The Italian Groom

“I said I should give up on you.”

Meg stiffened indignantly, her shoulders squaring. She’d allowed him to crush her years ago, her tender heart broken by his harsh rejection, but thankfully she wasn’t a teenager anymore. “Then do! I don’t need your so-called help.”

“So-called?” He bristled, golden eyes glinting. The rapid pull of muscle in his jaw revealed her barb had hit home. She’d insulted him, bruising his considerable Italian machismo. Nic stared at her through narrowed eyes. “You’re fortunate that we have a very old friendship.”

“It’s not much of a friendship,” she retorted grimly. “In fact, you’re the last person I’d describe as a friend.”

His jaw tightened again, but he didn’t answer her. Instead his eyes searched her face. She kept her expression purposely blank. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him see how strongly he still affected her. “Give me the key.”

“No.”

“My parents know I’ll be staying there. I left a message with the cruise line.”

“You cannot stay there alone.”

“I live alone.”

His mouth pinched tighter, and he crossed his arms, straining his green sport jacket. Yellow light glowed behind him, the villa’s French doors open to embrace the warm California night. “Which is quite dangerous in New York. The city is full of strangers who prey on young women.”

Inadvertently Mark, her baby’s father, came to mind.

What was the expression? A wolf in sheep’s clothing?

But she didn’t want to think about Mark, didn’t want to be reminded that she’d fallen for Mark partly because he’d reminded her so much of Niccolo. The fact that even after ten years Meg still desired men like Nic confounded her. Nic might be sinfully attractive, but he was also insufferably high-handed.

As it turned out, Mark and Nic were really nothing alike. Whereas Nic had scruples, Mark had none.

Mark wasn’t just any old wolf, but a married wolf with three kids and a wife tucked in an affluent Connecticut neighborhood. Greenwich, to be precise.

Her stomach heaved at the memory. Mark had insisted she get rid of the baby, going so far as to make an appointment at a clinic, but Meg refused, and used the opportunity to head to California to get a start on her new landscape renovation.

Her stomach gurgled again, a squeamish reminder that it had been a long day and promised to be an equally long night. She was four and a half months into this pregnancy and still quite sick. She’d been prepared for nausea, but this…it felt like a flu that wouldn’t end.

“I’m only in town for a few days,” she said, bone-weary and beginning to feel a little desperate. “I’m meeting with clients till Thursday and then back to New York on Friday.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re only staying for a night. It’s not safe.”

Meg swallowed hard and fast. “I’ll lock the door.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Nic, you’re not my dad. And you’re not Jared.”

For a moment he said nothing, stunned to silence. Then the small muscle popped again in his jaw, revealing his tightly leashed temper. “Is that so?”

She swallowed her anger, appalled at what she’d said.

Of course he wasn’t her brother. Nic had been her brother’s best friend. Jared and Nic had been inseparable up until the minute Jared had crashed the car that one horrible Christmas Eve.

It was a terrible thing to say to Nic, and she took a frightened step back, hating herself for her unkindness. Silently she cursed her quick temper and even quicker tongue. There were times she wished she had a little of Niccolo’s control.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized, completely ashamed.

He nodded, his full lips pressed tight beneath his straight nose. She’d once teased him that he had a face Michelangelo would have loved. Nic had responded that he’d rather have been drawn by da Vinci. Something basic and spare. But there was nothing basic or spare about Niccolo. He was beautiful.

Repentant, she gazed at Nic, still horrified by her thoughtlessness. She’d struck below the belt and she knew it. Bile rose in her throat. She’d broken her cardinal rule. Any discussion of Jared and the accident was absolutely off-limits. “I shouldn’t have said that about Jared—”

“It’s okay. You’re tired. It’s late.”

Instead of feeling relieved, she felt worse. “I don’t want to fight with you. Please just let me have the key.”

“There’s a rash of robberies in the area lately. Nine local ranches and wineries have been hit. Last time an elderly woman, a very nice woman, was hurt. I can’t let you take that risk.”

Some of her anger dissipated. Meg’s shoulders slumped wearily. So that was it. There’d been trouble in the area, and he was afraid for her. So like Niccolo. Still trying to protect her.

Meg turned and gazed across the villa’s flagstone terrace to the magnificent view of the valley. In the moonlight the orderly row of grapes looked like olive green pinstripes against rounded hills.

In the ten years she’d been away, it seemed that nothing—not the grapes nor handsome, proud Niccolo—had changed. Oh, she’d been back a number of times, but she’d made it a point to visit when Nic was away. Somehow Nic and Jared and the past were so tangled together that she found it too painful to return home often.

“Who was hurt?” she asked, still drinking in the moonlit landscape. Unlike so many others, her parents used their fertile land for cattle and crops. Nic had once approached them about buying their acreage for top dollar. Her father had quietly but firmly refused. Nic had never brought the subject up again.

“Mrs. Anderson,” he answered.

Her old piano teacher.

“How awful,” Meg whispered.

“Which is why I can’t let you go to your parents’ home.” Nic towered above her, exuding authority even in a casual sport coat and khaki trousers. “I’ve promised to look after your parents’ place while they’re gone. I know they wouldn’t want you there, not after what happened to Mrs. Anderson.”

“Of course.” But she couldn’t help a flash of disappointment. It was so late and she was so incredibly tired. It would have been wonderful to creep into bed in her old room with the nubby white chenille bedspread, the girlish ballet pictures on the wall, the row of Raggedy Anns on a shelf, and just sleep. To momentarily escape the exhaustion and her worry about the future and just be young Maggie again.

But young Maggie was long gone. When she left Healdsburg for college on the East Coast ten years ago, she’d vowed to make a new life for herself with people who didn’t know her past or her name.

After finishing her studies Meg took a job with a prominent Manhattan landscape design firm, working her way up from fetching coffees to designing secret jewel-box gardens for Fifth Avenue mansions.

Meg knew she had a talent for design and was willing to work harder than anyone else in the firm. Which is how she’d landed the Hunt account in California. Actually, landed wasn’t quite right. She’d fought for the job tooth and nail. The Hunts’ garden renovation would take years and yet it would be the jewel in her crown. With the Hunt renovation on her résumé, she could open her own design firm, work from home, be independent.

Thus she’d squashed her apprehension about returning to Napa, resolving to give the Hunts the very best of her time and ability.

She’d be her own woman. She’d be her own boss. And she’d be a great mother, too.

Her convictions were undermined by moisture beading her brow, her nausea growing worse. “That’s fine,” she said, striving to sound casual. “I’ll stay at a hotel tonight.”

“That’s absurd. I won’t have you staying in a hotel. If you need a place to stay, you’ll stay here.”