Seductive One

5

When they arrived back at Wild Sea Vineyards, Brenna figured she should leave, but Nic surprised her by asking if she could stick around for a little longer.

“I have a few questions about how you’re going to make things work,” he said.

She eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not going to change your mind about the loan, are you?”

He grinned. “I already said yes. I don’t go back on my word. You’ll have the papers in the morning.”

Being around Nic was hardly tough duty, and seeing as she already had a crush on Max and little to do back at the hacienda, with the exception of picking grapes or arguing with her grandfather, she agreed.

She helped him carry puppy supplies into the main house. The Marcelli hacienda was a huge Spanish-style structure, but the Giovanni home was more a one-story ranch style, with additions sprawling at both ends. Years ago, when Nic’s grandfather had been out of town, she’d once spent the night. She still remembered what every room looked like and how many places they’d made love.

They walked through a utility room into a large remodeled kitchen.

“Where are you going to keep him?” she asked.

“There’s an old storage room where he can sleep.”

“A storage room? Is it heated? Does it have a window? Are you going to keep him locked up all the time?”

Nic shook his head. “You always assume I’m the bad guy. Maybe you’d like to check out Max’s prison cell before complaining.”

“He’s just a baby. He’s going to miss his mother and siblings. He’ll probably cry all night. You should let him sleep with you.”

“Not on a bet. He’s little now, but soon enough he’ll be full-grown. I’m not sharing my bed with an eighty-pound dog.”

Brenna had the brief thought that she could offer to share Nic’s bed, but she pushed the image of them together in a tangle of sheets from her mind and prepared herself to be appalled by Max’s new home.

She should have known better, she thought, feeling more than a little foolish when she saw the “storage room.” Maybe it had once been home to an assortment of boxes and pieces of furniture, but it was currently puppy paradise.

Indoor/outdoor carpeting covered the floor. Two big windows let in sunlight, while an alcove provided a quiet place for a big, cushy bed lined in what looked like sheepskin. Several chew toys and a bowl of water stood by the door. In the opposite corner was a large plastic container about six inches high and lined with newspaper. Sara had told them the puppies had been trained to use a “doggie litter box” in the night.

“I plan to feed him in the utility room. Or is that too much like torture? Maybe I should set a place for him at the table. But without a thumb, he’s going to find using silverware a real bitch.”

Brenna put the dog carrier in the closet and hung the leash and harness on a hook by the door. “Okay. It’s a great room.”

“Uh-huh.” Nic put Max into the bed. The puppy stirred, then went back to sleep. “That would make me right and you…” He paused expectantly.

She rolled her eyes. “Wrong. Okay? You were right and I was wrong.”

He walked over and draped an arm around her shoulders. “I love it when you say that.”

The second his hand settled on her shoulder, heat exploded in her body. It was like being inside of a flare. One second there was nothing, then an audible rush, followed by a bright light and instant flames. She wanted to inch closer and have him touch her in more places. She wanted to run for cover.

Fortunately she picked a more rational response than either of those choices. She stepped to the window and looked out at the view.

“You have a nice grassy area back here. Max will like that.”

“I have something you’ll like more. Come see.”

For half a second she thought he was talking about something, well, sexual. Her gaze involuntarily dropped to his crotch. The second she realized what she was doing, she jerked her head back and prayed that the heat of her face wouldn’t manifest itself in a blush.

“Can you be more specific?” she asked from her place by the window.

“When are you going to learn to trust me?”

“When little wine bottles grow out of grapevines.”

“It’s not a bad thing, I swear.”

“Uh-huh.”

He stepped out of Max’s room. “Come on. It will be worth it.”

She hesitated, then slowly followed.

“Talk to me about barrels,” he said when she’d caught up with him. They walked through the kitchen and back outside. “How are you going to get them?”

She needed a beat to make the conversational switch back to business. “I have some on order. I’ve also been calling around. A few people ordered too many and they’re happy to sell the extra.”

Good wine barrels cost several hundred dollars each. They had a limited lifespan and constantly needed to be replaced. Empty barrels invited mold and rot, so wine makers preferred to keep them full at all times. The trick was that production rates varied from year to year, so it was a constant guessing game to have the exact number around for any given vintage.

“Where will you be storing them?”

“Not at Marcelli Wines,” she said. “I haven’t rented space yet. I didn’t want to make any commitments until I was sure I had the financial backing.”

He’d led them to the winery. Several buildings created a small complex. The center building was the largest, and a recent addition. Brenna stared enviously at the new building, a state-of-the-art storage facility with several temperature-controlled rooms. Special shelves had been designed and installed to allow for easy access to any barrel. A computer kept track of what inventory was where. Everyone in the valley had heard about Nic’s new facility. She’d even had a talk with the contractor and had gotten a bid on a smaller version for Marcelli Wines. Her grandfather had said it was a waste of money.

“I don’t suppose you have any extra room in there,” she said wistfully.

“Sorry, no. But I do have this.”

He crossed to one of the smaller buildings. She followed him inside and nearly fainted.

The structure was the size of a barn, with several walls dividing the space into open rooms and a loft overhead. Empty racks for stacking barrels stood lined up in rows. Large silver ducts cut across the ceiling and down the walls, providing rudimentary temperature control from the industrial-sized heater and air conditioner outside.

Brenna instantly began calculating capacity. If Nic would rent her this space, she would be able to keep all her wines in one location. Plus the Giovanni winery was within easy distance of her day job. She’d imagined having to drive across the valley to three or four different locations.

“How much?” she asked. “I’m willing to sign a two-year lease. That should lower the price.”

“You’re borrowing money from me only to turn around and pay me rent with it?” He shook his head. “We’ll fold the cost into the loan.”

Brenna swallowed hard. He was already delaying payments for two years. With the accumulation of interest and the deferred rent, she was racking up some serious charges. If she failed…

Don’t think about it, she told herself. Success was the only option. When she’d turned Four Sisters into a viable label, Nic couldn’t touch her. She only needed two years, three tops.

“Until then I owe my soul to the company store,” she murmured.

“So tell me no.”

She glanced at the open room. Plain old-fashioned lust overrode common sense. For once the feeling wasn’t about Nic’s body or what he could do to hers. Instead she wanted this for her wine.

“I don’t suppose you’ve recently replaced your grape-processing equipment.”

“As a matter of fact, I have.”

Brenna tried not to make moany noises when she saw the collection of conveyor belts and pressing equipment. Yes it was old and would probably break down every fifteen minutes, but it wasn’t being used by someone trying to get their own grapes pressed as soon as possible. She could work all night and not have to worry about being in the way.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said when Nic ushered her back outside. “You’re doing so much more than I could have hoped for. I may have to give you two cases of wine.”

“Maybe I’ll have you create a blend for me instead.”

“A Marcelli working on Giovanni wines? Wouldn’t the heavens crack open?”

“Probably.”

She squinted slightly into the sun and saw that it was much lower in the horizon than she would have thought.

“I should be heading back,” she said. “I need to make an appearance so no one gets suspicious, and you have to feed Max.”

Nic chuckled. “You’re convinced I can’t take care of him on my own, aren’t you?”

“Puppies are a lot of responsibility.”

“I think I can handle it.”

At this point she figured he could handle anything. “I had a good time,” she told him. “And not just because you’re loaning me a lot of money.”

“It was fun,” he agreed.

Too late she realized this was the wrong conversational tack. Suddenly things seemed really personal. She found herself wanting to step closer to him, or maybe have him step closer to her. She wanted to lose herself in his brown eyes, letting past and present blur. Her body was convinced it would be as good as it had been before, and she wasn’t sure the rest of her didn’t agree.

She wanted…a lot of things.

It seemed like a really good time to run.

“Okay, then,” she said and stuck out her hand. “Thanks for everything.”

He glanced at her hand. The corner of his mouth twitched-as if he knew he got to her. Maybe he did. Maybe he was doing it on purpose. If so, it was a small price to pay for the loan.

“I’m happy to help,” he said solemnly as they shook hands.

She did her best to ignore the sensation of his skin brushing hers. For reasons that made absolutely no sense, she remembered a line from Romeo and Juliet, which she hadn’t read since she was in ninth-grade English about a hundred years ago.

“Palm to palm, as those the palms kiss.”

There would be no kissing, she told herself. Not palms or lips or any other body parts.

She pulled free of him and edged toward her car. “So I guess I’ll be by tomorrow to pick up the loan papers.”

“That would be fine.”

“And, um, I’ll just make myself at home with the pressing equipment.”

“Not a problem. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Sure. I will.”

She tripped as she reached her car, but caught herself before she fell. After giving Nic a quick wave, she slipped into the driver’s seat and quickly started the engine. It was way past time to get to safety.

New rule number one, she thought as she drove away. Avoid Nic at all costs. The man was dangerous in more ways than she would have thought possible.

That night Nic stretched out on the sofa and picked up the old leather-bound diary he’d been trying to read for the past couple of weeks. It wasn’t just the small cramped handwriting that defeated him, it was that the damn thing was written in Italian.

He’d studied the language at college, but his working knowledge was limited to asking the way to the library and a few good swear words. Which meant he spent more time thumbing through an Italian-English dictionary than making any progress in Sophia Giovanni’s diary.

He’d come across the journal nearly two years before, when he’d been cleaning out his grandfather’s study. The old man had been gone for nearly five years, but Nic hadn’t been in any rush to get rid of his things. The house was plenty big, and for the most part Nic simply closed off rooms. But one winter afternoon he’d decided to rid the house of the remnants of what had been his last living relative.

Nic’s parents had been killed in a car accident in Spain nearly fifteen years ago, although they’d abandoned their son ages before that. His parents hadn’t been interested in much more than upscale travel and finding a really good party-preferably in Europe. Nic had been four when he’d awakened to find them gone and only his grandfather left to raise him.

He’d never seen his parents again. They’d sent occasional notes, had called from time to time. When they died, he’d barely felt a twinge. For him, family had meant him and the old man. His world was nothing like the Marcellis, where relatives lived in the old hacienda, loving and laughing and curing all ills with pasta.

A soft whine interrupted his musings. He glanced up and saw Max enter the living room. The puppy looked small and lost and scared. When he saw Nic, he whined a little louder.

Nic glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late. Aren’t you tired? I could take you back to your room.”

Big brown eyes stared unblinkingly. A shiver rippled through the puppy. Max flopped onto his belly, put his head on his paws and began to whimper.

Nic swung around so his feet were on the hardwood floor and swore softly. “You’re lonely,” he said. “I bet you miss your mom.”

Grumbling to himself, he crossed to Max and picked up the dog, then returned to the sofa. “How do you feel about baseball?” he asked as he settled back on the couch and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

Instead of answering, Max sprawled across his belly and sighed with contentment.

“Not a big fan, huh? We’re going to have to change that. I like the Dodgers, myself.”

Max swiped at his chin, then closed his eyes. Nic petted the soft fur on his back while he clicked on the TV and found the game already in progress. As he checked out the score, he closed the diary. He would get to translating it later. After all this time, what did the past, or family, matter?

Two days later Maggie cornered Nic when their meeting broke for lunch. He’d been watching her get more and more annoyed all morning and wasn’t surprised when she grabbed his suit sleeve and tugged him out of the conference room and into her office.

Fire flashed in her green eyes and she looked furious enough to crack him over the head with a swivel chair.

“You object,” he said mildly.

“On several levels. First of all, your consortium is made up entirely of men. There are intelligent women in the financial community. I would be happy to supply you with names.”

He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame. “Low blow,” he told her. “You know I don’t care about anyone’s gender. The takeover target is a traditional, old-fashioned man. Not the type to sell to a woman.”

She crossed to her desk and sat on the edge. “That’s another thing. Why all this sneaking around? Whenever you’ve wanted to buy another company, you’ve simply made an offer. This time you’re creating a false front.”

“My name can’t come up in negotiations.”

“Why?”

“He’d never sell to me.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be buying.”

“Not an option.”

Maggie couldn’t know, but this had been his plan all along. He’d spent the last seven years of his life working toward this one goal. The Marcelli family had cost him everything. He would get his own back by taking away all that they’d ever worked for.

“It’s a clean deal,” Nic reminded her. “I’ve put together an impressive group of buyers. We’ll make a fair offer. When it’s accepted, they’ll bow out and I’ll take charge.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I’m not doing anything illegal. Besides, it’s going to work.”

“I know. Who wouldn’t be impressed by the CEO of a major bank, a senior partner in an investment firm, and the owner of the largest wine distributor on the West Coast all coming together? You do business with them, they like you, so they’re doing you this one little favor. It stinks.”

“Why?”

She straightened and glared at him. “Because you’re not telling anyone the full truth. Not me, not them, certainly not Brenna Marcelli, who…”

He’d been waiting for Maggie to put the pieces together. From the look on her face, she just had.

“That’s why you did it,” she breathed, obviously shocked. “I couldn’t figure out why you would loan someone that much money without at least taking a piece of the action. You made it a callable note, but even if you took everything back, you’d still come up short. The only way to make money on the deal is to have her succeed. But this isn’t about her starting a winery at all, is it?”

He shook his head. “It’s about leverage.”

“Is she his daughter?”

“Granddaughter.”

Maggie sucked in a breath. “You want to buy Marcelli Wines. But you’re a Giovanni. You’d never be allowed to even take a walk on the property, let alone bid on it. To get around that, you put together a group of men that would make any prospective seller get down on his knees and give thanks. You have the cash and the credit to get more, so buying the company isn’t going to be a money issue. What if the truth comes out and the deal goes south? What if there’s a buyer more pleasing to Mr. Marcelli? Not for financial reasons but for personal ones. You can’t risk that, right?”

Maggie had been with him long enough to know how his mind worked. She’d nailed it. “Right.”

She stared at him. “You have to be the luckiest man alive. Because right in the middle of all this, fate hands you an ace. Lorenzo Marcelli’s granddaughter comes to you for a loan, which you give her. Now you have in your possession a one-million-dollar callable note on someone who is very important to him. If he balks, you threaten to ruin his granddaughter. Because it’s not about getting the money back, it’s about reputation. You can make sure Brenna never works in this town again.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Why, Nic? What’s so important about Marcelli Wines?”

A complex question. He would give her a simple answer that didn’t begin to explain the situation. “I want it all. They’re all that’s left to buy.”

“That’s complete crap. There are dozens of other wineries in the valley. Why them?”

“We have a long history. Think of it as my way of ending the feud.”

“It’s personal, then.”

“You know I don’t let business get personal.”

“Then how do you explain this?”

“Next to us, Marcelli is the biggest holding in the valley. They’re everything we’re not. Small, prestigious, almost a boutique winery. We’ll modernize, expand, make a real profit. It’s a smart move.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

That ten years ago when he’d told his grandfather he was in love with Brenna Marcelli, Emilio had been furious. The old man-his only living relative-had forced him to choose. Brenna or his heritage. Nic had chosen Brenna and she’d chosen her family.

Always one to keep his word, Emilio had thrown Nic out and made sure no winery on the West Coast would hire him. Nic had gone to France, where he’d been forced to work as a day laborer in the vineyards.

After a time Emilio had come looking for him. There’d been no one else to inherit Wild Sea. So Nic and his grandfather shared real estate but they’d never reconciled. Emilio had never forgiven Nic for choosing a Marcelli over family, and Nic…he’d learned his lesson. All that mattered was winning.

Maggie walked past him and out into the hall. Once there, she paused and glanced at him over her shoulder. “I don’t doubt that your plan will work perfectly. But let me ask you a question. What about Brenna’s loan? Say you buy Marcelli Wines. Do you call it in?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know.”

“I guess it depends on whether that would be an advantage to you or not.”

“Probably.”

She turned away. “You’re a really smart guy. It’s too bad you have to be such a bastard.”