Revenge at Bella Terra (20 page)

Chloë stood there, holding a tomato to her chest as if she couldn’t move until he finished the story. “How old were you when you figured this out?”

“Fourteen.”

“Did it work?”

“Like a dream. I ran away. My family looked in the wrong direction—they looked for me in the mountains.” When he thought about his uncles and his cousins stumbling around in the snow, it made his heart glad. “I went to the capital, stalked a reporter, reminded him of the stabbing eleven years before, that my mother went to prison and, when she got out, she abducted me. That was juicy right there. But I told him my father hadn’t seen me in the last six years, that I needed to get back to him, that there would be a touching reunion of father and son for him to photograph.” When Eli remembered his own dramatic performance, he wanted to cringe . . . but it had done the job. “The reporter was smart. He recognized a story that would make him a fortune. My father recognized a story that would put him before the news cameras. I didn’t care that they both made hay off of my adversity.”

“In that case, the bitter was balanced by the sweet.”

“Nicely put.” There. He’d told Chloë everything. He’d said it all aloud and he was still standing. “There were a lot of pictures—I had to squat a bit, because by the time I was fourteen, I towered over my father and he didn’t like that. But after the media circus was over, and six years in exile, I got to come
home
. Home to Nonna. Home to Bella Valley. Home to the Di Luca winery.”

Chloë looked around the great room as if seeing it with different eyes.

There was only one hateful memory left to expunge. “The last thing I saw as I sat on the jet to come home was Abuela standing on the tarmac watching me. Until the plane lifted off, I wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to exert her influence to force me to disembark.” Saying the words raised the specter of that moment. . . .

He tore himself out of the memory, paced toward Chloë, and said, “And you want me to reconcile with that woman.”

Chapter 25

C
hloë had wondered about the dark, hidden places in Eli’s soul. Now she saw them revealed to the light, and she ached for the boy he had been, and the man he was now. Abandoning the knives, she walked across the living room. “Eli, maybe your
abuela
did what she had to do to keep her family safe and prosperous, and maybe it was wrong, but in that letter, she recalls the time you spent together and the lessons she taught you.”

He held up a hand.

Chloë stopped well back from him.

His eyes were almost black with rage and pain, his voice guttural with resentment. “She was the daughter of a winemaker. She knew the process. Once she realized I had a gift, she personally made sure I learned everything she had to teach.”

“So you shared something, the two of you.”

“For her profit!”

When Chloë looked around his home and Bella Valley, he seemed to have everything a man could want . . . and yet he had wounds she had never in her life imagined.

Home meant everything to this man. It was a sanctuary. A refuge.

And yet even here, he couldn’t hide from his memories.

He couldn’t hide from himself.

She tried again. “That letter—it wasn’t groveling, but she wants to see you. She says there’s no one else.”

“My uncles, my cousins—they’re there, I assure you. But she always liked to be alone. Isolated from the rest of the family, coming out only to reign over the meals or pass judgment on any transgression.”

“She says she’s sick.”

“I don’t believe her.”

“Believe her or not—it’s like Joseph Bianchin suddenly wanting your grandfather’s bottle of wine. Why now, after so many years? We think he found some diamonds in another bottle.” Chloë waved an arm. “Why is Abuela asking to speak to you now? She has a reason; she’s an old lady, so it’s probably not a reason you want to consider. She’s probably looking at the end of her life and thinking she wants to make contact with the grandson who has made her proud.”

“You don’t know her at all.”

“No, I don’t. But I know an unhappy fourteen-year-old boy didn’t know her, either. You’re not a child anymore. She can’t hold you hostage again.”

“Don’t you understand? I spent my childhood flinging myself against the walls of my prison, and she built those walls with her own hands.”

“She’s asking for a reconciliation. Maybe now you’re not ready to reconcile with her, but this isn’t a timetable you can control. If she dies and the day comes when you realize there were things that should have been said . . . there’s no second chance.” Chloë kept her voice low and soft, like a tamer soothing a lion poised for attack. “This is your opportunity to put your childhood in perspective, to forgive and forget. Once you do that, it’s over at last.”

“My childhood was over the day I landed in Chile.”

Very slowly, very carefully, she reached out her hand and placed it on his chest.

He flinched. His heart was racing.

Softly she said, “I think your memories hold you in bondage. Cut the bonds. Let it go.”

“You don’t understand what you’re asking. You don’t understand. And I don’t want you to. I never want you to know what it is to have the ones who should love you betray you.” His eyes closed, and he whispered, “No one should ever know that pain.”

Chloë couldn’t stand it. She moved in close, slid her arms around his waist, hugged him tightly. “I won’t betray you.”

The lion pounced. He lifted her in his arms. He looked into her eyes, and his eyes glowed as if lit by a hot ember. “I keep myself under control for a reason. I am
like
them. Like
them.
Like my mother. Like my uncles. Like my cousins. Wild. Undisciplined. You ask me to remember those dark days when I lived on the edge of a vortex of despair and pain, and the memories drive me to madness.”

She stared into his face.

He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring. “If you don’t run away
now
, I won’t answer for the consequences.”

But he clutched her tightly around her waist. Her feet dangled. His body flamed against hers.

She made her decision. Wrapping her legs around him, she said, “I want to see the wild man. I want to see you out of control.”

He flung back his head as if she’d stabbed him in the gut. He took a rasping breath.

She could almost see his battle with the beast within.

When he lowered his head, he had lost the fight.

He strode to the couch, dropped onto it. With her straddling his lap, he unfastened the halter on her dress, pushed it off her shoulders and down her arms, baring her breasts to the fading light and the chilly air . . . and his mouth. Lifting her, he licked, he suckled, and he nibbled until she was gasping as he had earlier. The way he used his teeth against her nipple, the clever route his tongue took to ease the sting, and then that deep, rhythmic sucking . . . it brought her up on her knees, clutching his hair and holding him there. And there.

When he lifted his head and looked up at her, she kissed him, hard and long, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, a blatant imitation of his own seductive kisses . . . was that just this morning?

He kissed her back, but not with the focus he’d used this morning.

She discovered why. With his hands on her thighs, he pushed her skirt up, slid his fingers under her panties. He opened her, then used his thumb on her clit as if he had the right to touch her whenever and wherever he wished.

Breaking off the kiss with a moan, she flung her head back and rocked against him. He slid his finger inside her. . . .

Why? She had been loving the wildness of him. Why change her mind now?

Because this felt like ownership.

She wasn’t ready. Not for that. Catching his wrist, she pushed him away.

He didn’t fight. He did as she wished, pulling out of her—then, using both hands, he ripped the delicate lace at the side of her panties. They dropped around one knee, leaving her exposed to the cool air . . . and to him.

He stayed between her legs and toppled her onto her back. With his hands holding her thighs, he lifted her and put his mouth on her, and all the skill and passion he had shown in kissing, he put to use in other ways. He utilized his lips, his tongue, his teeth, licking her clit, probing inside her, then sucking until she screamed and fought not in denial but in ecstasy.

He wouldn’t stop. The pleasure went on and on. The climax rose and fell in intensity. Every nerve in her body quivered with the shock of ongoing pleasure, and it wasn’t until she collapsed in a boneless heap that he pulled away.

She watched through half-closed eyes as he stood and unbuckled his belt, opened his pants, and pushed them down. She heard the sound of foil tearing, saw him don the condom, then put one knee on the couch, lean over her, and—

“No!” Outrage brought her up on her elbows. “No, sir! You take off your shirt. You take off your pants. Take them off now!” Because she was sitting here with her dress pulled down and pulled up, exposed everywhere except at her waist, which was not an erogenous zone . . . at least, not until he proved to her it was. But she had never seen him with more than his collar button undone, and she damned well deserved a look at the man-candy. She would have it.

He visibly seethed with frustration; then with a low curse, he stripped off his pants and threw them across the coffee table. He started unbuttoning his shirt, got all but the middle button undone, and ripped it loose as he tore out of the shirt.

She wanted to laugh except . . . “You’re gorgeous,” she whispered.

He was thinner than she’d realized, his skin stretched across his ribs and belly with no padding to lessen the impact of his sculpted muscles. His shoulders and arms were bulkier than she had imagined, a testament to brute force produced not by lifting weights but by shoveling, moving pipe, living the life of a grape grower. She knew his legs were long, but hadn’t realized his thighs would be so carved and strong.

She knew he was a man, but hadn’t realized his erection would rise and strain, threaten and seduce, promise and entice.

He stood and let her look . . . for a moment.

But when she reached behind her to unzip her dress, he leaned in and kissed her upthrust breasts, the hollow of her throat, behind her ear, her lips. . . .

She didn’t remember
how
to run a zipper.

The heat that burned in him burned in her, too, and she radiated want, need. Sliding her hands around his waist, she lifted one knee in invitation.

Her offer severed the last slender thread that bound him to civilization; he pushed her into the cushions, sank down on her, holding her with his weight. He wrapped his elbows under her knees, opened her, and unerringly found the entrance to her body.

He pushed. And pushed.

She was wet and trembling.

The condom was lubricated.

But the fit was tight. She gasped, and gasped, and tears sprang to her eyes.

He held himself still, shuddering. His expression, when she saw it, was that of a trapped beast, savage and angry, but his hands were gentle as he stroked her inner thighs. “Damn it. You should have told me. You’re a virgin.”

Chapter 26

E
li could not fucking believe it.

Chloë was a virgin.

“Technically, I
was
a virgin.” Her voice was normal. Almost normal. But he heard the telltale quaver.

He’d hurt her.

Of course he had.

He’d lost control. He’d come at her like a Cossack run amok. He’d kissed her breasts because he couldn’t resist, gone down on her, kissed her lips to imprint himself on her. He’d been a totally selfish bastard, and when he felt her . . . her maidenhead break inside her...

Who the hell called it a maidenhead?

Who the hell had one anymore? She lived in modern-day America, she was twenty-three years old, she’d gone to high school and to college . . . and when they were finished, he was going to be asking some questions. But first . . .

If he had any decency at all, he would pull out. Give her another round of pleasure. Restrain himself.

He couldn’t do it. He had to have her.

Wrapping one arm around her and using the other to control their descent, he rolled off the couch.

He helped her sit up on him, tried to sound soothing, and managed only to sound desperate as he said, “Take me, then. Make yourself happy.”

Her eyes were wide, startled, looking down at him as if he were the first man and she were the first woman and they were doing this for the first time in the history of the universe....

He had to stop thinking stuff like that, or she’d be on her back again.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’ll be happy no matter what.”

They were stretched between the couch and the coffee table. She had her legs folded beneath her.

As if puzzled, she pushed her hands through her fluff-ball hair; then, in a flurry of motion, she reached behind her and unzipped her dress. She twisted as she pulled it off her head. She tossed it toward his pants.

Her breasts, rosy and firm, thrust forward, then up, then bounced.

He was buried inside her, the heat of her enfolded him, her body gripped him, and if she didn’t start humping soon, he was going to die of frustration. Or come for no more reason than that he was inside her and growing harder by the second. He
was
harder, but she seemed more at ease, as if the hurt had subsided. Experimentally, she leaned forward, lifted herself, then pressed down again, then lifted herself.