In a Storm of Scandal. KIM LAWRENCE

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       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      PROLOGUE

       June 2004 Rome, Villa Palladio.

      ‘YOU’RE a lucky man.’

      ‘Yes I am, Uncle Dino.’

      He was a lucky man.

       Tell yourself that often enough, Luca, and it just might start to sound true.

      Arranged marriages worked. The Ranieris had been making arranged marriages work for generations.

      His own grandparents’ marriage cementing two powerful Italian families had been arranged, maybe not such a good example … but his own parents had continued the custom and with some success.

      But he had always considered himself the moderniser destined to drag his family into the twenty-first century.

      However, a lot could change in six weeks.

      It had been six weeks to the day when he had accepted his father’s seemingly innocent suggestion to join him for a brandy in his study.

      After first pouring them both a generous measure of brandy Damiano Ranieri had extracted a box from the safe concealed behind a painting before ceremoniously presenting it to his son.

      ‘It was your great-grandmother’s, Luca.’

      It seemed supremely ironic now to recall that when he had stared at the heirloom sitting in its bed of velvet his first thought had been: he knows … somehow he knows about us. He knows about Poppy!

       He knows and he isn’t screaming or even threatening to disown me!

      Touched by what he had seen—for about thirty seconds—as an unexpected parental display of approval, he had opened his mouth to tell his father how much he appreciated the gesture, but that would have been slightly premature.

      He and Poppy had discussed the future and envisaged spending it together but they had both agreed that they were too young to make that sort of commitment yet.

      ‘See how you feel after we’ve spent the next year together, Luca?’ Poppy had teased as they sat beside the loch, and planned the route of their gap-year expedition. ‘By then you might have gone off me totally.’

      After he had demonstrated that he was never going to go off her—a task that took some time as her mouth was an invitation to sin—Luca had tugged the sides of his shirt together across his chest and growled. ‘And you’ll have moved on, basking in the attention of all those sex-crazed male students.’

      The thought of those determined little hands sliding over another man’s skin, setting another man’s nerve endings on fire, had made his stomach muscles quiver in rejection.

      ‘Sex crazed sounds interesting …’ Poppy’s delicious husky laugh had stopped as she studied his face. ‘You’re jealous!’ The discovery had appeared to delight her.

      ‘Heartless little witch,’ he had condemned with a grin.

      ‘Your heartless little witch, Luca,’ she had reminded him quietly.

      The undisguised love and confidence shining in the incredible eyes that had met his had made things tighten painfully in his chest. Poppy never tried to disguise anything. It had all been there on her face, in her voice, the expressive sweep of her slim hands—she was utterly and totally transparent.

      Gianluca, the product of a calm home where voices were never raised in either anger or pleasure, where dignity and control were the order of the day, was less comfortable with spontaneous displays of emotion.

      He was, to quote Poppy, ‘a work in progress’.

      ‘That makes a difference,’ he had admitted huskily.

      ‘Don’t worry, Luca, I will tell all the sex-crazed students that my heart is taken by a computer geek.’

      Her smile, never far away, had peeked out again like sun from behind a cloud as she had added, ‘You do know I suppose that computer geeks are not meant to have muscles or look so hot? Though actually I think you’d look pretty good with glasses, sort of sexy intellectual …?’ She had traced the shape of spectacles on his face with her finger and squinted at the imaginary outline. ‘Yes, very Clark Kent.’

      ‘You think I am a geek?’

      ‘A hot geek. Oh, don’t worry, there’s no need to play it down, and don’t deny it because I know you do. You don’t have to be embarrassed or anything. I love it that you’re super brainy. By the time I finish my degree you’ll have created the most successful computer webdesign company in the world,’ she had predicted with a happy sigh. ‘It’s actually perfect timing.’

      ‘How do you manage to be upbeat all the time?’ And be so damned perceptive.

      ‘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?’