'I doubt it,' Darcy slotted in. 'When I last saw her, Polly had no plans to marry.'
Nina directed a brilliant smile at Luca and crossed her fabulous long legs, her abbreviated dress riding so high Darcy wouldn't have been surprised to see pantie elastic. 'I bet you haven't a clue what we're talking about, Luca.' Margo chimed in, 'I'm afraid it did cross my mind that Darcy might—'
'Might marry me to inherit a measly one million?' Sardonic amusement gleamed in Luca's steady appraisal. 'Yes, of course I know about the will, but I can assure you that an eccentric godmother's wishes played no part whatsoever in my desire to marry your stepdaughter.'
'Yes,' Darcy agreed, getting into the spirit of his game with dancing green eyes. 'I believe Luca would say that when he married me, he had his own private agenda.'
'Ouch,' Luca breathed for her ears alone, and her cheeks warmed.
But Margo was not so easily silenced. 'I don't know how to put this without seeming intrusive...but frankly I was concerned when I learnt from friends locally that Darcy had come home alone after spending only forty-eight hours with you in Venice—'
'Mummy...it's hardly likely to be her favourite place,' Nina said with a meaningful look.
'I love Venice,' Darcy returned squarely.
'I know you gave your poor child that silly name— Venezia—but I notice you soon gave up using it,' Margo reminded her drily.
'Venezia?' Luca queried abruptly.
Darcy's sensitive insides turned a sick somersault. She encountered a narrowed stare of bemusement from Luca and turned her head away abruptly.
'Such a silly name!' Nina giggled. 'But then Darcy never did have much taste or discretion.'
Darcy felt too sick to glance again in Luca's direction.
Her nerves were shot to hell. She wanted to put a sack over Nina and suffocate her before she said too much.
'Your sense of humour must often cause deep offence,' Luca drawled with chilling bite, studying Nina with contempt. 'I have zero tolerance for anything that might distress my wife.'
Two rosy high spots of red embellished Nina's cheeks. Heavens, Darcy thought in equal shock, he sounded so incredibly protective. Her strain eased as she realised that Nina had abandoned her intent to make further snide comments about Zia.
'Yes, you were very thoughtless, Nina,' Margo agreed sharply.
"That's all in the past now. I actually came here today to express my very genuine concern over something Darcy has done.'
'Really, Margo?' Darcy was emboldened by the supportive hand Luca had settled in the shallow indentation of her spine.
'You brought Luca to the engagement party I held and not one word did you breathe about his exalted status,' Margo returned thinly.
Too enervated to be able to guess what her stepmother was leading up to, Darcy saw no relevance whatsoever to that statement.
'So what on earth persuaded you to do this?' Her stepmother drew a folded magazine from her capacious bag, her face stiff with distaste and disapproval. 'Is there anything you wouldn't do for money, Darcy? How could you embarrass your husband like that?'
Instant appalled paralysis afflicted Darcy. Her green eyes zoomed in on the magazine which contained that dreadful gushing interview, and in the same second she turned the colour of a ripe tomato, her stomach curdling with horror. Embarrassment choked her.
Margo shook her blonde head pityingly. 'I was horrified that Darcy should sell the story of your marriage to a lurid gossip magazine, Luca.'
'Whereas I shall treasure certain phrases spoken in that interview for ever,' Luca purred in a tone of rich complacency, extending his arm to ease Darcy's trembling, anxious length into the hard, muscular heat of his big frame. 'When I read about Darcy's "mystical sense of wonder" and her "spiritual feeling of soul-deep recognition" on first meeting me, I envied her ability to verbalise sensations and sentiments which I myself could never find adequate words to describe.'
'Luca?' Darcy mumbled shakily, shattered that he had actually read that interview and absorbed sufficient of her mindless drivel to quote directly from it.
But Luca, it seemed, was in full appreciative flow. 'Indeed, I was overwhelmed by such a powerful need to be with Darcy again I flew straight here to her side. I shall; always regard that interview as an open love letter from my wife.'
For the space of ten seconds Margo and Nina just sat there, apparently transfixed.
'Of course, I'm very relieved to hear that the interview hasn't caused any friction between you. I was so worried it would,' Margo responded unconvincingly.
'You surprise me,' Fabulous bone structure grim, eyes wintry, Luca studied their visitors. 'Only a fool could fail to see through your foolish attempts to diminish Darcy in my eyes. She is a woman of integrity, and how she contrived to hang onto that integrity growing up with two such vicious women is nothing short of a miracle!'