Belle's Secret

by Victoria Purman

  Belle put her glass down and sighed as she leaned in. “This place is incredible. It’s so beautiful and quiet and …”

  “You’ve never eaten here before?” he asked.

  Belle shook her head. “No. Not once. So are you going to tell me how you managed to score a reservation?”

  “Toby Matthews,” Harry replied.

  “Ah. Of course. The Maggie connection. He’s her cousin, did you know that? Their families have been in the region for generations. He’s won medals for his wine at international shows.”

  “I know. I’ve been out there. To the winery.”

  A waiter appeared silently by the table, filled Belle’s water glass, then disappeared.

  “Oh, that’s right. I heard.”

  “You did?”

  Belle looked up, wide-eyed. “Maggie told me she’d recommended it to you. Something about organic wines?”

  So she’d been talking about him. That felt good and it was good to feel that way around her after feeling like shit for so long. “Yeah, it’s something I’m investigating for the family business. I’d like to get my family interested in organics. I think it’s a big market and I’ve recommended that we invest.”

  “Your family’s in the wine business?”

  “Yeah. That’s why I was in Vegas. For the conference.”

  Belle’s eyes darted to the tablecloth before she looked back up at him, clear-eyed. “I remember the wine connection. I thought you worked for the winery.”

  “I do. We just happen to own it, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “The Harrison’s have been making wine in Napa Valley for five generations.”

  Belle blinked and stared at him. “That’s a lot of wine.”

  “And a lot of tradition,” Harry said and damn if he didn’t sound exactly like his father when that word fell from his lips. “My father likes to remind people that we’ve been doing things the exact same way for a long, long time. The same wines. Made the same. Marketed the same. You know, we haven’t even changed the labels. ‘It’s tradition people care about, Harry. People want to know what they’re getting when they buy a bottle with our name on it.’”

  “That’s important to him? To maintain that?”

  “Yep.”

  “You, not so much?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. It’s the argument I’ve had with my father and my sister, Amy, for a couple of years now. And Tess—she’s my younger sister—feels the same way. We need to be about new ideas and reinvention. About appealing to new markets and drinkers if we’re going to maintain our market share against other winemakers, not just in the States but in Australia and South America. Hell, even the Chinese are making red wine now.”

  “You have two sisters?” Belle’s voice sounded slightly pinched.

  “Yeah, Amy is the oldest and Tess is the youngest.”

  “Tess.” Belle swigged a mouthful of wine. “Nice name.” She put her glass on the table and met his eyes. And he was done. A coursing wave of desire slammed through him. Her caramel-brown eyes were curious, her pink lips parted on a breath. She tucked her soft curls behind her right ear and damn it he wanted to reach right over the table and trail his fingers through her hair. He reached for his wineglass instead. Tipping it up to empty it, he realised there wasn’t a wine in the world that tasted as good as her lips. He was ranting. What the hell was he telling her all this for?

  “Families,” he said with a deep exhale.

  Belle leaned forward on the table, crossing her arms. “You like wine. I hear that.”

  She’d nailed it. He liked wine. No, he loved wine. Maybe it was visiting Matthews Winery that had reminded him, but he felt excited again about that alchemy that turned grape juice into wine. It was still a mystery to him and one he’d never stop trying to understand and improve on. It was his passion, his dream and his future all rolled into one. “I do.”

  “You’re lucky to have all that heritage behind you. All that history.”

  “Enough about my family,” he said, lifting the leather-bound wine list from the edge of the table and flipping it open. “What would you like to drink?”

  While Harry studied the wine list—he finally settled on a bottle of merlot but only after an intense discussion with the sommelier—Isabella sat back in her chair and linked her fingers in her lap. She felt anxious and tense. Her stomach was flip-flopping and she couldn’t seem to calm the thud of her heartbeat. She’d made another big mistake, she knew it. Why had she agreed to dinner? Sure, Janu’s looked amazing. The way the light caught the stainless-steel light shades hanging above the bar. The quiet sophistication of the atmosphere. The almost invisible waitstaff who understood when to step forward and when to step back. The cut crystal glasses. The glittering wineglasses hanging behind the bar. It was all perfect.

  And her date? He was perfect too. A crisp white shirt showed off his tan, even in the soft light, and his smile was bright. When she’d walked into the restaurant, she’d convinced herself she could handle this—that she would be able to sit across the table from Harry and have a sensible and restrained conversation about the divorce and the paperwork and ending things, formally. She had honestly believed that she would summon the strength to apologise and that they would be able to part as … well, not friends, obviously, but as two people who’d got just a little bit carried away in a Las Vegas bar and who had put that episode to rest.

  Who was she kidding?

  All she could think about as she watched him discussing wine was the night they’d met. The night they’d believed they’d won something more valuable than any jackpot when they’d met each other, when they’d married, and when they’d made hot and passionate love like it was the first and last time all rolled into one. It had only taken one glance from him tonight, the way he’d surveyed her from head to toes, to set something simmering inside her. The memories, every single one of them about that night, were vivid and hot behind her eyes and she was burning up so much that she was now near boiling point. Out of his sight, she pinched the inside of her palm to try to calm the thumping roar of her heartbeat. She couldn’t trust this attraction, this electrical current sparking between them. Desire screws with your judgement, she knew that from bitter experience. She couldn’t make that mistake again.

  How would he ever forgive her if she did?

  She made small talk over dinner—pumpkin gnocchi with sage for Isabella and kangaroo with wild plums for Harry—and then waved the waitress away when she mentioned dessert and coffee.

  She was on a knife’s edge. Stop looking so damned hot, she wanted to scream. Stop doing this thing to me. Again.

  And now that she knew that the woman he’d been talking to on the phone – Tess – was his sister, not his fiancée, every thought in her head and her heart came barrelling to the same conclusion.

  There was only one way to escape this.

  There was only one way to get him out of her system, and before she’d turned up at dinner tonight in her little black dress and her heels with her hair loose she’d assumed the only way to get him out of her system was to apologise and say goodbye once and for all.

  But now she knew that wouldn’t work. There was something else she had to do and she had to do it now. Get him out of her system once and for all.

  “Well. That was an amazing meal.” She waved her hand at the tables, the lights, the bar, him, before reaching for her clutch purse. “I think we’re done here.”

  Harry’s eyes blazed. “I thought I might try the port.” He leaned back in his chair. “You?”

  She pushed her chair back and stood. She watched his face. His eyes never left hers.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he said, pointedly. “You’re welcome,” he replied as well. She couldn’t bear the edge in his voice, the hurt and the anger.

  Isabella leaned forward, planting one palm flat on the table. When his eyes dropped to the V of her dress, she swallowed. “We’re done here,” she said firmly but quietly. “But we need t
o fuck. Right now. And I’m figuring your B&B is closer than Wirra Station, so let’s go.”

  She turned and strode across the restaurant. Then, she was outside under the verandah, sucking in the warm night air, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed and desperate for him and confused as ever.

  “I need to get you out of my system, Harry,” she whispered to herself. “And then it will be over.”

  A moment later, he was by her side. “Belle,” he said, and before she could utter a word, she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers, devouring, hungry, sweet, hot and Harry.

  Chapter Eleven

  Three minutes later—literally a whole three minutes later—Harry had unlocked the door of his room at the B&B and they tumbled inside.

  Belle kicked off her heels and slipped off her dress. Then, while Harry watched, breathless, stunned, she undid her bra and slipped off her knickers and stood before him, naked, unashamed, desperate for him.

  “Fuck, Belle,” Harry said as he came to her, his lips crushing hers, his arms around her so tight she could barely breathe. And then she yanked at each button on his shirt and explored every contour of his chest and arms with fingers that knew that walk. The scattering of hair between his pecs. An appendix scar low on his abdomen. She remembered everything. She gripped his hips and kissed down his chest, soft and wet, to his belly button and then kissed the scar. She heard him groan and he struggled out of the rest of his clothes while kissing her neck, her breasts, sucking a nipple deep into his mouth and the flick of his tongue there almost made her come on the spot.

  Then he felt his way over the curves of her ass and lifted her into his arms, stepping backwards, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed and she was in his lap. His cock was hard and ready and she rubbed herself against him, and she wanted him inside her quick and fast and dirty so she didn’t have to think about what might happen in the next second, the next minute.

  Wait.

  “Condom,” she breathed into his mouth.

  He swore. “I don’t think I’ve got one.”

  “Harry,” she groaned now, her legs spread against him, the heady scent of how ready she was obvious to them both.

  “You reckon I thought this was going to happen?” He tore his lips from hers and leaned back, pressing his hands into the mattress behind him. He looked her over, then leaned forward to kiss one breast, so softly, then the other. He smiled when he took a nipple into his mouth and tugged. She paid him back by pressing down against his erection.

  “I’ve seen all the movies. Aren’t you American guys supposed to carry a rubber in your wallet or something?”

  He laughed and groaned in equal measure. “Think this place has room service?”

  She leaned forward, pressing her breasts against his chest and quick as a flash his arms were around her and they tumbled backwards onto the bed.

  “It’s called a bed and breakfast,” Isabella said, as she ran a hand down his jaw. Rough stubble. “Not a bed and condom.”

  He laughed and she joined in, then he rolled her over. “Let me check in the bathroom. This is a honeymoon destination, right?”

  Harry strode to the ensuite and Isabella lay back on the bed, barely breathing, not thinking at all about what was going on. The best way to get him out of her system was to trash the memory of that night, to prove to herself that her memories of Vegas were actually better than the reality. That she was looking back through rose-coloured glasses at the idea of him.

  When he climbed over her with a bright blue condom on his hard cock, she couldn’t laugh, but pulled him into her and lifted her thighs to engulf him.

  *

  Afterwards, Harry made a quick trip to the bathroom and strolled back to the bed. Belle turned on her side to watch him. Although she’d seen him naked before, she was greedy to take in every detail all over again. He really was gorgeous. Built, but not so much that he looked like he obsessed over it. Shoulders with curves around muscles, long legs. But oh, that smile, which he was now flashing in her direction as he climbed back on the bed and hovered over her.

  Yeah, that smile. That’s what had won her in Vegas. And she felt almost as powerless over it now as she had been then.

  “Hey,” he said. He kissed her and she opened her mouth and devoured him. While their lips were locked, she raised her hands and smoothed them down his ribs, to his hips and swooped them around to grab his butt. When she squeezed hard, he laughed against her lips.

  “Nice arse,” she mumbled.

  “Arse,” he repeated. “We Americans say, ass. Just sayin’.”

  “Arse. Ass. It’s pretty great no matter what accent you say it in.”

  He grinned at her and then moved backwards as he kissed each breast, her stomach and then moved lower and deeper, his mouth and tongue taking her. She tugged at his hair and held on, wanted to hold him there, press him into her, needing to stay just on the edge of oblivion until she couldn’t hold it any longer and she tipped over it and moaned, deep diving into hot oblivion, pure and utter satisfaction.

  She remembered this too.

  How could she forget this?

  This part had been the easy part. The sex. Oh, that had come so naturally to them both. And it had again. It’s what came after that made things a mess. Was he out of her system yet? It was kind of hard to judge at this point, so deep in the post-sex brain fuzz that she wanted to close her eyes and sleep. Wine, sex, a man like Harry … she wanted to fall asleep and dream about him and then reach out and feel him next to her and then fuck him again as soon as the sun rose.

  “You want anything?” he murmured as he trailed his lips across one cheek to the soft spot by her left ear.

  She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes.

  “I’m good,” she sighed.

  He looked at her.

  She could see the questions in his eyes. Who are you? What the hell just happened?

  But he didn’t give voice to them. He rolled off her and lay next to her on the bed. She really wanted to curl into him and have him hold her. She really wanted to thread her fingers through the hair on his chest, slip a knee over his hip and nuzzle into his neck, smell his aftershave and hold his hand, pull up the blanket and sleep next to him.

  Instead she sat up, found her clothes scattered on the floor and dressed. She went into the bathroom and cleaned up, swirling water in her mouth, tidying her hair with her fingers. When she went back out Harry was sitting on the end of the bed, still naked, his hands together, his gaze cast to his feet.

  The familiar urge to run was now battling with the urge to stay.

  “Harry …” she began and then couldn’t think of what to say.

  He looked up. His face was expressionless. “It’s cool, Belle. I knew what I was getting into this time.”

  “I …”

  “It was … you know.” He shrugged. “Thanks.”

  “You want to …” Isabella stopped. Suddenly, she was desperate to prove she’d learnt from her mistake. That she wasn’t that same person who’d hurt him.

  “Do I want to what?” He straightened.

  “You free tomorrow?”

  He thought about it. “Yeah.”

  “There’s something I’d like to show you. I’ll pick you up about eleven. Would that be okay?”

  “Sure.”

  There it was. A little smile. Some hope. And she stepped forward and pressed her lips to his mouth, holding it, tasting him, hoping she could hold on to it forever.

  *

  A moment after the door closed behind Belle, Harry’s phone rang. He scrabbled around on the floor chasing the ringtone and found it under his crumpled trousers.

  “Harry Harrison.”

  There was a slight delay and then, “Mr Harrison, it’s Sarah Gupta from Fay, Mackie and Wilson.”

  Harry had a mind blank. “I’m sorry. Who is this?”

  “Fay, Mackie and Wilson. Your lawyers.”

  “Right. Sorry. It’s late at night here.”

  “I
understand you’re in Australia and I do apologise for waking you but I have all the details you asked for to expedite your … personal circumstances.”

  Harry stilled. The divorce. While he held his phone to his ear, his lawyer explaining about critical courier deliveries and signing and international timelines, he got out of bed and padded to the window. Outside, the lights of Wirralong’s main street were sparkling in the warm night. A single car drove down the street. And there, outside, sitting on a bench, was Belle. The woman with her head in her hands, with a streetlight shining down on her dark hair, was unmistakably Belle.

  There was a pause down the line from California. It was his turn to speak. “Yep. Okay. Thanks.” He jabbed at the screen of his phone, ending the call. When he looked back, she was gone.

  Tomorrow. He would see her tomorrow.

  He wasn’t out of chances just yet.

  Chapter Twelve

  “What do you think?”

  Isabella and Harry stood at the lookout and gazed down over Wirralong, its stone buildings like toy houses in the distance, the main street as straight as an arrow splitting the town, and the disused railway snaking in and out of the paddocks surrounding it, past faded white wheat silos that had handled wheat for generations. All around the pretty little town, there were rows and rows of vines in full leaf; like corrugations in the landscape, evenly spaced, abundant, bursting with life. Above them, the blue sky was crisp and there wasn’t a cloud as far as the eye could see. A hot wind rustled the leaves in the gum tree above them, just enough to dapple the shade. Isabella stood on one side of a plaid picnic rug, Harry on the other. In between them, a picnic basket was laden with local produce, a fresh loaf of sourdough bread, a platter of cured meats and a bowl of sweet cherry tomatoes. She had slipped two wineglasses into the picnic basket and Harry had brought a bottle of Harrison’s merlot. She figured he must have struck a deal with the chef from Janu’s. She didn’t mind having it two days in a row. It would always remind her of him.

  Harry slipped his hands into the pocket of his jeans and took in the view. He exhaled and smiled and it would have been almost imperceptible to anyone else, but she saw the muscles in his shoulders drop just slightly. He was relaxing, the tension that had been sitting there in his body disappearing into the heat and the sky and the space.