Luca didn’t want to drag her into the scandal, knowing that once involved, she would be caught in the whirlwind of gossip, with even her personal information likely to be exposed. 

Thinking this over, he decided to drop the matter.

“There's no need for you to trouble yourself with this,” he said.

To Vanessa, it seemed he was dismissive of any association with her. 

However, the nature of such rumors is often ambiguous—perhaps they really did have something going on? If that were ...