Love in the Vineyard (Tavonesi #7)(79)

She tapped his arm. “I could pay back the money Enrique took, a little at a time,” she said. “He’d help too, I know he would.”

Enrique. Maybe there was more to Natasha’s relationship with Enrique than Adrian was allowing himself to see. He cursed himself silently; maybe he’d just better stop jumping to conclusions.

“You have bigger problems than Enrique. I’ll handle him.”

“What will you do?”

He hated the accusatory look in her eyes.

“I need to talk with my father, but we’ll take care of it. You focus on you and Tyler.”

The front door banged open.

“Yo! Adrian!” Tyler’s voice boomed as he barreled into the apartment. “I saw your car.” He looked at his mother’s red-rimmed eyes. “You okay, Mom?”

“I just caught my finger in my car door,” Natasha said convincingly. “Why aren’t you in school?”

She was a woman who could lie when she had to. And now that he understood her reasons for hiding the truth, Adrian sure couldn’t blame her for protecting the boy she loved. He’d do the same.

“We had a half day, remember? Teacher conferences. Can I go over to Brandon’s? He’s having a pool party. They rented a snow cone machine.”

“I’m headed across town; I could drop you off,” Adrian said. Though he didn’t want to leave Natasha, the summons had set a clock ticking. If he was going to help her, he’d have to act quickly.

“I’ll grab my swim trunks.” Tyler looked to Natasha. “I mean, can I go? All my friends are going.”

“I’ll pick you up in time for dinner. And then it’s homework time.”

Adrian had to admire the way Natasha had pulled herself together and back into mom-mode fast.

Tyler screwed a silly smile up to Adrian. “Bet your mom wasn’t so tough.”

“Tougher,” Adrian said with a forced laugh.

Over Tyler’s head he saw the worry in Natasha’s eyes. And his inner voice, the voice he trusted, told him that Eddie Markiston had hidden motives for returning to Natasha’s life. Whatever the guy’s plan, and whether she wanted him to or not, Adrian swore he’d limit the damage any way he could.

Tyler chattered all the way to his friend’s house. Adrian had forgotten the joys of being a child. Before he could stop himself, he’d made promises to show Tyler his polo horses, to take him and his friends out riding in the hills, and to let them come at harvest time to help stomp the grapes. If the drive had been longer, God only knew what else he might’ve thrown in.

Adrian went around to the trunk to get Tyler’s gear bag. Before he could lift the bag, Tyler caught him in an awkward hug.

“Mom can be really nice,” Tyler said, backing out of the hug. “And she’s a really good cook. She makes me pies too. You should come to our house for dinner sometime.”

Tyler’s innocent lobbying on behalf of his mom cracked Adrian’s heart open. He’d grown to love the boy with a love he really didn’t understand. He’d never imagined being a dad, wasn’t sure he was cut out for it. His brother Rafe, and maybe even Gaetano, would be great fathers.

He waved at Monica and pulled away from the curb. A block down the street, he nosed his car to the side of the road, pulled his notebook and a pen from the glove compartment, and wrote down every relevant detail from his conversation with Natasha.

Edward Markiston had better have a perfect motive for making Natasha’s life hell.





Chapter Twenty-Four



SITTING IN A GROWER’S CONFERENCE WAS not the way Adrian had hoped to spend the past two days. Although securing the appellation for the wines grown in the coastal gap had once been at the top of his wish list, it sure wasn’t anymore. At least not today. He drove straight to the Casa after the final meeting of the day. He’d given his father a copy of the court summons and had asked him to turn up everything he could on Edward Markiston. Two days wasn’t much time, but he had faith in his father’s team of sleuths. That they might bend a few rules getting information didn’t matter. Helping Natasha was the goal, and he wasn’t letting go of it.

Adrian found his father with his feet propped on an ottoman in front of a fire in the Casa’s library. They’d had unusually cool nights, but so far, no frost. Frost would take out the budding grapes. Frost would be a possible disaster. But he hadn’t come to discuss the vineyard.

“Any progress on sorting out what happened to those missing funds?” his father asked. Santino Tavonesi was known for never beating around the bush.

Adrian drew in a slow breath. “One of our workers took the money. He got the passwords for the accounts from Natasha.”

“I never suspected her involvement.”

“You should’ve told me.” Adrian kicked himself. He should’ve known that with the network of intelligence available to his father that he’d have already traced the flow of the funds.

His father eyed him. “Some truths we have to discover for ourselves.”

Adrian told him about Natasha’s disability, how she’d hidden her dyslexia from everyone out of fear. And then he told him of Enrique’s dilemma. His father was no stranger to the ruthlessness of drug lords. A Colombian cartel had murdered Santino’s best agent.