“That?” she said in awe, looking at endless hills all covered with vines, beneath a wide blue sky with gray clouds in the far distance. As they drove past the vineyard’s gate, where he nodded at the guard, Rosalie looked out at row after row of vines, stretching as far as the eye could see. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it.” He smiled at her. “Chiara hated it here. She wanted to sell it from the beginning.”
“Did you get her land sorted out?”
“I spent an exorbitant amount to purchase it, yes. The musicians of Venice will be dining on lobster and champagne for quite some time.”
Rosalie looked forward, then saw the elaborate, gracious villa, surrounded at a distance by the outbuildings of the winery. Her eyes were huge in the dappled light as she turned back to him. “That’s the house?”
“It is.”
She bit her lip. “But it seems so...quiet. Where do you hold wine tastings? Where do the tour buses park, so people can visit your winery’s fancy restaurants and art galleries and...?”
“I don’t have any of those things.” He remembered that she’d come from Sonoma, famous for its own wineries. So she knew how they worked. “You should see what some of the other wineries around here do. Offer tourists hot air balloon rides. Golf. Climbing walls and goat yoga. Trying to sell as many bottles as possible.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Alex shrugged. “I’m not trying to build a fortune. I already have one. All I care about is making wine. I let it speak for itself, no gimmicks, and produce only a limited number of bottles. La Tesora is my private home. Tourists are not welcome here.”
Rosalie gave a laugh. “I guess that explains the marketing strategy of the big no-trespassing sign at the gate.”
“We don’t even advertise.”
“So where do people buy your wine?”
He gave a low laugh. “Anywhere but here.”
When they finally pulled in front of the villa, he helped her out of the car as two smiling employees, whom she’d met at her reception the day before, whisked away their bags. Taking her hand, Alex led her toward the entrance of the sprawling, elegant villa. Her eyes were huge as she tilted back her head.
“It’s so grand,” she breathed.
“It looks old, doesn’t it? But my great-great-grandfather built it for his wife in 1905. It was meant to evoke the romance and drama of the eighteenth century, only with the modern comforts of plumbing and hallways. I’ve added other things too. Technology. Solar paneling. There’s a few people you haven’t met yet. Gabriele,” he called. “Come meet my wife.”
Several older men with rumpled clothing and ready smiles came over and introduced themselves shyly, touching their caps as they spoke to her in Italian. She spoke to them in English, but somehow everyone got along just fine.
She glanced back at Alex, her eyes dancing. She was so beautiful in this moment, with her white sundress—a bit wrinkled by their interlude on the hillside—and bright yellow scarf in her hair, that he impulsively took her in his arms and kissed her.
When Alex finally drew back, he saw his employees glancing at each other with raised eyebrows. They clearly thought their boss had lost his mind. But he didn’t care.
In the distance across the vineyard, the dark clouds in the far sky came closer as a summer thunderstor
m approached.
Rosalie drew back from his embrace, looking up at him with flushed cheeks. The emotion in her deep brown eyes pierced his heart. He felt an answering flash sizzle through his soul like lightning, but he pushed it away. Desire, this was desire, nothing more. As he lowered his head back to hers, he buried all other emotions, walling off his heart. And he ignored the low roll of thunder trembling the earth beneath his feet.
CHAPTER NINE
SUMMER PASSED SWIFTLY in Veneto, one of the largest wine-growing areas in Italy, rivaling the more famous regions of Tuscany and Chianti. As June turned into July, then August, the weather was invariably sunny and hot; with the buzzing of bees in the golden light as in the vineyard, the grapes grew.
Rosalie, too, grew riper in the warm sun. Each day, she felt more relaxed, strolling lazily in the hot sun, as her belly expanded until she felt bigger, yet more contented, than she ever had before.
She’d never had such a wonderful summer. As Alex had promised, there was no one to bother them here. No paparazzi, no cruise ships, no tourists. Each day, Alex put on his work clothes—here, jeans and a T-shirt, not a bespoke suit—and got his hands dirty, toiling alongside his farm workers.
The very first day, when Rosalie had appeared at his side to walk his rounds, similarly dressed in pregnancy overalls and a white T-shirt, her hair bound up in a ponytail, ready to work, he’d been astonished.