And to Lillian’s daughter,
Marilyn Johnson.
We miss you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Leslie Gelbman, Kara Welsh, and Kerry Donovan, my appreciation for your constant support. The covers for the Scarlet Deception series are absolutely fabulous; thank you to NAL’s art department, led by Anthony Ramondo. To Rick Pascocello, head of marketing, and the publicity department with my special people, Craig Burke and Jodi Rosoff, thank you. My thanks to the production department, and of course, a special thank-you to the spectacular Penguin sales department: Norman Lidofsky, Don Redpath, Sharon Gamboa, Don Rieck, and Trish Weyenberg. You are the best!
Thank you to Ted Seghesio for so generously taking the time to answer my questions about the winery in spring, to David Messerli for steering the questions in the right direction, to Peter and Cathy Seghesio for guiding us in the nuances of wine tasting, to Jim Neumiller for kindly demonstrating to this city girl the rudiments of growing grapes. Last but not least, thank you to everyone in the Seghesio Family Vineyards tasting room for their hospitality and knowledge.
Chapter 1
E
li Di Luca walked into his grandmother’s nineteenth-century farmhouse in the foothills above Bella Valley, carrying a case of wine, handpicked for a loving family celebration.
Every light in the house was on, the television was blaring, and six women were standing in the front room holding bottles of water and shouting at the big screen hung on the wall. “Catch it!” they yelled. “Catch it! Catch it!
Catchitcatchitcatchit!
”
He stopped. He stared.
Nonna’s nurse, Olivia Kelly, so wide-eyed she always looked slightly astonished, stood apart from the group.
“Australian football?” he asked.
Olivia nodded shyly.
What an odd girl she was, part of the group, yet apart.
She reminded him of him.
The football player must have
caughtitcaughtitcaughtit
, because the other women high-fived one another, then saw him and waved cheerful greetings.
They were fascinating company.
His grandmother, his Nonna, was a young eighty years, stylish, cheerful, and so alive she frightened him with her energy. He’d never seen anything slow her down until almost three weeks ago, when she’d been attacked in her own home. This woman who had raised him, who had tamed the wild fourteen-year-old he had been when he returned from Chile, had been injured in a slow-boiling vendetta that had its roots deep in the past.
For years Eli had dwelled always on the brink of savagery; savagery was bred into him, and in his youth, during those six years when all the world was bleak and lonely, only savagery had kept him alive.
The assault on his grandmother had almost taken him over the edge. If she had been killed . . . the consequences would have made him a fugitive once more, for he would have hunted down the culprit and destroyed him slowly, broken bone by broken bone, until all that was left was consciousness, pain, and understanding of the wrong he had committed.
But Nonna had survived without permanent damage. Her arm was in a cast and she’d suffered a concussion, but she was home now, safe.
And so was Eli . . . for the moment.
In a normal voice, as if she hadn’t just been jumping up and down, Nonna said, “Hello, dear, how was your trip?”
“Interesting.” To put it mildly.
“I love San Francisco. I love the St. Francis. I wish I could have gone with you!” Nonna’s eyes shone.
The venerable St. Francis hotel had survived the 1906 earthquake, World War I and World War II and all the wars after, the roaring twenties and the Depression, protests and prosperity and recession. The loud, joyful, boisterous winegrowers’ tasting and auction had also left the hotel unscathed.
If only Eli could say the same of himself.
The memory of meeting the Italian Tamosso Conte during the event and hearing his outrageous business proposal haunted Eli’s mind and heart.
The plan was absurd, insulting, and . . . tempting beyond all belief.
“Everyone missed you,” he told Nonna. “Everybody asked about you, and asked why I had no beautiful, fascinating lady on my arm.”
She laughed out loud. “You need to find a beautiful, fascinating lady to be your wife. Like Rafe did!”
His brother’s recent marriage had put a sparkle in his grandmother’s eyes and, he feared, would lead to a frenzy of attempted matchmaking.
Matchmaking was the one thing he did not need.
Taking advantage of the break in the action, Nonna’s bodyguard, Bao Le, moved to the window and looked out. Diminutive, tough, and suspicious, she worked for Rafe, for his security firm, and from the beginning she had taken her job seriously. But a few weeks of caring for Nonna had turned the tables, because Nonna cared for everyone, and now Bao was part of their family.
It always happened. Eli was used to it.
Walking in, he shifted the box of wine to one hip and kissed Nonna’s cheek. “How do you feel? How’s the arm?”
“I feel fine. The cast is so much trouble, but not as much as this damned walker.” Nonna pushed petulantly at the chrome cage around her. “I am thoroughly tired of it.”
Olivia appeared immediately at her side. “The doctor said another couple of weeks, and if there have been no complications from your concussion, you can ditch the walker.”
“I know. I know. The sooner, the better. But I’ve complained enough.” Nonna patted Eli’s cheek. “Did you get a lot of kudos for your wines at the dinner?”
“Pretty much.”
Glowing with pride, Nonna looked around at her friends and relatives. “That’s my boy!”
Brooke laughed. “There, Nonna—you sounded just like an Italian grandmother.”
“And why shouldn’t she?” Brooke’s mom, Kathy Petersson, also stood with the help of a walker, but she was younger, so much younger than Nonna, in her fifties, Eli would guess. With her straight black hair, striking blue eyes, and curvaceous figure, she was an attractive woman. But she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis: It had taken the spring from her step, forced her from her position in the U.S. Air Force and into retirement in Bella Terra. But nothing tamed her fierce, fighting spirit. Now, with Brooke’s marriage to Eli’s brother Rafe, she had gone from Di Luca family friend to honored relative, and from the glow that lit her eyes, Eli suspected she hoped to be a grandmother herself soon.
You two will make beautiful babies together.
He wanted to flinch at the memory of those words.
Who the hell did Tamosso Conte think he was?
Eli answered his own question.
Conte thought—no, knew—he was the man who held all the trumps. But Nonna knew so many people, both here in Bella Valley and back in Italy. Perhaps Eli could shuffle the cards in his favor.
“Have you ever heard of an Italian gentleman named Tamosso Conte?” he asked.
Nonna’s brow knitted. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“I met him at the auction.”
“I know him!” Francesca Pastore was fifty years old, a movie star, the most beautiful woman in Italy, a land renowned for its beautiful women—and she was Rafe’s mother. “He is from Milan, a leather merchant, a self-made man, very rich, very powerful.” She smiled. “Very charming.”
Eli couldn’t believe she was so indulgent to the man he found so direct and despicable. “He’s short.”
Francesca ran an amused gaze up and down Eli’s six-foot-four-inch frame. “Is that how you think women measure charm, Eli Di Luca? If so, you are in for a sad surprise.”
“Lately I’ve had all the sad surprises I can stand,” Eli said. An understatement.
“Tamossa has been married, what? Five times, I think. He loves women. That’s part of his magic.” Francesca ran her hand through her long auburn hair. “You should try showing your love for the women, Eli. Nothing interests a female as much as a man who finds her fascinating.”
He gave Francesca a lazy smile, bending all his charisma on her. “For a man like me, to be surrounded by women is a pleasure none other can surpass.”
“Very good,” Francesca purred, and fluttered her lashes.
Brooke applauded. “Wow. Impressive, Eli. I’ve always said you Di Luca men have raised the art of flirtation to new heights.” She was pretty, smart, and talented, the head concierge of his family’s Bella Terra resort (although in her determination to get away from Rafe, she had resigned . . . That hadn’t worked out as she had planned). Because Brooke was also the first bride for one of the three Di Luca brothers . . . although if Tamosso Conte had his way, not the last.
Still smiling, giving not a hint of his inner turmoil, Eli asked, “This Tamosso Conte—have you ever met his daughter?”
“His daughter?” Francesca lifted her perfectly arched brows. “He has been married many times, but he has no children.”
Eli knew she was wrong. He’d seen the photo Tamosso had proffered.
The girl—she didn’t look old enough to be called a woman—sat at a cluttered desk smiling at the camera. Her blond hair was twisted on top of her head, held up with a sharpened pencil, and careless wisps fell artlessly around her cheeks. She cradled her chin in her fist—a very determined chin, by the look of it—and peered right at the camera through big brown eyes. She was, as pictured, very pretty.
And all Eli had been able to think was . . . Photo-shop.
Because her father had sagging jowls and a droopy nose, and he wasn’t just short—he sported a workingman’s build, with a barrel chest, broad shoulders, and a rotund gut. With genetics like that, the girl was doomed.
Eli supposed he shouldn’t be so shallow . . . and maybe when he met her, no matter what she looked like, he’d like her.
Maybe when he married her, he’d worship her.
Maybe when pigs could fly, all the chicken would taste like bacon.
“You okay, honey?” Nonna asked. “You look a little ill.”
She saw too much, so he moved the wine box in his arms as if he were growing tired of the weight, and looked around. “Where’s Rafe? Where’s the bridegroom?”
“He’s in the kitchen.” Brooke smirked at him. “Cooking.”
Eli smirked back at her. “Training him right, hm?”
“He complained about the shouting, said that our voices were so high we gave him a headache, but I said if he thought that was going to get him out of sex tonight, he—”
Eli’s sweet little eighty-year-old grandmother, the one who never swore, shouted, “Shit! Did you see that?” She pointed toward the screen.
The women started shouting again.
Eli backed out of the room and headed down the hall for the kitchen. He passed the dining room, passed the one bathroom in the house—when the extended Di Luca family got together, that made for some desperate moments of pounding and pleading—and went into the brightly lit and recently renovated kitchen.
Rafe was layering slices of eggplant with pasta, cheese, and Nonna’s marinara sauce.
Noah was putting chicken fillets on a cooling rack, and that was placed on a cookie sheet that would catch any loose breading, and spraying them with cooking oil.
Both of his brothers had their sleeves rolled up and kitchen towels tucked into their belts. Both wore frowns of concentration.
“Does anyone besides me see the irony of having the women in the living room watching sports while the men cook dinner?” Eli put the case down on the counter and pulled out the first three bottles of wine.
“Shut up and put on your apron.” Noah was the youngest of Gavino’s sons, handsome, charming, and urbane, the manager of the Bella Terra resort and, to all appearances, the most well-adjusted. That was possibly the truth . . . although it didn’t say much.
Eli walked over to him and peered over his shoulder. “What are you doing, man?”
“Rafe is making eggplant Parmesan casserole and I’m making chicken Parmesan.”
“That’s not how you make chicken Parmesan,” Eli said. “And—eggplant Parmesan
casserole
? What’s wrong with this picture?”
His two brothers turned on him. In unison, they asked, “Do you want to fry the chicken and the eggplant?”
There was only one right answer. “No.”
“Then pour for us and get to work.” Rafe was a military hero who now owned his own security firm. He gave orders well.
Briefly Eli toyed with the idea of taking wine to the ladies first, but decided he wasn’t that much of a gentleman. So he uncorked three different Di Luca varietals, chosen to please each brother’s palate, and while he did Noah said, “I don’t mind cooking, and besides, I couldn’t sit in there and listen to Nonna talk about some guy’s tushie anymore.”
Eli nodded. He could understand that. He poured the wine, put the glasses at his brothers’ elbows, and said, “I’ve got to get the champagne. For, you know, the wedding toast.” He bumped his shoulder against Rafe’s.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Rafe stopped layering the casserole and turned. They bumped chests and hugged; then he did the same with Noah.
Eli supposed they should be civilized and have a wine toast, but they were guys, and somehow the body slam expressed their glee so much better.
After years of never making it work, Rafe and Brooke had finally tied the knot in a runaway marriage to Reno.
Nonna and Kathy wanted a real ceremony in a church, but all Eli could think was—thank God Rafe and Brooke hadn’t waited. Thank God they had snatched at happiness while they could. There had been too much pain in the Di Luca brothers’ lives; it was good to, at last, see one of them find happiness.
Thanks to Tamosso Conte, Eli had a chance for happiness, too, as good a chance as any person who ever tied the knot.
If that was cynical, so be it. He had planned to say “I do” someday.
He had simply never planned to walk down the aisle for money.
“I am proposing a marriage of convenience. Yes. A marriage between two people based on property values arranged between the prospective groom and the bride’s father with an eye to a successful union that provides for the bearing and raising of offspring.”