She walked as fast as she could, but she was still twenty-five minutes late by the time she got to the bench where they’d said they would meet. She slowed down when she caught a glimpse of him, sitting on the bench, with a picnic basket by his side. He was sitting back, and he looked relaxed. He looked like he’d been plucked from time.
He’d taken his jacket off. It was folded on the bench beside him. The white shirt was still crisp and perfect, but he’d unbuttoned the cuffs and folded up the sleeves a bit. He looked far more approachable in that moment than he had in all the time she’d known him. Which was, to be fair, a total of about one day. A little less than that.
He sure had taken over a lot of her life in just that one day.
Alyssa hesitated, suddenly wondering if she was making a mistake. This man was more than she could expect to handle. She wasn't sophisticated and worldly in matters of the heart. She wasn't used to having many relationships, or handling it well when they ended. She'd really only had two serious relationships in her life and she’d been a little broken when each had ended.
Something told her that if she fell for this man, she would find more pain than she'd ever found before. He was far more than she had ever encountered before.
She should leave. She should just leave and make her excuses later. But she wanted to get to know him. Even if it was only for a couple of days—and it would of course only be for a couple of days—she wanted to get to know him. She wanted to find out what made him smile, what made him relax, and what made him tick. She wanted to know him.
Maybe it was that stupid dream influencing her. It had meant nothing. She didn’t believe in things like the meanings of dreams. It had just been a long day.
She told herself that she should walk away. Maybe she would have walked away. But right at that moment, he opened his eyes, and he looked right into hers. And she knew that there would be no walking away, not anymore.
“Sorry. I got held up.”
He smiled, and her heart beat faster.
“I assumed you had. Come, sit.”
“Ordering me around again,” she said with a smile as she walked over to him and sat down on the bench beside him, making sure that the picnic basket was between them.
“Do all requests have to have a please? It was a request. Maybe it’s because I’m not so familiar with your language?”
Alyssa chuckled. Suddenly, he’d laid on the accent. But even as she laughed, a little thrill ran down her spine, curled in her belly with a long, deep tug. Yes, there was something about him that drew her to him.
Dangerous. This was dangerous. She was playing games she'd never been any good at.
“You are plenty familiar with the language and you know you are. Don’t play games with me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course not. I don’t play games, Alyssa. This is just a meal together. You can leave any time you want to. It’s not like you swore a blood oath to be here until the end.”
Alyssa laughed a little.
“I suppose. I…”
Her stomach growled embarrassingly.
“I guess that’s punishment enough for keeping me waiting,” teased Matteo, and he opened the picnic basket.
“Oh. Oh, wow, this is not the kind of picnic I expected. There’s actual silverware packed in there, and proper plates, and… Is that a thermos? It’s a thermos with… gnocchi? There’s gnocchi?”
“You like gnocchi.”
“I love gnocchi! Who doesn’t love potato pillows? They’re amazing! And oh, look at this!”
She got the bottle of wine out, gleefully.
“This is practically Colombo’s best!” she said, a little stunned.
“Of course.”
“Well, I suppose it’s an ‘of course’ for you but it would be a birthday or New Year thing for me. Some of your bottles are far too expensive.”
“Don’t you think they’re worth it?”
“I suppose they are, but even people who can’t afford it should have some of the joy and complexity it brings, don’t you think? It seems unfair that only the rich can have the finer things in life. We all have a life, we all have aspirations and we all enjoy good things. This way of sorting out who gets those good things and who gets nothing seems very arbitrary.”
Matteo chuckled, and Alyssa shrugged.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“No, don’t be sorry. It’s… Well, Alyssa, I can tell you quite honestly that I’ve never before been on a picnic lunch with a lovely woman who took me to task for having too much money.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. Well, that’s not what I meant to do. I didn’t mean to offend you, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, please. It’s fine. Believe it or not, maybe I even appreciate it a little. Here, could you hold the glass?”
She held it and watched as the bright, transparent red filled the glass.
“A toast, then. To the finer things in life, and to making sure that everybody gets a chance to sample them.”
Alyssa smiled.
“You’re indulging me, but I’ll take it.”
He laughed and she knew he watched her as she took a sip and rolled it around her mouth, swallowed slowly and sighed, her lips curving in sheer joy. That moment, she decided, was perfect. No matter what, nobody would take that from her.
“How did you discover wine?”
The question put her on familiar ground as he handed her the plate with that gorgeous gnocchi.
“Well, I didn’t really discover wine. It’s always been a part of my life. My mother, you see, she loves Italian wines. We didn’t have the money to buy more than table wine, but I watched her enjoy it. She used to share that with my dad, it was one of the things they did together. I’d watch them together and think that I would have a life like that one day, too. They just… they loved each other so much. When dad died, it wasn’t easy for her. But she said that she wouldn’t let the grief take away all the joy. She held on to the memories so fiercely. I was only ten but I remember it. I know how brave she was now.”
“Now you share it with your mother.”
“And my sister. By the time we were sixteen, mom would let us taste and try, and she would teach us how, too. It was smart, I suppose. Once you begin to learn to appreciate fine wines, it’s difficult to see the appeal of just getting drunk. So she managed to keep us from ruining our grades and partying too hard by letting us learn more about wine. Brianna—that’s my sister—she has as good a nose as I do, but she doesn’t have the confidence in herself. She loves it, but she didn’t want to… Well, I was the one who wanted to make it my life. So I decided that I would have a shop, and I would sell wine. That’s what I do.”
“You sell wine.”
“Well, I’m in talks to get a florist to open in the space right beside ours, and we’ll do some renovating to make it so you can pick up a bottle of wine, and you can order flowers you like, and it will both be delivered home, along with a coupon that can be redeemed at the best deli in town that has some very good cheese and cold cuts.”
“Smart.”
Alyssa sat up a little straighter because she did think it was smart.
“I think so. I’ve got a lot of it planned and a lot of it's already being organized. It’s been so much, though. I needed this weekend, I think.”
“I'm only now realizing how much I needed it, too.”
She smiled at him, and she forgot that he was a billionaire. He was just a man who looked weary, as weary as she felt. She understood that.
“It’s like that sometimes, isn’t it? I’ve been coveting an invitation here for years. I couldn’t believe I got it, and I think it’s mostly because Naomi and Howie pulled a few strings. But that’s how everybody gets their foot in the door, isn’t it? There’s no point being good at your job unless you have somebody willing to tell people in your field that you're good and deserve an invitation to join the clu
b.”
“There you go again, making me feel unworthy of my own wine.”
Alyssa laughed.
“I don’t think you’re unworthy. Your family worked very hard to get to this point. You worked very hard to get your foot in the door and get invited into that club.”
Matteo laughed a little.
“I didn’t really wait for an invitation. It was more like I made so much money that they couldn’t afford not to have me.”
“That’s one way of doing it, I suppose. Takes a lot more strength and risk, I’d guess.”
“I suppose so. But it’s worth it, for a moment like this.”
Alyssa smiled at him and wondered if he actually meant it. She wondered if that moment felt as special to him as it did to her.
“You seemed surprised to find your brother here.”
Alyssa regretted it the moment she said it. He didn’t want to hear it. She could see that. He didn’t want to talk about it. But she needed to know what was going on. For some reason, it felt like she was caught in the middle.
“Gabriel does as he pleases. He doesn’t report to me.”
“Really? I thought you were the supreme boss.”
He looked at her sharply, as if he wasn’t sure if she was mocking him.
“Gabriel is family.”
“Well, yes, of course he is. I have family, too. I know what it can be like.”
Matteo’s laugh wasn’t the nice sound she'd gotten used to.
“I don’t think my family is quite like yours, Alyssa.”
“Family is family,” she insisted, but he shook his head. And volunteered no more information, so she sat there, sipping her wine, eating excellent Italian food, and wondering where she was supposed to go from there. She’d obviously said the wrong thing, and he was already brooding again. She'd been right. He was far too grumpy.
“We should be heading back,” he said, abruptly.
“What?”
“It’s two. You were nearly half an hour late. That threw off our schedule.”
“Oh… Well, sorry about that. I guess we should head back, then.”
It was one of those moments that felt like a fork in the road, as if choices made then would decide the rest of your life.
The urgency pressed against her. She didn’t know what to do.
“You’re a very special woman, Alyssa.”
His voice was so soft. She could almost feel it caressing her soft skin. She could just lean towards him, and it would be so easy, so simple, so natural to raise her head to his, to press her lips against his, to…
“Well, hello,” said a voice, and the choice was no longer there to be made.
Chapter 6
Alyssa got away from there with her life.
Or at least, that’s how she felt as she made her escape, claiming that she had to get to her sister. Whatever family stuff was going on between the Colombo brothers, she had no intention of getting involved. She had her own family to worry about. People like her did not get in the middle of family battles like that, things that she didn’t understand and, frankly, she had no intention of trying to understand.
In her understanding, family stood by each other. She’d been under the vague impression that Italians really took that to heart, but judging by the tension she'd sensed in the air simmering between the two brothers, she'd been quite wrong.
Alyssa spent the rest of the day avoiding both of them. It wasn’t as hard as she’d thought it would be, because Brianna had signed them up for a special tour of the vineyard, and it was interesting enough that she almost forgot about everything that had happened.
By the time she got back, it was time for dinner and she was so tired that all she wanted was to fall asleep. This time, she didn’t have that long soak that hadn’t ended so well the last time. She fell asleep, exhausted, but it didn’t take long before the dreams came again.
This time, he wasn’t in the fog. He stood at the top of a hill, watching, waiting, and she knew that he was waiting for her. She stood in the shadows, under a rock outcrop, and she hated herself because she didn’t go to him. She knew he was there, she knew that he would call out her name any minute. But she didn’t go, because she was afraid. There were too many things pulling her back from him, and it was only her heart that urged her to go to him.
She could ignore her heart, couldn’t she? She’d followed it before and regretted it. She’d never felt so strongly pulled to anybody before, but it scared her. The sheer force of what she felt scared her.
The wind picked up and whistled in her ears. She heard her name on it. It was him, calling for her. He needed her, he said. He needed her to breathe, for his heart to keep beating. But she didn’t go. She stayed there, huddled in the dark, denying herself both life and light, and she knew that he would go away if she waited long enough.
She justified it by telling herself that if he went away, it wasn’t real. If he went away, it wasn’t love.
So she sat there and she waited, for the sun to finally rise and the night to end. But there was no end to that night. The sun didn’t rise. The voice calling her name faded away, became more and more infrequent, but it didn’t stop.
He was still there. She felt him, felt his presence.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She clapped her hands against her ears and tried to shut it out, but she couldn’t stand it.
She looked up, ready to give in, ready to go to him, and felt a presence close by. Somebody was walking closer, and closer.
Was it him? Had he come looking for her? But he wasn’t supposed to move away from the hilltop. She knew that, somehow. He was supposed to stay there and wait for her. It was supposed to be her choice. Fear gripped her. Something was wrong. Something was…
A figure loomed, casting a long shadow, and she thought, for just a moment, that he'd abandoned his post, his charge, and come to her after all. But only for a moment. She wouldn’t be fooled for more than a fraction of a moment, because it wasn’t him. It was…
Her eyes flew open, a scream strangled in her throat, her hands over her mouth.
What was that? What the hell had that been? What were these absolutely insane dreams she was having? She’d never been such a vivid dreamer before. This place, and Matteo—they were driving her insane. She was experiencing things she had never experienced before.
She had to leave.
It didn’t matter that she'd waited so long for this opportunity, that she'd looked forward to it for so long. She couldn’t stay, because if she stayed, she really might go crazy. She couldn’t do it.
Alyssa checked the time and saw that it was four in the morning. Moving quietly, she got up and started packing.
It didn’t take long.
By five she was ready, and she’d made herself a cup of really bad coffee with the instant coffee powder in the cabin. Then she waited for Brianna to wake up, knowing that she had to explain. It wouldn’t be easy, but she’d already come up with an excuse. Naomi and Howie would give Brianna a ride back home. Brianna would understand and let her go.
She had to, because Alyssa couldn’t stay any longer. She had to leave.
***
Matteo looked for her, and he didn’t find her.
He’d looked for her the evening before, too. Finally, he’d found out that she’d been on a day trip. It had frustrated him. Almost as much as Gabriel had frustrated him.
Still, he'd assumed that he would see her the next day, and he’d be able to explain everything, and it would all be fine. There was something special there. He knew that. He wanted to see Alyssa again, and he would see her again.
She had such joy in life. From what he'd gathered, she hadn’t had a particularly easy life, but nothing had taken her optimism away. She was lovely, but he’d known many lovely women. He'd never known somebody with such verve for life, who enjoyed every moment and lived in the present so completely.
She was everything he hadn’t realized he’d been looking for.
&n
bsp; In a wife.
Matteo had thought that he would marry in about five years. Thirty-five, he felt, was a good age for a man to become a husband and then, soon after a father. Of course, being a father was as important as being married was. After all, he'd reasoned it all out.
He'd indulged his little brother far too much. It had been fine when Gabriel had only wanted the perks of being a Colombo. He'd never wanted the responsibility before. He still didn’t want the responsibility, to be honest. Matteo was sure of that. What he wanted was the power.
Matteo couldn’t understand that. Gabriel had never been powerless, never. He'd never known what it was like to be belittled by people who knew so much less, simply because he didn’t have a pedigree. He'd shielded his little brother from that. All his life, Matteo had shielded him.
But now…
In the last year, Gabriel had changed. Matteo blamed Alexandra for it, and he was honest enough to admit that it was as much out of habit as anything else. He blamed Alexandra for most things, and to be perfectly fair, Alexandra usually deserved it.
Now, Gabriel reminded him more and more of his mother. It was as if she was pouring her spirit and all her spite into him, turning him into somebody else. Somebody who was vindictive and full of a resentment that Matteo didn’t understand.
Gabriel could not take over Colombo. Maybe before that year, Matteo would have considered it. But in the last year he'd realized that his little brother had grown into a man who could not take over Colombo Wines and Vineyards. He would not be able to handle it. He would not be able to make it grow.
And Matteo did not want to spend all his time watching his own back. He didn’t want to be worried about takeover attempts, about Gabriel scheming behind his back, because he knew that there were enough board members to give Gabriel support. There were always people who could be bought. Most people had a price. Gabriel might soon be willing to pay it.
Marriage, and an heir—that would change everything. He would have been willing to hold on for a few more years to find the right wife.
The Italian Billionaire’s Nubian Queen (BWWM Romance Book 1) Page 6
