An Exquisite Challenge Read online

  He dipped his chin. “Sì.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he admitted roughly, “I can’t take it anymore.”

  * * *

  She walked Gabe through the grounds, every step she took punctuated by the insistent drumbeat of her heart. The vineyard looked stunning, fire and light blazing from every corner. Torches burned at the end of the long, sweeping driveway to greet the guests, the cocktail area on the main patio was lit by lanterns and the vineyard itself was cast in spotlight as it meandered its way up the hill. It felt magical. As if fairies had visited and set everything aglow.

  A four-piece band played jazz on the patio, mixologists waited to create individualized cocktails for the guests and staff stood ready to give VIP tours of the winery. Even the recalcitrant Champagne fountain was working, shooting a stunning golden spray into the air.

  “All in all, a rather Dionysian feel, if I do say so myself,” she murmured to Gabe.

  “It looks fantastic. Do you think Janine will put in an appearance?”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Are you okay with everything, then? Happy?”

  “I will be at midnight, when this is all over and people are raving about my wine.”

  She studied the tension in his broad shoulders. “They will be,” she said softly. “It’s a brilliant wine, Gabe. Relax and enjoy the moment.”

  She left him to ensure her beautiful young staff were at their station near the front gates, ready to meet the guests. They stood with beautifully embossed boxes containing each guest’s scientifically chosen match, written in calligraphy on a blue card—De Campo blue. “You are not to be connected with,” she reminded them firmly. They were eye candy—meant to inspire—nothing more. At too many of her parties she’d found them being admired by a guest in a basement closet. Or snorting a banned substance with a politician in the bathroom.

  Not happening tonight.

  The guests began to arrive like clockwork, one after another, in limos, dark sedans and even a motorcycle draped with a denim-clad Silicon Valley millionaire. “Black tie,” the invites had said, but who was she to reject Jared Stone? His rebel persona was worth a fortune and anything he did made news. “Enjoy your match, Mr. Stone,” she said smiling and handing him his notecard. “Make sure you seek her out.”

  She knew exactly whose name was on the card. It was the one and only match she’d tampered with, because to have Jared hook up with a top–one hundred pop singer at her party? Priceless.

  When the bulk of the guests had arrived, she found Gabe to do his introductory remarks. He’d refused her help on them, of course, insisting that he had it. And as she listened to him begin, her mouth curved. He did.

  “Eight years ago I came to California with the dream of making a De Campo wine on Napa soil that was every bit as brilliant as the Tuscan wines my family has been making for over a hundred years. To create a wine that possessed all those attributes but also had that unique, mellow beauty of a Napa Valley wine. No problem, I thought,” he drawled, flashing that brilliant masculine smile of his she was sure felled every female in the crowd instantly, “I’ve got this.” He paused, a rueful expression crossing his face. “Well, how wrong I was. It took six seasons before this vineyard produced a wine I considered worthy of the De Campo name. But somewhere along the way we got it right. We harvested what I knew was here all along. And tonight you will get to taste the fruit of that labor—The Devil’s Peak.” He raised his glass. “We think it’s brilliant and we hope you agree. Salute! And enjoy your evening.”

  She swallowed hard, a burning sensation at the back of her eyes. She couldn’t have written anything more impactful. Could not have captured his passion the way he had. And in the end, for a great speech, that was all that mattered.

  The evening flowed smoothly after that. Almost every guest on their list had showed up, an eclectic mix of Silicon Valley types, wine bloggers, politicians, the arts crowd and the business elite. To her surprise, almost everyone seemed curious to seek out their match, incentive or no incentive. There was lots of networking going on and even a couple of flirtations, one of which was Jared Stone and Briana Bergen, the stunning German pop singer she’d handpicked for him.

  They were standing close to each other at the bar now, his hand on her bare arm. Alex’s mouth curved. How predictable men were. All it took was a busty blonde and the right opportunity.

  She tipped a photographer off to the liaison, watched as he took off in glee to capture the shot, then added a couple of extra staff to the bars to deal with the lines.

  The sight of Gabe talking to Darya Theriault and her husband, who had to be ten years older than she, had her lingering by the bar. Gabe’s face was blank, a painfully polite smile touching his mouth. Darya’s husband had a possessive arm around her back, and the blonde, who Alex had to grudgingly admit was stunning with her platinum hair and blue eyes, was eating Gabe up.

  Jealousy searing through her, she tore her gaze away. Had Gabe broken her heart as he had a string of other women’s? A suitable reminder to guard her own, she told herself. Self-protection was definitely an asset when it came to the De Campo men.

  She made herself busy, and by the end of the evening she was ready to drop. One more media interview, the big reveal and fireworks and they were done. She could hardly believe it as she sought out the notoriously tricky wine columnist for San Francisco’s largest daily newspaper. Three weeks of insanity and here they were, an hour away from success.

  She located Georges Abel and led him down into the cellar where the interview with Gabe would take place. The corridor echoed as they walked down it, the hallways even darker and spookier at night. The click of a woman’s heels had her spinning around.

  No one was behind them.

  “Did you hear that?” she hissed to Georges.

  The big Frenchman gave a wary nod. She turned around and kept walking.

  Click, click, click.

  They both spun around again. No one. Alex’s heart thumped in her chest. What the hell? u can download from dpg no other forum thanks

  Georges made a joke about her trying to scare him off before the interview. She laughed, but it was a hollow, petrified cackle. Oh, my God. Was Janine Courtland walking around down here? She led Georges into the tasting room, her knees knocking together. Gabe and Georges shook hands.

  “Janine Courtland is walking around,” she hissed to Gabe.

  He gave her a frowning look as if to say this wasn’t the time for jokes. “We both heard it. I wasn’t imagining it. It was a woman’s shoes.”

  “I told you this was the night that might bring her out,” he murmured facetiously, and sat down with Georges. She sat at the table and half listened, a tremor running through her. Was Janine prowling around? And what did she want?

  The chat went smoothly until Georges started probing about Antonio in a fascinated, lengthy fashion that was disproportionate to the subject at hand. Gabe humored him at first, but as the conversation went on she could see him growing more short fused.

  “How much does Antonio have to do with the Napa operations?” Georges questioned. “I’m assuming he’s made as big an impression here as he has in Montalcino.”

  “He’s actually retired now.”

  “Before, I mean?”

  Gabe’s jaw tightened. “Antonio is a guiding force. His impact is always going to be felt.”

  The journalist sensed him hedging. “How much would you say he’s been involved? Put his stamp on things?”

  “Enough,” Gabe growled. “Try the wine and see for yourself how you think we’ve done.”

  Alex ended the interview and kept Georges for a few minutes after Gabe left to feed him some other information that might fascinate him versus the storyline that was undoubtedly circling his head—a father-son feud.

  She practically ran through the cellar on their way out, but this time they didn’t hear any footsteps. And she wondered what Janine was up to.

  * * *

  A
t ten o’clock sharp, Alex sent the staff out into the crowd with trays of The Devil’s Peak. “Get one in every person’s hand before the toast,” she instructed them. Then she sent Gabe to the front of the crowd. The guests halted their conversations and waited with a hushed anticipation as Gabe lifted his glass.

  “Signore e signori,” he said, “please meet The Devil’s Peak.”

  He toasted the crowd, then lowered his glass to drink. Everyone followed suit, a dazzling display of fireworks lighting the sky. This was it, she thought, lifting her glass to her mouth. Her hands shook so much she could hardly get the glass to her lips. It all came down to this. The buzz in the crowd was palpable. They had to love it.

  The fireworks popped and crackled as they hissed across the sky in an explosion of color. Alex thought she might pop along with them. Then voices started to penetrate her consciousness. “Brilliant,” she heard the man beside her say. “The wine of the year,” his companion agreed. “Where Cabs will go this season,” said another.

  Gabe was surrounded by the crowd. She saw Georges walk up to him, speak to him, then a smile that lit the night came across Gabe’s face. Georges shook his hand. Then everyone pressed in to congratulate him. Their excited faces said it all.

  They loved it. Gabe had done it.

  A lump formed in her throat, so immense she could hardly swallow. To stand there and watch his dream come true was a soul-baring experience she had no idea how to handle. Which was also true of the rest of her feelings toward him.

  She blinked and took a sip of the brilliant wine. She had done it. She had pulled this insane, crazy idea of an event off in three and a half weeks. The tattered, ragged girl who’d dragged herself out of Mission Hill, Iowa, on a wing and a prayer, thinking that life could be different, had been right. She had made it different.

  She was the captain of her own destiny.

  The sting of tears blinded her. She brushed them away with a shake of her head. Take it in, she told herself. Stay in the moment.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, clutching her glass, watching the fireworks.

  “Taking in your success?”

  She tore her gaze from the blue starbursts streaking across the inky-black sky to find Gabe standing beside her. “And yours,” she said huskily. “Congratulations.”

  “Grazie,” he murmured. “You’ve earned my trust, Alex.”

  His words sent another dangerously powerful surge of emotion through her. She bit her lip, unsure of how to verbalize what she wanted. But she knew beyond a doubt she did. “Gabe—”

  He reached a hand up to run his thumb across the smooth skin of her cheek. “I have two questions.”

  She stared at him, her body buzzing as though she’d had twenty cups of coffee.

  “What happened last night—are you vulnerable because of it?”

  He didn’t want to take advantage of her. Her heartbeat became an insistent pounding in her ears. “That nightmare is from way in the past. I sleepwalk when I’m stressed. It’s—it’s a trigger for me.”

  “Are you stressed now?”

  “Depends on what kind of stress you’re talking about.”

  His mouth curved. “Did a man give you those earrings?”

  “That’s three questions.’

  “Answer the bloody question, Lex.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  His gaze flickered. “Take them off.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THAT HUSKILY WORDED command was the last she heard or saw of Gabe until the party was over. He was swallowed up in a groundswell of congratulations that lasted well past midnight, and she was busy wrapping everything up. It was one a.m. before the last of the guests left, their headlights disappearing in a snakelike formation down the long, winding driveway.

  Her stomach seemed to go along with them. She made arrangements with the caterer to come back tomorrow to finish their cleanup and collect all of their materials, then walked back up to the house. The vineyard felt deathly quiet without the band, without the buzzing conversation of hundreds of guests and the pop of the fireworks.

  Or maybe it was just that the sound of her heart pounding in her chest was almost deafening.

  She picked out Gabe’s tall figure sprawled on a chair on the front porch. The knot in her stomach grew to gargantuan proportions as she walked up the stairs, avoiding the gaps in the boards with her thin stilettos. He had taken his jacket and tie off. A glass of scotch sat on the arm of his chair. His relaxed yet intent expression was one she hadn’t seen since she’d come to Napa. This was the Gabe she knew—focused, watchful, deadly.

  “I told you to lose the earrings,” he drawled.

  She lifted her hands to her ears in a self-conscious movement. “I couldn’t exactly stash them on a corner of the buffet.”

  His purposeful stare suggested she lose them now. Excitement roared through her, licked at her nerve endings. She reached up and pulled the outrageously expensive jewelry from her ears and secured the backs with trembling fingers.

  He took them from her and set them on the table. “Nice gift,” he murmured. “Cost of a small car and all.”

  Green eyes tangled with blue. “I like to think of them as a reminder of how untrustworthy men can be.”

  His brow lifted. “Are we talking one particular man here or the species in general?”

  “I’d have to go with the great majority,” she responded. “Lilly would say I should say present company excluded, of course. She thinks you’re one of the good guys.”

  His mouth quirked. “And what do you think?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Does it matter? This is about sex, isn’t it?”

  He picked up his scotch and took a long sip. Set it down with a deliberate movement. “I’ve never seen a more jaw-droppingly beautiful woman in my life than you tonight.”

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. Dammit, he was smooth. And hell, did she feel reckless. She’d just thrown the party of the year. She was on top of the world.

  “First move’s yours, Lex,” he murmured. “After that, all bets are off.”

  Never one to resist a challenge, she leaned down, braced her hand against his shoulder to steady herself and set her mouth to his. Explored his beautiful, sensuous lips as she’d been desperate to do for days. He allowed her to take her leisure, let her have her fill of him. Then he reached up, tangled his hand in her hair and brought her down on his lap. Hard, dominant male greeted her silk-covered thighs. His kiss when he took control was gentle and fiery at the same time. Touched something deep inside of her. And if she’d ever had any doubt that making love with Gabe would strip her bare, it went up in smoke now.

  A tremor slid through her. He pulled back, his gaze questioning. This was why she’d never gone here. Because she wasn’t sure how she’d come out the other side.

  She plastered a careless smile across her lips. “I think I’m having performance anxiety.”

  His mouth tipped upward. “Maybe I’m not that good.”

  “Maybe you’re better.”

  He set his lips to her jaw. “Why don’t you find out?”

  She decided that might be the way to go. Doubt gave way to sensation as he pressed kisses to the vulnerable line of her neck. Blazed a trail down to the pulse pounding at the base of it. A shiver skittered through her as he lingered on the ultrasensitive spot between her shoulder and neck. He’d been right in the hot tub—it was her Achilles heel. The thing that just did it for her.

  And he kept doing it for her. His fingers, deft and purposeful despite their size, slid underneath the spaghetti straps of her dress and drew them down, so exquisitely slowly it made her self-conscious in a way she’d never felt before. No hesitation with this man. He was getting right to the point. She felt exposed, wanton as he drank her curves in. There had been no place for a bra with this dress, nothing shielding her now from the heat of his gaze.

  “You are beautiful,” he murmured reverently. But unlike his seductio
n in the hot tub, this was hands-on, his palms cupping her flesh, the pads of his thumbs bringing her nipples to hard erectness. To watch her flesh pucker and respond to his touch in the moonlight was achingly erotic. The slow slide of his tongue over the hard point of her nipple as he bent his head to her so exquisitely pleasurable she squirmed against the hard pressure of his thighs. A gentle nip of his teeth punished her. “Stay still,” he murmured against her skin. “Long and drawn out, remember?”

  She closed her eyes. “I might have made an error in judgment on that one.”

  “Live with it.”

  She sucked in a breath as he moved to her other breast and lavished the same treatment on it. There had been times in her life when being with a man had made her feel shame. But nothing about Gabe’s touch made her feel that way. His hands and mouth on her skin savored her—treasured her—as if she were one of his fine wines. She closed her eyes and savored him. His touch. She was stone-cold sober, had only had that half a glass of The Devil’s Peak during the toast. And yet she felt as if she’d consumed way beyond her limit.

  He took her other nipple into the heat of his mouth. This time he stayed longer, made her ache for him inside. “Gabe—” she gasped, digging her fingers into the fine material of his shirt.

  “Rilassarsi,” he murmured, sliding his hand over her hip and down to where her dress bunched under her knees. Every centimeter of her skin glowed with scorching awareness as he slid his fingers under the edge of the silk and brought the dress up to her thighs in a slow, deliberate movement that made her body clench. “What did you think of my foreplay last night?”

  She closed her eyes as he traced the edge of her panties with his fingertips. “Mean. It was just mean.”

  “That wasn’t mean,” he countered huskily. “This,” he suggested, moving his thumb to the center of her, “is mean.”

  Alex burrowed her head in his shoulder and caught her lip between her teeth. He rotated his thumb against her in a firm, insistent movement that set her blood on fire. She moved her hips against his hand, seeking more, needing more. “Please.”