Papa’s booming voice continued. “Once my darling Chloë was part of his family, I knew he would give his life for her.”
Chloë knew that, too.
“He doesn’t love her,” her mother said flatly.
“No. He doesn’t love her.” Tamosso sounded angry. “He will never love her.”
Yesterday, Chloë would have agreed. Today . . . She didn’t know what to think about that casually thrown-out comment in the truck. I loved your book and I love you. Really? Since when?
“A man in love is weak,” Tamosso said. “I know that better than anyone. But I have faith in Eli Di Luca. He’ll make Chloë happy. It’s too bad you didn’t have the same faith in me.”
Oh. Chloë leaned forward. Now it was getting good.
“I left Italy to avoid the restrictions your money brings, like your bodyguard out there.” Chloë could almost see her mother waving a well-manicured hand. “More than that, I left to avoid your manipulations.”
“I do not manipulate.”
Chloë snorted, then covered her mouth. She didn’t want to interrupt this conversation.
“You tried to manipulate me all the time,” Lauren said, “just the way you manipulate Chloë. If I hadn’t left you, I wouldn’t have had a life to call my own.”
“If you hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t have lost the chance to be a father to my only child.” Papa’s voice was low and deep and angry. “You destroyed our lives because you didn’t love or trust me enough to stay.”
“I did love you. I never married, but I’m proud that I realized you would never remain faithful.”
“I was always faithful to you,” Papa said fiercely.
“Through five marriages?” Lauren mocked.
“I am not Eli Di Luca. I am weak. I do love. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, and I never faltered.” Papa’s Italian accent grew strong and proud. “If you had stayed with me, I would have never betrayed you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know. Your great fault is your cynicism. You wrap yourself in it to protect yourself from hurt, and you never live. You only exist.”
Chloë totally agreed with that.
He continued. “You took my child, the child you cradled in your womb. You hid her from me, and you left me alone. I assuaged my loneliness with women, but none of them meant anything. Every one of them looked like you. Every night in bed, I turned off the light and loved them, and pretended they were you. But the sun always rose, and I saw them, and they weren’t you.” Papa’s avowal brought tears to Chloë’s eyes. “I would have married you,” he concluded.
“I know, but what makes you think our marriage would have lasted? You have a wandering eye, Tamosso.” In her way, Lauren sounded as hurt as Papa. “I saw you looking at other women.”
“Looking? What is looking? I’m a man. As long as I still live, I will look. But why would I shop for a wallet in Venice when the finest leather goods are in my home in Milan? Why would I drink cheap wine in a tavern when I have champagne in my own cellar?” His voice grew deep with yearning. “Why, bella mia, would I taste another woman when I have you?”
“Tamosso . . .” Her mother’s voice ached with longing.
Chloë waited to hear what would happen next.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally she held the handrail to help her to her feet, tiptoed forward, and peeked in the door.
She leaped back.
Oh, no. She should never have seen her parents doing that.
As quietly as she could, she hurried upstairs—not that they were going to hear her, as involved as they were—and turned on Eli’s stereo. Grabbing a Coca-Cola out of the refrigerator, she took a drink, hoping to block out those images seared on her retinas.
Her parents. Together again. Locked in a passionate embrace.
Chloë took another swig of Coke.
Her mother was only forty-two.
Chloë hoped they used protection.
She was not going back downstairs.
Going over to the stereo, she turned it up. Louder. She didn’t want to hear anything from downstairs.
As a distraction, she collected her battered computer case from the master bedroom.
Those two broke her heart.
There was a lesson there, but right now, she didn’t want to think about it too deeply.
She flung the strap from the case over her shoulder, turned—and there on the nightstand, the two rings blinked insistently, as if they were speaking to her.
If her parents had stayed together, they might have been miserable . . . but for sure they were miserable apart.
What could Chloë learn from them?
To take a chance? To believe Eli when he said he loved her?
She paced over and stared at her rings, the rings he had given her.
Eli’s avowal was so conveniently timed, and yet she couldn’t imagine that that man, who had been terrorized and isolated as a youth, could look at her with clear eyes and show her his emotions . . . unless he was telling the truth.
She couldn’t kid herself. If she put the rings on, when Eli returned, she would have to put aside her grief and hurt. The two of them would have to talk, and she’d have to make a decision—believe him and forgive him, or walk away and never look back. And live alone for the rest of her life.
Maybe she was a fool . . . but she was a fool for love, and Eli was worth taking a chance for.
Picking up the rings one by one, she slipped them on her finger.
Feeling unsteady and uncertain as she faced a new day, a new world, a new life, she climbed the stairs.
A breeze blew down to greet her. Eli must have opened the doors onto the deck.
She stepped into his office.
A man, dressed in a tan business suit and a powder blue tie, sat at the desk, holding the skull and touching the pink diamond placed between its front teeth. He looked up and smiled, his blue eyes amused. “I’m sure there’s symbolism in a gem of this value in such an unusual setting,” Wyatt Vincent said. “Why don’t you come in and tell me all about it?”
Chapter 48
Chloë took a step back.
Wyatt Vincent.
Former FBI. Specialist in all kinds of crime. From a law enforcement family who had lived in the area for years.
Another step back.
Wyatt Vincent.
Skillful enough to set explosives. Present at the party after Eli announced their marriage. Smart enough to realize the significance of Chloë’s engagement ring.
Wyatt Vincent.
She’d bet he was the owner of a large, tough truck with Ford Focus blue smeared on its chrome bumper.
Wyatt flung the skull aside. It shattered against the wall.
Chloë turned and fled from the room.
Like a bull, he charged after her.
She bounded down the first six steps.
He seized her by the arm.
She turned and smacked him in the chest with her computer case.
He gasped, lost his grip, stumbled backward.
The music swelled from below.
She dropped the computer and ran.
He caught her before she reached the bottom, twisted her aching shoulder, and slammed her down on the steps.
She shrieked as she landed, banging her elbow, smacking her ribs.
Still holding her arm, he dragged her back up into the office and kicked the door shut.
Black and red dots clouded her vision as she fought her way out of the deep well of pain.
“No one can hear you,” he said. “The two lovebirds are all the way downstairs, and when your bodyguard asked me if I worked for Rafe Di Luca, I shot him.”
He’d wrenched her shoulder backward. Her ribs made it hard to breathe. She fought to speak. “What do you want?”
“I want those diamonds.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He kicked her between her breasts.
Pain drove like a knife into her lungs. She screamed. She threw up on Eli’s Oriental carpet, gasped in agony, then threw up again.
Wyatt waited without a shred of compassion, and when she lay gasping on the rug, he said, “Let’s talk reason. Do you know what I heard about you, over and over, every time I turned around? I heard how smart you are. How you were a writer and could solve any mystery. You proved it to me when you so succinctly summed up the facts about Massimo’s murder. So when I saw that pink diamond on your finger, I knew it was true. I knew you’d figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
He lifted his foot again.
She rolled into a ball and cowered.
“That’s better. Let’s get you away from the vomit. That’s gross.” Grabbing her by the right arm, he pulled her toward the middle of the room, twisting her shoulder out of its socket.
She screamed and screamed in an agony so intense she wanted to die.
“Don’t throw up again,” he warned, and pulled the wheeled desk chair close to her head and sat down. He waited until the worst of her pain had subsided and she was sobbing softly. Then, in a conversational tone, he said, “My family’s been after those jewels ever since my great-grandfather—he was a cop—got a report from the FBI to apprehend Massimo because he had stolen a valuable cache of pink diamonds, including one called the Beating Heart. My family’s always had an eye to a good deal—they did really well here in Bella Valley during Prohibition, what with blackmail and all—so Great-grandpa and his brother did what they were told and apprehended Massimo up in his water tower.”
“And tortured him to death,” she said hoarsely.
“Yes. Unfortunately, the valiant little Italian didn’t crack. Great-grandpa told my grandfather about it and, when I was a kid, my grandfather told me. Grandpa said he searched that water tower himself, looking for the diamonds. He said we had a right to those gems, since we were the revenuers who took Massimo out. We deserved our rightful pay.” Wyatt lingered over his excuse, so fond of it he polished it like gold. Then his voice hardened. “But my dad, he was one of those cops who was all about liberty and justice for all, and he didn’t agree. He wanted to put our past behind us. Grandpa died before he could tell me which water tower Massimo was in, and my father wouldn’t tell me.”
“Good guy.” Every twitch, every motion, was a misery. Yet she had to breathe.
“Dumb guy.” Wyatt couldn’t have made it clearer—he despised his father. “When I was thirteen he died, a cop on the beat, killed by a drug dealer. He left my mother and me to make it on our own. She died, but I did well with the FBI, and I’ve made a fortune as a law consultant.”
“I’m glad for you.” Every time she took a breath, tears trickled from her eyes.
“It’s good for children who are the products of a single parent to do well for themselves. It speaks well of the parent.”
She nodded. Wyatt was crazy. Or ruthless. Or both.
And she was afraid.
Where was Eli? Would he rescue her in time?
“I’ve spent years visiting Bella Valley and climbing water towers, trying to find Massimo’s body so I could look him over. Then you find him by chance. What a pile of shit.” Leaning down, Wyatt grabbed her by the cheeks and turned her face to his. “You found the diamonds, too, didn’t you?”
She bit back a groan. “Only the one tiny one.”
“The one in the skull.” He laughed softly. “How symbolic for you that you put it there.”
“Eli put it there.”
“He’s going to be unhappy when he gets back and you’re dead.” He smiled with a ghastly simulation of kindness. “But if I place the bomb right, you’ll be together soon enough.”
“No.” She shook her head. He was going to bomb Eli’s house, too.
“Come on. You know I can’t leave you alive.” Wyatt made it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world.
“Don’t kill him.” Stupid to beg. Stupid to tremble and cry. She knew it would do no good, yet she had to try. She had to save Eli.
“Once I kill you, I can’t leave him alive.” Wyatt scowled. “He’d come after me, and I don’t need a love-crazed wop after me.”
“He wouldn’t come after you. He doesn’t love me.”
“Nice try.” Wyatt applauded twice, mockingly. “But it’s all over town that he drove through his vineyard to rescue you.”
“What?” Eli was the one who drove through the vineyard? Eli destroyed his vines? For her?
“I know. That stunned me, too. I sat there in a tearoom today and heard two ladies gush about how that meant true love for sure. I could almost hear little birds twittering around their heads.” Wyatt wiggled his fingers. “But one thing I learned a long time ago about this town: The gossip’s good and almost always correct.”
Chloë tried to comprehend the truth. Eli had destroyed his vines. For her.
“I couldn’t believe it when I showed up to watch you burn in the cottage and your car was gone. I really couldn’t believe it when you survived that wreck. I admire you. You are gutsy; that’s for sure.”
He seemed to expect a response, so she said, “Thank you.”
“I figured I could get a motel room and lie low, listen to the gossip, and I’d know when you showed up again. Worked out pretty good.” He frowned. “Except for that little shit Finnegan.”
“Finnegan?” She had no idea what Wyatt was talking about.
“I finished him off and got his camera, but goddamn. There’s no telling if he had backup.”
She didn’t dare interrupt. She was in such pain, she didn’t think she could defend herself, but . . . Eli had driven through his vineyard for her.
He did love her.
“I need those big diamonds so I can get out of here and get far away”—Wyatt leaned close again, his breath hot on her face—“and you know I can make you confess where they are.”
Maybe she could buy herself a little time by telling him. Time for Eli to get here. Time for her to figure out a way to warn him about Wyatt. “I don’t know for sure.” She spoke slowly, as if thinking about every word. “But I have suspicions that they’re in the last bottle of wine Massimo made.”
Wyatt looked into her eyes, and as she watched, his eyes kindled with rage.
She flinched.
Dropping her face, he stood and kicked the chair out of the way.
It bounced hard against the shelves, rattled the books.
“In the wine. That bastard. In the wine.” Wyatt paced the length of the office from door to door. “No wonder the word went out that some old fart would pay anything for a bottle of Massimo’s wine. Massimo—that little wop thought he was so clever.”
Chloë refrained from pointing out that since no one had ever suspected the location of the diamonds before, then yes, that made Massimo so clever.
But staying still and quiet couldn’t distract him for long. Dropping to his knees beside her, Wyatt demanded, “Where’s the bottle?”
“No one knows.”
“Bullshit. He gave the bottle to Anthony Di Luca. See? I know the story.”
“Yes.” Regrettably, he did.
“The Di Lucas aren’t going to misplace a priceless bottle of wine, even if they think it contains only wine.” He had studied his prey.
“If you know the whole story, then you know Anthony had dementia before he died. He hid the bottle; no one knows where.”
Wyatt acted as if she hadn’t even spoken. “Where’s the bottle?” he asked again.
“I don’t have it.” He was going to kill her.
“You know where it is.” He smelled sour, as if he’d slept in his suit too many times, and sweated with desire for these diamonds.
“No, I don’t. If I did, I would have given it to the Di Lucas.” He was going to kill her before Eli could arrive.
Wyatt grabbed her again, but not her cheeks this time. This time he grabbed her throat. He squeezed enough for her to feel the constriction, enough that
she comprehended the threat, enough that she could see the method of her death. “See, there you go again, thinking you’re smarter than me. If you had the bottle, you would have kept it for yourself.”
“Why would I do that?” She shook with pain, fear, anguish. “I don’t need diamonds. My father’s rich.”
Wyatt’s blue eyes developed a maniacal gleam. “Everyone wants a gem like the Beating Heart. Do you know how many people would kill to own it?”
“Yes.” Her heart beat against his strangling grip. “I know you would.”
“I have. And I’ll do it again.” That mad gleam grew brighter. “You want me to go to the old lady’s house and take it apart? You know I will.”
“Sarah? Sarah Di Luca? She doesn’t have the bottle.” What had Chloë done? In her effort to distract Wyatt and keep him busy, she’d set him on Sarah. He would kill Sarah.
“Then where is it?”
Where was it? If this was one of Chloë’s mysteries, where would she have hidden the bottle? She had to think. . . .
And the solution popped into her mind. “It’s in my car.”
“What?”
“In my car, in my suitcase. The Di Lucas said the bottle was gone, but they were lying, trying to keep everyone away until the furor died down and they could find a dealer for the diamonds.” Chloë was spinning a story now. “When I visited Sarah, I went down in her cellar”—she concentrated hard on the part of her story that was the truth—“and I found it stuck in a cubbyhole in the wall. I went back and stole it. Why do you think I left Eli? I needed to get away before he found out I’d robbed them of Massimo’s last bottle of wine.”
Wyatt believed her. He believed she was as greedy and vile as he was. In awe, he said, “You’ve got balls.”
She relaxed. For the moment, Sarah was safe.
Then he said, “Thanks for the information. And now”—his hands tightened around her throat—“it’s time for you to say good-bye.”
Chapter 49
Eli could hear the sirens in the distance, but police cars had to take the roads. They couldn’t turn off the highway, like he had, and cut across country like he was. He drove on tiny roads, yes, but when he got the chance he put his truck in low gear and climbed up a hill so steep no vines would thrive. He chugged through a stream, knocked over his neighbor’s fence; he would pay dearly for that. He made a straight line for his house—and Chloë.
Revenge at Bella Terra Page 27
