Then had come the dress. It had been too late for another selection when she’d realized that what was a decent hemline on Jules’s five-foot-three was borderline va-vava-voom on a woman who had nearly six more inches of leg.
And to be honest, she’d hoped Emerson would eat his heart out.
And that Jack would notice.
Now she edged the spaghetti strap up the slope of her shoulder, feeling like Little Red Riding Hood trekking through the forest, sans cape. The wolf wore European prince’s clothing.
“I couldn’t eat a bite tonight,” he said, his voice soft.
Her feet shuffled back. “Not hungry?”
“Starving for something else.”
She was in his arms again.
She was burning up again.
But he didn’t touch her lips. Instead, his mouth went straight to the side of her throat, sliding down all the bare flesh revealed by the low neckline. Her fingers slid into his hair as his mouth traced her collarbone. She shivered, and the slender strap fell off her shoulder.
His hot mouth explored new territory and she clutched his head, shivering again. The satin fabric fell farther, revealing one sheer cup of her nude-colored strapless bra. He pulled that low and then his head dipped. Wet heat surrounded her nipple.
She bowed into the delicious suction as he plumped her breast into his hand and sucked harder.
Air moved, light shifted, a voice said, “What’s taking -”
Stevie’s head whipped toward the now-open pantry door. Emerson stood in the opening, and beyond him she could see the stunned faces of the rest of the party gathered at the table.
Oh, hell. It was a different kind of heat that rose along her neck as Jack straightened, his hand casually drawing up her bra and dress at the same time. He clasped her shoulder over the strap so it wouldn’t slide again.
Barn door, horse.
Oh, wasn’t she full of animal metaphors tonight? But clearly everyone had already seen Jack getting up close and personal with her … person. Damn it! What must they be thinking of her? Jack’s reputation was already in smoking tatters, apparently, but now she knew her own approval rating would plunge further in their eyes. The Platts had never considered her good enough for their golden boy, but now they’d doubly bless his escape from her.
Red-faced, she started to shuffle away from Jack, but he moved along with her until they were both at the pantry threshold. Emerson fell back as they reentered the dining room.
The best thing about this, she thought, as her gaze ran around the appalled expressions at the table, was that no one would protest now if she cut the evening short. After being caught canoodling with the shady Jack, that wasn’t too much to hope for.
The Platts would likely never look her in the eye again.
Clearing her throat, she fumbled for the right sort of good-bye. “Uh, I…”
Jack’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “Let me handle this, mon anqe.”
Some instinct caused her to shoot him a look. His gaze was trained on his sister. “You can be the first to congratulate me,” he said, a charming smile breaking over his face.
“Stevie’s just agreed to be my wife.”
*****
To Stevie, turtle wax smelled like trouble. Likely because she uncapped her tub of the stuff every time she had a problem. Her little sister, Allie, turned to the stove and Giuliana buried herself in paperwork, but nothing calmed the middle Baci sister more than rubbing a gleaming finish on one of the three limos in her stable.
But today, she wasn’t convinced a morning of wax-on, wax-off would put her in a Zen state of mind.
Still, she had to occupy her hands with something, because strangling a certain someone wouldn’t unravel the current tangle she found herself in. Though it was tempting to try.
Her arm aching, she paused to glare at Jack as he worked in the pocket-sized vineyard across the highway. He’d shown up in a ratty T-shirt and jeans early in the day and had been toiling among the neglected vines for hours, raking dead leaves and withered fruit into piles at the end of each row.
She could cave and approach him herself, but this damn problem was his fault and she figured it was his responsibility to find a dignified way out of it. At the Platts the night before, she’d blown her moment. Appalled by his statement, she’d been too flabbergasted to speak up and refute his claim right away. It was just a big joke, she should have said. So-ha ha - funny.
A mix of frustration and gloom rose inside her and she placed her wrist on the limo’s hood and rested her forehead on her throbbing arm.
“You have any aspirin and water?” a voice asked.
Her head lifted. “You,” she said, glaring at the Ardenian prince. He didn’t look very aristocratic at the moment, though, with his hair wet with the sweat that stuck his shirt to his torso. He blotted more from his brow with his forearm, leaving a muddy streak that made him appear more valley farmer than royal foreigner.
It also made him appear more accessible, she mused, and then her mind wandered off, imagining her access to the hard chest muscles she could see rippling from nipple line to his waist thanks to the shirt plastered to his skin. It was a shame they didn’t inhabit the same league, because his body -
“Aspirin?” he asked again.
She shook herself, emerging out of the sexual fog he cast over her much too easily. “Does something hurt?”
“For you,” he said. “You look like you hurt.”
Better than looking like he turned her on, she supposed. “Yeah? Well, guess the source of my pain.”
He grinned, his teeth white against the reddish Edenville dust darkening his skin. “Mon anqe, is that any way to talk to your fiancé?”
The angel thing put her over the edge. “Fiancé! What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded.
“It was your idea -”
“Mine?” Outrage made her voice rise.
He winced at the volume. “Calm down. I was trying to salvage a little bit of my rep - you know, make us out to be a pair of romantic, impetuous lovers instead of lust-crazed dinner guests. For Roxy’s sake, I didn’t want the Platts thinking I’m the kind of man who would seduce a near-stranger in their butler’s pantry.”
“Jack.” Temper tightened her throat. “You are the kind of man who would seduce a near-stranger in their butler’s pantry.”
He shrugged, apparently unashamed.
“No one will believe it.”
“Sure they will,” he replied. “Ask around. People fall for other people and get engaged - and even married - in haste all the time. Took my father three days to get his ring on my mother’s hand.”
“Yes, but people discuss these things first. Together.”
“Sorry.” He said it with another of his careless smiles. “It was an impulse. Don’t you ever do anything impulsive?”
Kissing him in the Tanti Baci winery offices had been an impulse. Letting him kiss her in the Platts’ butler’s pantry had been madness. She shook her head, disgusted with the both of them. There was no pride in being a slave to desire.
“I really could use some water,” he said. “You have any?”
She gestured with her thumb toward the shed a few yards away that held her cleaning supplies and other equipment. “Red cooler inside. Help yourself.”
As he walked away, she leaned against the limo in order to be comfortable as she contemplated her disordered life as well as the view inside her closed eyelids. The sound of tires on asphalt had her lifting her lashes again. She groaned, watching Giuliana brake behind the Caddie and get out of her car.
No way was Stevie going to introduce Jack as the man she was going to marry, but she was afraid he might do just that if he emerged from the shed before Jules left. Wouldn’t that just tighten the tangle? Hurrying toward her sister, Stevie plastered on an innocent smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Just a brief stop on my way to meet Kohl at the hardware store. The lights in the wine caves keep shorting out and we
’re going to -” She broke off. “What’s wrong? Why do you look so guilty? Did you get something on my dress?”
Oh, if only it was a stain. “No, no.”
“Good,” Jules said. “I take it you survived the dinner last night, then?”
“You could call it survival,” she muttered.
Jules frowned. “I know it’s hard, all of this, since you still have that thing for Emerson.”
“I do not have a thing for Emerson,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I know you, and -”
“You don’t know me!” Stevie was aware her frustration was due to lack of sleep, not to mention irritation with Jack and the screwed-up circumstances, but that didn’t stop her from flinging the words at her sister.
Unflappable Jules didn’t blink. “I know you didn’t want to get involved in the winery business, so I’m even more grateful that you’re doing this.”
Guilt gave her a hefty pinch. “I don’t need your gratitude. I said I’d do it.”
“Yes, but before now you’ve always done your own thing.”
Stevie swallowed, more agitated than she wanted to reveal. “We’re still the Three Mouseketeers, though.” As little girls, they’d been a triumvirate of sisterhood in Disneyland Minnie ears and capes they fashioned from their mother’s aprons tied around their necks.
“More like two mice and a shadow,” Jules corrected. “Admit it, after Mom died, you distanced yourself, always going off with Zinnia and Man Friday or that pack of boys you ran around with.”
With her two girlfriends, she’d only gone as far as Alonzo and Anne’s cottage, where they’d read books and spun fantasies to escape what they didn’t like in their real worlds. The boys had served their own purpose. As long as she could shag a ball or skateboard down the school steps, they accepted her without questions. Not one asked her about her feelings. They didn’t probe to discover if she missed her mother.
But she had. Desperately.
“Once Mom was gone…” She shook her head, loathe even now to reveal how lonely she’d been. What did it matter? “We all found a way to cope. Allie had you. You had Liam.”
“Liam.” Jules looked down. “I suppose grief explains what happened. I was in a low place and he took advantage -”
“Bullshit,” an angry voice said.
The sisters both started. Uh-oh, Stevie thought, catching sight of the oldest
Bennett brother skirting the back of Giuliana’s car. Incoming!
“Are you spying on us?” Jules demanded.
“Christ, you’re paranoid,” Liam remarked. “I have something for Stevie.”
Her older sister slammed her arms across her chest. “Where’s your car?”
“Across the street. At a property I recently acquired.”
The property Jack had been clearing all morning. Craning her neck, Stevie saw he was back at it. Sometime during her conversation with her sister, he must have decamped from her side of the road. Good.
‘At a property I recently acquired,’ “ Jules repeated, her tone mocking. ”Good God, could you get more pompous?”
Steam appeared to come out of Liam’s ears and his hands fisted at his sides. “I won’t say what I think you are.”
Stevie shot another look in Jack’s direction. He’d decamped from her side of the road, leaving her alone with two enemy combatants. Bad.
“Go ahead,” Jules urged her childhood sweetheart, tapping her toe. “Be honest.”
“Honest is…” He halted to take in a deep breath, then relaxed his fingers and shook out his arms. The air he’d held chuffed out. “Jules, after your mother passed away … nothing that happened between us when we were kids…”
Stevie averted her eyes, because the moment seemed private. Painful.
“I never took advantage of you and your sorrow,” he said. “You turned to me. We … Tell me you understand that.”
At Jules’s long silence, Stevie squirmed. Then her sister squared her shoulders and marched toward the driver’s door of her car. Which took her right by Liam.
“Giuliana.” He caught her elbow.
“Don’t touch me.”
Stevie winced, reading the flash of pain on the man’s face and the abject fury on her sister’s. Like the fires of hell, Jules’s temper burned deep and hot, and Liam had to know that the woman could carry a grudge into eternity. But the secret to understanding her big sister was that she only became very angry when she was very afraid.
Liam terrified Giuliana.
He dropped her arm and turned to Stevie. “I’ve got something for you,” he said, his voice calm, his expression cold and remote. All hallmarks of his personality that her fiery Italian sister claimed to despise the most. Renewed fury radiated off Jules as she continued to stand by her car.
The chicken, the egg. The dog, the tail. Jules and Liam seemed locked in an unbreakable circle.
He dug in his pocket and withdrew a key that was attached by wire to a small circle of cardboard. “Seth told you about this, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” But in all the craziness of the past few days, she’d forgotten completely. “The treasure.”
“Treasure?” Jules stepped forward.
Stevie summarized. “The key - that attached tag says ‘Baci’ on it - was found among Liam’s dad’s things. It doesn’t seem to fit anything in the Bennett household, so Seth’s hypothesizing that maybe it’s the key to the treasure.” Was it wrong of her to feel a little thrill at the idea? She’d only been daydreaming about it since she was too small to tie her own shoes.
“There’s no treasure,” Jules scoffed.
“Well, probably not,” Stevie conceded. “But it could be fun to poke around -”
“We don’t have time to waste on pipe dreams, and why Seth would suggest ..” She turned her gaze on Liam, her eyes narrowed.
Stevie resisted the urge to duck.
“Is this some Bennett plot to put Tanti Baci out of business?”
It really was an unfair accusation, Stevie thought, wincing again. The Bennetts were silent partners in the winery, meaning they all had something to lose if it went under. Of course, unlike the Baci family, the Bennetts did have other stable and solid financial ventures.
Liam appeared to be carved from ice and he regarded his first love as if she was an ant crawling across his shoe. “Tanti Baci is going down all by itself,” he said, “unless you get things straightened out, little girl.”
Tears of … rage sparked in Giuliana’s eyes and she spun around to the car door.
Liam’s cool façade shattered and he reached for it, too. “Jules. Sweetheart…”
Stupefied, Stevie watched them fight for control of the handle. Should she help her sister escape or insist that she stay and finally have it out with Liam? Still undecided, she drew back as a truck jolted into the driveway.
Kohl Friday jumped out and, in the space of a breath, yanked Liam away from Giuliana’s side. They faced each other, two men, one dark-haired and massive, the other tall, lean, and blond. Both angry.
“What are you doing here?” they demanded of each other at the same time.
Stevie sent a longing glance across the street. Her royal fiancé confused her - what compelled a spoiled man accustomed to the wild life to attend to such backbreaking work? - but suddenly he seemed a whole lot less complicated than the trouble on her side of the road.
Then He Kissed Me
7
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Jack was surprised by how popular this little corner of Edenville had become when his sister pulled up in her Mercedes sedan. He straightened as she approached, thinking she hadn’t changed from the little blond pest she’d been since the day she was born. Always following him.
Always following his lead. His smile died.
A frown puckered Roxy’s forehead as she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek and he pulled away. “Believe me,” he told her, “you
don’t want to get that close to a man who’s been sweating all morning.”
Her gaze ran over him. “I see that.” She stepped back to take in the two-acre plot. “Liam’s making you work for your keep? There’s an open room near mine at the Valley Ridge Resort. I hear they take credit cards instead of manual labor in payment.”
He shook his head. “This is my own idea. Just something to pass the time until I see you safely married.”
Roxy turned her head, her gaze focusing on the business across the highway and the knot of people congregated there. Stevie stood apart from the others, wearing another pair of tissue-thin jeans and a loose thermal shirt, an outfit miles apart from the shiny scrap of fabric she’d worn the night before.
“Maybe now I see the attraction,” Jack’s sister said, her face breaking into a smile. “Engaged! I was right, after all. You really do like her, huh?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t bear to bring down her bright mood by telling the truth. “I guess Stevie and I surprised the dinner party last night.”
She laughed. “It was better than double desserts, at least from my point of view.”
“Well, your future in-laws seemed to see me in a somewhat kinder light after the announcement.”
Her fingers toyed with a button on her pale blue parka, as if she couldn’t keep them still. “They’ve known Stevie forever, it seems. I’m not sure they thought she’d make a good political wife, but -”
“About that, Rox,” Jack said, watching his sister’s nervous movements. “Is that what you want to be? A good political wife?”
“I want to be married to Emerson.” Her chin lifted. “I’m in love with Emerson.”
“I know that, ma belle.” He hesitated. “But you never mentioned Emerson’s aspirations before. You must realize a political life is a lot of pressure. Things you can’t control…”
He hated having to mention it and would rather cut off his own arm than issue the warning. His sister’s vulnerabilities were his fault, his own damn fault, and it tore at him that they had limited her for so long. Less than a year ago she’d turned a corner and he’d do what he had to - anything, everything - in order to ensure she’d achieve her heart’s desire.
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