“Was she insane?” Chloë didn’t sound mean; she sounded anxious.
“No. Impetuous. Spoiled. Very intelligent and yet, about life . . . she was a fool.” As he would never be. “She was a beauty queen at sixteen. She married my father at seventeen. She was a mother at eighteen.”
“She was a child!” Chloë’s knuckles turned white against the seat.
“Yes, and by the time she was twenty-one, the man she loved had discarded her, and all her bright promise was destroyed.” Eli could be bitter on her behalf; she was, after all, his mother.
“How old was your father when he seduced her?”
“I don’t know . . . twenty-five.”
“What a lecher.” Chloë spit the word.
“Every day of his life,” Eli said, then thought of the eleven years that separated him from Chloë and felt ill.
Small comfort, but at least she wasn’t a teenager. At least she’d lived a little. At least she knew who she was and what she wanted. He wasn’t like his father. Or his mother. He had spent his life patterning himself after Nonna and Nonno—not in their open lovingness; he couldn’t do that—but in their morals and the way they treated everyone, with respect and kindness.
Now Eli was betraying their example and their teachings. He knew that.
But he wouldn’t survive without the winery. He cherished the vineyards, growing green and strong, and exalted in the wines, subtle, lavish, and scented. The vineyards and the winery united him with his brothers, with Nonno and Nonna, with all the generations of Di Lucas who settled in this rich valley and strove so hard to be Americans, to be prosperous, to always, always be a family. He could never let them get too close to him: Nonna, his brothers, not even his ancestors. He was too stunted by the old pain and the bitter loneliness. But he could show his love by holding their lands and their wealth in trust for them.
He would do what he had to do. He would deceive Chloë. He would marry Chloë.
For without the winery, he was like a vine without water . . . without the winery, he would wither and die.
Chapter 24
C
hloë slid off the stool, moving stealthily, as if afraid a sudden movement would make Eli attack. “I’m hungry,” she said softly. “Do you mind if I make the salad?”
He was not feral. No matter what she said, no matter what she did, no matter how black his anger or how bleak his world, he would not harm her. “In my opinion, there’s nothing as attractive as a woman working in the kitchen.” When she stuck her tongue out at him, he felt almost normal.
But nothing about this was normal. Because he couldn’t shut up. Chloë herself had pried open Pandora’s box. Maybe he was making her uncomfortable, but she would have to deal with the consequences.
Not fair.
Chloë had started this stupid, self-pitying rant, yes.
But although Eli despised himself for buckling, he knew he had been living under too much pressure.
His accountant, a man he had called a friend, had robbed him and done everything to destroy him, and then run without conscience or a word of explanation.
That had left him vulnerable to Conte’s blackmail and led him to his inexorable decision to dupe Chloë into a relationship based on lies and deceit, and his own guilt added even more pressure.
Most of all, the dam of so many years had weakened, and all the pent-up pain and anguish came pouring out.
He had tried to forget.
He never could.
Now he was stripping himself bare, all because Chloë had found that damned smelly letter and read it. She had read his private letter.
Damn her. She deserved everything she heard here.
Chloë found his big wooden bowl. “Do you have a salad spinner?”
“In the lazy-Susan cabinet in the corner.”
She got it out. Pulled vegetables out of the crisper. Looked up inquiringly.
“I’m not making excuses for my mother. She was selfish to the bone, cared for nothing and no one but herself and the humiliation my father visited on her. But she said he cheated on her while she was pregnant, and knowing my father as I do, I believe her. Because he was bone selfish, too, and has never loved anything but himself.” In a weird way, Eli still grieved for his mother and the wasted opportunities of her life.
Chloë tore romaine leaves, rinsed them, and spun them dry.
“The everyday routine of my life with Nonna made me forget that danger lurked so close.” Eli turned his back to her. “I was eight when my mother got out of prison. She came to get me at school, waving to me as if she were glad to see me. She looked so pretty. She was smiling. I got in the car with her. I didn’t think anything about it. I didn’t realize I would almost die so many times before I saw my home again.”
The spinner stopped. “She kidnapped you?”
He didn’t turn, didn’t want to see her aghast eyes. “My father was no good as a parent, so my grandparents had custody of me. My mother hated everything to do with my father, including his parents, and she saw me as an instrument of revenge.”
“But she was your mother!”
Now he faced Chloë.
She looked as shocked as he had imagined.
Silly woman, to imagine all parents were like hers. “You mean—she was my mother, so she must love me?” He mocked Chloë’s secure childhood. Just a little. Just because he envied her, not because he would ever want anything different for her. He liked the woman her upbringing had shaped. “My mother knew if she took me, it would wound my grandparents, who had cared for me so well that I never felt the lack of her presence.” He would have been happier if he didn’t understand his mother so well. “She dragged me onto a private airplane and we flew to Chile. When I cried for Nonna, she told me I would never see her again.”
Chloë muttered something, something that sounded like, “What a bitch.” She went back to spinning the lettuce, and glanced up apologetically. “Sorry. I . . . She just lost my sympathy.”
“The Silva family compound sat deep in the Andes.” Eli paused, remembering his first glimpse of those beautiful mountains, jagged like blades. Before his time among them was done, they would cut the heart out of a lonely boy. “My mother’s father was dead. Her mother—the woman who wrote the letter—”
“Abuela,” Chloë reminded him.
As if he didn’t remember her name. “Yes. Abuela was a survivor. She steered the family through revolutions, financial setbacks, scandals. She was ruthless, and I was nothing but a tool to be sharpened for later use. I was deposited in the dormitory for the boy cousins. The first night I cried myself to sleep. When my cousins got through with me, I never cried again.”
Chloë shot him a dark glance. “Why?”
“Do you know what a blanket party is?”
She shook her head.
“It’s when guys get together and cover another guy with a blanket so he can’t strike back, and they pound him to death with clubs.”
“Your
cousins
had a blanket party for you? When you were
eight
?”
He walked away from Chloë, from her pity and her concern, and looked out the window, where the setting sun painted the valley in rose and gold. “I was a foreigner. I was little. I was skinny. I was whiny. And my Spanish was indifferent.”
Chloë made no noise, asked no questions, but he felt the weight of her interest as she waited for the rest of his story.
“‘Only the tough survive.’ That was Abuela’s motto. And I did survive.” Looking back, he felt sorry for the stupid kid he had been. “Broken ribs. Broken collarbone. Broken cheek. Cracked kneecap. Abuela was angry. She didn’t like spending so much money to fix me, so she forbade my cousins to ever cover me in a blanket and beat me up again. After that, they didn’t use a blanket. But I learned to fight against any odds, and eventually,
they
were afraid of
me
. Of course,” he said reflectively, “I haven’t slept all the way through the night since.”
“That explains those bedroom eyes.” Chloë inspected him. “Where was your mother? I know you said she didn’t care about you, but she didn’t take you there to get you killed. Did she?”
“My mother had her own problems. Abuela wouldn’t let
her
leave, either. She said my mother had done enough damage with her flightiness. I assume she meant the mistake of marrying my father.” He pressed on the glass. It felt cool under his palms, and yet nothing could cool his anger at having to tell this story.
“Madre had been home about a year when Abuela presented her with a man who would take her as his wife.”
“Your grandmother arranged her marriage?”
As your father has arranged yours.
“Abuela arranged her marriage to a powerful, wealthy man. Madre married him, too. I told you. For Abuela, her children and grandchildren were to be sacrificed for the good of the family. I suspect when Madre eloped with my father, she derailed Abuela’s plans. But only temporarily—when she returned to Chile, she was still a beautiful woman, and so she married.”
“For the good of the family,” Chloë repeated.
“Yes. About a year later, she was killed along with her husband in a politically motivated shooting.”
“She left you alone with your cousins, your grandmother?”
“How could she leave me alone? She had never been there for me.” The light outside was fading.
Better. That was better. As the light grew dim in here, as he could no longer see Chloë’s indignant, shocked, pitying face, the words flowed more easily.
“Eli, about your parents. I didn’t realize—”
“No. You didn’t. Your parents aren’t together. They aren’t married. Yet they both love you.” Bitterly he envied her that. “Neither of my parents loved me, but when I was in Bella Valley, I didn’t need them, because I had Nonno and Nonna.” He stopped, struggled to slow the flow of words, to filter his feelings so Chloë didn’t see him raw and bleeding . . . and despise him. But the words kept coming, fast as bullets, tearing out of him as if they had been pent up inside for too long, waiting for her to listen to them. “All the cold nights, all the long days, the memory of home kept me from despair. At first, I thought if I asked often enough, I could convince Abuela I truly wanted to go home. Then I thought if I was a good boy and worked hard at school, she would let me go. Finally, I made my fatal mistake. I told my uncle, who was the vintner at the family winery, how to blend his wine. And it won awards.”
“How did you know how to blend wines?”
He tapped his nose. “I inherited the knack.”
Chloë made the next, correct leap in logic. “You proved you had worth.”
“Exactly. I was smart and I made good wine. I no longer had the potential to be useful. I
was
useful.”
As if she suddenly remembered what she was doing, Chloë went back into action. She shuffled through his cupboards, found red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, found a container, and started blending the dressing. “Did they continue to mistreat you?” She located a whisk, and she beat something in a bowl as if she were trying to kill it.
“No, no. No one dared. Not anymore. Abuela would have had a blanket party all her own. No, I slept in the dormitory with the other grandsons, ate well, dressed warmly.” He set his jaw and smiled at his own defiance. “Which is why, the first time I ran away, I survived. Even in the summer, night in the Andes is very cold.”
“The first time you ran away?” Chloë had found the cutting board and the knives, and she chopped vegetables—radishes, celery—at the speed of light. “How many times did you run away?”
“How many times does it take to learn to track a rabbit through the snow? How many times does it take to learn to start a fire with wet wood? How many times does it take to learn to build a snow cave and survive a storm? How many times does it take to learn not to leave a trace of your passing?”
“You ran away . . . so often?” The knife slowed. “How much time did you spend out there?”
“I ran away unsuccessfully three times. The first time they caught me in a week. The second time, they brought out the dogs and got me within three days. The third time . . . it took me a long time before I went out again. I was determined to evade them. So I waited until I got everything right. I drugged the dogs and went out into a snowstorm, and I was gone for eight months, without contact with a single soul, surviving because I had no choice. It was either that or return to the family compound, and I would rather die.”
Then and now.
“The head of the drug cartel discovered me unconscious. He fed me, thawed me out.”
“Did he force you to run drugs for him?” she asked in horror.
“No.” Eli hadn’t thought he would ever tell this story and chuckle, but he chuckled now. “He returned me to the family compound. Frankly, I think he was afraid of Abuela.”
Chloë stood holding a jar of capers, and finally she asked, “How did you come home? Home to Bella Valley?”
“Turns out I was doing it all wrong. I’d run into the wilderness. I couldn’t get home that way, and sooner or later I was going to die—which would have been easier than living.”
“Oh, Eli.” Chloë abandoned the salad, started to come to him, to comfort him.
“No!” he said harshly. “If you want to hear the rest, stay where you are. I can’t bear your sympathy.”
She stopped. Looked hurt. Nodded jerkily.
He could do this.
He was almost finished.
“One day, a Chilean actor visited, and I resemble my father enough that he recognized me. I asked him to help me. He looked so scared. . . . I thought he was going to wet himself. He said no. I asked him to pass a message to my father. He was backing up and he said, ‘If I told anyone Gavino Di Luca’s kid was being held against his will, it would create an international scandal and your
abuela
would flay me.’ He meant it, too, but he made me think. The way out was to find a reporter who would listen to me, paparazzi who would make money off asking what had happened to Gavino’s son.”