His hand withdrew from hers. He leaned back in his chair, his arms folding over his chest. The laugh he released was short and distinctly unamused. “What sort of joke is this?”
Nearby, tires ran over gravel and Penn whipped his head toward the sound, relieved to see a vehicle was leaving the winery, not arriving. The last thing he wanted was to have witnesses to this ridiculous conversation.
“Alessandra, who put you up to this gag?”
“I . . .” She glanced over her shoulder, suddenly looking as jumpy as he felt.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, half-rising.
“No, no!” Sounding alarmed, she gestured him back to his seat. “I just thought . . . We get along so well together.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed, starting to wonder if she’d been tasting wines all morning. “So well that we’ve had to keep our ‘relationship,’ such as it is, a secret.”
“That could change,” she said quickly.
He laughed again, then looked around him. “This is a joke. Liam and Seth don’t seem the types, particularly Liam, but are the Bennett brothers out to punk me?”
“You’re a Bennett brother.” She went all Vanna White on him and made a graceful gesture toward the rolling rows of vineyard surrounding them. “This is part of your legacy, too.”
The view distracted him for a moment. So different than L.A., with its golden beaches and rockier, taller mountains. There, the valleys were filled with houses and malls. And though it had rural spaces, too, where flowers and strawberries and peppers grew, they weren’t like these verdant acres. Maybe it was the way the vines stretched to embrace each other or perhaps it was the close boundaries of the mountains, but it all felt so personal here. Intimate. Where families committed to each other and to the land.
No wonder the bastard kid from a crappy apartment in downtown Burbank didn’t fit in.
“You like it,” Alessandra said. “You . . . you like me.”
His focus switched to the sexy little nun who was going to be so damn hard to forget. Yeah, he liked her. He liked how hard she worked to keep things going here at Tanti Baci. He liked her loyalty to her family and even, God help him, her devotion to Saint Tommy. A woman like that wouldn’t let you down.
But she couldn’t be his woman, because there was that aforementioned love of her life.
“So we could get married,” she said. Her hand ran up and down the neck of the wine bottle on the table between them. “It would be so easy.”
“Easy?” He shook his head, still not quite believing they were having this conversation. “You think marriage—I don’t care who the couple might be—is easy? I didn’t have a father, but even I know marriage can’t be called that.”
“Not the marriage,” she corrected. “The wedding. I’ve already done everything. We’re all set for Saturday. You invite your brothers, I’ll tell my sisters, we can both ask anyone else we want. The famous Penn Bennett and me, the Nun of Napa.”
He blinked. “I thought you didn’t think I was famous.”
Her thumb caressed the neck of the wine bottle. “I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She leaned forward. “Look, just think of the Wedding Fever piece . . . think of the story Roger can tell with it when we’re the bride and groom.”
He stared at her. “You’re serious?” He’d really been thinking this was some sort of odd good-bye gag on her part, but there was an intensity to her expression that wasn’t the least bit funny. “Jesus. You’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious.” A smile turned up that luscious doll mouth of hers. “Maybe we could go to a nearby B and B for our honeymoon—Roger might be interested in filming that, too.”
A honeymoon? His mind was reeling with all the implications of what she was saying, but that last word slowed his brain, nearly stopped it. Honeymoon. It spread out like a banquet in his head. White sheets, golden skin, the flavor of her juicy mouth and the juicier center he found between her legs. No more stifled sneezes for his Alessandra. He knew how to get her mindless with passion. He knew how to unleash the bad girl that shivered and cried and came in his arms.
Afterward, he’d slide down the sheets and soothe her aftershocks by sucking on her breasts, tender and soft, until her hands would cup his head against her and she’d whisper, “I love you, Penn Bennett. I love you.”
Then his brain started working again.
Think of the story Roger can tell with it. The famous Penn Bennett and me, the Nun of Napa.
The fantasy shattered.
Maybe we could go to a nearby B and B for our honeymoon—Roger might be interested in filming that, too.
It was all clear to Penn now.
“This is part of a PR plan?” he asked, anger crawling up his back. “You think I’d get myself hitched as part of your plot to save the winery?”
She winced. “ ‘Plot’ sounds a bit harsh, don’t you think? As for hitched . . . really, Penn, did you see yourself as single for the rest of your life?”
Well, fuck yeah, he did. The woman he wanted was out of his reach. He didn’t think he’d find another, and frankly, falling in love had not much to recommend it.
Anger morphed to an ugly monkey, now digging into his shoulder. “Why did you think I’d go along with this?” he asked, his voice harsh. There was a ringing in his ears, claws digging into his flesh, shame burning outward from his chest, to leave a smoking hole over his heart. “What could possibly have convinced you that I’d agree to your plan?”
She swallowed. Her exotic eyes blinked, lashes falling up and down rapidly. “I . . .” She worried that wine bottle again, running her thumb to the cork and then back down again. “I . . .”
She’d heard him that night in her bed. He knew that now. They’d never mentioned it, and he’d hoped like hell she thought it was just one of those things that men said when they’d gotten their rocks off—and felt guilty for the thought, as a matter of fact. But now he didn’t feel guilty, he just felt pissed.
Humiliated, like when Lana had cleaned him out.
Enraged, like when he’d discovered that he and his mother had existed in near poverty for years when his father, Calvin Bennett, had been livin’ large four hundred miles away.
He shoved his hand through his hair. How had it come to this? There were women who’d come through his life. Dozens, right? Models, supermodels, actresses, designers, the barista at his local coffee shop. And he had to pull a dumbass move of falling in love with the one woman who represented the life he hadn’t lived and the love he’d never have.
“Why?” he demanded again. “I’m asking you why you thought I’d say yes?”
“Because . . .” Her thumb circled the cork of the wine bottle, a nervous gesture. “Because, uh . . . Because you’re nice.”
“What?”
His roar caused her thumb to twitch. The cork flew from the blanc de blancs, arcing into the overhanging branches of the oak.
Penn barely noticed. Nice? “Nice?” Though focused on her face, he was aware of people bursting out of the cottage. Camera people. Sound people. All gathering around them.
“Think about all the things you do, Penn,” Alessandra said, her expression earnest. “You go out of your way for people. Even Lana. I know she stole from you, that you feel humiliated that you didn’t read her right, and then she ripped you off . . .”
A gasp came from the people surrounding them. The Wedding Fever crew, he realized now. But Roger’s startled expression and Lana’s white face barely had time to register before Penn was hearing Alessandra again and she was repeating that word.
That damn word.
“Goes to show how nice you are.”
“Don’t say it again,” he ground out. “When it comes to Lana, I was a mark, a dupe, a sucker.” He shoved back his chair to stand, and it toppled onto the uneven ground. He glanced at it, his gaze finding Rocky Reed hovering behind him, obviously soaking in every word.
<
br /> An acid mix of ire and shame erupted from his heart. He whipped his focus back to Alessandra. “What the hell have you done?”
She came to her feet, too. A flush rushed over her cheeks, then faded. “Penn. I . . .”
“What have you done?” But he knew. Wedding Fever, Rocky Reed, she was using all of them, Penn included.
A sheen of tears brightened her eyes.
His gut clenched. “No. No, no, no. Those won’t work this time.”
“I can’t help it.” Tears starting tracking down her cheeks.
In some other dimension, he was aware of people listening, filming, capturing for posterity this inglorious, infuriating moment. “Your tears will not get you what you want.”
“Penn—”
“You’re a manipulator, Alessandra Baci. A con artist just like Lana.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah. Maybe you don’t.” He grabbed the sparkling wine off the table and filled the two waiting flutes. “But we can toast to you, baby.” Her hand curled around the glass he pressed into it.
His glass clacked against hers. “Once I told you I was in love with you, you decided to use that against me.”
“No—”
“Yes.” He quaffed half the bubbly in his own glass. “The starry-eyed, dreamy girl we all thought we knew proved she’s really cold and calculating. You don’t have a heart, do you, honey? You don’t have the heart for a happy-ever-after.”
Alessandra dropped her glass. It shattered against the tabletop.
He tossed the rest of the wine in his own onto the ground and let his glass follow. The damn stuff tasted bitter—or maybe that was just him.
“That’s right, baby. It’s all shattered now. You won’t get your way.”
She swayed on her feet and he repressed the urge to reach across and steady her. “When have I gotten what I wanted?” she whispered. “You tell me when. Tommy got sick, but I kept the faith. I believed and then we were getting married. But he died. How could I hold on to my belief in happy-ever-afters when all the ever-after I got for my believing was after a funeral?”
The heartbreak of that wasn’t going to get to Penn, either.
With quick footsteps, he turned from her and made for his truck. A burning laugh bubbled up from the mass of lava in the middle of his chest. He understood his mother now. He’d thought her foolish for her love of his father—the real bastard in the situation. But now he realized that common sense and sentiment didn’t operate on the same plane. That was the true foolishness—and danger—of falling in love.
Lucky that he was done with all that.
20
After the picnic-proposal debacle, Alessandra retreated to the farmhouse. Her kitchen still smelled of garlic and olive oil and though she would have found the familiar scent comforting in the past, now it sharply underscored all that she’d lost.
Everything.
When she’d stumbled off, the Wedding Fever crew were packing up their van. Rocky Reed was strolling to his Jag, working his iPhone at the same time. No one met her eyes, but she knew the truth.
The land would slip from their hands. The Tanti Baci label would be history.
And Penn would no longer think of her with any sort of fondness. “I’ll never forget holding you in my arms,” he’d said, but she’d ruined that.
Her body dropped bonelessly into a chair at the kitchen table. She stared ahead, unseeing.
It’s all shattered now.
Her eyes squeezed shut on the thought, and her hand rubbed hard at her breastbone. It ached there, had been aching since that night when Penn had whispered against her hair. Alessandra Baci, I love you.
She’d not believed a word of it, that was the truth, not until he’d refused to marry her twenty minutes ago. That’s why her proposal had angered him, because he’d seen it as an insult to his feelings, when she’d meant it as a . . . as a . . .
Selfish plan to save the winery.
What had she been thinking?
With a sigh, she opened her eyes, her gaze finally taking in the cardboard box sitting on the kitchen table. Oh, God. The bargain she’d made with Giuliana. Her sister would handle the Wedding Fever contingent if Alessandra would examine the contents of Tommy’s box.
Jules never forgot a thing.
Swallowing hard, Alessandra grasped the box and winced, as if the cardboard sides burned. She didn’t want to touch the thing, but if she could get it back into the closet, maybe she could stuff all this new anguish in there alongside it.
The bottom was an inch off the table when the kitchen door flew open. Dropping the box, she gave a guilty start when her sisters rushed into the room.
“Are you all right?” Stevie asked, breathing fast. “Jules called and told me what happened. Damn it, Allie, you should have said something before you went through with this. We would have talked some sense into you. Proposing to Penn. For God’s sake!”
“You didn’t guess what she was up to yesterday?” Giuliana said. “It was obvious to me.”
Stevie’s eyes flashed as she turned to the eldest Baci sister. “What? Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you stop her?”
She shrugged. “Because, maybe for once she was doing something she wanted, not something this town expected of her.”
“Huh? Everyone loves Alessandra.”
“Of course they do,” Giuliana answered quietly. “Because we asked her to bear all our fears for Tommy when he was battling cancer, and all our grief when he lost.”
“But . . .”
As her sisters continued to argue, Alessandra scooped up the box again and sidled toward the hall closet.
Giuliana’s voice caught her. “Where are you going with that?”
Guilty again, Alessandra froze.
“For God’s sake, Jules . . .” Stevie started. “Can’t you leave her alone?”
“We had a bargain,” she said, her tone not giving an inch. “Put the box on the table, Allie, and look inside.”
“Good God.” Stevie threw an angry look at Giuliana that reminded Alessandra of the spectacular quarrels her older siblings used to engage in. “Who died and made you the boss of her?”
“Mama,” Giuliana answered. “I promised her I’d always take care of you, Allie, and I’m afraid I haven’t done my job.”
“I don’t know what—”
“You were too young to get married.”
Alessandra’s gaze dropped from her sister’s. She placed the box carefully on the table, as if she knew the contents were fragile. She felt fragile. “Don’t blame yourself. Nothing could have stopped me.”
“You’ve always had this . . . this magic, Allie. Tommy, the Knowles family, the whole town of Edenville figured you were the talisman to keep him safe.”
That did it. Alessandra buried her face in her hands, the ache in her chest radiating outward from her tiny, hard heart. “I failed. I didn’t keep Tommy alive. I haven’t kept Tanti Baci alive, either.”
Stevie rushed across the room to take her in her arms. “Neither one is your fault.”
“Open the box,” Giuliana insisted, though her voice was kind. “Give what’s inside a chance to heal all that’s hurting. It’s like the letters, little sister. You know you have to.”
The letters. What if there were more inside? She pressed her clenched fists to her breasts. My Darling Allie . . . “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “Penn was right. I’m heartless—nearly so, anyway. For five years I’ve been faking my faith in ever-after. Looking in the box won’t change that.”
Stevie tightened her hold. “We’ll forget—”
“Allie, you have to do this,” Giuliana insisted. “I honestly think you do. But the Mouseketeers have got your back.” She pulled Alessandra out of Stevie’s arms to tie one of the kitchen aprons around her neck like a cape.
“Hah!” Stevie’s long arm snagged the colander from the counter where it had been set to dry. With a flourish, she put it on Alessandra’s hea
d. “Pretend it has ears.”
A rough sound choked out of her throat. “Why am I laughing? This isn’t funny.” But Jules was right, it had to be done. Alessandra stared at the box another long moment, then she stepped toward it, catching the colander as it slipped on her hair.
Once it was settled again, her trembling hands released the intertwined top flaps. Scarlet wool caught her eye and her stomach jumped in nervous circles, even as she drew out the material.
“Tommy’s letterman’s jacket,” Stevie said.
The leather sleeves were cool against her hands, the fabric scratchy. It was covered with patches and pins that spelled out Tommy’s year of graduation, the sports he’d participated in, the accomplishments he’d been honored for. Alessandra folded it open and put her face against the satiny lining. It felt strangely warm, as if Tommy had just taken it off.
She could smell him.
Without thinking, she pushed her arms through the sleeves. The fit was much too big, of course, but it felt natural to her, because she’d worn it at Friday night football games, on cold mornings when she’d forgotten her jacket, any time her teenage self wanted to lay claim to the coolest boy on campus.
She smiled and laughed again, remembering. Remembering Tommy pulling her hair from beneath the collar and then linking his hand with hers as they strolled through the high school campus. She saw it from a distance, from above, perhaps how Tommy saw her now. My Darling Allie . . .
“What else is in the box?” Stevie asked.
With the colander, cape, and Tommy’s jacket, she felt brave enough to explore. “Photographs,” she said, reaching for them. With a sweep of her hand, she fanned them out on the scarred surface of the old wooden table.
Her sisters closed in as they all looked them over.
“Prom,” she said, touching one with her finger. “Here’s homecoming my freshman year. What was with those big chrysanthemum corsages? Remember we stuck an E made of pipe cleaners in their centers and sold them for two bucks?”
Giuliana shook her head. “Sometimes we stick with things—feelings, too—because . . . we don’t know how to let them go.”
Crush on You Page 25
