by Teri Wilson
He jerked the steering wheel into a U-turn. He’d never been good at taking orders from his father. Taking them from Juliet Arabella was flat-out unacceptable. She could get as angry as she pleased, but like it or not, he was going back to that vet clinic to wait with her while her dog vomited up a pound of chocolate.
Only a handful of cars remained in the parking lot when he got there. Even fewer than when he’d left a half hour ago. He pulled into a spot close to the entrance, snapped Sugar’s leash to her collar and strolled back inside. His dog trotted at his feet, her tags jangling in the silence of the smooth tile entrance of the animal hospital.
He nodded at the receptionist and rounded the corner toward the waiting area, fully expecting to find a lonely Juliet slumped in one of the orange vinyl chairs that seemed standard issue for waiting rooms the world over. Despite the drama surrounding their goodbye, he didn’t quite believe she’d be unhappy to see him. Who truly wanted to be alone at a time like this?
He couldn’t have been more wrong. Juliet didn’t look the least bit pleased, and she was decidedly not alone.
She was still right where he’d left her. Only now a young woman sat beside her, holding her hand exactly the way Leo had envisioned himself comforting her when he’d hightailed it out of Napa and back to the vet clinic.
“Leo.” Every drop of color drained from Juliet’s face. She looked as if she might faint. Or strangle him. One of the two, definitely. “What are you doing here?”
His gaze darted from Juliet to her companion—she looked to be in her midtwenties with ultra-short blond hair, sizeable gold hoop earrings and an even more sizable scowl. Leo would have bet every penny he’d ever earned, plus his ex-fiancée’s sizeable bank account, that her last name was Arabella.
He half expected her to bark at him. Instead, she let out a shuddery, horrified gasp. “Leo? As in Leonardo Mezzanotte?”
Leo could have sworn he heard Cocoa’s deep-throated woof from somewhere deep in the bowels of the animal hospital.
“Yes. And you are?” He answered as politely as he could manage, considering he would have been more comfortable addressing a firing squad.
“This is my cousin, Alegra. She just arrived.” Juliet swallowed. Leo traced the movement up and down the slender, graceful column of her throat. He tried not to think about the fact that not long ago, his lips had been on that throat. “Alegra, this is Leo Mezzanotte. I have no idea what he’s doing here.”
Leo narrowed his gaze at her. “Don’t you?”
For a split second, he actually thought about faking some sort of emergency with Sugar in order to explain his presence. Then he realized how ludicrous that would have been. He was a grown man, not some love-struck teenager sneaking around after curfew. Besides, Sugar was too busy bouncing around at the end of her leash to fake any kind of viable illness.
“Um.” Juliet blinked.
Alegra shot daggers at him with her eyes.
He backed up, out of spitting distance. “I’m here for the same reason I was here earlier. I was worried about you and your dog.”
“Earlier?” A look of horror flashed across Alegra’s face as she turned to face Juliet. “He was here earlier? With you?”
Leo half expected her to deny it. So he was rather surprised when she nodded, although she still didn’t quite look him in the eye.
“Yes,” she said. The calmness in her voice was completely at odds with the way her knuckles were turning white from gripping the armrests of her chair.
Alegra glared at Leo again. He simply shrugged. He’d wandered deep enough into this bucketful of crazy without opening his mouth and making things worse.
Sugar let out a yip and launched herself onto Juliet’s lap as if the two of them were long-lost friends.
Alegra shook her head and stared at his dog as though Mezzanotte was an unfortunate medical condition rather than a surname. Some kind of sickness, like rabies. Clearly she presumed Sugar was a carrier. “I’m confused. What exactly is going on here?”
“Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.” Juliet met his gaze full-on. Finally.
Something about the indifference, feigned or otherwise, in her cool green eyes made Leo’s temples throb with fresh intensity. “Cocoa got into some chocolate. I happened to be...” He shot a purposeful glance at Juliet’s still-askew blouse. Her cheeks flamed as red as that bra of hers. All that lace. Those tiny bows. He’d probably dream about that bra for weeks. “Nearby.”
Alegra threw her hands in the air. “Neither one of you is making a lick of sense. Cocoa knows better than to get into chocolate.”
Leo couldn’t help the almost-smile that crept to his lips. “It must have been some really great chocolate. Extra tempting.”
Juliet snorted. Loudly.
Oblivious, Alegra resumed her interrogation. “And what exactly were you doing nearby? In the middle of the night?”
First his uncle Joe, now Juliet’s cousin. Never before had so many people been this interested in what he did in his free time.
He crossed his arms. “Is that really any of your business?”
“Not helping,” Juliet muttered. Sugar craned her tiny white neck and gave Juliet’s cheek a dainty lick.
Judging by the look on Juliet’s face, Sugar was the only Mezzanotte that would be getting within kissing distance for the foreseeable future.
Then again, they’d been down that road before. And they’d ended up lip locked for a second time. Leo still fully intended to finish what they kept starting, which made him either the most desperate man on the planet or the craziest. Because no sex was worth this kind of trouble.
Except maybe the sex he wasn’t having with Juliet Arabella.
Alegra’s steely gaze bored into him. If she could read his mind, he’d be a dead man. “Oh, my God. I totally know what’s going on.”
Well, that made one of them. For the life of him, Leo couldn’t remember why he’d been so dead set on coming back here. His behavior was beginning to exceed that which he could blame on jet lag or good old-fashioned lust.
“You!” Alegra flew out of her chair and jammed her index finger at Leo’s chest.
Ouch.
And he’d thought his own family was nuts. This cousin of Juliet’s made Uncle Joe seem mellow. Leo would have gladly traded places with poor Cocoa right about now.
“I’m onto you, Leonardo Mezzanotte.” She poked him again. “You tried to murder my cousin’s dog, you dog poisoner.”
8
What a mess.
Juliet thought the night had taken its turn for the worse when Cocoa had ingested a saucepan full of bittersweet chocolate. But apparently, the fun had just been getting started.
The Nuovo Winery’s Annual Hot Air Balloon Festival was scheduled to begin in two short hours. She should be in bed right now. Alone. But somehow she was standing in the emergency vet clinic watching her cousin accuse Leo of premeditated dog murder.
Or would that be attempted dogslaughter?
His innocence notwithstanding, his piercing blue eyes went instantly lethal. “Dog poisoner? Right. Because that’s the sort of guy I am. I get off on hurting innocent animals.”
His voice ricocheted off the polished floor and sterile tile walls of the waiting room. Thankfully, no one else was there to witness this train wreck. Just their dysfunctional little trio.
“Well, you are a Mezzanotte. I wouldn’t put it past you.” Alegra pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her hoodie. “I’m calling the police.”
Juliet snatched the phone from Alegra’s hands. “No one is calling the police.”
Juliet hadn’t seen much in her life outside the four walls of Arabella Chocolate Boutique. But of all the things she’d managed to bear witness to, the sight of
Leo Mezzanotte cradling her dog in his arms and carrying Cocoa inside the animal hospital was something of a standout.
Alegra couldn’t have been more off the mark. Not about this.
“Leo hasn’t done anything wrong,” she said quietly.
Leo responded with only a soulful look.
Alegra jammed her hands on her hips and looked him up and down. “How can you know for sure? He’s—”
“A Mezzanotte.” Leo rolled his eyes. “That’s some powerful evidence. I’m sure it will hold up in court. Shall I refuse my name? Change it to something like Smith or Jones? Would that put an end to any of this nonsense?”
Things were far, far from being that easy to fix. A rose by any other name was still a rose. “Enough. Leo, you’re not changing your name. And, Alegra, you’re not calling the police. Cocoa drank some hot chocolate that Leo made for me. It was an accident, pure and simple. He didn’t hurt her. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was actually pretty fantastic.”
She stopped talking, as she’d begun to tear up. Over a Mezzanotte. She would never hear the end of this. And if her parents ever found out, she would probably be banished from the family, or suffer some other equally antiquated consequence.
“Cocoa consumed Mezzanotte chocolate? No wonder she’s vomiting. Please tell me you didn’t drink any of it. Why in the world was Leo making you a midnight snack, anyway?” Alegra’s confused gaze darted between them once, twice, three times before finally landing on Leo. “Leo has gold glitter on his face. And his neck. And his hands. Why is Leo covered in glitter?”
Juliet glanced at him. Sure enough, he was as sparkly as a unicorn. A super hot, angry-looking unicorn. With perfect lips and spectacular, muscular shoulders.
“The strawberries for the balloon festival.” Alegra’s voice danced somewhere between astonishment and disgust. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I was only joking when I said you two were secret lovers. It’s true, though, isn’t it? You’re actually sleeping together, aren’t you?”
“Secret lovers. That has a rather romantic ring to it.” Leo lifted a sardonic brow. “For the life of me, I can’t see why you’d consider that worse news than if I’d actually poisoned the dog.”
Juliet would have given anything right then for a swirling abyss to open at her feet and swallow her whole. “Leo and I are not sleeping together, Alegra. Absolutely not.” She couldn’t seem to shake her head hard enough.
So what if it was somewhat of a technicality? She wasn’t lying. They hadn’t crossed that line. Maybe they’d danced around the line a bit, dipped a toe close to the edge, but they hadn’t crossed it.
And they weren’t going to.
She glanced at Leo. He smoldered back at her. Who knew it was possible for someone with glitter on his forehead to smolder like that?
Juliet cursed her knees for growing weak. “We’re friends. Sort of.”
Friends who couldn’t keep their hands off each other after dark, but pretended they didn’t know each other in the light of day. That was normal, right?
“Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I think I’ll be going.” He lifted Sugar off the floor and nestled her in the crook of his elbow. The sight of him with that dog made Juliet go all mushy inside.
She looked away.
“Don’t leave on my account, Sparkle.” Alegra released a less-than-subtle snort.
“Sparkle?” A vein throbbed in Leo’s right temple. “Really?”
Alegra shrugged. “Would you prefer I call you Butthead?”
He let out a little laugh. How he could laugh at a time like this was a mystery Juliet couldn’t quite comprehend. “Good night, ladies. Or should I say good morning? I suppose we’ll all see each other in just a matter of hours.”
“Yes, we will.” Juliet nodded. At the same time, she sent up a silent prayer that Leo would go home and wash off all that glitter before the balloon festival.
“You can bet on it. We’re going to kick your pathetic drugstore chocolates to the curb.” Alegra gave him a smug smile.
She wasn’t going to look half that smug once she got the barest whiff of Leo’s chocolat chaud.
Juliet’s heart sank. With all the drama surrounding the night’s events, she’d forgotten about that decadent hot chocolate. She had a sick dog on her hands and a cousin who’d learned her deepest, darkest secret, but she still didn’t have a clue about Leo’s secret ingredient.
Unicorn tears. Right.
“Kick my chocolate to the curb? We’ll see about that, won’t we?” He grinned. Nothing but a tiny, wicked quirk of his lips. “Good night, Juliet.”
“Good night, Leo.” The words nearly stuck in her throat for some ridiculous reason. Why did this keep happening? Never in her life had she experienced so much difficulty saying goodbye to a person who she was more than happy to see go.
Then he walked toward her, took her fingertips in his and kissed the back of her hand. It was the softest, gentlest touch of his lips, but it very nearly took her breath away. She was barely conscious of Alegra gaping, slack-jawed, at the two of them.
And as Juliet watched Leo walk out those doors again, she was filled with an inexplicably sweet sorrow. In spite of their respective last names and all the secrets floating between them, she wondered what it might be like to stay with him as the sun came up, bathing the valley in soft hues of pink and gold. To keep whispering good night, again and again, until night became tomorrow.
* * *
The strawberries were sweating.
All that time, all that effort, all that godforsaken glitter, and now Juliet was watching her precious strawberries turn to mush.
“I don’t get it. Why is this happening?” Alegra dabbed at the berries with a paper towel in painstakingly measured movements. She reminded Juliet of a nurse gently wiping perspiration from a doctor’s brow during surgery.
Clearly Juliet had spent too much time around medical personnel in recent hours. She’d left the animal hospital only an hour before arriving at the majestic grounds of Nuovo Winery for the hot air balloon festival. And she would be headed right back to the vet clinic once it was over. The vet had wanted to keep an eye on Cocoa for the remainder of the day. With any luck, Juliet could bring her home by nightfall. She longed for the comfy warmth of her bed and Cocoa’s big shaggy head in her lap.
Huge, colorful balloons hovered above the lush green grounds of the vineyard, waiting for takeoff. But Juliet couldn’t seem to appreciate the beauty of it all. Not with her strawberries suffering like they were. “It’s the change in temperature. Strawberries are ninety percent water, and all this cool, damp air is drawing out their moisture. It’s freezing out here.”
She should have known this would happen. Any decent chocolatier knew better than to store chocolate below sixty-five degrees, and to never, ever keep it in the fridge. This was one of the major tenets of chocolate known as Belgian Wisdom. But it had been so long since Juliet had prepared anything for an outdoor fair of any kind, not to mention untold years since she’d been up and about at five, that she’d forgotten just how frigid Napa Valley could be this early in the morning.
Weather had been the least of her concerns. She’d been consumed with one thing and one thing only—making sure the chocolates she brought to the balloon festival outshone whatever the Mezzanottes sold. And now here she was, with row upon row of sweaty strawberries on her hands while dozens of hot air balloon enthusiasts lined up at the Mezzanotte Chocolates booth for Leo’s chocolat chaud.
>
“People are going back to Leo for seconds and thirds.” Alegra shook her head. Beyond her rose Nuovo Winery’s famed castello, its central building, which had been constructed to look like an Old World Italian castle, complete with turrets and arrow slits. “What’s he putting in that stuff? Crack?”
Crack. That would explain a lot. “You should taste it. Then you’d understand.”
“No way. Mezzanotte chocolate has never passed my lips. And it never will,” Alegra announced with a heavy dose of indignation. Guilt wound its way through the sleepy fog in Juliet’s head.
Alegra kept on talking. “Hey, maybe we can start a rumor that Leo’s hot chocolate put someone in the hospital last night. There’s an element of truth to it, so he probably couldn’t sue us or anything.”
“Let’s just forget last night ever happened, okay?” She didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Or even remember it. Maybe the doctors could somehow empty her head the way they’d emptied Cocoa’s stomach.
“I have to admit, hot chocolate was a great idea. I mean, it sounds so simple. But really...genius.” Alegra’s teeth chattered slightly as she gazed longingly at the elegant white tent where Leo was filling a cup from a fancy silver server. There wasn’t a drugstore candy bar in sight over there. It was strictly white-glove service. And the pristine tent was the perfect canvas to showcase the vibrant balloons floating in the background. “Don’t ever tell your mom I said that.”
“I think we can agree that as far as secrets go, you pretty much have me over a barrel.” She was indebted to Alegra now for life. She shuddered to think how her cousin might use this to her advantage once Cocoa was all better. For the moment, Alegra just seemed to feel sorry for her.
As sorry as someone who couldn’t stop smirking could feel, anyway. Once the shock had worn off, Alegra’s horror over the discovery of Juliet and Leo’s secret had quickly changed to intense amusement with just a lingering dash of revulsion.
