He’d spent seven years of his life battling ghosts. It was a war he could never win. And if he did, what would he have? A few acres? The right to use a label? He would still be alone. He would still have to look at himself in the mirror. He would still not have Brenna.
He dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. Brenna. She had reappeared without warning, offering what he thought was the perfect way to ensure his plan worked. He’d loaned her money because he thought the callable note gave him leverage, but was that the only reason? Hadn’t he also done it so that she would be nearby?
Of course, he thought, wondering why he hadn’t seen it before. Brenna, whom he’d never been able to forget. She’d exploded into his life like a shooting star, her light reaching all the way into the dark corners of his soul. He’d tried to hate her, but couldn’t. He’d tried to forget her, to love someone else. Anyone else. He’d failed. Brenna, who had told him she loved him.
She wouldn’t now. Not when she learned the truth.
Nic’s eyes opened. Panic seized him. In that moment he knew his only chance was to get to Brenna as quickly as possible and tell her everything. If he was able to explain, to apologize, to take it all back, then maybe she would understand. Maybe she would still love him.
Brenna was not in the mood to face her grandfather again, but she didn’t have a choice. Mia dragged her into the house and found him in the library, sitting at his desk.
“We have to talk,” Mia said. “You’re not going to believe what I found out.”
“I must speak as well,” he said. His gaze settled on Brenna.
She had the thought that he looked old. Concern threaded its way through her until she reminded herself that he was going to sell the winery and destroy her world.
“Grandpa, this is important,” Mia protested.
“So is this. It’s about the sale.”
Mia’s mouth dropped open. “What sale?” She sucked in a breath. “No. You can’t. Brenna’s going to run the winery.”
Brenna appreciated the support. Unfortunately it wouldn’t have any influence on her grandfather. She ached everywhere. As much as she wanted to crawl in bed and pull the covers over her head until this all went away, she refused to show weakness again. She braced herself for the next blow and vowed she would handle it just fine.
“Have you already signed the papers?” she asked, pleased when her voice didn’t shake.
“No. The men who approached me aren’t the ones interested in the winery. They are a front. Very respectable, very generous. A man could go a lifetime without hearing such a fine offer.”
Brenna didn’t know if he was trying to make her feel worse, but if he was, he was succeeding. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “So?”
“So I do not deal with faceless corporations. I made a few phone calls to the bank who would handle the loan. A friend talks to another friend. Eventually I have a name.”
Maybe it was her imagination, but she would have sworn his hard expression softened a little. She didn’t think that was good news.
Brenna clutched the back of the chair in front of her. She repeated to herself that she would handle it. Everything would be fine. There was no name her grandfather could say that would hurt her more than she’d already been hurt.
No name except one.
Her grandfather nodded. “You already know.”
She shook her head. It couldn’t be possible.
“Nicholas Giovanni.”
18
“No!” Mia cried, her voice thick with outrage. “Not Nic. He couldn’t. We were just…” She threw down the diary. “He just can’t be the one.”
Brenna didn’t know what to think. Or maybe she simply couldn’t form coherent thoughts. She wouldn’t have guessed it was possible to be more stunned, more hurt, more disbelieving than she’d been before. Nic buying the winery? Nic going about it in secret, hiding?
Betrayal was both bitter and cold, she realized as ice swept through her. Muscles trembled, then refused to support her weight. She leaned heavily against the chair she’d been holding, before she staggered around so she could drop onto the seat.
Her vision blurred as she covered her face with her hands. No. He couldn’t. Over the past few weeks they’d spent so much time together. They’d talked and laughed and made love. They’d—
She straightened with a gasp of horror. She’d apologized for her behavior. She’d said she loved him.
“You have to be wrong,” she told her grandfather.
“I’m not. He’s been planning this for a long time. It’s all in place. His offer, the financing, everything.”
But…it couldn’t be.
“I trusted him,” she whispered. With everything. Her heart and her dreams. Oh, no. The loan—in the form of a callable note. Her wine, her plans.
“Oh, Grandpa, it’s even worse.” She forced out the words when all she wanted to do was run so far and fast that she could forget everything that had happened in the past few hours. “I’ve done something.”
Mia looked at her, then her eyes widened in comprehension. “Brenna, you don’t think…”
Brenna nodded slowly. “It had to be part of his plan.”
“What was part of his plan?” her grandfather asked.
“I was a fool,” she said. “I’m sorry. He made it so easy and I wanted it so much, I refused to consider that he was being anything but kind and generous.”
She felt both helpless and stupid, and she had no one to blame but herself. “I went to Nic for a million-dollar loan and he gave it to me. It’s a callable note.”
She braced herself for the explosion, but her grandfather only sighed heavily. “A lot of money,” he said calmly. “A smart move on Nic’s part. If I balk, he calls in the note. Even if I make good on the money, he can ruin your reputation. So he plays on my feelings for my granddaughter. He thought of everything.”
Brenna doubted he’d planned on her falling for him again, but no doubt he’d simply considered that a lucky bonus. Being heartbroken was one thing, but a heartbroken idiot was unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Mia stepped close and squeezed her shoulder. “I thought the past was twisted, but this is even worse.”
Their grandfather turned his attention to her. “What do you know of the past?”
“A lot more than I did a couple of days ago.” Mia leaned toward the desk and slapped the top of the book she’d dropped. “Sophia Giovanni’s diary. It starts before she married Salvatore and finishes up shortly after the death of her stillborn child. She writes about everything, including why Salvatore poisoned the Marcelli vines.”
Her grandfather put his hand on top of Mia’s on the diary. The color drained from his face and his fingers trembled.
“It is all here? The truth?”
Mia nodded.
“So many lives changed,” he said quietly. “So much bad blood. More wrongs on top of pain.”
“You knew the truth?” Brenna asked. “You knew all this time and never said anything?”
“I put it together over the years. A word here, a whisper there. I was a boy when it all happened.”
Brenna thought of all the times she and her sisters had decided their grandfather was crazy for worrying about an old family tale. “If we’d known what really happened…”
He shook his head. “What would it have changed? The young and the old have fought since the beginning of time. It is the way of things.”
Maybe, Brenna thought. She felt cold and broken, as if she’d fallen from a great height. Her heart had shriveled into hard, brittle pieces. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. She wanted to hit something…or someone.
Footsteps clicked in the hallway. “Where are you?” Grandma Tessa called as she approached. “Dinner’s ready. What? Mary-Margaret and I prepare the food and no one eats?”
She walked into the library. “Lorenzo, you come and eat. Mia, Brenna.” She hesitated. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Her husband spoke to her in Italian. Mia probably understood, but while Brenna didn’t know what he was saying, she could guess at the content. Even before he’d finished, Grandma Tessa reached for her rosary and began fingering the beads.
All Brenna could think about was escape. Too many feelings swirled inside of her. She couldn’t name them all, but she sensed they were about to spiral out of control.
She stood. Grandma Tessa was at her side and hugged her close. “Sweet, sweet girl. You come. We put you to bed, and in the morning you’ll see. Things, they aren’t so bad. Maybe some pasta, eh? To fill your tummy.”
Brenna hugged her close. “No pasta. I don’t want to eat.”
What she wanted instead was revenge. Damn Nic for what he’d done to her. And damn his whole family. How dare he play with her? Use her? They’d had sex…she’d given him her heart.
“I hate him,” she whispered.
“Who?” her grandmother asked. “Brenna, hate is a sin.”
“Be quiet, Tessa,” Lorenzo said. “Let the girl be.”
One small part of Brenna’s brain acknowledged her grandfather’s support, but she couldn’t deal with that right now. Rage swept through her until she thought she might explode.
The need to move filled her. She headed for the hallway, but before she’d reached it, she heard a familiar sound outside. The sound of a motorcycle.
The anger in her grew to a life force.
“I’ll kill him,” she said.
“All that Italian blood coursing through your veins,” Mia said, taking her arm. “I’m in favor of you telling him exactly what you think, but not right now. You’re too raw.”
“I’m not raw. I’m empowered. I could rip him apart with my bare hands.”
“There’s a visual.”
Mia tugged on her arm, and Brenna let herself be led to the back of the house. “Come on, Sis. You need a drink.”
“I need to destroy him.”
“Later. Let Grandma Tessa handle him.”
Brenna started to protest, but an odd thing happened when she sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. She couldn’t get up. In a matter of seconds her entire body shook as if she were having a seizure. Then she was crying. Great gulping sobs that nearly split her in two.
“Oh, Mia,” she gasped.
Her sister sank down next to her and pulled her close.
“It hurts,” Brenna sobbed. “Oh, God, it hurts so much.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I loved him.”
Mia squeezed her tight.
Brenna was grateful that her sister didn’t offer any pat phrases of comfort. The truth was, there weren’t any words left that would heal this wound. She’d trusted Nic with her dreams and her heart, and he’d never been interested in either. Instead he’d wanted to destroy her and her family.
How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she have been such a fool?
Sometime close to midnight Brenna told herself she couldn’t cry forever. Eventually she would run out of tears, although that didn’t seem close to happening anytime soon. She felt drained and puffy and more than a little sorry for herself. Every twenty minutes or so, a fresh wave of anger gave her energy, but then the sadness drowned it out, and she was left feeling broken again.
In the past few hours she’d tried to figure out which was worse—her stupidity or Nic’s betrayal. So far it was a toss-up. How could she have been so blind? Hadn’t she learned anything by being married to Jeff and having him leave her? And how could Nic have turned out to be such incredible slime? Worse, he was slime that was damn good in bed.
