The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  When she said nothing, he got to his feet. “We’ll all be happier once this is behind us. You’ll see. Meanwhile, I think you should speak with Sophia. It’s best coming from you—woman to woman. No doubt that when she sees you’re agreeable, she’ll feel more friendly toward Rene.”

  “Do you underestimate everyone, Tony?”

  He held up his hands. “I simply feel that we’ll all be more comfortable if we can keep this friendly. Rene will be my wife, and as such will be part of my professional and social life. We’ll all see each other now and then. I expect Sophia to be polite.”

  “I expected you to be faithful. We all live with our disappointments. You got what you came for, Tony. I’d suggest you take Rene and leave before Mama finishes her port. I think there’s been enough unpleasantness in this house for one day.”

  “Agreed.” He started for the door, hesitated. “I do wish you the best, Pilar.”

  “Yes, I believe you. For some reason, I wish you the same. Goodbye, Tony.”

  When he closed the doors behind him, she walked carefully to a chair, sat slowly as if her bones might shatter at too sharp a move.

  She remembered what it was like to be eighteen and wildly in love, full of plans and dreams and brilliance.

  She remembered what it was like to be twenty-three and sliced through the heart by the stab of betrayal and the true loss of innocence. And thirty, fighting to cling to the shreds of a disintegrating marriage, to raise a child and hold a husband who was too careless to pretend to love you.

  She remembered what it was like to be forty and resigned to the loss, empty of those dreams, those plans with the brilliance dulled dark.

  Now, she thought, she knew what it was to be forty-eight, alone, with no illusions left. Replaced, legally, by the new, improved model, as she’d been replaced covertly so often.

  She lifted her hand, slid her wedding ring up to the first knuckle. She’d worn that simple band for thirty years. Now she was being told to discard it, and the promises she’d made before God, before family, before friends.

  Tears burned at her eyes as she slipped it from her finger. What was it, after all, she thought, but an empty circle. The perfect symbol for her marriage.

  She had never been loved. Pilar let her head fall back. How lowering, how sad, to sit here now and accept, admit what she had refused to accept and admit for so long. No man, not even her husband, had ever loved her.

  When the doors opened, she closed her fingers around the ring, willed the tears to wait.

  “Pilar.” Helen took one look. Her lips tightened. “Okay, let’s forget the coffee section of today’s entertainment.”

  At home, she crossed to a painted cabinet, opened it and selected a decanter of brandy. She poured two snifters, then walked over to sit on the footstool in front of Pilar’s chair.

  “Drink up, honey. You look pale.”

  Saying nothing, Pilar opened her hand. The ring glinted once in the firelight.

  “Yeah, I figured that when the slut kept flashing the rock of ages on her finger. They deserve each other. He never deserved you.”

  “Stupid, stupid to be shaken like this. We haven’t been married for years, not in any real sense. But thirty years, Helen.” She held up the ring and, looking through that empty circle, saw her life. Narrow and encapsulated. “Thirty goddamn years. She was in diapers when I met Tony.”

  “That’s the big ouch. So she’s younger and got bigger breasts.” Helen shrugged. “God knows those reasons alone are enough to hate her fucking guts. I’m with you there, and so’s the crowd. But think of this. If she sticks with him, by the time she’s our age, she’ll be feeding him baby food and changing his diapers.”

  Pilar let out a moaning laugh. “I hate where I am, and I don’t know how to get someplace else. I didn’t even fight back, Helen.”

  “So you’re not a warrior.” Helen rose to sit on the arm of the chair, wrapped an arm around Pilar’s shoulder. “You’re a beautiful, intelligent, kind woman who got a raw deal. And damn, honey, if this door finally closing isn’t the best thing for you.”

  “God, now you sound like Tony.”

  “No need to be insulting. Besides, he didn’t mean that, and I do.”

  “Maybe, maybe. I can’t see clearly now. I can’t see through the next hour much less the next year. God, I didn’t even make him pay. Didn’t have the guts to make him pay.”

  “Don’t worry, she will.” Helen leaned over, kissed the top of Pilar’s head. No man like Tony should slip through life without paying, she thought.

  “And if you want to scald him a bit, I’ll help you outline a divorce settlement that will leave him with permanent scars and one shriveled testicle.”

  Pilar smiled a little. She could always count on Helen. “As entertaining as that might be, it’d just drag things out, and make it more difficult for Sophie. Helen, what the hell am I going to do with the new life that’s been dumped in my lap?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  . . .

  Sophia was doing a lot of thinking herself. She was already getting a headache from reading the pages of the contract. She got the gist of it, even mired in the legalese. And the gist was La Signora maintained control as she always had. Over the next year Sophia would be expected to prove herself, which she’d thought she had. If she did, to her grandmother’s satisfaction, some of that much-desired control would be passed to her hands.

  Well, she wanted it. She didn’t much care for the way she’d have to go about getting it. But she could see the reasoning.

  The hardest part was in nearly always being able to see her grandmother’s reasoning. Perhaps because, under it all, they thought so much alike.

  She had not taken a deep and intimate interest in the making of wine. Loving the vineyards for their beauty, knowing the basics wasn’t the same as investing time, emotion and effort into them. And if she would one day step into her grandmother’s place, she needed to do so.

  Maybe she preferred boardrooms to fermenting tanks, but . . .

  She glanced over at Tyler, who was scowling down at his own contract.

  This one took the tanks over the boardroom. That would make them a good business match, or contrast, she supposed. And he had every bit as much at stake as she did.

  Yes, La Signora had, once again, been as brilliant as she’d been ruthless. Now that her temper had cleared away to allow for cool common sense, she could see not only that it could work, but that it would.

  Unless Ty mucked things up.

  “You don’t like it,” she said.

  “What the hell’s to like about it? It was a goddamn ambush.”

  “Agreed. That’s Nonna’s style. Troops fall in line more quickly and in a more organized fashion when you order them to right before the battle. Give them too much time to think, they might desert the field. Are you thinking of deserting the field, Ty?”

  His gaze lifted, and she saw the steel in his eyes. Hard and cold. “I’ve run MacMillan for eight years. I’m not walking away from it.”

  No, he wouldn’t muck it up. “Okay. Let’s start from there. You want what you want, I want what I want. How do we get it?” She pushed to her feet, paced. “Easier for you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I essentially give up my apartment and move back home. You get to stay right where you are. I have to take a crash course in winemaking, and all you have to do is socialize and go to a few meetings now and then.”

  “You think that’s easier? Socializing involves people. I don’t like people. And while I’m going to meetings about things I don’t give a rat’s ass about, some guy I don’t even know is going to be looking over my shoulder.”

  “Mine, too,” she snapped back. “Who the hell is this David Cutter?”

  “A suit,” Ty said in disgust.

  “More than that,” Sophia murmured. If she’d believed that, she wouldn’t have been concerned. She knew how to handle suits. “We’ll just have to find out
how much more.” That was something she could take care of very shortly, and very thoroughly. “And we’re going to have to find a way to work with him, and each other. The last part shouldn’t be that hard. We’ve known each other for years.”

  She was moving fast where he preferred to pace himself. But damned if he wasn’t going to keep up. “No, we haven’t. I don’t know you, or what you do or why you do it.”

  She put her palms on the table, leaned forward. Her magnificent face moved close to his. “Sophia Tereza Maria Giambelli. I market wine. And I do it because I’m good at it. And in one year, I’m going to own twenty percent of one of the biggest, most successful and important wine companies in the world.”

  He rose slowly, mimicked her pose. “You’re going to have to be good at it, and a lot more for that. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty, and get mud on your designer boots and ruin your pretty manicure.”

  “Do you think I don’t know how to work, MacMillan?”

  “I think you know how to sit behind a desk or on a first-class seat on a plane. That superior ass of yours isn’t going to find life so cozy for the next year. Giambelli.”

  She saw the red haze at the edges of her vision, a sure sign temper was taking over and she was about to do something foolish. “Side bet. Five thousand dollars says I’m a better winemaker than you are executive at the end of the season.”

  “Who decides?”

  “Neutral party. David Cutter.”

  “Done.” He reached over and gripped her slim hand in his big, hard one. “Buy yourself some rough clothes and some boots that were made for work instead of fashion. Be ready to start your first lesson tomorrow, seven A.M.”

  “Fine.” She set her teeth. “We’ll break at noon, head down to the city for your first lesson. You can take an hour out to buy some decent suits that have been tailored in the last decade.”

  “You’re supposed to move here. Why do we have to go to the city?”

  “Because I need a number of things in my office, and you need to be familiarized with the routine there. I also need things from my apartment. You’ve got a strong back and your ass isn’t bad, either,” she added, smiling thinly. “You can help me move.”

  “I’ve got something to say.”

  “Well, goodness. Let me prepare myself.”

  “I don’t like your mouth. Never did.” He jammed his hands in his pockets because when she smirked, as she was doing now, he really just wanted to pop her one. “But I’ve got nothing against you.”

  “Oh, Ty. That’s so . . . touching.”

  “Look, just shut up.” He dragged a hand through his hair, jammed it back in his pocket. “You do what you do because you’re good at it. I do what I do because I love it. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I got nothing against you, Sophia, but if it looks like you’re going to cost me my vines, I’ll cut you out.”

  Intrigued, and challenged, she studied him from a new angle. Who’d have thought the boy next door could be ruthless? “All right, so warned. And same goes, Ty. Whatever I have to do, I protect what’s mine.”

  Blowing out a breath, she looked down at the contracts, then lifted her gaze back to his. “I guess we’re on the same page here.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Got a pen?”

  “No.”

  She walked to a server, found two in a drawer. She offered him one, flipped through her contract to the signature page. “I guess we can witness each other’s.” She drew a deep breath, held it. “On three?”

  “One, two. Three.”

  In silence, they signed, slid contracts across the table, witnessed.

  Because her stomach was churning, Sophia topped off their glasses, waited for Tyler to lift his. “To the new generation,” she said.

  “To a good season.”

  “We won’t have one without the other.” With her eyes on his, she clinked glasses. “Salute.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The rain was razor-thin and mean with cold, a miserable drizzle that sliced through the bones and into the spirit. It turned the light blanket of snow into a mire of mud and the dawn light into a gloomy smear on the sky.

  It was the sort of morning when a reasonable person snuggled in bed. Or at the very least lingered over a second cup of coffee.

  Tyler MacMillan, Sophia discovered, was not a reasonable person.

  The phone woke her, had her sliding a hand reluctantly out of the covers, groping for the receiver, then dragging it under the warmth with her. “What?”

  “You’re late.”

  “Huh? I am not. It’s still dark.”

  “It’s not dark, it’s raining. Get up, get dressed, get out and get over here. You’re on my time now.”

  “But . . .” The drone of the dial tone made her scowl. “Bastard,” she muttered, but she couldn’t drum up enough energy to put any punch into it.

  She lay still, listening to the hiss of rain on the windows. It sounded as if it had ice around the edges. And wouldn’t that be pleasant?

  Yawning, she tossed back the covers and got out of bed. She might have been on his time now, she thought, but before long he’d be on hers.

  . . .

  The rain dripped off the bill of Ty’s cap and occasionally snuck under his collar to slide down his back. Still, it wasn’t heavy enough to stop the work.

  And a rainy winter was a blessing. A cool, wet winter was the first crucial step toward a rare vintage.

  He would control what he could control—the work, the decisions, the precautions and the gambles. And he would pray that nature got on board with the team.

  The team, he thought, hooking his thumbs in his pockets and watching Sophia trudge through the mud in her five-hundred-dollar boots, that had increased by one.

  “I told you to wear rough clothes.”

  She puffed out a breath, watched the rain dissolve it. “These are my rough clothes.”

  He studied her sleek leather jacket, the tailored trousers, the stylish Italian boots. “Well, they will be before it’s over.”

  “I was under the impression rain delayed pruning.”

  “It’s not raining.”

  “Oh?” Sophia held out a hand, palm up, and let the rain patter into it. “Isn’t that strange, I’ve always defined this wet substance falling out of the sky as rain.”

  “It’s drizzling. Where’s your hat?”

  “I didn’t wear one.”

  “Jesus.” Annoyed, he pulled his own cap off, tugged it over her head. Even its wet, battered ugliness couldn’t detract from her style. He imagined it was bred into her, like bones.

  “There are two primary reasons for pruning,” he began.

  “Ty, I’m aware there are reasons for pruning.”

  “Fine. Explain them to me.”

  “To train the vine,” she said between her teeth. “And if we’re going to have an oral lesson, why can’t we do it inside where we’d be warm and dry?”

  “Because the vines are outside.” And because, he thought, here he ran the show. “We prune to train the vines to facilitate their shape for easier cultivation and harvesting, and to control disease.”

  “Ty—”

  “Quiet. A lot of vineyards use trellising techniques instead of hand pruning. Here, because farming’s an unending experiment, we use both. Vertical trellising, the Geneva T-support and other types. But we still use the traditional hand-pruning method. The second purpose is to distribute the bearing wood over the vine to increase its production, while keeping it consistent with the ability to produce top-quality fruit.”

  When he told her to be quiet, he did so like a patient parent might to a small, irritable child. She imagined he knew it and fluttered her lashes. “Is there going to be a quiz, Professor?”

  “You don’t prune my vines, or learn trellising, until you know why you’re doing it.”

  “We prune and trellis to grow grapes. We grow grapes to make wine.”

  Her hands moved as she spoke. It w
as like a ballet, he’d always thought. Graceful and full of meaning.

  “And,” she continued, “I sell the wine through clever, innovative promotion and marketing techniques. Which, I’ll remind you, are as essential to this vineyard as your pruning shears.”

  “Fine, but we’re in the vineyard, not in your office. You don’t take an action here without being aware of the cause and the consequence.”

  “I’ve always thought it more being aware of the odds. It’s a gamble,” she said, gesturing widely. “A high-stakes game, but a game at the core.”

  “You play games for fun.”

  She smiled now and reminded him of her grandmother. “Not the way I play them, sweetheart. These are older vines here.” She studied the rows on either side of them. The rain was dampening his hair, teasing out those reddish highlights, the color of a good aged Cabernet. “Head pruning here, then.”

  “Why?”

  She adjusted the bill of the cap. “Because.”

  “Because,” he continued, taking his pruners out of their sheath on his belt, “we want the bearing spurs distributed evenly on the head of the vine.”

  He turned her, slapped the tool in her hands. He pushed a cane aside, exposing another, then guided her hands toward it and made the cut with her. “We want the center, the top, left open. It needs room to get enough sun.”

  “What about mechanical pruning?”

  “We do that, too. You don’t.” He shifted her to the next cane. She smelled female, he decided. An exotic counterpoint to the simple perfume of rain and damp earth.

  Why the hell did she have to splash on perfume to work in the fields? He nearly asked her, realized he wouldn’t like or understand her reasons, and let it go.

  “You work by hand,” he told her, and did his level best not to breathe her in. “Cane by cane. Plant by plant. Row by row.”

  She scanned the endless stream of them, the countless vines being tended by laborers, or waiting to be tended. The pruning, she knew, would run through January, into February. She imagined herself bored senseless with the process before Christmas.