Seductive One

by Susan Mallery

  He didn’t know where she was going with this, but he had to stop her now before she said something they would both regret.

  “You’re upset,” he told her. “You need to recover from the shock.”

  “Do I? Or has the shock given me the courage to say what needs saying?” She leaned forward and kissed him. “I’ve always regretted not marrying you. I tried to love Jeff, but I couldn’t. That’s why I gave my life away-I felt guilty. I devoted my time to him because I couldn’t give him my heart. It belonged to you. It still does.”

  This was not happening. Nic stood and paced to the window. He spun back to Brenna.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She shrugged. “I think I’ve always had lousy timing. This only proves it, huh?” She rose. “It’s okay, Nic. You don’t have to say anything back. I’m not expecting a declaration of your undying love and a proposal or anything.” She paused. “Well, it would be nice, but I understand a lot of things have changed. You may not feel the same way. I just wanted you to know. I still love you. I guess that gives you a win in all this.”

  A win? The irony should have made him laugh, but instead he wanted to stop time and figure out how this had all gotten so screwed up. Brenna wasn’t supposed to love him. Not now. Not like this.

  Not after what he’d done.

  “Brenna, you don’t understand,” he said.

  “Are you guys in here? Nic? Brenna?”

  He swore in frustration.

  “Mia?” Brenna called. “Is that you?”

  Mia burst into the living room. “Brenna, are you okay? I saw you running through the vineyards. I thought maybe you’d finally gone over the deep end. I figured you’d come here, so I drove over. I went to the office first, but they told me you were in here.” She waved her right hand and he recognized his grandmother’s diary. “You’ll never guess what I found.”

  Nic clenched his hands into fists. “Mia, this isn’t a really good time. Your sister and I-”

  “Trust me, you’re gonna want to hear this. See, I’ve been translating the diary. When I got into it, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I didn’t want to say anything until I reached the end. I wanted to be sure.”

  Nic wanted to grab Mia by her shirt collar and propel her from the room. He needed time with Brenna to figure out what he was going to say to her. How he was going to explain the truth? But Mia wasn’t interested in anything but her news.

  “It’s so amazing,” she said gleefully. She looked at Nic. “Hang on to to your privates, Nic. Grandpa Lorenzo was right all along. Salvatore Giovanni really did poison the Marcelli vines all those years ago-and you’ll never guess why.”

  17

  “What are you talking about?” Brenna asked. Her head was swimming. With all she’d already been through, she didn’t think there were more shocks to be had. Apparently she’d been wrong.

  Mia pulled several folded sheets of paper out of her shorts back pocket. “Once I realized what was going on, I took notes. It’s so incredible.”

  She plopped into a wing chair by the sofa and waved at the couch. “You guys want to take a load off while I read this or are you going to stay standing?”

  Brenna pressed a hand to her stomach. She felt as if an entire platoon of butterflies was fighting it out in there. Her chest hurt, her eyes burned, and she couldn’t believe she’d just told Nic she loved him. Emotional meltdown, she told herself. She’d reacted to a horrific situation by spilling her guts. Unfortunately, she’d told him about the same time she’d figured it out for herself, so she hadn’t had a chance to get used to the information. Worse, he hadn’t reacted.

  She eyed him now and saw him watching her. She was unable to read his expression or figure out what he was thinking. Obviously she’d shocked him with her confession, but had it been in a good way or a bad way? Did he want them to be alone so he could take her in his arms and tell her how much he’d always loved her, too, or did he just want to bolt for safety?

  “Hello?” Mia said, sounding impatient. “Doesn’t this interest anyone but me?”

  Brenna slowly sat on the sofa. Whatever she and Nic had to say to each other could wait. Great. In the space of an hour she’d found out that her grandfather really was selling the winery, and she’d handed her heart over to Nic without finding out how he felt about her. Somehow she doubted anything Mia had to say could even come close.

  Nic crossed to the window and stared outside. “Go ahead,” he told Mia.

  Mia shrugged. “Okay. So if you started translating at the beginning, you probably already know that Antonio and Sophia were in love. According to this, they had been for years. But there was a problem with Antonio’s family. It’s not clear what, but he wasn’t considered a desirable match for her. When he and Salvatore decided to start over in America, Sophia vowed to wait for her one true love. Heartfelt good-bye, etcetera. Flash forward six years. Sophia is still the beauty of the village, but she has refused every suitor. Her father grows impatient and begins to pressure her. She gets a letter from Antonio telling her that he and Salvatore are coming back to claim brides. The wineries are already starting to show a profit. By village standards he’s a rich man now, and he’s coming to get her.”

  Mia glanced up from the paper. “She waited six years. How crazy is that?”

  Brenna thought about how long she’d loved Nic. “He was her one true love.”

  Mia wrinkled her nose. “You sound like a greeting card. I say cut your losses and find the best guy who’s available now, but that’s just me. Anyway, weeks go by, Sophia’s family gets impatient. She promises to marry by the end of spring. Who shows up the following week? Not darling Antonio, but Salvatore. He’s successful, his family is respected, and he comes bearing gifts. The family is thrilled. When he makes an offer for Sophia, they accept on her behalf. Sophia is distraught. Where is her beloved?”

  “Where is he?” Nic asked.

  “Don’t know. The diary doesn’t say. But Sophia’s in a panic. She tries to delay the wedding, but the folks won’t have it. Antonio is MIA until the night before the wedding.”

  Brenna can’t believe it. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. He shows up at some fancy dinner. Now that he’s not going to be family, her parents make him welcome. Sophia is heartbroken. He’s her one true love, yada yada. They meet out by the fountain close to midnight. He wants her to come away with him, to elope. But she can’t shame her family. Salvatore is a good man. They fight, they make up, they have sex.”

  Brenna’s mouth dropped open. “No way.”

  Mia grinned. “Oh, she’s pretty delicate in her description, but there’s no doubt the deed gets done. Salvatore gets the bride, but not the cherry.”

  “Does that start the feud?” Nic asked.

  “No. Apparently Antonio settles on a different bride. Our great-grandmother Maria. There’s another wedding and the four of them head back to America. I can only imagine how interesting that boat crossing could have been. I mean the four of them dining together. Sophia and Antonio married to people they don’t love. Talk about a conversation stopper.”

  Brenna thought of her own miserable marriage. “How did she stand it?”

  “There was plenty of work to keep her busy. After a year or so, the first of her babies came along. The wineries flourished, then the war came. As we’ve been told forty billion times, Antonio and Salvatore went to Europe and were given cuttings from different vineyards in an effort to protect the horticultural heritage from the Germans. They brought them back, planted them and all went well, right up until Salvatore got a letter that his father was dying. This was right after the end of the war. Being a good son, he headed home for Italy. Sophia stayed behind with the family and the grapes.”

  Mia waved the papers. “Brace yourself. Here’s the good stuff. There was an early frost-just days before the harvest. Antonio and Sophia did everything they could to save the grapes. They worked tirelessly for days. It’s not clear w
here Great-grandma Maria was during all this, but when the harvest was finally in and they’d saved the grapes, they celebrated by falling into each other’s arms. They admitted they were still in love. The affair went on for nearly two weeks until Sophia put a stop to it, telling Antonio she couldn’t continue to betray her husband. But it was too late. Sophia was pregnant.”

  Brenna couldn’t believe it. “There was a child?”

  “Almost. Sophia was frantic, as you can imagine. Salvatore wasn’t the nicest guy around, and he didn’t like coming home after being gone for nearly six months and finding his wife five months pregnant. He badgered her for the name of her lover, then turned his back on her, threatening to throw her bastard into the streets. It turns out he didn’t have to. The baby was stillborn.”

  Brenna glanced at Nic. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt. “How did he find out it was Antonio’s?”

  “In her grief she told him the truth. All of it.” Mia shook her head. “That was the beginning of the feud. Sophia found out later that Salvatore went to the Marcellis’ vineyards and poisoned all the vines they’d brought from Europe. Whatever he used acted slowly, strangling the new cuttings until they all died. She said when he told her, he sounded as if he were proud of what he’d done. Sophia blamed herself, but she wouldn’t betray her husband again by telling Antonio what had happened. The two men fought, Salvatore refused to confess because to his mind, Antonio’s sin was greater. The families never spoke again. Well, until you guys.”

  Mia folded the papers. “So that’s it. Our sordid past. Think we could sell the story to Hollywood?”

  “Salvatore really poisoned the grapes,” Brenna said slowly. “All these years I thought Grandpa Lorenzo was crazy, but he was telling the truth.”

  “There was just cause,” Mia said. “You know how Italian men are about fidelity. It obsesses them.”

  Brenna didn’t dare glance at Nic. Infidelity. That’s what he had considered her relationship with Jeff, and she wasn’t sure he was wrong. But unlike his great-grandfather, he’d come to understand why and he’d forgiven her instead of seeking revenge.

  Nic walked toward Mia. “You agree with what Salvatore did?”

  “I don’t know if I agree, but I understand. His best friend screwed his wife. That was pretty low. I mean, Sophia had the chance to run off with Antonio the night before her wedding, but she was too frightened to defy her family. She chose a stranger over the man she really loved. Then she cheated on her husband with the guy she’d loved all along. Somebody needed to bitch-slap some sense into that girl. She gave up the right to Antonio the second she turned him down. She’d picked her life, so she should have honored it.”

  Mia’s comments hit a little too close to home for comfort. Brenna didn’t want to see any similarities between herself and Nic, and Sophia and Antonio. Unfortunately, they were too obvious to miss.

  She stood. “Mia, we should get home. I want to talk to Grandpa Lorenzo about this.”

  “Will it change anything?” Nic asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  Still, the need to escape pressed in on her from all directions.

  Mia rose and pulled her keys from her front pocket. “You want to do the Forrest Gump cross-country run again or you want a ride?”

  “We’ll take your car.”

  “Brenna, wait.” Nic moved close. “We have to talk.”

  Of course they did. She’d spilled her guts to the man. The problem was she didn’t know if he was going to match her feelings or try to let her down gently. She didn’t think she could handle one more shock today.

  “I’ll call you,” she said vaguely. “Soon.”

  Nic stood alone in the living room. In the space of an hour his world had shifted on its axis. First Brenna’s fears that her grandfather would sell-implying he was about to get everything he’d ever wanted. Then her claims to be in love with him. Love? Now? Fate had a twisted sense of timing. Finally the news about his great-grandfather.

  All his life Nic had thought the feud was a joke. He’d figured the Marcellis’ claims were little more than a rationalization of their own failure. He’d felt superior because his family had been successful on a grand scale. The European cuttings had given Wild Sea an edge in the market. By the early 1980s that edge could be measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue. Today the difference was in millions.

  When Nic had been called back from his exile, he’d been determined to make Wild Sea one of the biggest and the best. His plan, born during those long days working in the vineyards of France, had started with blinding hate and rage, then had evolved into something more concrete. He’d had something to prove-not just to his grandfather, but to Brenna. He wanted her to regret all that she’d lost when she’d left him.

  Once Wild Sea was everything he could make it, he would buy Marcelli Wines. Over time he would incorporate their vineyards, their processes, then he would eliminate their name.

  During the past seven years, he’d accomplished everything he’d wanted, with one exception-he hadn’t bought out Marcelli Wines.

  Wild Sea had three times the sales and four times the profits, but that hadn’t mattered. He’d had a goal.

  Now that goal seemed to rest on shaky ground.

  He walked to the rear of the house and stepped outside. He couldn’t see them from here, but they were just beyond the rise. On the acres bordering the Marcelli lands were the European cuttings. They had grown strong, producing some of the best grapes. Old had been grafted into new, year after year.

  “A stolen legacy,” he murmured to himself.

  Max trotted over and nosed his hand. Nic patted the dog.

  He’d built his dreams of revenge on a lie. Nothing he’d built was his alone. It had been stolen by a man twisted and bent by revenge.

  Was Nic so very different?

  ***

  Nic drove along the coast road for nearly an hour. He’d pulled on his helmet, but forgotten a jacket. The cool air stung his chest and arms, but he didn’t turn back. He couldn’t-not until he’d seen the proof.

  The highway turnoff was clearly marked, but after that, he had to rely on memory more than signs. It took him nearly thirty minutes to find the well-cared-for cemetery on the bluff. Once inside the wrought-iron gate, he made his way to the fenced section overlooking the ocean. Large marble statues and benches declared those resting here to be persons of substance with financial means. However ill-gotten those means might be.

  Nic turned off the motorcycle and slipped off his helmet. The afternoon was silent except for the wind rustling leaves and stirring the grass.

  For once he ignored the giant column over his great-grandfather’s grave and the small stone that marked Sophia’s resting place. His grandmother held a place of honor, but he didn’t stop there. Instead he searched by the back corner for something he’d seen years ago and had not understood.

  When he found the simple marker, it contained only a date. No name, no words of comfort or loss. Sophia’s stillborn child. Antonio Marcelli’s son or daughter. Mia hadn’t said which. Maybe Sophia had hurt too much to say in her diary.

  He bent down and touched the smooth stone, as if he could somehow reach beyond and connect with the past. Behind him, Salvatore’s grave loomed like a dark shadow. Nic had never thought much about his great-grandfather. He knew now he should have done his best to understand the man so he wouldn’t be doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

  He sat on the grass and stared up at the heavens. To have come so far only to find out he’d been wrong from the beginning.

  The truth was here, in the quiet, and at last he was forced to acknowledge that which he’d never admitted even in the darkest recesses of his soul.

  He’d wanted Marcelli Wines to prove he was good enough.

  Wild Sea had been the business success, but Marcelli Wines had the family. How many times as a child had he hovered just out of sight, watching the girls play together? How many nights had he s
tolen up to the window and pressed his nose against the dining-room glass to see them all sitting around the table? In the summer those big windows had been open, so he had heard their conversation, their laughter, and he’d ached to be a part of that.

  For years he’d worked to prove he was good enough. And for whom? His parents, who had never cared? His grandfather, who sent him away? Brenna, who had chosen someone else?

  The plan had formed the night he’d been forced to leave home. He’d vowed he would show them all. He would prove he was the best, and he would make them crawl to him.

  His grandfather had returned first, begging him to come home and run the winery. The old man had needed him for business, but had never taken Nic back into his heart. When Emilio had died, the two of them had barely been speaking.

  Over the next few years he’d expanded, growing in money and power until only Marcelli was left to be conquered.

  He’d spent seven years of his life battling ghosts. It was a war he could never win. And if he did, what would he have? A few acres? The right to use a label? He would still be alone. He would still have to look at himself in the mirror. He would still not have Brenna.

  He dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. Brenna. She had reappeared without warning, offering what he thought was the perfect way to ensure his plan worked. He’d loaned her money because he thought the callable note gave him leverage, but was that the only reason? Hadn’t he also done it so that she would be nearby?

  Of course, he thought, wondering why he hadn’t seen it before. Brenna, whom he’d never been able to forget. She’d exploded into his life like a shooting star, her light reaching all the way into the dark corners of his soul. He’d tried to hate her, but couldn’t. He’d tried to forget her, to love someone else. Anyone else. He’d failed. Brenna, who had told him she loved him.

  She wouldn’t now. Not when she learned the truth.

  Nic’s eyes opened. Panic seized him. In that moment he knew his only chance was to get to Brenna as quickly as possible and tell her everything. If he was able to explain, to apologize, to take it all back, then maybe she would understand. Maybe she would still love him.