The Villa

by Nora Roberts

  out of the picture long before you and Tony met."

  "You were never out of the picture. You and your family kept your hooks in Tony, and you made sure he never got what he deserved from Giambelli. Now he's dead, and you'll pay me what you should have paid him." She picked up her drink the minute it was served. "Did you think I'd let you drag his name, and mine by association, through the dirt?"

  "Odd, I was going to ask you the same thing." Pilar folded her hands on the table. A small, tidy move that gave her a moment to gather herself. "Whatever else, Rene, he was my daughter's father. I never wanted to see his name sullied. I want, more than I can tell you, to know who killed him, and why."

  "You did, one way or the other. By cutting him out of the company. He wasn't meeting another woman that night. He wouldn't have dared. And I was enough for him, the way you never were."

  Pilar thought about mentioning Kris, but knew it wasn't worth the effort. "No, I was never enough for him. I don't know who he was meeting that night, or why, but—"

  "I'll tell you what I think," Rene interrupted. "He had something on you, your family. And you had him killed. Maybe you even used that little twit Margaret to do it, and that's why she's dead now."

  Weariness replaced pity. "That's ridiculous, even for you. If this is the kind of thing you're saying to reporters, that you intend to say on television, you're opening yourself up to serious legal action."

  "Please." Rene sipped again. "Do you think I haven't consulted an attorney to see what I can say and how I can say it? You saw to it that Tony was about to be cut off, and that I came away with next to nothing. I intend to get what's coming to me."

  "Really? And since we're so cold-blooded, aren't you afraid of retribution?"

  Rene glanced toward a nearby table. Two men sat, sipping water. "Bodyguards. Round the clock. Don't even bother threatening me."

  "You've created quite a fantasy world, and appear to be enjoying it. I'm sorry about you and Tony, sincerely, as you were perfect for each other. I came here to ask you to be reasonable, to show some decency toward my family and to think of Tony's child before you speak to the press. But that's a waste of time for both of us. I thought you might have loved him, but that was foolish of me. So we'll try this."

  She leaned in, surprising Rene with the sudden and very cold gleam in her eye. "Do what you want, say what you want. In the end, you'll only look ridiculous. And though it's small of me, I'll enjoy that. More, I think, than you will saying it or doing it. Keep being the strident trophy wife, Rene, it suits you," Pilar said as she reached in her purse for money. "Just as those rather gaudy earrings suit you—a great deal more than they did me when Tony gave them to me for our fifth wedding anniversary."

  She tossed a twenty on the table between them. "I'd consider them and anything else of mine he helped himself to over the years full payment. You'll never get anything else out of me, or Giambelli."

  She didn't sweep out. She'd leave the drama for Rene. Instead she sauntered, and felt good about it. Just as she felt good about dropping another bill on the table where Rene's bodyguards sat watch.

  "This round's on me," she told them and walked out laughing.

  "I put on a pretty good show." Steaming now, Pilar paced back and forth over the Aubusson in Helen Moore's living room. "And, by God, I think I came out on top. But I was so angry. This woman is gunning for my family and she's wearing my damn earrings while she's taking aim."

  "You've got documentation on the jewelry, insurance records and so on. We could take issue."

  "I hated those stupid earrings." Pilar gave a bad-natured shrug. "Tony gave them to me as a peace offering after one of his affairs. I got the bill, too, of course. Damn it, it's hard swallowing how often I was a fool."

  "Then spit it out. Sure you don't want a drink?"

  "No, I'm driving, and should be heading back already." Pilar hissed out a breath, sucked in another. "I had to blow off steam first or I might have given in to road rage and ended up in jail."

  "Good thing you have a friend on the bench. Listen to me. I think you did exactly right by facing off with her. A lot of people would disagree, but they don't know you like I do."

  Helen poured herself a couple of fingers of vodka over ice. "You had things to say, and you've waited too long to say them."

  "It won't change anything."

  "With her? Maybe, maybe not." Helen sat, stretched out. "But the point is, it changed something for you. You took charge. And personally, I'd have paid good money to see you tell her off. She'll go on her little rant on her trashy talk show and very likely end up getting hammered by various audience members who take offense at her designer suit and ten pounds of jewelry. Wives," she continued, "who've been cheated on, left holding the bag for women like her. God, Pilar, they'll rip her to tattered shreds before it's done, and you can bet Larry Mann and his producers are counting on just that."

  Pilar stopped pacing. "I never thought of that."

  "Honey, Rene Foxx is just one of God's many custard pies. She hit you in the face, sure, but so what? Time to wipe her off."

  "You're right. I worry about the family, about Sophie. Even though it's tabloid press, it's press, and it's going to embarrass her. I wish I knew how to shut her up."

  "You could get a temporary restraining order. I'm a judge, I know these things," Helen said dryly. "You could file suit—libel, defamation. And you might win. Probably would. But as your lawyer, and your friend, my advice is to let her have her rope. She'll hang herself with it sooner or later."

  "The sooner the better. We're in an awful mess, Helen."

  "I know. I'm sorry."

  "If she says things that hint we may have arranged for Tony to be killed, that Margaret was involved… The police have already questioned us about a relationship between Margaret and Tony. It worries me."

  "Margaret was the unlucky victim of some maniac's lunacy. Product tampering doesn't even have a target, that's why it's lunacy. Tony was deliberate. One has nothing to do with the other, and you shouldn't start linking them in your mind."

  "The press is linking them."

  "The press would link a monkey with an elephant if it upped the ratings and sold papers."

  "You're right there, too. I'll tell you something, Helen, over the anger, under the worry I felt when I talked to Rene, I realized something. I confronted her on this point because it mattered, because it was important, because I needed to take a stand."

  Sipping her drink, Helen nodded. "And?"

  "And it made me realize that I never, not once, confronted her or any of the others, the countless other women in and out of Tony's life. Because it stopped, he stopped being important. I had no stand to take. That's very sad," she said quietly. "And not all his fault. No, it wasn't," she went on before Helen could do more than spit out an oath. "It takes two to make a marriage, and I never pushed him to be one of those two in ours."

  "He started chipping at your self-esteem right from the beginning."

  "That's true." Pilar held out a hand, took Helen's glass for a small and absent sip. "But a great deal that happened, and didn't happen, between us was as much my doing as his. I'm not looking back with regret. I'm looking back, Helen, because I'm never, never going to make those mistakes again."

  "Okay, fine." Helen took the vodka back, toasted with it. "To the new Giambelli woman. Since you're forging a new path, come sit down and tell me all about your sex life now that you have one."

  On a low sound of pleasure, Pilar stretched her arms to the ceiling. "Since you ask… I'm having an incredible, exciting, illicit affair with a younger man."

  "I hate you."

  "You're going to loathe me when I tell you he has this wonderful, hard, tireless body."

  "Bitch."

  Laughing, she dropped onto the arm of the sofa. "I had no idea, really, how a woman could get through life without having a clue what it's like to be pressed down under a body like that. Tony was slim and rather delicate."

 
"Not much of a yardstick."

  "You're telling me." She winced. "Oh, that's terrible. That's sick."

  "No, that's great. James has… a comfortable body. Sweet old bear," Helen said fondly. "But you won't mind if I enjoy a few thrills through your sexual adventure?"

  "Of course not. What are friends for?"

  Sophia was ready for a little sexual adventure of her own. God knew she needed one. She'd worked herself to near exhaustion, then worried herself over the line.

  A swim after she'd shut down for the day had helped, then a turn in the whirlpool to loosen muscles tensed from that work and worry. She'd added one more phase to the water therapy with a long, sumptuous bath full of oil and scent.

  She'd lit candles throughout the room, fragrant with lemongrass and vanilla and jasmine. In their shifting light she chose a nightgown of black silk with a low, lacy bodice and thin straps. Why be subtle?

  She'd selected the wine from the private cellar. A young, frisky Chardonnay. She set it on ice to keep it cool, curled into a chair to wait for Ty. And fell dead asleep.

  It felt odd sneaking into a house where he'd always been welcome. Odd and exciting.

  He'd had moments, off and on during his life, where he'd imagined slipping into Sophia's bedroom in the dark. Hell, what man wouldn't?

  But actually doing it, knowing she'd be waiting for him, was a lot better than any midnight fantasy.

  He knew when he opened those doors they'd fall on each other like animals.

  He could already taste her.

  He could see the candlelight beating against the glass. Exotic, sensual. The turn of the knob in his hand barely made a click and rang like a trumpet in his head.

  He braced for her, closing the door at his back. Then he saw her, curled in a ball of fatigue in the chair.

  "Ah, hell, Sophie. Look at you."

  He crossed the room quietly, crouched down and did what he rarely had the opportunity to do. He studied her without her knowing it.

  Soft skin that hinted of rose and gold. Thick, inky lashes and a full, lush mouth perfectly shaped to meet a man's.

  "You're one gorgeous piece of work," he murmured. "And you wore yourself out, didn't you?"

  He glanced around the room, noting the wine, the candles, the bed already turned down and heaped with pillows. "The thought's just going to have to count for tonight. Come on, baby," he whispered as he slid his arms under her. "Let's put you to bed."

  She stirred, shifted, snuggled. He decided there had to be a medal for a man who would tuck in a woman who looked, smelled, felt like this one and not crawl in eagerly after her.

  "Hmmm. Ty."

  "Good guess. Here you go," he said, laying her down. "Go back to sleep."

  Her eyes fluttered open as he pulled the duvet up. "What? Where are you going?"

  "For a long, lonely walk in the cold, dark night." Amused at both of them now, he leaned down to brush a chaste kiss on her forehead. "Followed by the requisite cold shower."

  "Why?" She took his hand, tucked it under her cheek. "It's nice and warm in here."

  "Baby, you're beat. I'll take a rain check."

  "Don't go. Please, I don't want you to go."

  "I'll be back." He leaned down again, intending to kiss her good night. But her lips were soft and tasted of lazy invitation. He sank into them, and into her as she reached for him.

  "Don't go," she said again. "Make love with me. It'll be like a dream."

  It was dreamlike. Scents and shadows and sighs. Slow, and tender where neither had expected it, where neither would have asked. He slid into bed with her, floated with her on the easy stroke of her hands, the gentle rise of her body.

  And the sweetness of it drifted through him like starlight.

  He found her mouth again, and everything he'd ever wanted.

  Her breathing thickened as sensations began to layer. His hands were rough from work, and smoothed over her like velvet. His body was hard, and covered hers like silk. His mouth was firm, and took from her with endless and devastating patience.

  No wildness here, no greed. No brilliant flashes of urgency. Tonight was to savor and soothe. To offer and welcome.

  The first crest was like being lifted onto clouds.

  She moaned under him, one long, low sound as her body bowed fluidly to his. Satisfaction and surrender. She skimmed her fingers in his hair, saw the shades of it shift in the light and shadow. He did that, she thought as she lost herself in him. Shifted and changed. There were so many facets to him.

  And here, gently, he was showing her yet another. Her fingers curled, drawing him down until mouth met mouth, and she could answer.

  In the dark, he could see the glint of the candlelight in her eyes, gold dust splashed over rich pools. The air was scented sweet. She watched him, and he watched her as he slipped inside her.

  "This is different," he told her, and touched his mouth to hers as she shook her head. "This is different. Yesterday I wanted you. Tonight, I need you."

  Her vision blurred with tears. Her lips trembled with words she didn't know how to say. And then she was so full of him, she could only sob out his name, and give.

  Chapter Nineteen

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  What did a seventy-three-year-old winemaker from Italy have in common with a thirty-six-year-old sales executive from California? Giambelli, David thought. It was the only link he could find between them.

  Except the manner of their deaths.

  Tests on the exhumed body of Bernardo Baptista had confirmed he'd ingested a dangerous dosage of digitalis, along with his Merlot. It couldn't be construed as a coincidence. Police on both sides of the Atlantic were calling it homicide and the Giambelli wine the murder weapon.

  But why? What motive linked Margaret Bowers and Baptista?

  He left his children tucked in their beds, and after checking on the Giambelli vineyards, drove toward MacMillan. As the temperature had dropped, he and Paulie had turned on the sprinklers, had walked the rows as water coated the vines and the thin skin of ice formed a protective shield against the threatening hard frost. He knew Paulie would stand watch through the night, making certain there was a constant and steady flow of water. Predawn temperatures were forecast to hover near the critical twenty-nine-degree mark.

  In an instant, vines could be murdered as efficiently and as ruthlessly as people.

  This, at least, he could control. He could understand the brutality of nature, and fight it. How could a rational person understand cold-blooded and seemingly random murder?

  He could see the fine mist of water swirling over the MacMillan vines, the tiny drops going to glimmer in the cold light of the moon. He pulled on his gloves, grabbed his thermos of coffee and left the car to walk in the freezing damp.

  He found Tyler sitting on an overturned crate, sipping from his own thermos. "Thought you might be by." In invitation, Ty banged the toe of his boot on another crate. "Pull up a chair."

  "Where's your foreman?"

  "Sent him home just a bit ago. No point in both of us losing a night's sleep." The truth was Ty liked sitting alone in the vineyard, thinking his thoughts while the sprinklers hissed.

  "We're doing all we can do." Ty shrugged, scanning the rows that turned to a fairyland of sparkle under the lights. "System's running smooth."

  David settled down, uncapped his thermos. Like Ty he wore a ski cap pulled over his head and a thick jacket that repelled both cold and damp. "Paulie took the watch at Giambelli. Frost alarms went off just after midnight. We were already prepped for it."

  "This one's usual for the end of March. It's the ones that sneak in on you at the end of April, into May. I got it covered here, if you want to get some sleep."

  "Nobody's getting much of that lately. Did you know Baptista?"

  "Not really. My grandfather did. La Signora's taking it hard. Not that she'll let it show," he said. "Not outside the family, and