The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  “I had piano lessons.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not really into it. I want to be a scientist.” Her brother’s snort had her temper rising.

  “Maddy’s interested in everything.” David spoke quickly before blood could be shed. “The high school here, from what I’ve been told, should speak to both her and Theo’s specific interests very well.”

  “Arts and science.” Tereza leaned back. “They take after their father then, as wine is both. I assume you’ll want a few days to settle in,” she continued as a cart was wheeled in. “A new position, a new location, new people. And, of course, a new school and routine for your family.”

  “Dad says it’s an adventure,” Maddy said and earned a stately nod from Tereza.

  “And we’ll try to make it so.”

  “I’m at your disposal, signora,” David said, and watched Pilar as she rose to serve coffees and cakes. “I appreciate, again, the use of your guest house. I’m sure settling in will be a pleasure.”

  Because he was watching her, he caught the quick widening of Pilar’s eyes. So, he thought, that one comes as a surprise to you. I wonder why. “Thanks.”

  “Enjoy,” Pilar murmured.

  When the coffee was served, they fell into light conversation. David followed Tereza’s lead and left business out of it. Time enough, he concluded, to get to the meat.

  In precisely twenty minutes, Tereza got to her feet. “I regret my husband was unavailable to see you today, and meet your charming children. Would it be convenient for you to meet with us tomorrow?”

  “At your convenience, signora.” David rose.

  “At eleven then. Pilar, will you show the Cutters the guest house, and see they have all they need?”

  “Certainly. I’ll just get our coats.”

  What the hell was this? Pilar wondered as she retrieved jackets. Normally she had her finger on the pulse of the household. Yet her mother had managed to slip an entire family in on her without sending up a single alarm.

  So many changes, and practically overnight. It was time she paid more attention, she decided. She didn’t care for the order of things to change when she wasn’t prepared for it.

  Still, she conversed easily when she returned and geared herself up to play gracious hostess. “It’s a short drive. An easy walk really, in good weather.”

  “Winter rain’s good for the grapes.” David took her jacket, helped her into it.

  “Yes. So I’m reminded whenever I complain about the wet.” She stepped outside. “There’s a direct line from house to house, so you’ve only to call if you need anything or have a question. Our housekeeper’s Maria, and there’s nothing she can’t do. Thank you,” she added when David opened the side door of the van for her.

  “You’ll have wonderful views,” she added, shifting around to speak to the children when they climbed in the back. “From whichever bedrooms you choose. And there’s a pool. Of course, you won’t be able to enjoy that just now, but you’re welcome to use the indoor pool here at the main house whenever you like.”

  “An indoor pool?” Theo’s mood brightened. “Cool.”

  “That doesn’t mean you drop in wearing your bathing trunks whenever you feel like it,” his father warned. “You don’t want to give them the run of the house, Ms. Giambelli. You’ll be in therapy in a week.”

  “Hasn’t worked for you,” Theo shot back.

  “We’ll enjoy having young people around. And it’s Pilar, please.”

  “David.”

  Behind their backs, Maddy turned to her brother and fluttered her lashes wildly.

  “David. Just take the left fork. You can see the house there. It’s a pretty place, and the rain gives it a bit of a fairy-tale aspect.”

  “Is that it?” Suddenly interested, Theo leaned up. “It’s pretty big.”

  “Four bedrooms. Five baths. There’s a lovely living room, but the kitchen/ great room is friendlier, I think. Anybody cook?”

  “Dad pretends to,” Maddy said. “And we pretend to eat it.”

  “Smart-ass. Do you?” David asked Pilar. “Cook?”

  “Yes, and very well, but rarely. Well, perhaps your wife will enjoy the kitchen when she joins you.”

  The instant and absolute silence had Pilar cringing inside.

  “I’m divorced.” David pulled up in front of the house. “It’s just the three of us. Let’s check it out. We’ll get the stuff later.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Pilar murmured when the kids bolted from the van. “I shouldn’t have assumed—”

  “Natural assumption. A man, a couple of kids. You expect the full family complement. Don’t worry about it.” He patted her hand casually, then reached across to open her door. “You know, they’re going to have to fight over the bedrooms. I hope you don’t mind screaming scenes.”

  “I’m Italian,” was all she said and stepped out into the rain.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Italian, David thought later. And gorgeous. Aloof and gracious at the same time. Not an easy trick. In that area, she was her mother’s daughter.

  He knew how to read people, an invaluable trick of the trade in the climb up the slippery executive ladder in any major corporation. His read of Pilar Giambelli was that she was as accustomed to giving orders as she was to taking them.

  He knew she was married, and to whom, but since she hadn’t been wearing a ring he assumed the marriage to the infamous Tony Avano was over, or in serious trouble. He’d have to find out which before he let himself consider her on a more personal level.

  There was a daughter. Anyone in the business had heard of Sophia Giambelli. A firecracker by reputation who had style and ambition in spades. He’d be meeting her along the way, and wondered just how she’d taken to his induction as COO. Might have to play some politics there, he mused, and reached for the cigarettes in his pocket. Only to remember they weren’t there because he’d quit three weeks and five days earlier.

  And it was killing him.

  Think about something else, he ordered himself, and tuned in to the music played at a brutal volume in his son’s new room. Thank God it was at the other end of the hall.

  There’d been the expected combat over bedrooms. Still, his kids had been fairly restrained all in all. He put that down to reluctant manners in front of a stranger. In any case the squabble had been out of habit and without real heat as every room in the house was appealing.

  Damn near perfect, he thought, with its gleaming wood and tile, silky walls and lush furnishings.

  The perfection, the casually elegant style, the absolute order of things gave him the willies. But he expected the kids would soon put that to rights. Tidy they weren’t. So however polished the box, the contents would soon be jumbled and they’d all feel more at home.

  Already weary of unpacking, he wandered to one of the windows and stared out over the fields. Pilar was right. The view was stunning. This was part of his turf now. He intended to leave his mark.

  Down the hall Maddy wandered out of her room. She’d tried to act casual about it after arguing with Theo over who got what. The fact was she was thrilled. For the first time in her life she didn’t have to share a bathroom with her idiot brother. And hers was done in this cool pattern of dark blues and deep reds. Big splashy flowers, so she imagined taking a bath there would be like swimming in some weird garden.

  Plus she had a huge four-poster bed. She’d locked the door so she could roll all over it in privacy.

  Then she’d remembered that she wouldn’t see New York when she looked out the windows, or be able to call one of her friends and hang out. She wouldn’t be able to walk to the movies whenever she felt like it. She wouldn’t be able to do anything she was used to doing.

  Homesickness had settled so hot and heavy in her belly it ached. The only person she could talk to was Theo. It was the poorest of choices, in her opinion, but the only one left.

  She pushed open his door to a blast of the Chemical Brothers. He was lying on his bed, his gui
tar across his chest as he tried to match the guitar riff blasting on his stereo. The room was already in chaos, as she imagined it would stay until he moved out to go to college.

  He was such a pig.

  “You’re supposed to be unpacking.”

  “You’re supposed to mind your own business.”

  She flopped, stomach down, on the foot of his bed. “There’s nothing to do here.”

  “You just figuring that out?”

  “Maybe Dad’ll hate it, and we’ll go home.”

  “No chance. Did you see how he slicked up for the old lady?” Because he felt homesick, too, he set his guitar aside and opted to speak to the bane of his existence. “What’s up with that?”

  “He sounded like something out of a movie. You know how he looks when he puts on one of his suits for a meeting?” She rolled over on her back. “He sounded like he looks then. Nothing’s going to be the same now. He was looking at that woman.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Pilar woman. What kind of a name is that?”

  “I guess it’s Italian or something. What do you mean looking at her?”

  “You know. Scoping her out.”

  “Get out.”

  “Man, guys don’t notice anything.” Feeling superior, she sat up, tossed back her hair. “He was checking her out.”

  “So what?” Theo gave a little jerk of the body, a horizontal shrug. “He’s checked out women before. Hey, I bet he’s even had sex with some of them.”

  “Gee, you think?” While the sarcasm dripped, she pushed off the bed to pace to the window. Rain and vines, vines and rain. “Maybe if he has sex with his boss’s daughter, he’ll get caught, he’ll get fired, and we’ll go back home.”

  “Home where? He loses his job, we’ve got no place to go. Grow up, Maddy.”

  She hunched her shoulders. “This sucks.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Ty was thinking the same thing about life in general as Sophia whipped him into a meeting—a brainstorming session, she called it. She’d rattled off names at him as she’d zipped through the advertising section. Gesturing, calling out orders and greetings, snatching up messages as she went.

  He remembered none of the names, of course, and the faces had all been a blur as he’d kept pace with Sophia. The woman moved like a linebacker with an intercepted ball in her hand. Fast and slick.

  There were three other people in the room now, all what he thought of as Urban Warriors with their trendy clothes and trendy hair and little wire-rim glasses and electronic palm books. Two were female, one was male. All were young and handsome. He couldn’t for the life of him remember who was who, as they’d all had androgynous names.

  He had some kind of fancy coffee in his hand he hadn’t wanted and everyone was talking at once and munching on biscotti.

  He was getting a killer headache.

  “No, Kris, what I’m looking for is subtle but powerful. A strong image with an emotional message. Trace, quick sketch: couple—young, casual, late twenties. Relaxing on a porch. Sexual, but keep it casual.”

  Since the man with the blond choppy hair picked up the pencil and sketch pad, Ty assumed he was Trace.

  “It’s sunset,” Sophia continued, rising from her desk to wander the room. “End of day. This is a working couple, no kids, upwardly mobile, but settled.”

  “Porch swing,” the perky black woman in a red vest suggested.

  “Too settled. Too country. Wicker love seat, maybe,” Sophia said. “Strong color in the cushions. Candles on the table. Fat ones, not tapers.”

  She leaned over Trace’s shoulder, made humming noises. “Good, good, but do it this way. Have them looking at each other, maybe have her leg swung over his knees. Friendly intimacy. Roll up his sleeves, put her in jeans, no, in khakis.”

  She sat on the edge of her desk, lips pursed as she pondered. “I want them to be having a conversation. Relaxed, having a moment. Enjoying each other’s company after a busy day.”

  “What if one of them’s pouring the wine. Holding the bottle.”

  “We’ll try that. You want to sketch that one out, P.J.?”

  With a nod perky P.J., as Ty now thought of her, picked up her pad.

  “You should have water.” The second woman, a redhead who looked bored and annoyed, stifled a yawn.

  “I see we’ve interrupted Kris’s nap,” Sophia said sweetly, and Ty caught the quick, simmering glare under the redhead’s lowered lashes.

  “Suburban scenes bore me. At least water adds an element, and subliminal sexuality.”

  “Kris wants water.” Sophia nodded, pushed to her feet to wander the room while she considered. “Water’s good. A pond, a lake. We can get good light from that. Reflections. Take a look, Ty. What do you think?”

  He did his best to tune back in and look intelligent as Trace turned his sketch around. “I don’t know anything about advertising. It’s a nice sketch.”

  “You look at ads,” Sophia reminded him. “All the time, whether you consciously take in the message or not. What does this say to you?”

  “It says they’re sitting on the porch drinking wine. Why can’t they have kids?”

  “Why should they?”

  “You got a couple, on a porch. Porch usually means house. Why can’t they have kids?”

  “Because we don’t want young kids in an ad for an alcoholic beverage,” Kris said, with a hint of a sneer in her voice. “Advertising 101.”

  “Evidence of kids then. You know, some toys on the porch. Then it says these people have a family, have been together awhile and are still happy to sit on the porch together and have a glass of wine at the end of the day. That’s sexy.”

  Kris started to open her mouth, then noted the gleam come into Sophia’s eyes. And wisely closed it again.

  “That’s good. That’s excellent,” Sophia said. “Even better for this one. Toss toys on the porch, Trace. Keep the wine bottle on the table with the candles. Here’s our cozy yet hip suburban couple.

  “Celebrate the sunset,” she murmured. “It’s your moment. Relax with Giambelli. It’s your wine.”

  “More cozy than hip,” Kris muttered.

  “We use an urban setting for hip. Two couples, friends getting together for an evening. Apartment scene. Keep them young, keep them slick. Show me the city out the window. Lights and silhouettes.”

  “Coffee table,” P.J. put in, already sketching. “A couple of them sitting on the floor. The others lounging on the couch, everybody talking at once. You can almost hear music playing. Food scattered on the table. Takeout. This is where we pour the wine.”

  “Good, perfect. Celebrate Tuesday. Same tags.”

  “Why Tuesday?” Ty wanted to know in spite of himself.

  “Because you never make big plans for Tuesday.” Sophia slid onto the edge of the desk again, crossed her legs. “You make plans for the weekend. You fall into plans otherwise. Tuesday night with friends is spontaneous. We want people to pick up a bottle of our wine on the spur. Just because it’s Tuesday. Your moment, your wine. That’s the pitch.”

  “The wine’s Giambelli-MacMillan.”

  She nodded. “Correct. We need to identify that as well within the campaign. A wedding. Celebrate our marriage. Champagne, flowers, a gorgeous couple.”

  “Honeymoon’s sexier,” Trace commented as he refined his other sketch. “Same elements, but in a snazzy hotel room. Wedding dress hanging on the door and our couple in a lip lock with champagne on ice.”

  “If they’re in a lip lock, they’re not going to be thinking about drinking,” Ty said.

  “Good point. Hold the kiss, but the rest is great. Show me . . .” Her hands began to move. “Anticipation. Silk, flowers, and put the flutes in their hands. Give me eye lock instead of lip lock. Go, my children, and create magic. See what you can get me in the next few hours. Think: Moments. The special and the ordinary.”

  She recrossed her legs as her team headed out, talking over one another. “Not bad,
MacMillan. Not bad at all.”

  “Good. Can we go home now?”

  “No. I’ve got a lot of stuff to deal with here, and more to pack up in order to set up an office at the villa. Can you draw?”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s a plus.” She scooted off the desk to cross over and dig a sketch pad from a wall of shelves.

  There were a lot of things on the shelves, Ty noted. Not just business junk, but the knickknacks people, particularly female people, in his opinion, seemed to collect. Leading the pack of the dust catchers were frogs. Little green frogs, larger bronze frogs, dancing frogs, fashionably dressed frogs and what appeared to be mating frogs.

  They didn’t seem to jibe with the sleekly dressed woman who bulleted down office corridors on high heels and smelled like a night in the forest.

  “Looking for a prince?”

  “Hmm?” She glanced back, following his gesture. “Oh. No, princes are too high-maintenance. I just like frogs. Here’s what I see. A kind of montage. The vineyards, the sweep of them in the sunlight. Vines pregnant with grapes. A solitary figure walking through the rows. Then close up, enormous baskets of grapes, just harvested.”

  “We don’t use baskets.”

  “Work with me here, Ty. Simplicity, accessibility, tradition. Gnarled hands holding the basket. Then on to the casks, rows and rows of wooden casks, dim light of the caves. The mystery, the romance. A couple of interesting-looking guys in work clothes drawing out the free flow. We’ll use red, a lovely spill of red wine out of a cask. Then different workers tasting, testing. Then finally a bottle. Maybe two glasses and a corkscrew beside it.

  “From vine to table. A hundred years of excellence. No, from our vines to your table.” Her brow furrowed as she pictured the ad in her mind. “We lead with the hundred years of excellence, then the montage, and below: From our vines to your table. The Giambelli-MacMillan tradition continues.”

  She turned back to him, looked over his shoulder, then let out a snort. He’d been sketching while she talked, and the result was circles and stick men and a lopsided column she supposed was a bottle of red.

  “You said you could draw.”

  “I didn’t say I could draw well.”