Tycoon's Temptation

A charmer, she thought as she put together a platter of doorstop sandwiches, adding this latest discovery to his list of crimes, a list that was growing longer by the minute. A Chatsfield and a charmer with a posh accent, who wore handmade shoes and gold watches and who hired helicopters when mere mortals hired cars—and usually the budget model at that.

She didn’t care for charmers with fat pockets.

She didn’t trust them.

She glanced over her shoulder at their guest, her father and Franco engaged in conversation. Another squall had hit, the rain coming in fat drops that belted onto the tin roof and splattered over the windows when the wind blew it horizontally under the wide verandah, and over the din, she could barely hear what they were saying. It was just a shame the noise didn’t dull her vision. He’d shrugged off his jacket while her back had been turned, revealing a fine-knitted sweater that skimmed his powerful shoulders and chest like a second skin. Some tall people looked like weeds. Not Franco. He looked hard packed. Built. He seemed to own the space around him. Not an easy thing in this room when he was surrounded by so much of it.

All the more reason to resent him, she told herself as she set the plate of sandwiches on the table and retreated to the safety of the kitchen to snap on the kettle, watching him take a sandwich in his hands.

Long-fingered hands.

Long-fingered hands with big thumbs.

He’d taken her hand in his and she could still feel the tingle under her skin, the zap that had reminded her of science class where they’d scuffed shoes on the carpet and reached out a hand. It had been fun then.

It wasn’t fun now.

She lifted her eyes and caught him watching her and sensation skittered down her spine. She spun, looking out the window, looking anywhere but at him, wondering what was wrong with her.

‘You’re not eating,’ he said.

She shook her head, wondering what had happened to her appetite. She’d felt hungry when she’d first come in from outside, but she was too wound up now to eat, too busy thinking he should never have come. Wishing she’d taken the call and told him not to. Thinking there was no point to all of this …

‘You must take Franco out to the vineyard,’ Gus said, ‘when this latest shower has passed. You should show him our terra rossa soil, and why our grapes do so well.’

‘Pop, have you looked out the window? I’m not sure it’s a good day to take anyone outside.’ Especially if it meant being alone with him.

‘Nonsense!’ He looked at their guest. ‘Franco would never have come all this way without wanting to see everything there is to know about the vineyard and the winery.’

‘Of course,’ he conceded, his words and smile both tighter than a trellis wire. ‘Naturally, I would appreciate seeing as much as I can while I am here.’

‘Excellent,’ said Gus, slapping the palms of his hands on his legs, triumphant. Holly wasn’t so convinced. Their guest hadn’t exactly jumped at the chance. Maybe he was afraid of getting his pretty shoes wet. ‘Now, you’d better get going before the next squall hits. Holly will find you a coat.’

Franco rose to his feet.

‘Oh, and, Gus, after the tour, perhaps we could sit down together and go over the details of Chatsfield Hotel’s offer?’

Holly’s head snapped around. So here it was. ‘You sure don’t waste any time, do you, Mr Chatsfield?’

‘Please call me Franco. And no, I don’t like wasting time, neither yours nor mine. In fact, I have a contract with me all ready to be signed. I told your grandfather on the phone the terms were generous and I can guarantee we’ll better any other offer on the table. I’d appreciate the opportunity to discuss the proposal with you in more detail.’

‘I look forward to it,’ said a bright-eyed Gus, who was looking like a kid itching to unwrap the biggest present under the Christmas tree. ‘I’m sorry I can’t come out myself while I’m confined to this infernal thing. Holly, I’ll be in the study doing some paperwork. Let me know when you get back and we’ll all sit down together and see if we can’t do business.’

The sky outside offered a rare patch of blue and Holly reckoned they had ten minutes before the next bank of dark cloud rumbled overhead and dropped its load.

‘This is going to ruin your snazzy shoes,’ Holly warned as she climbed into her creaky-with-age Driza-Bone oilskin. No way would his feet fit into Gus’s boots.

‘It’s no problem, really,’ he said. ‘They’re only shoes.’

She smiled at that as she pulled on her knee-high gumboots.

Only someone used to buying hand-crafted shoes would think they were only shoes. Clearly the Chatsfields had more money than sense.

Another crime added to the list.

She strode before him across the sodden lawn in her work boots, hands wedged deeply in the pockets of her coat. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know Franco was right behind her. She could feel him in the prickling heat of her skin. She could sense him in the swirling air of her wake—thick, smug air—just one more dark cloud on a stormy day. At least this cloud would soon blow away. Back to his privileged world and his scandal-ridden existence.

‘Be nice to him,’ Pop had told her, and she reined in on the resentment that bubbled up under her skin at him being here, at his film-star good looks and his entitled accent and his damned big feet and thumbs, but nowhere near enough to quell it completely. No. She could not find it in herself to be nice. But she supposed she could at least try for civil. He wasn’t going to be here long. She could do civil.

At least until he put his offer on the table.

‘We have around fifty hectares of prime Coonawarra land under vines,’ she started, and Franco tuned out, toying with a new and unexpected discovery. Because he’d seen her smile back in the mud room, maybe only because she’d been laughing at his shoes, but still she’d smiled. And it had been a revelation, because she was almost pretty when she smiled, when she let her frosty guard down and let the light play about her blue eyes and tweak her lips. They’d become startling blue eyes when she smiled, a burst of colour when she was otherwise clad in so much drabness. Who would have thought it?

She led him towards an old stone building nestled into a stand of enormous gum trees that served as their cellar door, smoke rising from its chimney, and all the while Holly talked and Franco only half listened, letting the details of the varieties and acreage and yields wash over him, details he didn’t need to know because soon he’d be gone and would never need to give Purman Wines or its cantankerous Miss Drab another thought.

Until then, he guessed, he would just have to endure it.

They stopped at a cutting in the soil, where the ground had been scooped away in a wedge shape to reveal the rich red soil lying atop its white limestone base, and she began to explain terra rossa soil, and Franco’s patience snapped.

‘Save me the lecture. I know what terra rossa means.’ Dio, if it wasn’t enough that his mother was Italian, he’d lived in Italy for the past decade.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I assumed you’d grown up in England.’

‘I did,’ he said tersely, glancing over the massive shed beyond that housed the winery proper, suspecting that she was headed there next and already impatient for it to be over. He’d only agreed to come along because he’d worried they might have thought it looked odd if he hadn’t shown an interest.

But now he looked back across the vineyards, in the direction of the homestead, thinking he’d played Mr Cooperative long enough. It was time to get down to business if he wanted this thing wrapped up today.

‘Thank you for the tour, Ms Purman. I think we should be heading back now.’

Holly blinked those blue eyes. ‘The tour isn’t actually finished yet.’

‘Gus is waiting for us.’

‘He knows we’ll be a while.’

‘I’d rather not keep him waiting.’

She drew in a short sharp breath, laced with frustration.

‘But you haven’t even tasted the wines or seen the winery yet.’

‘The wine is good. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here with a contract in my pocket. Don’t you understand? Chatsfield Hotels wants to buy your entire vintage, down to every lock, stock and French oak barrel. We’re not about to change our minds whatever you show me. We’d be better off using our time getting agreement over the contract.’

Her blue eyes flashed like sun on ice, as cold and sharp as the wind that needled around his ears. She swept one arm around in an arc over the vineyard. ‘I knew you weren’t interested in a tour. But then, you’re not actually interested in any of this, are you?’ She was staring right at him, right into him, shaking her head while those ice-blue eyes continued to try to slice him to pieces with laser precision.

‘Don’t take it personally. I’m here to do business, not play tourist.’

‘Have you ever tasted our wines?’