The Italian's Virgin Acquisition. Michelle Conder

stared at him blankly. She was sure that what he was offering must be immoral, and if she said yes she’d be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life, expecting to see someone pointing a finger and accusing her of coming by the money unethically. It would be like being back at school all over again, when kids had whispered behind her back and called her ‘Poor Poopy Poppy’. The memory put some much-needed steel in her voice. ‘Stop. I already told you that I’m not for sale.’

      His smiled dimmed and he stared at her for a long, tense minute before releasing a harsh breath. ‘But you are exactly what I need. Okay, what do you want, then? What’s your end goal?’

      Poppy’s head was spinning with so many pound signs she doubted she could even spell ‘end goal’ right now. She frowned. Did merely surviving each day count as an end goal? ‘I don’t really think in terms of end goals,’ she said.

      ‘Then you should start.’ He paced away from her and glared at his reflection in the mirror with distaste. Or was that her reflection he was glaring at? ‘Can we take this back to my office?’ He held the door open for her, automatically expecting her to obey his request, his commanding demeanour suggesting that if she didn’t he’d be happy to make her. ‘The ladies’ bathroom is hardly the place to have this conversation.’

      Poppy stopped beside him. ‘I’d rather not have this conversation at all.’

      ‘I can see that. Be careful you don’t knock yourself on the door.’

      He steered her around the door she’d nearly walked into and Poppy found herself reluctantly seated on the opposite side of his desk before she thought better of it.

      ‘So, if a lump sum is too difficult a concept for you to grasp, let’s get to what it is that you do want.’

      Too many things to count, Poppy thought, but none she would share with him. Especially not the number of wakeful hours she had spent last night reliving every hard angle of his torso. Sheesh! She had even imagined what it would have felt like if she had stretched up onto her toes and kissed him. ‘I don’t want anything.’

      Sebastiano snorted at her prim response. ‘That’s patently untrue. Everyone wants something.’ He glared at her. ‘Even me. In fact, I find myself in the rare position of being a desperate man. So, what is it going to take, bella, to get you to give me one weekend out of your life to help an old man?’

      Poppy’s gaze sharpened. ‘Is your grandfather unwell?’

      ‘Would that influence your decision?’

      Her frown deepened at the way he pounced on her unconscious show of sympathy. ‘You would really use that as a bargaining tool?’

      Sebastiano shrugged. ‘If it would work.’

      ‘You are such a shark!’ Poppy exclaimed, both awed and shocked by his ruthlessness.

      ‘Probably.’ He sat forward, his green eyes intense on hers. Poppy’s heart thumped heavily behind her breastbone. ‘But my grandfather is old and I really don’t know how much time he has left.’ His lips firmed, as if that thought made him truly uncomfortable. ‘And the old goat is far too stoic and proud to admit it if he were ill.’

      Poppy heard the deep caring in those terse words. Perhaps it was Maryann being sick, and the dread Poppy felt at possibly losing her some time in the near future, but in that moment she felt an unexpected connection with her big, bad boss. Caring deeply, she knew, was an avenue for pain and she didn’t wish that on anyone.

      About to tell him that she understood how he felt, he undermined that feeling of accord with his next words.

      ‘How about I grant you three wishes? Would that be more palatable to those prized principles of yours?’

      ‘What are you, a genie now?’ She snorted. The thought of seeing him wearing a turban and harem pants softened her irritation at his superior tone. ‘Or my fairy godmother?’

      ‘I’m hardly nice enough to be anyone’s fairy godmother.’

      ‘You got that right,’ she agreed. ‘You’re a ruthless wolf.’

      ‘I thought I was a shark.’

      Poppy’s lips twitched again. ‘Shark... Wolf...’ She swallowed as his gaze lingered on her lips. ‘Anything with big teeth, really.’

      The air between them suddenly pulled taut, and Poppy’s mouth went dry as his smile kicked up at one corner. The man was devastating. Devastatingly attractive and devastatingly persistent.

      ‘Think about it, Poppy,’ he said, his soft tone and the use of her first name lending the moment an intimacy she didn’t want to feel. ‘Three wishes. Anything you want. If they are within my power to grant them, they are yours.’

      She blinked in an attempt to shake off the spell he was subtly weaving around her. Three wishes did seem strangely more palatable than a cold, hard lump of cash, though she didn’t know why it should, because in the end it would amount to the same thing.

      He leaned forward, his gaze unwavering, a predator sensing weakness and homing in on the kill. ‘People marry for money and status all the time. This is merely a weekend away. Nothing more.’

      But it felt like more to her. She had never thought of herself as someone who could be bought. Not when so many of her foster families had taken her and Simon in for the government grants they would collect, rather than wanting to offer them a secure home.

      ‘Come on, Poppy,’ he urged. ‘Tell me something you’ve longed for lately.’

      Love. Companionship.

      She frowned. Where had that come from? She had her career to work towards. That was more important than a transitory state such as love.

      ‘New shoes.’ Distracted as she was by her own thoughts and his persuasive tone, she said the first thing that came into her head.

      ‘New shoes?’ A sexy grin crept across his face. ‘Done. Name the designer and you can have a wardrobe full.’

      ‘Nike, I think.’

      ‘Nike?’

      ‘Size ten.’

      ‘You’re serious?’

      ‘Yes. Do you have a problem with that?’

      ‘Okay, okay. Fine. Nike trainers. What else?’

      ‘I don’t know...’ Suddenly her thoughts veered to Maryann. In particular to the issue of her needing a ground-floor flat. Like Poppy, she lived hand to mouth, and Poppy knew her lovely neighbour was scared about what the future held for her now.

      ‘A new apartment,’ she said, waiting for her boss to laugh and tell her she was dreaming.

      ‘Now you’re speaking my language,’ he said, confidence oozing from every pore. ‘A penthouse, no doubt. How many bedrooms?’

      ‘It can’t be a penthouse, they’re on the top floor.’

      ‘I’m well aware of where a penthouse is located,’ he said. ‘I own several.’

      Poppy was so deep in thought she barely heard him. ‘It has to be on the ground floor. And near Brixton.’

      ‘Brixton?’

      ‘Yes. Maryann is really attached to Brixton.’

      ‘Maryann?’

      ‘My neighbour.’ The more she thought about it, the more she warmed to the idea. ‘And it should be near a park and the tube. Maryann likes to go into Stratford most Saturday afternoons. Her husband is buried there.’

      ‘Right.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m getting a headache just thinking about it. Give the details to HR.’

      ‘I’m not giving the details to HR!’ Poppy exclaimed. ‘It will completely ruin my professional reputation