Her Italian Boss Read online

  ‘Was he…?’ Poppy compressed her lips on the question she was dying to ask, but then discovered that she was unable to hold it in. ‘Was he always faithful to her?’

  It was an issue that Santino had never before discussed and she was coming back at him on an angle he had actually never once considered. He stilled in angry unease, looked at Poppy’s intent face and wondered why the hell he was suffering from a sudden need to justify a decision he had not once wavered from in fifteen years. It had been that little word ‘cruel’ that had shaken him, disturbed him in a way he could not have believed. Dark colour marked his superb cheekbones.

  ‘You’re not sure he was…are you?’ Poppy whispered, recognising the rare flash of uncertainty now lightening Santino’s dark gaze. ‘Yet you still judged her and not him. But then I’ve heard that it can be harder for boys to forgive their mother’s…er…mistakes.’

  ‘Tinkerbell…the oracle?’ Santino derided with all the cutting force of his own unsettled emotions. ‘That’s got to be a new one.’

  Poppy flinched as though he had slapped her and every ounce of her natural colour drained away. He had never utilised that tone on her before, much less looked at her with a pure dismissive contempt that bit right through her tender skin to her bones and made her feel about an inch high. And, of course, he was right, for what did she know about such a situation? Some of her friends had lived through their parents’ breaking up but she had no personal experience. Who was she to tell him that he had been unjust and cruel?

  ‘You’re right…’ Her voice emerged slightly thickened by the stark rise of tears threatening her again and she slid off the arm of the sofa in a hurried movement. ‘I can’t even solve my own problems, much less tackle other people’s. A-and as you’ve already said,’ she stammered in growing desperation as she turned round in a blind uncoordinated circle, ‘you don’t have a problem in the first place—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Santino bit out in a rather raw undertone.

  ‘Never mind. I’m hardly the world’s most diplomatic person…especially after a few drinks,’ Poppy mumbled, narrowly missing a sculpture on a pedestal in her haste to reach the door. ‘Maybe I was even a bit jealous.’

  ‘Jealous?’ Santino echoed in incomprehension as he tracked her the whole way across his office.

  ‘Yeah…’ Poppy had to force herself to turn back. ‘You said your mother loved you very much. If mine had ever loved me like that she might answer my letters more often.’

  Santino groaned something in Italian and reached for her hands to prevent her from getting any closer to the door. ‘Come here…’ he urged thickly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SUDDENLY extraordinarily short of breath, Poppy stared up at Santino and as she met his beautiful dark golden eyes she drowned there in her own reflection.

  Santino inched her steadily closer until bare inches separated them. ‘I want to kiss you…’

  ‘Seriously…?’ Her wide gaze clung to his.

  ‘I want to take you home to my bed,’ Santino confessed raggedly. ‘In fact, I can’t think of anything else…’

  Poppy blinked. It was as if a little buzzer went off in her brain and allowed her to think again. But what he was telling her was still such an enormous surprise, she just ended up staring up at him again, dark pupils dilated, moist lips parted on her own ragged breathing. He wanted to kiss her? That revelation wholly enchanted her. But the second was too much to handle for as yet no man had contrived to persuade Poppy either to go home with him or allow him to come home with her.

  ‘But I’ll settle for a kiss…and then supper somewhere public, cara mia.’ Santino noted the sudden anxious expression in her gaze and the rise of colour in her cheeks with the strangest, newest sense of protectiveness he had ever experienced. He didn’t know what he was doing and, for the first time in his very structured life, he realised that he didn’t care.

  Poppy’s heart was playing leapfrog with her ribs. He was attracted to her, too? She couldn’t believe it. She was achingly conscious of his hands holding hers and such a flood of happiness filled her that she felt literally light-headed with it and her throat ached. ‘Kiss…’ she selected her favourite option, the one she could least bear to wait for.

  Santino smiled, his heartbreaking, stunning smile that lit up his vibrant bronzed features and sent her pulses racing. ‘Only one kiss…otherwise I might not stop.’

  ‘One’s a bit mean,’ Poppy argued. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Oh, good heavens, you’ve left your girlfriend downstairs!’ she suddenly gasped, her expression one of comical horror.

  ‘Jenna’s just an old friend and she’s already left,’ Santino assured her with a laugh of appreciation.

  As relief at that explanation travelled through Poppy, Santino was already drawing her back across the office towards the corner with the sofas. It was so cool and natural the way he did it, too, that she was helplessly impressed. She couldn’t dredge her attention from his lean, strong face, couldn’t quite accept that what was happening was really happening. Her legs went weak under her at just the thought of his wide, sensual mouth on hers and she was so keen for it to happen, she was ashamed of herself.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Santino murmured silkily.

  ‘Kissing you…’ Poppy told him, but in truth she was equally enthralled by the new and more intimate side of Santino that she was seeing. It occurred to her that he was in his element, she the one floundering and following his smooth, assured lead.

  ‘Kissing me…’ Santino repeated huskily as he tugged her down onto the sofa, wound long fingers through her hair, curving them to the nape of her neck to angle her mouth up to his.

  ‘You’re good at this,’ Poppy muttered, trembling with the most wicked amount of anticipation.

  ‘Ought to be…’ Santino treated her to a slashing irreverent grin that acknowledged his own experience and her eyes clung to his lean, powerful face, her heart hammering. ‘But I’ve never got this close to a woman in the office before—’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Feels forbidden and…fantastic,’ Santino growled in a throaty purr of hunger.

  Poppy quivered, every skincell leaping, and when he brought his mouth down on hers, when he hauled her close, fantastic was in her opinion a serious understatement. She fell into that explosive kiss as though she had been waiting all her life for it.

  He captured her lips with intoxicating urgency and with sensual slowness let his tongue slide into her mouth in a darting, probing invasion that was unbelievably exciting. Poppy had never felt what she felt then, not that rise of inner heat or that sudden charged impatience for more that gripped her like a greedy vice. She couldn’t get enough of his hot, hard mouth. Every so often sheer necessity forced them to break off just to breathe but they welded back together again fast, Santino groaning low in his throat and muttering fiercely against her swollen mouth, ‘You blow me away, cara.’

  He pulled back from her to shrug free of his suit jacket and wrench at his silk tie to loosen his shirt collar. Sucking in a shallow, shaken breath, Poppy slumped weak as water back against the arm of the sofa and just watched him. The tie was discarded on the carpet beside his jacket and as he straightened he swept her ankles up so that she was lying full length. He slid off her shoes and let them drop as well. Poppy collided with smouldering dark golden eyes and she had never been so electrified with sheer excitement in her entire life.

  Santino ran deceptively indolent eyes over her as she lay there all of a quiver, his attention lingering with potent appreciation on her. ‘I love your hair…it’s incredible and you’ve got a very, very sexy mouth…’

  ‘Don’t stop talking,’ Poppy whispered helplessly.

  ‘If I talk, I can’t kiss you,’ Santino pointed out thickly, scanning her feminine curves in a more bold and intimate appraisal that sent the blood drumming at an insane rate through her veins.

  ‘Problem,’ she agreed, barely able to squeeze that single word
out.

  ‘Not an impossible one, cara,’ Santino assured her in his wicked dark drawl, his intense bronzed eyes signalling pure enticement and sensual promise. ‘I can think of several very interesting pursuits that I can talk through.’

  The atmosphere sizzled. His smile flashed out once more and she just ached so much for contact again that she sat up, grabbed his shoulder to steady herself and found his passionate mouth again for herself. A low moan of response was wrenched from her as he suckled at her lips and then parted them to invade her mouth again.

  ‘Thought I had to talk,’ Santino teased as he lowered her back to the sofa and unbuttoned the rest of his shirt.

  ‘No…’ Her mouth ran dry as she stared up at him. He looked so big and powerful. A haze of short dark curls delineated his broad, muscular chest and his skin was the vibrant colour of bronze. Her body tensed, wild heat snaking up inside her again.

  ‘Last time I was on a sofa with a female, I was sixteen,’ Santino confided with dancing amusement in his dark golden gaze.

  He lifted her up to him with easy strength and curved her round him. Cool air hit her taut spine as he unzipped her dress. He brushed down the delicate straps on her slim shoulders and released his breath in a slow, sexy hiss of appreciation as he bared her lush, pouting breasts.

  ‘Superb…every inch of you is a work of art, cara mia,’ Santino swore with husky fervour as a tide of shy pink washed up into her cheeks. ‘Without a doubt you are the perfect reward at the end of a lousy day.’

  Then he touched her and she was immediately lost in the passion again. All control was wrested from her by the seductive delight of his skilled fingers on her tender flesh and the even more intense excitement of his knowing mouth caressing the almost painfully sensitive rosy peaks. With a whimper of tormented response, she surrendered to that world of wild sensation…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SANTINO wakened to the buzz of his mobile phone.

  Disorientated in a way that was far from being the norm for him, he sat up, realised that he was still in the office and dug into his jacket for his phone. It was a very apologetic security guard calling up from the ground floor to ask if he was still upstairs working. Working? Santino stole a lingering glance at Poppy where she lay fast asleep beneath the suit jacket in which he had rifled for his phone. Shame and discomfiture gripped him.

  ‘Yes, I’m here. I’ll be a while, Willis.’ Discarding his mobile again, he checked the illuminated dial on his watch. It was after four on Saturday morning. His teeth gritted as he attempted to come up with a viable plan that would enable him to smuggle an admittedly very small redhead past the security guards down in the foyer. Otherwise, Poppy’s reputation was likely to be in tatters by Monday.

  Santino swore under his breath. How much alcohol had he consumed yesterday? There had been the pre-dinner drinks with the Delsens, the wine over the meal he had barely touched and then several brandies in succession. That kind of boozing was not a habit of his. All right, he had not been drunk, but he had not been quite sober either. Alcohol had certainly released all inhibitions and slaughtered his ethics, he conceded grimly.

  He looked at Poppy again. Her gorgeous hair was a wild tumble spilling across the leather, one pale bare shoulder and his jacket. She looked adorable, totally at peace and innocent. Only, as he now had very good cause to know, she was no longer quite the innocent she had been before he laid his womanising hands on her. In the midst of examining his conscience, Santino was appalled to register a powerful temptation just to grab her back into his arms again and kiss her awake. Drink was supposed to be death to the average male libido. Dio mio, so much for that old chestnut!

  Raking angry hands through his tousled black hair, Santino suppressed a groan. He was furious with himself. How could he have taken advantage of Poppy like that? He struggled to work out how it had happened. They had almost had an argument. He had thrown that vicious comment. She had been leaving when he’d apologised. At that instant, it had somehow seemed unbelievably important to him that she did not walk out through that door. Then she had said that about her mother not answering her letters and…?

  Ebony brows pleated, Santino gave up on that confusing angle to concentrate on the logical facts that he was more comfortable with. She worked for him. Affairs between staff were officially frowned on in Aragone Systems. And guess which smartass had laid down that ground rule for the greater good of interpersonal office relationships and morale? He grimaced. She had been a virgin. He hadn’t taken a single precaution. It dawned on him that the last time he had been on a sofa with a woman he might only have been a teenager, but he had exercised a lot more caution then than he had demonstrated the night before. He had screwed up, royally screwed up. In the midst of that lowering acknowledgement, which sat not at all well with his pride, he wondered whether there were still any valentine cards for sale. Finding himself wondering something so inane and out of character unsettled him even more. He breathed in very deep.

  Poppy wakened to the sound of a shower running somewhere and her sleepy eyes opened only to widen in dismay when the first thing she saw was her dress lying in a heap on the carpet. A split second later, she realised that she was actually lying under…Santino’s jacket! Her heart skipped a beat as she finally appreciated that she had spent most of the night in his office. In his arms. As the events that had led up to that staggering development unreeled in her blitzed brain like a very shocking film, she leapt off the sofa like a scalded cat. Praying that Santino would stay in the shower next door long enough for her to make an escape, she dressed at excessive speed.

  Tiptoeing to the door, her shoes gripped in one trembling hand, she crept out and then raced for the lift. How could she have behaved like that with Santino? She hadn’t even been out on a date with him! Sick with shame and embarrassment, she emerged from the lift and slunk out past the two men chatting at the security desk and mercifully behaving as if she were invisible. The buzzer went, though, to unlock the door and let her out, and her face was as red as a beetroot by the time she reached the street.

  ‘She’s a right little looker,’ Santino’s chauffeur remarked to Willis, the head security guard. A long night of playing poker together had formed an easy camaraderie between the two older men.

  ‘She’s a nice friendly kid. That’s the first time she’s walked out of here without saying goodnight,’ Willis said. ‘I suppose I can recall the rest of my team now—’

  ‘They’ll be getting suspicious if you don’t. I’d better get out to the limo and look like I’ve been dozing. Still, at least you got them shifted before the cleaners come on. Like I said, the boss doesn’t usually carry on like this.’

  Minutes later, Santino strode from the lift out of breath, black hair still wet from the shower, stormy golden eyes sweeping the foyer in search of Poppy. He couldn’t believe she had walked out on him without a word. As if he were some sleazebag of a one-night stand she didn’t want to face in daylight! He was outraged. That kind of treatment had never come his way before. Indeed, the clinging habits of certain previous lovers had driven him near to distraction. He had never had one who’d evaporated like scotch mist the first chance she’d got.

  He had had hardly any sleep…he was going home, he was going to bed and he’d call on her in the afternoon, he decided. She’d be glad to see him then. She’d appreciate him by then. He hoped she spent the whole lousy morning miserable because that was what she deserved and, in that self-righteous and ripping mood, Santino strode out of the building.

  Late that afternoon, Poppy sat on the train watching the countryside fly by with eyes that were blank and faraway. In her mind all she could truly see was a lean, dark, handsome face.

  It was amazing how little time it had taken to pack up her belongings and give notice on her bedsit. Everything she possessed fitted into two suitcases. But then she never had been one for gathering clutter, and money to spend on non-essential items had always been in short supply. A fresh start was the be
st thing, she reminded herself painfully. She could not go back to work at Aragone Systems again. Yes, she could have steeled herself to live down the gossip about that stupid card and her own silliness, but no, she could not put herself through the agony of seeing Santino again. She imagined he would be relieved when word of her letter of resignation finally filtered through to him.

  Well, she had surely taught herself one good, hard lesson about what happened when a woman flung herself at a man. After all, wasn’t that exactly what she had done? Humiliation and guilt engulfed her, for she blamed herself entirely: that childish card telling him that she loved him.

  Once Santino had known who the sender was, he wouldn’t have been human if that hadn’t made him curious. Craig’s malice, Santino’s concern and her own distress had led to a physical intimacy that would never have developed in normal circumstances. There they had been all alone in the enervating quiet of his office. No doubt even the admiring way she had looked at him had been a provocative encouragement and invitation on male terms. And she might not have much experience with men but every magazine she read warned her that, while nature had programmed women to seek a relationship, men were programmed to seek something an awful lot more basic.

  While the train was speeding Poppy towards Wales where her father’s aunt, Tilly, lived, Santino was having a very trying dialogue with one of Poppy’s former neighbours.

  ‘Nah…haven’t seen her for weeks,’ the guy with an obvious heavy hangover groused, yawning in Santino’s face. ‘Maybe she’s in there and just doesn’t want to answer the door. I had a woman who did that to me. Do you mind if I go back to bed now?’

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ Santino breathed grittily.

  Santino was now in what was totally unknown territory for him. Maybe Poppy didn’t want anything further to do with him. Maybe she was in her bedsit not answering the door and praying that he would take the hint and leave her alone. It wasn’t exactly a mature response, but a woman who had retained her virtue to the age of twenty-one might well hate his guts for having slept with her when she’d been in such a vulnerable state. If she was so keen to avoid him, and her flight from his office had already brought that message home once, did he have the right to crowd her? Or was he more likely to make a difficult situation worse by pushing too hard too soon? At the end of that logical internal discussion with himself, Santino was still fighting an almost irresistible urge just to smash the door down!