by Nora Roberts
“We break at noon,” she reminded him.
“One. You were late.”
“Not that late.” She turned her head, and her body angled into his. He was leaning over her, his arms around her so that his hands could cover hers on cane and tool. The slight shift was uncalculated. And potent.
Their eyes met, irritation in his, consideration in hers. She felt his body tense, and the tingle of response inside her own. A slightly quickened pulse, a kind of instinctive scenting of the air, and the resulting stir of juices.
“Well, well.” She all but purred it, and let her gaze skim down to his mouth, then back again. “Who’d have thought it?”
“Cut it out.” He straightened up, took a step back as a man would on finding himself unexpectedly at the edge of a very long drop. But she simply continued her turn so that their bodies brushed again. And a second step back would have marked him a coward. Or a fool.
“Don’t worry, MacMillan, you’re not my type.” Big, rough, elemental. “Usually.”
“You’re not mine.” Sharp, slick, dangerous. “Ever.”
If he’d known her better, he’d have realized such a statement wasn’t an insult to her. But a challenge. Her mild, and purely elemental, interest climbed up another level. “Really? What is?”
“I don’t like cocky, aggressive women with fancy edges.”
She grinned. “You will.” She turned back to the canes. “We’ll break at twelve-thirty.” Once again she looked over her shoulder at him. “Compromise. We’re going to have to do a lot of it to get through this season.”
“Twelve-thirty.” He pulled off his gloves, held them out to her. “Wear these. You’ll get blisters on those city-girl hands.”
“Thanks. They’re too big.”
“Make do. Tomorrow you bring your own, and you wear a hat. No, not there,” he said as she started to clip another cane.
He moved in behind her again, put his hands over hers and angled the tool correctly.
And didn’t see her slow, satisfied smile.
Despite the gloves, she got the blisters. They were more annoying than painful as she did a quick change for the afternoon in the city. Dressed and polished, she grabbed her briefcase and called out a goodbye as she dashed out the door. During the short drive to MacMillan she ran over her needs and obligations for the rest of the day. She was going to have to pack quite a bit into a very short amount of time.
She zipped up to the front entrance of the sprawling cedar-and-fieldstone house, gave two quick toots of the horn. He didn’t keep her waiting, which pleased her. And he had changed, she noted, so that counted for something. Though the denim shirt and comfortably faded jeans were a long level down from what she considered casual office wear, she decided to tackle his wardrobe later.
He opened the door of her BMW convertible, scowled at her and the ragtop. “You expect me to fold myself into this little toy?”
“It’s roomier than it looks. Come on, you’re on my time now.”
“Couldn’t you have driven one of the four-wheels?” he complained as he levered himself into the passenger seat.
He looked, she thought, like a big, cranky Jack in a very small, spiffy box. “Yes, but I didn’t. Besides, I like driving my own car.” She proved it, the minute his seat belt was secured, by punching the gas and flying down the drive.
She liked the glimpses of mountain through the rain. Like shadows behind a silver curtain. And the row upon row of naked vines, waiting, just waiting for sun and warmth to lure them into life again.
She sped past the MacMillan winery, its faded brick upholstered with vines, its gables proud and stern. It was, to her, a romantic and lovely entrance to the mysteries of the caves it guarded. Inside, as inside the winery at Giambelli, workers would be lifting, twisting the aging bottles of champagne or readying the tasting room if there was a tour or wine club scheduled for the day. Others might be transferring wine from vat to vat as it cleared and clarified.
There was work, she knew, in the buildings, in the caves, in the plants, even as the vines slept.
And, she thought, there was work for her in San Francisco.
She was racing out of the valley like a woman breaking out of jail. Ty wondered if she felt that way.
“Why is my seat warm?”
“Your what? Oh.” She glanced over, laughing. “Just my little way of warming your ass up, darling. Don’t like it?” She clicked the button, turned off the heated seat. “Our top priority,” she began, “is the centennial campaign. There are a lot of stages, some of which, like the auction earlier this week, are already implemented. Others are still on the drawing board. We’re looking for something fresh but that also honors tradition. Something classy and discreet that appeals to our high-end and/or more mature accounts, and something kicky that catches the interest of the younger and/or less affluent market.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Ty, this is something you have to understand the causes and consequences of as well. Selling the wine is every bit as essential as what you do. Otherwise, you’re just making it for yourself, aren’t you?”
He shifted, tried to find room for his legs. “Sure would be easier that way.”
“Look, you make different levels of wine. The superior grade that costs more to produce, more to bottle, more to store and so on, and your middle of the line right down to the jug wine. More goes in the process than the wine.”
“Without the wine, nothing else matters.”
“Be that as it may,” she said with what she considered heroic patience, “it’s part of my job, and now yours, to help sell those grades to the consumer. The individual consumer and the big accounts. Hotels, restaurants. To pull in the wine merchants, the brokers, and make them see they must have Giambelli, or what will now be Giambelli-MacMillan, on their list. To do that, I have to sell the package as well as what’s inside the bottle.”
“The packaging’s fluff,” he said, eyeing her deliberately. “It’s what’s inside that tips the scales.”
“That’s a very clever, and subtle, insult. You get a point. However, packaging, marketing, promotion are what up the product on the scale to begin with. With people, and with wine. Let’s stick with wine for the moment, shall we?”
His lips twitched. Her tone had gone frigid and keen, a sure sign he’d indeed scored a point. “Sure.”
“I have to make the idea of the product intriguing, exclusive, accessible, substantial, fun, sexy. So I have to know the product and there we’re on even ground. But I also have to know the account, and the market I’m targeting. That’s what you have to learn.”
“Surveys, statistics, parties, polls, meetings.”
She reached over and patted his hand. “You’ll live through it.” She paused, slowed down slightly. “Do you recognize that van?”
He frowned, squinting through the windshield as a dark, late-model minivan turned on the road up ahead into the entrance to Villa Giambelli. “No.”
“Cutter,” Sophia muttered. “I just bet it’s Cutter.”
“We could put off the trip to San Francisco and find out.”
It was tempting, and the hope in Ty’s voice amused her. Still, she shook her head and kept on driving. “No, that would make him too important. Besides, I’ll grill my mother when I get home.”
“I want in that loop.”
“For better or worse, Ty, you and I are in this together. I’ll keep you in my loop, you keep me in yours.”
It was a long way from coast to coast. It was, in some ways, another world, a world where everyone was a stranger. He’d ripped out the roots he’d managed to sink into New York concrete with the hope he could plant them here, in the hills and valleys of northern California.
If it had been that, only that, David wouldn’t have been worried. He’d have found it an adventure, a thrill, the kind of freewheeling gamble he’d have jumped at in his youth. But when a man was forty-three and had two teenagers depending on him, there was a great deal at stake.
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sp; If he’d been certain remaining with La Coeur in New York was what was best for his kids, he’d have stayed there. He’d have stifled there, trapped in the glass and steel of his office. But he’d stopped being sure when his six-teen-year-old son had been picked up for shoplifting, and his fourteen-year-old daughter had started painting her toenails black.
He’d been losing touch with his kids, and in losing touch, losing control. When the offer from Giambelli-MacMillan had fallen in his lap, it had seemed like a sign.
Take a chance. Start fresh.
God knew it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done both. But this time he did so with his kids’ happiness tossed into the ante.
“This place is in the middle of nowhere.”
David glanced in the rearview mirror at his son. Maddy had won the toss in San Francisco and sat, desperately trying to look bored, in the front seat. “How,” David asked, “can nowhere have a middle? I’ve always wondered that.”
He had the pleasure of seeing Theo smirk, the closest he came to a genuine smile these days.
He looks like his mother, David thought. A young male version of Sylvia. Which, David knew, neither Theo nor Sylvia would appreciate. They had that in common as well, both of them bound and determined to be seen as individuals.
For Sylvia, that had meant stepping out of marriage and away from motherhood. For Theo . . . time, David supposed, would tell.
“Why does it have to be raining?” Maddy slumped in her seat and tried not to let her eyes gleam with excitement as she studied the huge stone mansion in front of the car.
“Well, it has something to do with moisture gathering in the atmosphere, then—”
“Dad.” She giggled, and to David it was music.
He was going to get his children back here, whatever it took. “Let’s go meet La Signora.”
“Do we have to call her that?” Maddy rolled her eyes. “It’s so medieval.”
“Let’s start out with Ms. Giambelli and work from there. And let’s try to look normal.”
“Mad can’t. Geeks never look normal.”
“Neither do freaks.” Maddy clumped out of the car on her ugly black boots with their two-inch platforms. She stood in the rain, looking to her father like some sort of eccentric princess with her long pale hair, pouty lips and long-lashed blue eyes. Her little body—she was still such a little thing—was draped and swathed in layers of black. There were three silver chains dangling from her right ear—a compromise, as David had been terrified when she’d started campaigning to have her nose, or somewhere even more unsanitary, pierced.
Theo was a dark contrast. Tall, gangly, with his deep brown hair a curling, unkempt mass around his pretty face, straggling toward his still bony shoulders. His eyes were a softer blue, and too often for his father’s taste, clouded and unhappy.
He slouched now in jeans that were too baggy, shoes nearly as ugly as his sister’s and a jacket that sagged past his hips.
Just clothes, David reminded himself. Clothes and hair, nothing permanent. Hadn’t his own parents nagged him into rebellion about his personal style when he’d been a teenager? And hadn’t he promised himself he wouldn’t do the same with his kids?
But God, he wished they’d at least wear clothes that fit.
He walked up the wide fan of steps, then stood in front of the deeply carved front door of the villa and dragged a hand through his own thick, dark blond hair.
“What’s the matter, Dad? Nervous?”
There was a smirk in his son’s voice, just enough of one to strain the wire holding David’s composure together. “Give me a break, okay?”
Theo opened his mouth, a sarcastic retort on the tip of his tongue. But he caught the warning look his sister gave him and saw his father’s strained expression. “Hey, you can handle her.”
“Sure.” Maddy shrugged. “She’s just an old Italian woman, right?”
With a half-laugh, David punched his finger to the buzzer. “Right.”
“Wait, I gotta get my normal face on.” Theo put his hands on his face, shoving, pulling at the skin, drawing his eyes down, twisting his mouth. “I can’t find it.”
David hooked an arm around his neck, and the other around Maddy’s. They were going to be all right, he thought, and held on. They were going to be fine.
“I’ll get it, Maria!” Pilar dashed down the foyer, a spray of white roses in her arms.
When she opened the door she saw a tall man holding two children in headlocks. All three of them were grinning.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
Not an old Italian woman, David thought as he hastily released his children. Just a beautiful woman, with surprise in her eyes and roses lying in the crook of her arm. “I’m here to see Ms. Giambelli.”
Pilar smiled, scanned the faces of the boy and girl to include them. “There are so many of us.”
“Tereza Giambelli. I’m David Cutter.”
“Oh. Mr. Cutter. I’m sorry.” She held out a hand for his. “I didn’t realize you were expected today.” Or that you had a family, she thought. Her mother hadn’t been forthcoming with details. “Please come in. I’m Pilar. Pilar Giambelli . . .” She nearly added her married name, a force of habit. Then determinedly let it go. “La Signora’s daughter.”
“Do you call her that?” Maddy asked.
“Sometimes. When you meet her, you’ll see why.”
“Madeline, my daughter. My son, Theodore.”
“Theo,” Theo mumbled.
“I’m delighted to meet you. Theo. And Madeline.”
“Maddy, okay?”
“Maddy. Come into the parlor. There’s a nice fire. I’ll arrange for some refreshments if that suits you. Such a nasty day. I hope it wasn’t a terrible trip.”
“Not so bad.”
“Endless,” Maddy corrected. “Awful.” But she stared at the room when they entered. It was like a palace, she thought. Like a picture in a book, where everything was in rich colors and looked old and precious.
“I bet it was. Let me have your coats.”
“They’re wet,” David began, but she simply plucked them out of his hand and draped them over her free arm.
“I’ll take care of them. Please, sit, make yourselves at home. I’ll let my mother know you’re here and see about something hot to drink. Would you like coffee, Mr. Cutter?”
“I absolutely would, Ms. Giambelli.”
“So would I.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said to Maddy and had her sulking again.
“A latte, perhaps?”
“That’s cool. I mean,” she corrected when her father’s elbow reminded her of her manners, “yes, thank you.”
“And, Theo?”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you.”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
“Man.” Theo waited until Pilar was safely out of the room, then plopped into a chair. “They must be mega-rich. This place looks like a museum or something.”
“Don’t put your boots up on that,” David ordered.
“It’s a footstool,” Theo pointed out.
“Once you put feet into those boots they cease to be feet.”
“Chill, Dad.” Maddy gave him a bracing, and distressingly adult, pat on the back. “You’re like COO and everything.”
“Right.” From executive vice president, operations, to chief operating officer, in one three-thousand-mile leap. “Bullets bounce off me,” he murmured, then turned toward the doorway when he heard footsteps.
He started to tell his kids to stand up, but he didn’t have to bother. When Tereza Giambelli walked into a room, people got to their feet.
He’d forgotten she was so petite. They’d had two meetings in New York, face-to-face. Two long, involved meetings. And still he’d walked away from them with the image of a statuesque Amazon rather than the fine-boned, slim woman who walked toward him now. The hand she offered him was small and strong.
“Mr. Cutter. Welcome to Villa Giambelli.”
“Thank you, signora. You have a beautiful home in a magnificent setting. My family and I are grateful for your hospitality.”
Pilar stepped into the room in time to hear the smooth speech and see the practiced formality with which it was delivered. It was not, she thought, what she’d expected from the man holding two travel-rumpled teenagers in playful headlocks. Not, she decided, noting the sidelong glances from his children, what they were used to from him.
“I hope the trip wasn’t tedious,” Tereza continued, shifting her attention to the children.
“Not at all. We enjoyed it. Signora Giambelli, I’d like to introduce you to my children. My son, Theodore, and my daughter, Madeline.”
“Welcome to California.” She offered her hand to Theo, and though he felt foolish, he shook it and resisted sticking his own in his pocket.
“Thanks.”
Maddy accepted the hand. “It’s nice to be here.”
“You hope it will be,” Tereza said with a hint of a smile. “That’s enough for now. Please, sit. Be comfortable. Pilar, you’ll join us.”
“Of course.”
“You must be proud of your father,” Tereza began as she took a seat. “And all he’s accomplished.”
“Ah . . . sure.” Theo sat, remembered not to slouch. He didn’t know much about his father’s work. In his world, his dad went to the office, then came home. He nagged about schoolwork, burned dinner, sent for takeout.
Or, mostly during the last year, had called home and said he’d be late and Theo or Maddy should call for takeout.
“Theo’s more interested in music than wine, or the business of wine,” David commented.
“Ah. And you play?”
This was his father’s deal, Theo thought. How come he had to answer so many questions? Adults didn’t get it anyway. “Guitar. And piano.”
“You must play for me sometime. I enjoy music. What sort do you prefer?”
“There’s just rock. I go for techno, and alternative.”
“Theo writes music,” David put in, and surprised a blink out of his son. “It’s interesting material.”
“I’d like to hear it once everyone’s settled. And you,” Tereza said to Maddy. “Do you play?”