you,’ Poppy said frankly, studying him with bemused concentration.
She had expected to notice unappetising changes in Gaetano. After all, he was almost thirty years old now and lived a deskbound, self-indulgent and, by all accounts, decadent life. By this stage he should have been showing some physical fallout from that lifestyle. But there was no hint of portliness in his very tall, powerfully built frame and certainly no jowls to mar the perfection of his strong, stubbled jaw line. And his dense blue-black curly hair was as plentiful as ever.
An electrifying silence enclosed them and Poppy stepped restively off one foot onto the other, her slender figure tense as a drawn bow string while she studied him. Taller and broader than he had been, he was even more gorgeous than he had been seven years earlier when she had fallen for him like a ton of bricks. Silly, silly girl that she had been, she conceded ruefully, but there was no denying that even then she had had good taste because Gaetano was stunning in the way so very few men were. A tiny flicker in her pelvis made her press her thighs together, warmth flushing over her skin. His dark eyes, set below black straight brows, were locked to her with an intensity that made her inwardly squirm. He had eyes with incredibly long thick lashes, she was recalling dizzily, so dark and noticeable in their volume that she had once suspected him of wearing guy liner like some of the boys she had known back then.
‘Do you still live here with your mother and brother?’ Gaetano enquired.
‘Yes,’ Poppy admitted, fighting to banish the fog that had briefly closed round her brain. ‘You’re probably wondering why I’ve come to see you at this hour. I’m a bartender at the Flying Horseman down the road and I’ve only just finished my shift.’
Gaetano was pleasantly surprised that she had contrived to speak two entire sentences without spluttering the profanities which had laced her speech seven years earlier. Of course, right now she was probably watching her every word with him, he reasoned. A bartender? He supposed it explained the outfit, which looked as though it would be more at home in a nightclub.
‘I saw the newspaper article,’ she added. ‘Obviously you want to sack my mother for talking about the party and selling those photos. I’m not denying that you have good reason to do that.’
‘Where did the photos come from?’ Gaetano asked curiously. ‘Who took them?’
Poppy winced. ‘One of the guests invited my brother to join the party when she saw him outside directing cars. He did what I imagine most young men would do when they see half-naked women—he took pictures on his phone. I’m not excusing him but he didn’t sell those photos... It was my mother who took his phone and did that—’
‘I assume I’ll see your mother in person tomorrow before I leave. But I’ll ask you now. My family has always treated your mother well. Why did she do it?’
Poppy breathed in deep and lifted her chin, bracing herself for what she had to say. ‘My mother’s an alcoholic, Gaetano. They offered her money and that was all it took. All she was thinking about was probably how she would buy her next bottle of booze. I’m afraid she can’t see beyond that right now.’
Taken aback, Gaetano frowned. He had not been prepared for that revelation. It did not make a difference to his attitude though. Disloyalty was not a trait he could overlook in an employee. ‘Your mother must be a functioning alcoholic, then,’ he assumed. ‘Because the house appears to be in good order.’
‘No, she’s not functioning.’ Poppy sighed, her soft mouth tightening. ‘I’ve been covering up for her for more than a year. I’ve been looking after this place.’