of his father and grandfather and two hundred years of ancestors before that. His father had been a robust, healthy man and it had seemed as if he would live forever. Not that Luca had seen much of him in the past ten years while he was competing on the Grand Prix motorcycle racing circuit.
“This cannot continue—” François gestured toward Luca’s chest. “These scandals.”
Here we go. Luca leaned against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other. Waiting for François to detail each of his latest “scandals.” There was no point in defending himself.
Ticking items off his finger, François began the lengthy list. “Disturbing the peace.”
Disturbing the peace? Luca had broken up with his girlfriend, Anika Van Horn, a model he’d quickly learned was more interested in the fame and fortune of the Legrand name than in Luca himself. She did not take the breakup well. In fact, she’d slapped him, making sure to do so at an outdoor café, causing a scene that spread in seconds via social media. He still wasn’t sure how charges had come of it.
“Public drunkenness.”
He had attended a fellow Monster teammate’s bachelor party. While Luca had had his fair share of drinks, he had not been nearly as drunk as the groom-to-be, whom Luca had rescued from the Fontaine Stravinsky.
“Public nudity.”
It had been his friend, the bachelor, who was naked. But the press had a way of spinning things so that it sounded like Luca was the one who’d disrobed, jumped into the fountain and done lewd things to a colorful, busty mermaid with water spouting from the tips of her breasts.
Sighing, Luca waved for François to keep going with the damning list, knowing what was coming next.
“Then. Just to up the ante...a sex video gone public. And not just any sex...” François paused, arching his brow for effect. He sniffed instead of finishing his sentence. “Such a boost to the prestige of your esteemed family name.” François grimaced with sarcasm.
Luca opened his mouth, the excuse—the fact that the video was meant to be private and that Anika had obviously been the one to leak it online, either for publicity to boost her career or to publicly humiliate him—was ripe on his tongue. But what good would it do to explain this to François? It didn’t change the outcome.
“And now, one week later, here you are.” François’s eyes leaked with moisture born of anger, like a grape in the press right before it was about to pop. “Assault and destruction of property. How noble.”
The paparazzi had been relentless since the sex scandal. Luca had been unable to leave his flat. To go to the market. To do anything without being accosted. When one particularly pushy reporter, who had been doggedly harassing him night and day, had stepped in front of Luca while he was on his brand new Yamaha VMAX, causing him to swerve and nearly crash into a lamppost, Luca had lost it. He wasn’t proud of his actions, but if faced with the same situation again? He wouldn’t change a thing.
He’d parked the bike, walked straight up to the man who had the camera attached to his face like it was an appendage and asked him—civilly—to erase the images. When the man ignored him in order to take more pictures, Luca had simply snatched the camera away with the intent to erase the memory. The man shoved him, which resulted in Luca dropping the camera, smashing it on the cobblestones.
Oops.
Then the screaming idiot had thrown a punch, which Luca had easily dodged before acting on pure instinct. One punch. That’s all it took to drop the petit connard. It wasn’t his fault the man had started something he couldn’t finish.
Again. No point in explaining any of this to François. The man cared about one thing and one thing only. The value of the estate. Which had, indeed, plummeted since Luca took over.
“I get it.” Luca returned to the chair and sat down. “I’m a big fucking disappointment. Now, when are you bailing me out of this shit hole so I can get to work to rebuild the ‘family name’?”
“Bail you out?” François laughed. “I’m not bailing you out. Non.” He shook his head. “This is the safest place for you. You can’t get into any more trouble if you stay locked up.”
The molten metal that swirled in his gut erupted, filling Luca’s veins, forcing every muscle to contract. He grabbed François by the collar and hauled him across the table toward him. “What did you say?”
The only sound François was able to manage was a sputtering plea for his release, which resulted in spittle spraying Luca in the face. For the first time that day, Luca felt remorse for his actions. François had been loyal to the family for three decades, yet he barely knew Luca, and for all he did know, Luca was indeed the fuckup that the media was making him out to be.
The sex scandal was one thing, but Luca couldn’t understand the rest of it—the charges and the constant bad press. As a Grand Prix driver and a Legrand, he was used to being in the public eye, but lately the media seemed out to get him. Why? Was it because of the sex tape, or did he simply keep ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Softening his grip, Luca raised his hands in appeasement. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” François’s voice was high. “This behavior of yours is unacceptable.” The lawyer straightened his shirt and tie where Luca had crumpled it. “You are an embarrassment to your family name.”
“François, I recognize the...” Luca swallowed. With difficulty. “The folly of my recent actions. But I can’t very well right wrongs from a prison cell.”
Blinking rapidly, his eyes so puffy they were mere slits in his face, François said, “I don’t think you understand the full implications of your actions.”
“Then explain them to me.”
François removed a sheaf of papers from a briefcase beneath the table and plopped them on the table.
“Do you know what these are?”
Luca slid the papers toward him. “Company bylaws.” He slid them back across.
“Yes. And, if you were to read them, you would know that there is a code of conduct clause.” He paused. “For all employees.” He flipped to an earmarked page and shoved the document back across the table.
Luca glanced down. The words “grounds for dismissal” were highlighted as well as, “appropriate conduct.”
“I know the bylaws. I am the CEO.” It was sort of true. He’d been too busy running the company to pay much attention to them.
“So it should come as no surprise that the board is discussing your removal as CEO.”
“What?” Luca guffawed. “They can’t do that. I’m the only heir to the estate and I own fifty-one percent of the shares of the company.”
“Well...”
“Well, what?”
“There has been discussion about your father’s will being contested. In light of all that has occurred.” He gestured toward the room in general.
“Contested? By whom?”
“Marcel Durand.”
Marcel was only a few years younger than Luca and had only worked for his father for maybe five years. “Why would Marcel Durand contest my father’s will?”
“Because Marcel is your half brother.”
* * *
The first thing Jasmine Sweet did after finding her seat in first class on the Air France flight to Paris was to ask for a glass of champagne. The second thing she did, once she had the glass in hand, was to turn away from the large and empty seat beside her and sip the bubbly liquid until it disappeared. And the third thing she did was twist off the platinum band with the four-carat princess-cut diamond and shove it into the inside