by Susan Meier
“I am proud. Very proud.” He sucked in a breath. “Ochoa Online pulled the vineyard out of the jaws of bankruptcy.”
They were only a few feet away from the main house, so she almost stopped walking. But the grounds were unusually quiet, and she suspected that’s why Mitch spoke openly. So she did too.
“I thought Ochoa Vineyards was very successful?”
“It was, but we weren’t selling enough wine to keep three families. My dad couldn’t see the potential of e-commerce, but I wanted a shot at selling wine online and when I got it, I made it work.”
“See. There you go. Back to being a winner.”
“In everyone’s eyes but my family’s.”
She frowned at him, totally confused, and he laughed. “I don’t want to sound like I need credit for what I did. I just want you to see that sometimes success is in the eyes of the beholder. You look at me as if you think I was born under a lucky star, and in some ways, I was. But my life is far from perfect and a person doesn’t just fall into the category of winner. Most of us work for it.”
She knew all that, of course. When she compared her life to his, he did look like a guy who had it fairly easy. But she lived the truth. She was with him every day at his office. “I know how hard you work. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Truth be told, I liked saving my family.”
She laughed. “You’re such a guy.”
He chuckled and shifted his grip on her hand. “I know. There’s a lot of male pride in a Spanish family.”
“No kidding.”
“So you can see why I didn’t want my dad connecting Julia dumping me to the work I did with Ochoa Online. I virtually saved my family. I found a position of authority for me and Riccardo in a situation where we might not have had one. I don’t want people saying I only did that because Julia dumped me, when exactly the opposite is true. Julia dumped me because I was too busy for her. And what I was busy doing was figuring out how to sell more wine so that we could all continue to live like kings.”
“You think she dumped you because you were too busy?”
He sighed. “If you look at this from her vantage point, I wasn’t a good boyfriend. I wasn’t around. I was always traveling, searching for new ways to sell wines because my dad wouldn’t give me permission to build a website. In her eyes, she shifted to a man who paid attention to her.”
“Wow.”
“For a good five years, I had known the family was headed for trouble financially. But it wasn’t until she dumped me that I got permission to do the one thing that would save us.”
“And this,” she said, waving her engagement ring at him, “is sort of your way of distancing yourself from Julia so your family doesn’t feel sorry for you. They see what you did?”
He shrugged. “I really do want Alonzo and Julia’s wedding to be theirs. But I also wish my family could separate our breakup and the creation of Ochoa Online.”
“So let’s get in there and make them believe we’re the happiest couple on the face of the earth.”
He laughed and opened the door to the vineyard’s main house. They hurried up the stairs and back down the hall to Nanna’s quarters.
As they stepped into the living room where everyone was enjoying a cocktail, Lila watched Julia’s expression shift and confirmed—again—that Julia was suspicious.
But for once, she didn’t care. Not only was Julia a jittery bride, looking for trouble, but also the two-minute conversation they’d had walking to the house had infused her with new energy for the ruse.
It had also given her the weirdest feeling about Mitch. She’d only seen his successes—and, yes, there were many. But she never considered that his family expected this of him and that it would bother him that they didn’t seem to appreciate the wonderful things he had done.
Dressed in simple pink trousers and a white top, Marguerite walked over. She handed Mitch a glass of wine and Lila a glass of club soda before she kissed both of their cheeks. “I’m glad Nanna wanted dinner to be informal. It’s good to relax after a day of meetings.”
Mitch laughed. “Except some people sat by the pool while we worked.”
“Yes, we did,” Nanna chimed in, totally unapologetic. Wearing white capris and a navy-blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, she looked casual and comfortable, like a woman about to go out for a sail.
Mitch directed Lila to the gray sofa and as she sat, Mitch’s father, Santiago, said, “So, Lila, you and I have barely said two words to each other. Are you enjoying your stay here?”
Surprised to have Mitch’s father pay attention to her, she said, “I’m enjoying my stay very much. Your vineyard is beautiful. And Nanna’s pretty good company.”
Everybody laughed.
Julia said, “She’s just glad to have someone to hang out with.”
Nanna shook her head. “No. I choose to be alone sometimes.” She reached out and squeezed Lila’s hand. “I only give up my privacy for special people.”
Her eyes shining, Marguerite said, “We could start talking about your wedding while you’re here.”
Knowing this was exactly the opposite of what Mitch wanted, she said, “We just got engaged. I haven’t really thought much about it. Besides, this is Julia and Alonzo’s special time.”
Julia shrugged. “I have no problem talking about your wedding. In fact, I’m curious.”
Of course she was. This was one of those moments Lila had to make sure everything between her and Mitch looked real.
Lila glanced at Mitch, who smiled as if to say, “Go ahead. Say what you want.”
She faced Marguerite again. “I think having the wedding here would be wonderful.”
Santiago grinned. “Really?”
Marguerite clapped her hands together. “I was so afraid you’d say you want to be married in the States.”
“No. It’s beautiful here. Perfect.”
Mitch said, “Yes, it’s perfect here.” He took Lila’s hand and kissed the knuckles. The intimacy of his lips touching her skin filled her with warmth. Mostly because, like the kiss in the kitchen, it felt real. Tonight he’d shared something with her that his assistant Lila never in a million years would have gotten the chance to know. Her heart expanded almost to overflowing. It was the first time he’d ever been so honest, so normal with her. If nothing else, they were becoming friends.
So... Yeah. The touch of his lips on her skin felt different.
Genuine.
Then he shifted the discussion in the direction of tuxes and Alonzo’s bachelor party. And she watched him as he talked. It was clear he loved his family and she could understand his pride at saving Ochoa Vineyards. She glanced at Julia, thought of her not as annoying but the first woman who had loved Mitch. She studied his mom, his dad, Nanna and even Riccardo and his parents and realized it probably wasn’t easy to keep ten people happy. Yet Mitch did it. Every darned day. Day in and day out. And he did it without any credit. His brother ran the vineyard. His dad ran the business. And Mitch was the one who actually made them money by selling the wines. Mitch would always be second to his brother—who was second to their dad.
Of all the people in this room, Mitch was probably the smartest, and craftiest, yet you’d never know it from how he behaved. He deferred to his dad, loved his brother, doted on his nanna and his mom.
And somehow it made him all the sexier.
The staff announced dinner. Mitch’s dad waited for her as they all walked into the dining room. Taking her hand, Santiago slid it onto his forearm as he escorted her to the table. “So you like it here? You like Spain?”
Temporarily shelving her thoughts about Mitch, Lila smiled at him. “I love it here.”
He walked her to her seat and pulled out her chair. In her peripheral vision she saw Mitch scramble to get his mom’s chair. She also sa
w his eyes narrow as his dad said, “We have incredible weather year-round.”
Marguerite said, “The best.”
Mitch walked to the seat beside Lila. “We’ll have to visit later in the year so Lila can see for herself.”
“That would be wonderful,” Santiago said. Facing Lila, he added, “And you can bring your family.”
“Oh.” She glanced at Mitch, then at Riccardo, whose eyebrows were raised the whole way to his hairline. She wasn’t sure if his panicked expression meant he’d told somebody she’d grown up in foster care, or if his panicked expression meant he hadn’t. But that was the problem. If she said, “Sure, that’ll be great. I’m sure my family would love to meet you all,” somebody at this table could say, “I thought you were a foster kid.”
Actually, Nanna could say that. The first day she was here she’d told Nanna she’d been raised in foster homes.
She had to stick with the truth.
She glanced back at Santiago. “I’m sorry. I just assumed Mitch would have told you that I was raised in foster care.”
Marguerite said, “Oh, no! You have no family? No one to invite to the wedding?”
A quick glance around the table showed eight very sad faces. Except for Nanna, who gave her a smile of encouragement.
“It wasn’t as bad as everybody thinks it is.” She peeked up at Mitch, who studied her intently, as if hoping she’d finally fill in some of the blanks for him. Her heart somersaulted in her chest. After the way he’d been so honest with her on the walk over, she almost felt she could. Or maybe she should. But this wasn’t the time or place. “Plus, I have a lot of friends.”
Obviously eager to get beyond his faux pas, Santiago boisterously said, “That’s wonderful! You can invite them all. You and Mitch will have a big, happy wedding.”
Lila said, “That’d be great,” satisfied that she’d smoothed over that potential bad spot. But a tiny bit of guilt suddenly pinched her chest. She wanted to tell Mitch the truth about her life. So why hadn’t she corrected the Ochoas when they assumed she had no family? She might not have brothers and sisters or a dad, but her mom was still alive. It would have been an easy way to open the door to have the discussion about her past when they returned to the apartment.
So why hadn’t she?
She shook her head to clear it.
It didn’t matter. This was a ruse. Not real.
If she were getting married for real she would want her mom there. She would move heaven and earth to find her. There was no reason for her to feel as if she’d somehow disrespected her mom by not mentioning her.
But she still felt guilty. Wrong.
She’d dealt her mother the ultimate insult when she’d called Child Services and gotten herself placed in foster care. Now she was pretending she didn’t exist—
Before she could finish that thought, another, stronger truth ruffled through her, like the first blast of wind from an oncoming storm.
The two times she’d finagled enough money to locate her mom, her mom had taken off. Disappeared as if she’d never existed.
What if she didn’t want to be found?
What if she didn’t want Lila in her life?
What if that was the real fear Lila had always had but couldn’t admit because it was just too horrible to contemplate?
And what if that was why she’d created the big fairy-tale crush around Mitch as soon as she’d started working for him? The past year, she’d been quietly content, thinking she was staying with Mitch, hoping he’d pay attention to her. Her crush had kept her from looking for a job that paid more, so she’d have money to search for her mom, but most of all it had kept her from admitting the brutal truth...
That her mom didn’t want her.
CHAPTER NINE
MITCH GLANCED OVER at Lila. Her face had gone white. She didn’t look like she was even breathing. Talk of her foster care experience had all but paralyzed her.
They made it through dinner because the conversation shifted away from them and over to Julia, but the walk back to his apartment was made in complete silence. A slow ache built in his chest. He knew if she’d just talk about this, he could somehow make it better. He always could.
In the apartment entryway, he said, “I told you my biggest secret on the way over. And you repay me with silence?”
She started up the stairs. “Your dad suggesting I invite my family sort of threw me for a loop.”
He followed her. When she didn’t elaborate, he said, “I thought we’d made a connection. You know—”
She reached the apartment door and waited for him to catch up with her.
Pulling out his key, he added, “I’d tell you something about me. You’d tell me something about you.”
“Is that why you told me about the bankruptcy? And you saving them? So I’d talk?”
He opened the door. “No. I did that so you would understand the importance of our mission being successful. I might not be the one who gets credit for being the leader but I am the leader in this family. I’m the one making the money that holds us together. I cannot be perceived as weak.”
She turned to him with one of her fake smiles. “I get it. I do. And we will be successful.” Without waiting for his reply, she headed for her bedroom.
She didn’t say good-night.
Every other night, no matter how confused or angry, she’d always said good-night.
The strangest urge to follow her raced through him. He wanted to grab her arm and stop her from walking away. Not because he was angry that she wouldn’t talk. But because it broke his heart that there was something that made her unbearably sad. He wanted to tell her that whatever was wrong, he would fix it. It was what he did. His brother loved his girlfriend; he stepped aside. Ochoa Vineyards was in trouble; he created Ochoa Online. He fixed things.
But he couldn’t fix whatever was wrong in Lila’s life if she didn’t tell him.
* * *
The next morning, she came out of her room dressed in jeans and a shirt. As she walked to the kitchen table, she said, “Nanna called. She said you guys have some sort of vintners meeting?”
Her comments were offhand, almost light, but when he looked into her kitten-gray eyes he saw the sadness she couldn’t quite cover up.
“Yes. My dad hopes to drum up a little more business for the website that sells wines for other vineyards. He’s invited them here so he can tell them about Ochoa Online and see if we can get their wines on the multi-producer site.”
Her head tilted. “But that’s your company. Ochoa Vineyards is a client of Ochoa Online. You own Ochoa Online.”
“My dad still sees it all being under the same umbrella. Besides, he’s helping me.” He rose from his seat. She looked tired and worn, as if she hadn’t slept the night before. “Can I get you some coffee?”
She waved him off. “I’ll get it.”
He lowered himself to his chair, feeling weird again. She’d been perfectly fine. Feisty even. Until his dad mentioned her family the night before, and she’d had to admit she’d been in foster care. Now her face was drawn. Her usually warm gray eyes had dimmed.
He couldn’t stand to see her this way. But he also didn’t know what it was about being a foster child that tore her up. He knew the basics of her life. To be a foster child, she didn’t have any family who could raise her. But she’d been dealing with this her entire life. Why did admitting it to his family make her so sad?
She poured a mug of coffee and walked to the table with the tray of bagels and pastries the chef had sent up.
Pulling out a chair, she said, “So your dad likes being involved in your companies too?”
“My dad’s a Spanish man. He’s a family man. He believes he has the right to comment on, interfere with and downright run anything that belongs to anyone he
loves.”
She laughed. “That’s funny.”
He sat back in his seat, glad her mood seemed to be improving. “It’s not so funny if you’re the one running the business he’s interfering in.”
“He can’t interfere a lot. I’m your assistant. I’m in the office every time you are, and I’ve never seen him do anything.”
“That’s because nothing he’s suggested has ever made it to our idea meetings. He makes phone calls. Suggests shifts. Gives ideas. And Riccardo and I listen, but don’t take action on anything he says.”
“Sounds like he’s just being a good dad.”
He shook his head. “Lila, I’m thirty. I don’t want my daddy telling me what to do.”
She laughed again and his heart lifted, but they’d sort of run out of conversation. Unless they were talking about the ruse or his family or Ochoa Online, she didn’t really talk to him.
Something had made her sad. She wanted to leave his employ and he was powerless to help her. He had never had this feeling of helplessness before.
He rose from his seat. “I guess I’d better run.”
She nodded. “Yes, Nanna will be around for me soon.”
He stood by the table, not quite wanting to leave, too awkward to stay. The urge to press her for answers shimmered through him, but in over a week he hadn’t been able to get her to talk to him. Last night she’d totally shut down. Maybe it was time to admit defeat?
“Enjoy your day.”
She smiled slightly. “I will. Nanna’s always fun.”
“Spend money.”
She laughed. “Oh, I’ll do that too.”
He finally turned and walked to the door, a strange thought weaving through his brain. Her laughter had been real, and he liked hearing her laugh, making her laugh, almost as much as he’d liked sharing a confidence with her.
He knew she’d had a hard life. Now he knew that working for him hadn’t been the joy he’d always thought it was. Being in Spain, with his family, was fun for her. So maybe instead of trying to get her to tell him her secrets, what he should be doing was making sure every step of this charade was fun for her.
