CHAPTER FOUR
Won’t even know she’s there. Ha!
He’d thought of nothing else but Amber since she’d arrived.
Aurelio looked around the laboratory, where he’d been checking the sugar levels of a new white wine. He rolled his shoulders and sat back in his seat. At this early hour he was alone in the winery, but that didn’t stop his thoughts straying to the slender, sassy brunette who’d taken over his world in the last two days.
She haunted him, making him stop in his tracks when he came across that light, lingering honeysuckle scent that told him she’d been nearby. She invaded his bedroom at night, a dream lover who kept him tossing and turning, waking even more disgruntled than when he’d tumbled, exhausted, into bed.
Aurelio couldn’t get her out of his head. He’d excused himself from the evening meal he’d been invited to share with Paolo and Amber in Paolo’s villa on the edge of the estate. He’d avoided the administrative building like the plague and, when Paolo had shown her the recently expanded winery, Aurelio had found business to occupy himself off site.
But he’d caught glimpses of her in the distance. Heard her warm, throaty laugh, and something snagged in his chest as he recalled them laughing together in Rome.
Worse, he discovered it wasn’t only desire she stirred, though he was in a state of semi-arousal a lot of the time, thinking of her. There was much more, and that was dangerous.
Aurelio found himself missing the warmth of her smiles and outgoing personality. He remembered her inquisitive mind, so quick and fascinating. How they’d spent hours in Rome talking, between bouts of sex so phenomenal, it was no wonder she’d imprinted herself on his brain.
They’d discovered common tastes and interests. Things as diverse as classical guitar music, detective thrillers, snowboarding and excellent coffee.
Plus she’d grown up on a vineyard in Australia, in the Riverina area where she learned his language from her Italian immigrant neighbours and friends. She understood his preoccupation with growing seasons and weather forecasts, with pests and production as well as blending, bottling and the fine balance of an excellent wine.
She’d fascinated him with talk of hot Australian summers, of endless sand beaches and lazy barbeques. Her easy-going acceptance of life and people contrasted with her driven, achievement-orientated attitude to work. But he admired both immensely.
Admired. Aurelio tried to tell himself that was all he felt.
It didn’t work.
The trouble, he decided, was that they’d spent such a short time together, all of it spectacularly fantastic. She’d acquired the mystique of some perfect paragon of femininity. Sexy. Fun. Witty. Interested and interesting.
She appealed to his body and his mind in a way that hadn’t happened in years, because he’d made sure not to let any woman so close.
He shot to his feet, tidying away the lab equipment. For the first time since Amber had arrived he felt better. A man with purpose, a man in charge again. Because he’d worked out a solution. It was so simple he was amazed he hadn’t seen it before.
Spend time with Amber away from the rosy haze of sex.
Soon he’d discover those flaws that would reduce her from too appealing for his peace of mind, to ordinary. There’d be something he didn’t like. Something that turned him off. That was usually the way with the women he met. It was just that with Amber he’d been too sideswiped by passion to notice her faults.
Once he discovered her feet of clay, those habits and character traits that he disliked, she’d bother him no more.
All he had to do was get to know her better, and at the same time keep his hands off her…
*
Amber planted her feet a little wider and angled her camera, getting a better shot of the golden morning sun across the vineyard, and in the foreground, the bright green grape leaf and a curled cluster of grapes.
She snapped another shot, and another, trying to get the effect she wanted.
The photographer she’d organised would do it better of course, but Amber was determined to capture the ideas she had in mind. That would make it easier to explain precisely what she was after for the new campaign.
Easier too, if she didn’t have to return to the winery again to complete her work. Each hour she spent here, shunned by Aurelio, ate at her like acid. Any hope he’d regret his outrageous behaviour was futile.
He’d shown his true colours, demanding she leave, refusing to have anything to do with her, as if there was somethingtaintedabout her. Fury and hurt welled and she blinked hard.
Or was he afraid she’d cramp his style if another woman came along?
Talons clawed at her belly. For all she knew she’d been just one of scores of women he seduced and discarded.
She and her child deserved better than Aurelio. A man who clearly had no interest in long-term relationships. Who patently didn’t care for her. Who, for all she knew, was so selfish he didn’t have it in him to be a good father. Oh, he was sexy, charming and clever, a phenomenal winemaker, but they weren’t the characteristics a child needed. A child thrived on stability and love.