Brenna and her sisters had never been all that interested in the feud. Nic hadn’t been, either, which he’d proved the first time she’d met him. But to her grandparents—hostilities were alive and well.
“There’s a certain irony to this conversation,” she admitted. “I would think that appealed to you.”
He studied her. Brenna would like to know what he saw, but on second thought—maybe not. She was still recovering from a disastrous, impulsive haircut. Several months at the family hacienda eating her grandmothers’ cooking had added seven pounds to her already plentiful curves. She thought the suit she’d chosen looked pretty good on her, but was that enough? She’d come a long way from the seventeen-year-old who had promised to love Nic with her whole heart; but the question was, would he consider the changes good or bad?
“Rumor has it I’m a ruthless bastard,” he said casually.
“I’ve heard. Should I be scared?”
“You tell me.”
She could remember everything about being with Nic—the way he touched her, the way he kissed, the scent of his skin. She knew the boy he had been, but not the man. What was the same and what had changed? Or did it matter?
Ruthless bastard or not, she wanted the money.
“I don’t scare easily these days.” She pushed the proposal toward him. “Look it over and tell me what you think.”
He rested his hand on the leather cover but didn’t open it. “How much?”
The butterflies appeared in her stomach and began to fly in formation. She thought they might be practicing touch-and-go landings. Her mouth got dry, her palms got wet, and the room lurched once for good measure.
“A million dollars.”
Nic didn’t react in any way—at least not on the outside. He didn’t blink, didn’t shift in his seat; he didn’t even smile. But on the inside, his mild amusement and intrigue turned to impressed amazement. Brenna had gone and got herself some balls.
He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and fingered the bills. “You want that in twenties?”
“I’m not in a position to be picky. Twenties are fine.”
“I don’t think I have that much with me today.”
“Bummer.”
She watched him, her big eyes betraying her nervousness. She was at the end of the line and they both knew it. If he turned her down, she wouldn’t get her loan. Any dreams of starting her own label would be squashed. Oh, sure, she could buy a few tons of grapes on the open market, borrow equipment, and set up a few dozen cheap barrels in a garage somewhere. She might get a loyal following, a little notice, maybe a write-up in Wine Spectator. But without an infusion of cash, she would never have the chance to make it big.
Not that he gave a damn about that. What mattered to him were his goals. How did her request fit into the big picture?
He rose and circled the desk until he stood in front of her, then he leaned against the surface, his arms folded over his chest. It was a position designed to intimidate. To challenge.
Brenna reacted by uncrossing, then recrossing her legs. In the silence of the office the sound of her silk stockings brushing and shifting grated against his ears. He found himself watching the movement, staring at the hem of her skirt, picturing her thighs underneath. And above her thighs?
Paradise. At least that’s what her body had been ten years ago. Dark, slick, secret—the road to redemption. Instead she’d steered him right to hell. Because of her, he’d been sent away from his home. He’d been exiled, abandoned, and written off for dead.
Unfortunately, the reminder didn’t do a damn thing for the unexpected tension crawling through him. He tore his gaze away before he distracted himself with the wrong kind of memories.
“I’m not saying no,” he told her.
“You’re kidding!”
She sprang to her feet, which put her less than a foot in front of him. Close enough for him to see the various shades of gold and brown that made up her irises, and the tiny scar by the corner of her mouth. Close enough for her perfume to invade his personal space. The scent was different; his reaction to it was not. Long-forgotten heat awoke, stretched, and went searching for sustenance.
He ignored the temperature and the hunger. This was not the right time nor the place, and she was sure as hell not the right woman.
The thing was, he had a plan. Over the years he’d learned that a well-thought-out plan ensured that he always won. When the goal was revenge, it paid to be patient.
His instincts told him that Brenna’s loan request was as unexpected as a home run off the first pitch. All he had to do was toss down his bat and circle the bases. But he wanted to be sure.
“It’s a lot of money,” he said.
She nodded as her mouth curved in a smile. “I know. I’ve detailed every penny. It’s all going into the wine. I’m not taking a salary. Oh, Nic, the land I want to buy is just perfect for Pinot Noir. There’s a sweet valley at the base of a hill that gets just the right amount of midday sun. That, combined with the fog and the salt from the ocean, creates perfect grapes. You’ll see.”
Her enthusiasm was as tangible as the hand she put on his arm. He acknowledged the contact—and his reaction to it—by sliding away and picking up her portfolio.
“I’ll look this over in the next couple of days and get back to you.” He raised his eyebrows. “How exactly do I do that?”
Brenna chuckled. “I suppose a phone call to the hacienda would cause problems for both of us. My cell number is on the proposal. If you don’t get me, you can leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
“Fair enough.”
She clutched her hands together. “Nic, I know it’s a lot of money and that this is a risk for you, but I can do this. If you take a chance, you won’t be sorry.”
“I won’t do it if there’s a chance I will be.”
Her excitement didn’t flicker. “You’re going to be impressed. I promise.”
He had a feeling she was right. Besides, one of his rules in life was to take advantage of every unexpected opportunity. If he agreed, he would insist on keeping close tabs on what she was doing, which was the same as keeping close tabs on Brenna herself. Being close to her had only ever led to one thing.
So money wasn’t the only risk. Was that good or bad?
He didn’t have an answer, but he knew time spent with Brenna wouldn’t be boring. Once again, they could be entering dangerous territory. The difference was this time he would be the one calling the shots.
Brenna drove back to the Marcelli winery, taking the long way around so she drove past the ocean. She rolled down the windows of her ancient Camry and let the warm salty air brush over her skin. Her suit jacket and high heels lay where she’d tossed them on the passenger seat. She had the radio cranked up and sang along with an old Beach Boys tune, delighting in the fact that although they’d been years and years before her time, she knew all the words.
At this moment she felt free and wild and happy and so excited, she probably could have taken flight, if not for the seat belt anchoring her. She leaned her head back and laughed out loud at the sheer pleasure pumping through her.
She’d done it. She’d done it!
Oh, sure, Nic hadn’t said yes, not yet. But somehow down in her gut she just knew he was going to. He’d been willing to listen, something no one else had done, and listening was all she needed. Her carefully thought-out proposal was going to blow his socks off. Maybe even his pants.
“I hope I’m around when that happens,” she murmured, then grinned at the thought of a bottomless Nicholas Giovanni.
Until this past spring she hadn’t seen him in nearly ten years. He could have gotten wrinkled and paunchy, but instead he still had the power to make her entire body go up in flames. And maybe, just maybe, she’d seen a flicker of appreciation in his beautiful sex-god eyes.
After several years of a crappy marriage, abandonment by a creep of a husband, and nine months and seventeen days since her last sexual encounter, male admiration—especially that coming from Nic—was a balm to her battered and horny soul.
Not that anything would happen, she reminded herself. If Nic agreed, make that when Nic agreed, they were going to be business partners. There was no way she was going to be foolish enough to mix business and pleasure. Not with a million dollars and her future on the line. No one was that good in bed.
She turned into the entrance to the Marcelli Winery and sighed. Okay, from what she recalled, making love with Nic had been spectacular. Incredible. Life-altering. But not worth a million dollars.
She shifted uncomfortably. All this reminiscing about sex was getting to her. If she’d been a cat, she would have been rubbing herself against the nearest door frame. Not only was she going to have to avoid any sexual contact with Nic, she was going to have to stop thinking about him as anything but her loan officer. Nothing personal. Not again.
Fortunately her resolution coincided with her arrival at the family hacienda. Judging from the number of cars crowding around the rear entrance, the entire family was home.
The three-story Spanish-style home had been built in the late 1920s. Her great-grandfather had found plans for a house designed in the late eighteen hundreds by a Spanish nobleman with ten children, which made for lots of bedrooms. Good thing, she thought as she came to a stop in the shade of an old oak tree and turned off the engine. Currently the permanent residents of the hacienda included her paternal grandparents, her maternal grandmother, her parents, and herself.
“Humiliating but true,” Brenna said as she slipped on her pumps and grabbed her suit jacket. “Twenty-seven years old and living at home.”
Actually she’d moved back the previous spring when her jerk of a husband—a newly licensed cardiologist without a speck of gratitude or decency—had left her for a younger woman who happened to be a former cheerleader. He was poised to marry the bimbo the instant the computer print was dry on the divorce decree.
Brenna had no desire to have her soon-to-be ex back in her life, but she wouldn’t mind a little justice. Her current favorite fantasy was some kind of genital infection that left him unable to enjoy the wedding night. Ever.
All revenge aside, one of these days she was going to take the time to find a place of her own. For now, it was nice to be where a houseful of people loved her.
She made her way up the rear steps and into the kitchen. As usual, the entire female contingent of the family collected there. Her two grandmothers held court over the food, with Grammy M stirring something on the stove and Grandma Tessa chopping vegetables. Her mother sat at the kitchen table, a box of wedding-invitation samples open in front of her. Katie, Brenna’s older sister, and Francesca, Brenna’s fraternal twin, stood in front of their mother.
Their defiant posture made them look like five-year-olds who had just been caught spray-painting the dog.
“What?” Brenna asked as she draped her suit jacket over her arm. “I was gone two hours. What happened?”
“Nothin’ terrible,” Grammy M—aka Mary-Margaret O’Shea—said from her place at the stove. “Francesca has the most wonderful news.”
Brenna’s mother didn’t look all that excited. “But we’d already picked a date and were about to order the invitations.”
Wedding talk.
First baby sister Mia had come within weeks of marching down the aisle, only to call the whole thing off. Then Katie had gone and gotten herself engaged to Mia’s exfiancé’s father. Twisted, but so California. Francesca had fallen for the handsome CEO of a security company who found out within days of their meeting that he had a twelve-year-old daughter he’d never known about. A few weeks after that, Francesca had turned up pregnant.
Only Brenna had managed to escape love’s sticky snare and the ongoing soap opera that was the Marcelli family. Her current plan was to avoid romance and focus on work. She might be open to a little meaningless sex, but a relationship? She didn’t have the time or the energy.
