Lots of their jobs are pictures for their Instagram accounts.”

“I’m still not impressed.”

“Are you being serious? You really didn’t like them?”

“Did you?” he retorted.

He seemed to have caught Poppy off guard and she paused to think about her answer. After a moment her shoulders shrugged. “They were nice enough to me.”

“But?”

“I wasn’t one of them.”

“Of course not. You weren’t an actress or a model—”

“Some of them are just horsey girls. They live for polo.”

“You mean, rich men who play polo.”

“You don’t sound very complimentary.”

“I knew I was marrying Sophie, not her social scene.”

Poppy regarded him for another long moment, her wide brown eyes solemn, her full mouth compressed, and he was glad she was nothing like Sophie’s other friends. He was glad she was short and curvy and fresh-faced and real. She was Poppy. And she was maybe the only person in his life who could make him smile.

“But maybe that was part of the problem,” she said now, picking her words with care. “Maybe you needed to like her world better. Sophie is quite social. She likes going out and doing things. She was never going to be happy sitting around Langston House with you every weekend.”

“It’s a wonderful house.”

“For you. It’s your house. But what was she supposed to do there all day?” When he didn’t answer she pressed on. “Have you ever looked at her? Really looked at her? Sophie is one of the most beautiful, stylish women in all of England. Tatler adores her—”

He made a dismissive noise.

Poppy ignored him. “Everyone in the fashion world adores her. Sophie is smart and glamorous and she is very much admired, but you...you only saw her as the woman who would beget your heirs.”

* * *

When Dal’s mocking smile disappeared Poppy felt a stab of pleasure, delighted that she knocked his smug, arrogant smile off his smug, arrogant, albeit handsome, face, but then when he rose and walked away, the pleasure abruptly faded.

Chewing the inside of her lip, she watched him walk to the back, heading for his private cabin in the rear of the jet. After he disappeared into the cabin, the door closing soundlessly behind him, she sank back into her seat, deflated, as if all the energy had been sucked from the cabin.

So much had just happened that she couldn’t process it all.

Poppy didn’t even know where to begin taking apart the conversations and the revelations, never mind examining the intense emotions buffeting her.

Randall—Dal—knew about her infatuation, and had implied that Sophie probably knew, too. And then Poppy, in a burst of uncharacteristic temper, had quit.

Poppy sighed and rubbed her brow, gently kneading the ache. Was she really going to leave him, after four years of working for him? After four years of trying to deny her feelings?

And did it matter that he knew her secret?

On one hand it was incredibly uncomfortable that Randall—Dal—knew, but on the other, so what?

She had feelings for him. Why should that make her feel ashamed? Why were feelings even considered shameful? She’d been emotional in her entire life. From the time she was a little girl, she’d felt things intensely. Her sensitive nature had made her a target for the girls at Haskell’s. They’d enjoyed teasing her about being a charity case. They’d enjoyed mocking her lack of coordination and athletic ability. They’d enjoyed her discomfort at being forced to remain at school for holidays because her parents couldn’t afford to bring her home.

And then wonderful, lovely, courageous Sophie stepped in and made the teasing and bullying stop. But she didn’t just make the teasing stop; Sophie changed Poppy’s life when she confessed that she respected Poppy’s kindness and good heart. Suddenly, Poppy wasn’t embarrassing but someone that Sophie Carmichael-Jones admired.

So of course Poppy had never acted on her feelings for Randall. She would never, ever be disloyal to Sophie.