He didn’t need to, though. She could feel his fury.

Poppy looked away, out the window, fighting the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her as it crossed her mind that her note to Renzo hadn’t just wrecked Sophie and Dal’s wedding, but it’d wrecked her life, too.

* * *

Dal clenched his hand. He was so angry. So incredibly angry. He longed to smash his fist into Renzo Crisanti’s face. He’d like to follow that blow with a series of hard jabs. Crisanti had no right. But then, Sophie had no right, either.

Jaw gritted, Dal glanced from the jagged red mountain range beneath them to Poppy’s pale, stricken face and then he couldn’t even look at her because she would marry him.

She didn’t know it yet, but she didn’t have a choice.

They traveled the rest of the way in tense silence, and then they were landing, heading for a sprawling pink villa. Tall, rose-pink walls surrounded the estate, while inside the walls it looked like a miniature kingdom complete with stables and barn, orchards and garden, and three different pools. They swooped lower, still, and her stomach dropped, too.

While the Gila airport transfer had been formal and choreographed, the arrival at the Kasbah was loud and joyous and chaotic. People were everywhere, and there was so much noise. Shouts and cheers and laughter and song.

Dal hadn’t expected such a welcome, and from the look on Poppy’s face, neither had she.

* * *

Poppy kept her smile fixed as she was greeted by one bowing, smiling woman after another, the women in long robes in bright jeweled colors. She was aware that the women greeted her only after first bowing to Randall. He, of course, received the biggest welcome, and it was a genuine welcoming, every staff member clearly delighted to see him. Several of the older men and women had tears in their eyes as they clasped his hand. One small, stooped woman kissed his hand repeatedly, tears falling.

Randall, so stoic in England, seemed to be fighting emotion as he leaned over to kiss the elderly woman’s wrinkled cheek and murmur something in her ear.

Poppy got a lump in her throat as she looked at Randall with the tiny older woman. He wasn’t affectionate with any of the staff in England, which made her even more curious about the elderly woman, but before she could ask, he brusquely explained the history as they walked toward the villa, shepherded by the jubilant staff.

“Izba was my mother’s nanny,” he said. “She used to look after me when we would visit Jolie. I hadn’t expected her to still be alive.”

“She was so emotional.”

“She raised my mother from birth, and was closer to my mother than her own mother. Izba would have followed my mother to England, too, if my father had permitted it.”

“Why wouldn’t your father allow it?”

Randall shot her a mocking look. “He wanted my mother’s wealth, not my mother’s culture or family.”

“It’s not right to speak ill of the dead, but your father was—” She broke off, holding back the rest of the words.

“He was hard to love,” Dal agreed. “And while he and I didn’t have a good relationship, he was loving toward my brother. Andrew was his pride, his joy. My father was never the same after he died.”

Poppy knew there had been a brother, but she’d never heard Randall speak of him, not in the four years she’d worked for Randall.

She shot him a troubled glance now, but before she could ask another question, they were climbing broad stairs and then passing beneath a graceful pink arch to enter a walled courtyard dominated by a huge blue fountain. White and purple bougainvillea covered the walls with pots of blooming lemon and orange trees in the corners of the courtyard. Two dark wooden doors were set in one of the long walls, and Randall opened one of those doors now.

“This is your suite,” he said, leading her into a living room with a high ceiling covered in a dark carved wood. Windows lined one wall with the rest painted a warm golden khaki that made the floor-to-ceiling green-gold silk drapes shimmer in relief. The couch was covered in a vivid turquoise velvet; the two armchairs facing the sofa were covered in a luxurious silver silk. The lamps were silver, too, as was the giant sliding screen door that Randall pushed open to reveal the bedroom.

Again, one wall was nearly all floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the mountains and valley below. The bed dominated the large room, the bed itself enormous and low, covered in pristine white with two rows of plump white pillows.