Love in the Vineyard (Tavonesi #7)(43)

Well, Natasha was about to get in the way in a very big way. A Major League ballplayer and an heiress weren’t from such disparate worlds as far as Natasha could see. But she and Adrian? Impossible. And he was either na?ve or blind not to see the truth of the situation. One of them had to be realistic, and apparently that job had fallen to her.





“Turn left in four hundred feet,” the voice on the GPS Mary had loaned Natasha said with the strange accent of a computerized voice.

Adrian’s place wasn’t far from Casa del Sole, but the winding roads and numerous turns made Natasha glad she hadn’t tried to find it using a map. Given the level of anxiety tightening in her chest, she probably couldn’t have read a map anyway.

Her car hit a rut, and she cursed. Car repair bills were not in the current budget and wouldn’t be for a very long time. Not with the move to their new place coming up in less than a week. She slowed and followed the winding drive up the ridge.

Oak forest gave way to an open clearing scattered with wildflowers. At the edge of the clearing sat a large, two-story house. One wall faced west and was made entirely of glass. The rest of the house looked like something out of a storybook. A tower poked up at one end, and the house was painted in the fanciful colors of the old Victorians she’d seen in photos of San Francisco.

She parked in the cobblestone drive and grabbed the bottle of wine Mary had given her. Perhaps it was ridiculous to bring a vintner a bottle of wine, but she had to bring something. The wine was her way of balancing the power. Her way of bringing an asset to the evening, of not allowing all the gifts to be on his side of the line.

She climbed the redwood stairs to the porch and looked for a doorbell. Not seeing one, she raised the brass knocker. As it fell toward the door, the door opened.

“I heard you pull up,” Adrian said, wiping his hands on the denim apron he wore. “This is the first time I’ve cooked in this kitchen since the remodel, and so far the vegetables and Vikings are winning.”

No chef on TV had ever looked like he did. If the leap of her pulse was any indication, the networks were missing a golden opportunity—handsome men in televised cook-offs would certainly be a runaway hit.

“Vikings?”

“My stoves.”

She held out the bottle of wine.

“For you.” And then she felt truly ridiculous. Of course it was for him.

“For us,” he said as he reached to take it from her.

It took some deft maneuvering, but she was careful not to let his fingers brush hers. She had a plan and had no intention of taking any detours. Yet she knew it would be impossible to touch him and stay on the road she’d mapped out.

“You find the place okay?”

She nodded.

He laughed. “Obviously you did. What kind of a host am I? Come in out of the evening chill. Let’s open this. I’ve been wanting to taste Dario’s new rosé. They’re trending now, but he garnered a ninety-four.”

Natasha had no idea what he was talking about. She’d been lucky that Mary had the bottle stashed away—an unclaimed raffle prize, she’d said. What would she ever have done without Mary?

If not for Mary, she wouldn’t have met a man who cracked her heart and tumbled her reality.

But it wasn’t Mary’s fault that Natasha had fallen for Adrian. And it wasn’t Mary’s fault that once she’d realized who he was and the impossibility of a future with him, she hadn’t been able to put the man out of her mind. Or out of her dreams. God, she couldn’t, wouldn’t think about those dreams. Not now. She needed to focus.

Adrian brushed his hand along her shoulder as she entered the house. Natasha’s senses went to high alert. She swore she could feel every cell in her body screaming for more.

“I’m a bit behind schedule,” Adrian said as they entered the kitchen. “My sister—Amber—always leaves things to the very last minute and I promised I’d drive her to the helipad.”

Helipad. It didn’t take a moat or a wall or an army of censuring patriarchs to remind Natasha why she had to end things with Adrian. His words and what they conveyed did that just fine.

“What does Amber do?” she stammered out in an attempt to make conversation that would distract her from the unwanted desire rising in her belly.

“Do?” The pop of the cork punctuated his puzzled expression.

Natasha felt the flush steal up her neck. Maybe Italian heiresses didn’t do anything.

He handed her a glass of the rose-colored liquid.

“This has a perfect hue.” He turned his glass and looked through it toward the light. “A light blush but not too far to the red side.” He motioned toward her with his glass. “Salute.”

The ringing sound as the crystal touched was like a bell sounding in a prizefighter’s ring. She had stepped under the ropes and she needed to deal.

“Amber is a campaigner. She travels the world and tries to see that precious medicinal plants don’t go extinct. She calls herself an herbalist, but I think of her as a warrior.” He sipped his wine and then stared into the glass.

“Dario uses neutral French oak barrels, he doesn’t just bleed the vats.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.” She was still learning the lingo of the winemaking industry. Bleeding the vats sounded like a horrible practice.