Seductive One

by Susan Mallery

  As she reached for the button on the waistband of her skirt, she said, “I went to see Nic Giovanni about a loan. I think he’s going to say yes.”

  After smoothing her shoulder-length hair, she turned back to find her two sisters staring at her. The combination of open mouths and wide eyes was pretty funny.

  “No way,” Francesca breathed. “You did not go to Nic for a loan, did you? You’re really doing this? You’re starting your own label?”

  Katie clutched her wine in both hands. “How much did you ask for? Not the amount you said before because that was-”

  “A million dollars,” Brenna said cheerfully as she pulled on her jeans. “Or seven figures, as they say on the street.”

  “No way!”

  Francesca sounded horrified. Katie mumbled something Brenna couldn’t hear, which was probably for the best. Her business-minded sister would get caught up in payment schedules and the disaster of what would happen if Brenna failed. Something she wasn’t going to let happen.

  She hung up her suit, then plopped back on the bed. “I didn’t decide to go to Nic on a whim. I’ve run out of options. I can’t get a bank loan. Not without Grandpa Lorenzo giving his support. Everyone I talked to assumed that if he wasn’t behind me, it must be because I’m a bad risk. Even as a good risk, I’d have a tough time. There isn’t any collateral. I mean, I’m going to buy those four acres I want, so that would help, but I don’t have a penny of my own to put down. It’s not as if Jeff and I had any assets to split during the divorce.”

  Her sisters looked stunned and slightly panicked.

  “What about the settlement money?” Francesca asked.

  “Not even close to enough.”

  Brenna thought about the monthly payments her soon-to-be-ex husband would be sending. While the income would be nice, being reimbursed for putting his ungrateful ass through medical school didn’t come close to the cost of starting a new label. If Nic came through-she crossed index and middle fingers on her left hand-Jeff’s payments would barely cover the interest on her million-dollar loan.

  “It’s going to work out great,” she promised.

  “Nic Giovanni,” Katie breathed. “You just went to him and asked for the loan? But you don’t even know him. What makes you think he’ll say yes?”

  Brenna picked up her wine and cleared her throat. “He likes to take risks. He gave some other winery start-up money a few years ago. I read about it and remembered.”

  As for not knowing Nic…well, that wasn’t exactly true. Ten years ago she’d known everything about Nic. Not that she’d ever told her sisters. Loving him had been her only secret. One she’d held close to her heart.

  At first she hadn’t told anyone because she’d assumed he wouldn’t stay interested in her for very long. Then she hadn’t told because keeping their relationship a secret had made it seem more special. And when it had ended, she’d been too ashamed by what she’d done to say anything.

  “Start-up money is a world of difference from a million dollars,” Francesca said. “What if it doesn’t work? What if something bad happens?”

  Brenna shrugged. “Then I fall on my butt.”

  “Owing a million dollars.”

  “I don’t care. I have to try. You’re right-I may fail, but I think it’s unlikely. But if it does, I’ll be okay. Even if Grandpa Lorenzo sells the winery, or leaves it to our long-lost brother, he’ll still settle cash on each of us. It probably won’t be a million dollars, but it will go a long way toward paying off my debt.”

  “So wait,” Katie said. “Wait and use that money when you get it.”

  Brenna shook her head. “This is the right time. I can feel it. Besides, there are four acres I want to buy, and they won’t stay on the market forever. There’s a crop of Pinot Noir grapes with my name on them, some Chardonnay grapes. I have an idea for a fabulous cuvée. My life has been on hold for the past ten years. I’m not willing to wait any longer.”

  “What if Nic won’t loan you the money?” Francesca asked.

  Brenna didn’t want to think about that, but she had to admit the possibility. “Then I don’t have a choice except to wait. Look, I know I can do this. I have a well-thought-out plan, I know the industry, and I’m not afraid to bust my butt working twenty-four-seven. You both have to take a deep breath and trust me.”

  Francesca and Katie glanced at each other, then at her.

  “You go, girl,” Francesca said and raised her bottle of chocolate milk. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “I will.”

  Katie reached for a piece of chocolate. “So how did our neighborhood bad boy look? I haven’t seen him in years, but the last time I did, I’ll admit my heart did a little back flip.”

  Francesca chuckled. “I know what you mean. I saw him, oh, maybe a year and a half ago. He was coming out of the gourmet store in town. It was one of those perfect spring days. Cool, but sunny. He had on a black leather jacket and sunglasses. He smiled at me as he held open the door. I stood there and watched him ride off on his motorcycle. It was really good for me.”

  Brenna rolled her eyes. “You two are pathetic.”

  “Come off it,” Katie scolded. “Like you’ve never had a fantasy about Nic Giovanni. I don’t think it’s physically possible to be within a hundred feet of him and not think about sex. I refuse to believe you’re immune.”

  Brenna was far from that. “He’s good-looking,” she admitted grudgingly.

  Francesca hooted. “Yeah, right. There’s an understatement. He’s dark, dangerous, and moves like a man who knows what he’s doing in bed. Does it get any better than that?”

  “I thought you were wildly in love with Sam.”

  “I am.” Francesca didn’t look the least bit embarrassed. “But along with every other female either twenty years older or younger than Nic, I’ve had a crush on him forever. So has Katie and Mia, and I’m guessing you, even though you haven’t admitted it. Why is that?”

  A crush? Did that describe it?

  Katie rolled onto her stomach. “What gives, Brenna? Don’t you have a Nic fantasy you want to share?”

  “Sure. That he loans me the money I need.”

  “I want something juicier than that.”

  Brenna sipped her wine. Juicy? That she could provide.

  “Nic is the first guy I ever slept with.”

  The room went utterly and completely still. Francesca froze, her drink halfway to her mouth. Katie paused in the act of reaching for another piece of chocolate. Brenna felt as if she’d found the freeze-frame button on a DVD.

  Francesca recovered first. “Nic? Nic our neighbor? Nic Giovanni-the great-grandson of the hated Salvatore? The Romeo to our collective Juliet?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Slept?” Katie asked. “As in sex?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you never said anything?” Katie sounded outraged. “I’m your sister!”

  “Hey, I’m her twin and she didn’t say squat to me!”

  Brenna leaned back against her headboard. “There wasn’t much to tell.”

  She ducked as Francesca threw a pillow at her.

  “Talk,” her twin demanded. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave out any of the good parts.”

  “Especially not the sex,” Katie added. “You slept with him? I can’t believe it. We voted him the guy the three of us would most like to have had sex with back in high school. And you did it. And didn’t tell us. How is that possible?”

  “I’m not sure. It just happened.”

  Brenna set her glass on the nightstand and pulled her legs up to her chest, then wrapped her arms around her knees. After all this time she wasn’t sure she could tell the story. Not because she’d forgotten or because it was a big deal, but because she’d gotten so used to keeping it all to herself.

  Ten years after the fact, did it matter if the women she loved most in the world knew?

  “It started when I was seventeen and Nic was tw
enty. I knew who he was and all, but we’d never had a real conversation. He caught me sneaking around the barrels over at Wild Sea. I knew they were tasting the wines before bottling. I’d heard so much about the hated Giovanni vineyards, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

  Francesca looked stunned. “You went over there?”

  “Sure. Just snuck in the back. It was easy. I was tasting one of their Reserve Cabernets when Nic caught me.”

  That had happened ten years ago, and she could still recall the moment in detail. The sharpness of the wine on her tongue, the heat of the summer afternoon, the terror when someone grabbed her arm. She’d turned to see Nic. In that second before she tried to bluff her way out of the situation, she’d found herself drowning in his dark brown eyes.

  She’d noticed everything about him. His height. The way he brushed his hair back and the single lock that flopped forward. The stubble on his jaw, the dust motes dancing in sunlight. Even the sound of birds outside and the distant rumble of voices.

  “Did he get mad?” Francesca asked.

  “I think he was more curious. I told him why I was there and that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” She smiled as she remembered his failed attempts not to laugh at her audacity. “I’d just won two gold medals for wines I’d blended and I was pretty cocky. I told him they’d made a mistake in using new American oak barrels because it was putting too much vanilla into the wine. I mean that’s great in a Chardonnay, but this was a Reserve Cab. You want berry and chocolate flavors. Some plum and-”

  She broke off and glanced at her sisters. Katie had her head in her hands and Francesca slumped onto the bed.

  “What?”

  Katie looked up. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but we don’t care about the wine. Get back to meeting Nic.”

  “Philistines,” Brenna muttered. To her, Nic and wine were two halves of the same equation. She couldn’t have one without thinking of the other. But her sisters wouldn’t understand that.

  “Instead of throwing me out, he ended up having me taste several of the wines there. I gave him my opinion. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes we argued. I was always right, of course.”

  “Of course,” Francesca said with a laugh.

  Brenna grinned. “We spent the rest of the afternoon together. I remember being surprised by how much there was to talk about. I mean, I knew he was really cute and everything, but back then the wine was more important than any guy. I guess it still is.”

  Katie picked up her glass. “You are so in need of some serious therapy.”

  “Maybe Francesca will give me a discount.”

  Her twin shook her head. “No treating family members. There are strict rules about that. So then what? You hung out, it was great, and?”

  “And a couple of days later I was out walking the vines and Nic found me. We talked for hours. I got sunburned, we were out for so long. This time we arranged to meet up again.”

  Brenna remembered how magical everything had become that summer. With Nic around, the sky was bluer, the ocean more salty. She’d laughed longer, slept harder, breathed more deeply than ever before.

  “We became friends,” she said slowly, feeling herself getting lost in the past and knowing that was dangerous territory. “We rode his motorcycle down to the beach for picnics, we-”

  “You were on his motorcycle?” Francesca sounded outraged. “I can’t believe it. I always wanted to go for a ride with him.”

  “Next time I see him I’ll ask if he wants to take you.”

  Francesca rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to go now. That’s a teenage girl fantasy. Plus he probably didn’t even keep his bike.”

  “It may not be the same one, but he still has a motorcycle,” Brenna said. “I’ve seen him on it around here.” She didn’t say that watching him drive by made her blood race or her throat get dry. Nor would she admit that the sight of him in his black leather jacket had flooded her with memories. Having a crush on Nic at seventeen was acceptable. At twenty-seven it was just plain embarrassing.

  “So you’re hanging out together,” Katie said. “Then what?”

  “Then one day he kissed me. I was really surprised. I had a thing for him, but I figured he thought I was still a kid.”

  He’d frequently talked about how much younger she was than him and just as often she’d pointed out that while three years seemed like a big deal now, when they were older it wouldn’t matter at all.

  “He kisses great, huh?” Katie said.

  “Not bad.”

  Francesca looked at Katie. “She is so lying. You know it was better than not bad. If nothing else, Nic has had plenty of practice.”

  “Are you telling this story or am I?”

  Francesca shrugged. “Keep talking.”

  “So he kissed me and I was stunned and then he admitted that he liked me a lot and I admitted I felt the same about him. Things progressed as they do and one day we made love.”

  Francesca’s humor fled. “You were only seventeen.”

  “I know. I was scared, but Nic was great and within a few days the sex was terrific.”

  “You never told us. You kept this from me,” Francesca said, sounding hurt. “Of course it’s all right, it’s just…”

  Brenna understood. She and Francesca were twins. “I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want you two keeping my secrets and…” She smiled. “Somehow no one knowing made it even more special. I know that sounds silly and it probably was, but I liked having Nic all to myself.”

  “If you had Nic as your secret, would you have told us?” Katie asked Francesca. “Knowing how the three of us would talk about it, laugh about it, and study it from every angle?”

  Brenna’s twin grinned. “Hmm, tell you two all the details or keep Nic to myself. Not exactly a tough choice.” She looked at Brenna. “Okay. I forgive you.”

  “Oh, good. Now I can sleep tonight.”

  Katie sat up and reached for the wine bottle. “I understand the why of keeping it quiet. What impresses me is that you could. There wasn’t even a hint.”

  “I knew it would cause trouble. The families hadn’t spoken in three generations. It’s not as if Grandpa Lorenzo listened to me about anything anyway. Can you imagine the explosion if I told him I was in love with Nic?”

  “Were you in love?” Francesca asked.

  “Completely.”

  “So why did it end?”

  “Nic went back to school. He was going to UC Davis, I was here. We didn’t see each other.”

  She took the bottle from Katie and topped up her own glass, then took a drink.

  She and Nic hadn’t seen each other. But what she didn’t tell her sisters was that they’d written. He’d sent his letters to one of her friend’s. They’d agreed to see other people while he was gone. She still didn’t know if Nic had gotten involved with another girl, but after falling in love with him, she’d been unable to get excited about any of the boys at her high school. She also didn’t mention that when Nic returned, they had picked up where they’d left off. That this time when the relationship ended it wasn’t over something as simple as Nic heading off to school. This time she’d been responsible.

  “What did he say when you went to him for the loan?” Katie asked.

  “He said he would think about it.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  “It’s not a no. I should hear from him in the next couple of days.”

  Francesca shook her head. “Are you sure about this? You don’t think it’s the least bit dangerous borrowing money from the great-grandson of the family’s sworn enemy?”

  “Do any of us take the feud seriously?”

  “No.” Francesca picked up a cookie. “I hope everything goes well. Maybe he’ll loan you the money for old times’ sake.”

  “No teenage relationship is worth that much,” Katie said.

  Brenna couldn’t help agreeing. What they didn’t know and what she wouldn’t tell them was there had been a tim
e when Nic had hated her as much as he had once loved her. Not that she could blame him. If their situations had been reversed, she would never have forgiven him.

  For the first time since going to him that afternoon, she felt a shiver of apprehension. If he wanted revenge, she was handing him the means.

  No, she told herself. That wasn’t possible. Nic wanting revenge would mean that she still mattered. It had been nearly ten years since their relationship had ended, and in that time he’d dated scads of beautiful women. She was just somebody he used to know and his interest in her project was about risk and opportunity, nothing more.

  Francesca smiled. “Okay, Brenna. If you’re determined to do this, then I want to wish you the best.” She raised her drink. “To your new winery.”

  Katie raised her glass as well. “May you only rate ninety and above in Wine Spectator.”

  Brenna picked up her glass. “To new beginnings. For all of us.”

  Nic called out greetings to the office staff as he walked to the executive offices of Wild Sea Vineyards. The door with the brass nameplate stating M. Moore, Chief Financial Officer, stood open. He knocked once and entered.

  Maggie Moore, a tall, beautiful redhead with a brain like a computer, looked up and grinned. “I can always tell when you’re around by the increase in the pitch of conversation among the office staff. You’re a distraction.”

  “That’s because they’re all dancing around, trying to look at my butt.”

  She shook her head. “I should never have told you they did that.”

  “Why not? It’s flattering.”

  “Yeah, and you strutted around here for weeks afterward.”

  “Can I help it if they find me irresistible? Besides, I’ve checked out my share of female body parts over the years. I consider it payback.”

  “Which you love. It’s a curse, but you handle it with style and grace.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She laughed then and her green eyes crinkled at the corners.

  Maggie had always enjoyed poking at his ego. For the past eight years she’d kept him from taking himself too seriously. When they’d transitioned from lovers to coworkers, that trait had kept things comfortable between them.