Tycoon's Temptation

So he’d play the game by Giatrakos’s rules. He’d even let Giatrakos think he’d won the day if it was that important to him. Because he’d spoken to Angus Purman and it was clear from his enthusiastic response to his offer that getting his signature was practically a done deal. No wonder, really, given he’d had one hell of a budget to play with and he’d teased Purman with that knowledge.

Getting the paperwork should be a mere formality, in which case, he’d be back in Milan with this deal sorted and signed and on that jerk CEO’s desk before the ink was even dry on the contract.

And if his father—his famous father, who hadn’t given him two minutes of consideration since he’d been born—had thought for a moment that he would be cowed by the prospect of sorting out a new wine contract for Chatsfield’s prestige hotel chain, he had another think coming.

He might have dropped out of school at sixteen and fled the Chatsfield media circus before it could consume him, but he’d still managed to learn a thing or two along the way. Maybe his father might finally realise that?

He snorted.

Not that he cared either way.

The plane bumped through clouds on its descent and he looked out the window, searching for his first glimpse of Adelaide, but there was still no sign of anything approaching a city. Instead below him spread an undulating carpet of green dotted with tiny towns connected by winding ribbons of bitumen. There were forests of pine and the dull grey of eucalypts, interspersed with open fields, and vineyards too, marching in regimented lines across the hillsides. Somewhere down there, he figured, must be Purman’s cool-climate pinot-chardonnay block that provided the fruit for their award-winning sparkling wine.

A burst of rain spattered against his window, obliterating the view, and Franco reclined back in his seat as the plane bumped its descent over the hills. Not that he had to know where exactly, because as soon as the plane landed and he cleared customs, he was heading straight to Purman’s Coonawarra head office, one more short flight away. He didn’t want or need to see anything else. His job was to fill in a few final details on the contract he had ready and get a signature. It wasn’t like he was here to have a holiday. In fact, the sooner he’d put Giatrakos—the jerk—back in his box and ensured the funds from the Chatsfield Family Trust kept flowing where he wanted them to, the better.

Right now, that was all he cared about.

It might be winter but the weather was worse than wintry, it was foul, and Holly had come in from the vineyard to escape it while she made them both a sandwich for lunch. Above the pounding of the rain on the roof she barely registered the noise at first. Even when she did make out the distinctive whump-whump of chopper blades, she didn’t pay it much attention. They weren’t that far from the airfield after all, and there was a steady trade in sightseer flights, although admittedly more common in the warmer months.

But the noise grew progressively louder and closer and Holly stopped slicing cheese as a shiver of premonition zipped down her spine. Could it be him?

She grabbed a tea towel to wipe her hands as she crossed to the glass doors that looked out over acres of vines, now mostly bare and stripped of their leaves, to see a helicopter hovering above the lawns that doubled as a rudimentary helipad when occasion demanded.

Her grandfather wheeled alongside her as the chopper descended slowly to the ground.

‘You reckon it’s him?’

‘Who else could it be? Clearly it’s somebody who likes to make an entrance. It figures it’d be a Chatsfield.’

‘You don’t know that, Holly.’

Her hackles did.

Her bones did.

‘It’s him,’ she said, before balling the tea towel in her hands and unceremoniously flinging it across the room to land in the sink with the same unerring certainty. She slid open the door to air that was so cold and crisp it might snap, the rain squalls moved on for now, and from the edge of the verandah they waited as the chopper’s motor wound down, the blades’ revolutions slowing.

And even though it was near-freezing outside, her blood simmered with resentment. Did he honestly imagine they’d be impressed at such a grand entrance?

Not likely.

The passenger door popped open and their visitor jumped out and Holly’s skin prickled.

Tall, she registered. Around six foot if she wasn’t mistaken, though it was hard to tell given how far he had to duck his head under the rotating blades. And then he straightened and she could see his face and he could be nothing other than a Chatsfield, with his chiselled good looks and the tendrils of his bad-boy hair flicking like serpents in the down draft from the blades.

The prickling under her skin intensified and spread until even her breasts tingled and peaked. The cold, she told herself as she clutched her arms over her chest and pressed her fingernails tight into her flesh. Damn this cold and damn this man who was smiling as if he was welcome here.

As if he imagined he was going to get a slice of Purman Wine action.

Not on her watch.

‘Angus Purman?’ he said, extending a hand to her grandfather. ‘Franco Chatsfield. It’s good to meet you.’

‘Gus will do just fine,’ the older man said with a nod, and Franco felt his hand enveloped by a weatherbeaten paw that housed a grip of steel. ‘And this here’s my granddaughter, Holly. She’s the real boss of the show.’

Really? ‘Holly,’ he said, taking her hand in turn, and there could be no greater contrast between the two handshakes. For while the older man’s had been certain, his leathery skin calloused and hard, hers was cool and way too brief to decide if that buzz he’d felt on contact had been any more than his imagination. She made no attempt to acknowledge him or return his smile, but then, she didn’t look happy at all. Instead she looked—He searched for a word as he took in her khaki work pants, dusty boots and a faded long-sleeved polo jumper bearing the Purman Wines logo. Drab. In fact, if it wasn’t for blue eyes in a make-up-free face, she’d be completely colourless.

‘I apologise if my arrival has taken you unawares,’ he said, realising she must be angry because she hadn’t had time to get herself ready. He knew how women liked to preen.

‘No, of course, we were expecting you,’ the old man said genially.

‘We just weren’t expecting you—’ the woman added, gesturing towards the helicopter ‘—in that.’

So she was angry with him. But what the hell for? ‘I had to take it from Mount Gambier. Storms closed the Coonawarra airfield so my charter flight couldn’t land here.’

‘There were no hire cars?’ Gus asked as he wheeled himself inside and gestured Franco to follow.

‘No,’ he said as he followed, discounting the offer he’d had of a car so tiny his knees would have been around his ears. ‘At least, nothing that was suitable.’

‘They were all out of Maseratis?’ quipped the woman. ‘I just hate it when that happens.’

‘Holly!’ Gus growled over his shoulder, and Franco pulled his lips into a smile in spite of his building irritation. He was here with a fistful of dollars in his pocket and a deal that anyone would be mad to turn down and yet she was acting like he wasn’t welcome. What the hell was her problem?

Warmth enveloped him as he stepped into a spacious living area, a kitchen one end and a dining area dominated by a massive timber table the other, all warmed by a stone-walled fireplace pumping out the heat. Stone and timber featured largely in the interior, working in combination with the high ceilings and windows that afforded a view over the surrounding vines. And not that he’d given it much thought, but he hadn’t expected to be reminded of his own stone villa in the Piacenza hills outside Milan and to actually like what he found half a world away in the southeast corner of South Australia.

‘We were just about to have lunch,’ Gus said. ‘Why don’t you sit down and join us?’

Franco held up his hands. ‘I don’t want to put you out,’ he said, and Holly caught the gleam of a gold watch at his wrist. Ridiculously expensive gold watch, by the looks, just like the ridiculously expensive hand-stitched leather shoes on his feet. Big feet, she registered absently, and in the very next instant wished she hadn’t.

Tall.

Big feet.

What did they say about tall men with big feet?

And heat that had nothing to do with the fireplace suddenly blossomed hot and heavy in her cheeks. She turned her back towards the men, launching an attack on a loaf with the bread knife, furious with herself. She didn’t even like the man. Why the hell would she even think such a thing?

‘A man can’t be expected to do business on an empty stomach,’ Gus said. ‘It’s no trouble, is it, Holly?’

‘No trouble at all,’ she said with a brightness she didn’t feel. ‘I do hope you’re a fan of corned beef sandwiches?’

‘But of course,’ he said, and not for the first time, Holly wondered at his accent. She’d expected him to sound upper crust and privileged, and he did—for the most part. But every now and then there was an unexpected texture to his accent that curled the edges away from Sloane Square and headed for somewhere entirely more earthy.

Maybe because of his Italian mother? Not that it mattered. Not that she cared.

‘That’s the spirit,’ her grandfather said. ‘Holly not only makes the best wine in the district, it’s a little-known fact she also makes the best sandwiches. She makes the relish herself, you know.’

‘Then I am indeed fortunate. It appears I couldn’t have timed my arrival better.’