In a Storm of Scandal

She had no smart response to the mild sarcasm and no easy answer for why she felt the need to keep him at several arms’ lengths.

‘This is …’ she expelled a gusty sigh, her expression reflecting her dismay, and tore off her cap, tossing it on top of a pile of newspapers on a nearby armchair ‘… a total nightmare.’ There seemed very little point putting a brave face on what was an awful situation. A dangerous stranger she could have legitimately clonked on the head with a poker … what was she meant to do with Luca?

Her glance slid to the stern outline of his beautiful—it really was—mouth … A tiny sigh escaped her parted lips. She had once had a lot of ideas about what to do with and to Luca, but few, actually none, were any longer appropriate.

He tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘The storm is bad.’

Poppy gave herself a mental shake and let his misinterpretation remain uncorrected as she struggled to make her fuzzy brain work … How … why was Luca here? ‘Was Gran expecting you?’

‘No.’

Gianluca’s eyes followed the golden brown waves as they continued to bounce, settling in a silky messy halo around her shoulders. It slid down her back, falling below shoulder-blade level, longer than she had used to wear it. The shaggy fringe was gone too, revealing the purity of her delicate heart-shaped face. A face still dominated, but not overwhelmed, by slanted hazel-green eyes.

‘So you don’t know where she is?’ Poppy pressed.

The furrow between his brows deepened as he registered the anxiety behind her question. ‘Don’t you?’ He struggled to focus on the situation and not on every tiny detail of her face.

Poppy bit her lip and shook her head. ‘I’ve looked everywhere and there’s no sign of her.’ She had scoured the surrounding area yelling until her throat was raw.

‘Did you look for a note?’

His glance moved in an assessing sweep around the rapidly darkening room that, though not in the grand part of the building, still had twice the square footage of an average semi.

‘Of course I looked for a note.’

‘I’m assuming the candles are not for atmosphere.’ Even as he spoke Luca realised that it was a mistake to assume anything; for all he knew Poppy might be here with a boyfriend. ‘The power’s out?’ On every visit he suggested that the electrics needed an overhaul; his suggestion was inevitably met with a point-blank refusal from his frugal godmother, who was fond of saying she did not believe in change for change’s sake.

Poppy nodded and glanced at her watch, her eyes widening when she read the time. ‘Nearly two hours ago.’ Just after she had arrived.

‘Did you check the fuses?’

There was an edge in her voice as Poppy replied, ‘Of course I checked the fuses.’

‘Isn’t there still a back-up generator?’

Poppy struggled against impatience. ‘Yes, but it’s not working.’

He arched a brow. ‘And you know this how?’

‘I tried to start it.’ Though it was notoriously temperamental, the second kick generally did the trick, but not today.

She saw something flicker at the back of his dark eyes. ‘You kicked it?’

Poppy killed the beginning of a grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth and experienced a moment of panic before her instincts of self-preservation kicked in. It had taken her a very long time to put the memories they shared into cold storage; she wasn’t about to thaw out even at the most innocent of them, not now, not ever.

‘As a last resort.’

Frustrated in his attempts to read past her cool mask, he felt a stab of dissatisfaction. She might have changed remarkably little to look at—Poppy could still have passed for a teenager—but clearly she had changed.

And you expected she wouldn’t, Luca? You expected that having her heart broken would not have made her toughen up, develop a few defences?

‘And Isabel, you saw her last … when?’

Poppy responded to the question literally. ‘April.’

His dark brows drew together above the bridge of his hawkish nose. ‘I meant …’

Intercepting the impatient look, she flushed and, resenting the fact he had made her feel foolish, inserted quickly, ‘I know what you meant, and, no, I haven’t seen Gran, but I spoke to her … last night.’ Had it really only been a few hours earlier?

‘This isn’t a case of miscommunication—perhaps she went to the village to meet you?’

‘No, I said I’d catch the ferry and I’d ring when I arrived.’

‘There was no reply?’

‘The phone lines are down and I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile. Where can she be, Luca? The only way out of here is by boat, and don’t,’ she pleaded, ‘suggest she might have walked out, because after the rock fall last winter even a four-wheel drive can’t make it up the track.’

‘I was not going to suggest she walked out. Your gran’s fit for an eighty-year-old but even she is not going to trek out along the mountain track.’

‘I have a bad feeling, Luca.’ It was just a name and what was she meant to call him—Mr Ranieri? ‘Admittedly my feelings are not infallible.’

Her feelings about Luca had been all good, they had told her that Luca was the one, that he was totally trustworthy. Annoyed with herself for allowing ancient history to divert her, Poppy gave her head a tiny negative shake of irritation. She should be focusing on Gran. She was, and realistically she couldn’t exactly ignore Luca, she just had to keep her response … proportionate.

‘There’s probably a simple explanation.’

‘Like Gran is lying out there hurt, unable to call for help … or worse? That sort of simple?’ She swallowed and pushed away the image and sucked in a steadying breath through flared nostrils. ‘Maybe I am overthinking it …? Maybe there is a simple explanation?’ She shot him a look of appeal, willing him to convince her.

Luca did not offer comfort and support, but then it wasn’t his job. Instead he gave a non-committal grunt. ‘I am assuming you are here because of the issue with the council?’

Her emerald eyes flew to his face, wide with surprise. ‘You know about that? Gran asked for your help?’ Of course she had.

And why not?

It was utterly insane to feel a sense of betrayal—there was no reason that Gran shouldn’t turn to Luca. He was her godson. Poppy knew they still had contact and she was fine with that; she didn’t want to know the details, but she was fine with it—totally.

Her gran appreciated she didn’t want to know about Luca’s life—hard not to after her response to a conversation that had opened with, ‘When Luca was here last month …’

Up until that memorable moment—memorable for all the wrong reasons—Poppy had considered herself totally over it … him … It turned out that eighteen months hadn’t been long enough.

Luca tipped his dark head in acknowledgement. ‘The bare bones, no details—my grandmother contacted me. She was concerned.’

Poppy’s tense expression was momentarily lightened as an image of a slight figure who still retained a strong Highland accent even though she had lived the last fifty years of her life in Italy flashed into her head.

‘Aunt Fiona?’ The title was honorary, the only connection being a friendship between the older women that had survived despite the disparate paths their lives had taken since their schooldays. ‘How is she?’

‘Well.’

His eyes drifted slowly over the smooth curve of her cheeks; reaching the full curve of her lush wide mouth, he had zero control over the lustful reaction of his body.