In a Storm of Scandal

‘It’s all part of my charm and anyhow how could I not be upbeat? Everything is perfect except …’ Tongue caught between her teeth, she had directed a stare of smouldering challenge at his face. ‘You do know that this is the exact spot where we first kissed?’

‘I have not forgotten. Stop that, Poppy,’ he had warned, unable to take his eyes off her luscious mouth.

‘Stop what, Luca?’ Poppy had produced a look of mock innocence and patted the grass. ‘Don’t you think it would be kind of … appropriate if it was the same spot we …?’

Feeling noble and in extreme pain, he had clamped his hand over the slim dextrous fingers that were slipping the buttons on her blouse and, breathing hard through the fog of lust clouding his vision, dragged her to her feet, but not before it had become clear that Poppy was not wearing a bra.

Nobility was definitely overrated!

It was very hard to shield someone from your baser instincts when they didn’t want to be protected. Promises to his godmother or not, had there not been an ice-cold loch for him to walk into fully clothed things might have turned out differently.

‘I appreciate this, Dad, I really do, but actually it’s a bit early.’ And he had always seen Poppy wearing an emerald to match her eyes on her finger. ‘And she’s very young.’

And very impatient with his own reservations when it came to taking their relationship to the next level. The five-year age gap between them did not bother Poppy.

But it bothered him, and in deference to her inexperience from the beginning he had gone slow, keeping his lust under fierce control, not wanting to take advantage or scare her.

‘The first time should be special,’ he had shouted, standing waist deep in the water as he shook the water from his hair before slicking it back with a not quite steady hand.

‘It won’t be special if I die of old age waiting.’

‘I promised your grandmother I wouldn’t—’

‘Break my heart, I know, but you’re not going to and I’m eighteen, Luca, and I’m not going to change my mind. This isn’t a crush—if it was I’d think you’re perfect and I don’t, but I love you despite your faults.’

Laughing, he had waded from the water. ‘Please don’t enumerate them … again—you’re bad for my ego.’

‘Your ego, Luca Ranieri, is bomb and bullet proof,’ Poppy had contended lovingly.

‘There’s a beach in Southern Thailand.’

‘Who did you see the beach with?’

‘I was alone.’

Her furrowed brow had smoothed. ‘Good.’

‘You can only get to it by boat, the sand is white and the air is warm and when the moon is shining and the waves are lapping on the shore—’

‘Stop!’ Poppy had begged with a sigh. ‘You had me at “there’s”. You could make a dictionary sound seductive when you use that voice, Luca Ranieri. Look,’ she had instructed, rolling up her sleeve and extending a bare forearm towards him. ‘I’ve got goose bumps … all over.’ A wicked gleam had appeared in her eyes. ‘Want to see?’

Luca had groaned. ‘You know I do.’

‘Except your old-fashioned sense of honour and a fear of Gran is stopping you,’ she had completed fondly. ‘Fine, have it your way. I’ll let you woo me slowly, but don’t expect me to stop trying,’ she had warned him.

‘Aurelia loves rubies.’

‘Aurelia …’ Luca closed the box with a click. ‘I’m not marrying Aurelia.’

Both families had never made a secret of the wish that their two dynasties should be united by a marriage. As children he and Aurelia had frequently joked about their parents’ old-fashioned, ambitious and ultimately unrealistic plans.

In recent years Aurelia who had gone the finishing-school route rather than university, had been around less to enjoy the joke on the rare occasions when the subject had been mentioned—less a plan now and more a wistful aspiration, or so it had seemed to Luca.

‘I’m in love with someone else.’ The truth seemed to him the simplest way to draw a line under the subject once and for all.

‘Of course you’re in love with someone else, Luca, you’re twenty-three and I’m sure she’s impossibly unsuitable.’

The patronising note in his father’s voice set his teeth on edge.

‘Do you realise how few women understand the responsibility that marrying into a family like ours brings?’ Damiano said, warming to his theme. ‘It’s all about breeding. Girls today want their own careers—obviously your wife can never work.’

Despite the situation he had walked unwittingly into, the thought of Poppy’s reaction if he told her he was about to chain her to the kitchen sink almost made Gianluca smile.

‘They do not understand the concept of duty … the question is do you?’ Damiano fired a fierce look at his son. ‘And if we are talking love, what about Aurelia? She is in love with you and she has been waiting patiently.’

‘That’s rubbish!’ Luca was horrified by the suggestion.

Seeing the flash of doubt in his son’s eyes, Damiano arched a bushy brow. ‘Is it? You have trained for your future career and she has trained for hers. Where is the problem—you like her …?’

‘Liking is not enough.’

‘Love again …’ his father drawled impatiently. ‘Do you think I was in love with your mother?’

‘Yes.’ Everyone knew his parents had made good of their marriage.

His father had the grace to look sheepish. ‘Yes, well, that’s not the point.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘The point is you were always going to marry the girl, Luca, eventually. So why not now?’

Rather than dispute the false claim, Gianluca, sure he was missing something, addressed the question that puzzled him most. ‘Why now? Why the sudden urgency?’

His father ducked the question.

‘Oh, I know you had plans to travel or whatever.’

‘When I agreed to the post-grad year at Harvard you knew I intended to take a gap year once I graduated with an MBA.’

‘Like your friends … but you are not like your friends. You have already seen the world several times.’

‘From the window of five-star hotels.’

‘Yes, you have really suffered, Luca.’

‘I know I have been fortunate.’

‘You have been given everything and now it is time to give something back. It’s time you remembered your duty to your family … your name … it’s time you settled down, my boy.’