Now she was looking at him, the sea and the boats forgotten. Something about the way he’d said those words alerted her that maybe he wasn’t so proud of his family’s media coverage after all.
She nodded. ‘Yeah, those stories.’
He turned his grey eyes upon hers. ‘And the ones you’ve tarred me with, using the same brush.’
‘Well …’ And she wavered, thinking back, remembering those articles and searching her memory for any that featured Franco—there must have been at least one—and she looked back at him and was immediately rewarded with the sight of him and his film-star looks with his long limbs stretched out easily as if he were staking a claim, and she was glad he looked as good as sin, because it flashed warning lights that reinforced the whole Chatsfield brand loud and clear.
Entitled. Flashy. Trashy.
And even if that assessment sat uncomfortably with what she’d seen of Franco and his work ethic in the past couple of days—still he was part of that same tribe, and part of the biggest stumbling block she had against this deal. How could he not see that? How could she make it plain?
‘You’re still a Chatsfield, aren’t you?’
A frown tugged at the skin between his eyebrows. ‘Ouch. That hurts.’
‘That’s what I say when I’m at the dentist.’
‘Maybe you should ask for pain relief.’
And she wasn’t sure if they were still talking about the same thing any more or whether they were talking cross-purposes, but pain was something she knew about.
Pain was something she’d experienced and survived.
‘I think pain can be good, if it teaches you not to do stupid things.’
If it reminds you not to go there again.
Like a niggling voice was reminding her now.
‘So you still believe doing this deal with Chatsfield would be stupid?’
She tilted her head towards the sea, watching the boats tugging back and forth on their moorings, thinking how strange it was to discuss these issues without heat or rancour. But what point was heat or rancour now when the deal had been struck and it was up to Franco to fulfil his end before they would sign?
‘At the very least it would be reckless. We’re a young business, if not in years of operation, then in terms of our success. It wouldn’t take much to shake the industry’s confidence in us and lose the goodwill we’ve built up.’
‘Reckless doesn’t always have to be negative. Reckless can be exciting. Sometimes you just have to take a risk. A leap of faith if you like.’
‘Not if you’re dicing with your entire business, you don’t. Because then reckless becomes dangerous, maybe even borders on irresponsible. No, I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can ever believe this is a good deal for Purman Wines.’ She stopped herself then. ‘Damn. And you were being so nice.’
‘It wouldn’t have lasted,’ he said, and if his unexpected humour had surprised her, he surprised her even more when he hauled her up by one hand. ‘Come on. Let’s go for a walk.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOLLY HAD NEVER liked jetties. It was crazy. She knew it was. She’d lived in the Coonawarra all her life and this was as close to a local beach as the district had and she loved the coast, but there was something about the creaking timbers and the cracks between where you could see the sea surging and foaming below that she’d never felt comfortable walking out on a groaning timber platform. It felt uncomfortably like the ground was constantly shifting beneath her feet.
She didn’t like the ground shifting beneath her feet.
And every now and then there would be a patch of new timbers, where the old rotten beams had been replaced, but always in a patch, and she’d always wondered how they’d worked out that those timbers needed to be replaced or whether they’d waited for someone to fall through first.
She avoided the old worn beams where she could. She didn’t want to be the reason for the next batch of running repairs.
But she wasn’t about to admit that to Franco. Stoically she shoved her hands in her jacket, and not just because she was afraid he might grab her hand again anytime soon. She kept her eyes on her feet and where they were placed, favouring the newer beams, or finding a path along where timbers had been bolted onto supporting beams below, avoiding anywhere where the gap between timbers was more than a centimetre.
And staying right away from the side that had no safety fence. Right away.
And while she was conscious of every nail-biting step, Franco meanwhile was oblivious to the dangers, maybe because his feet were so big there was no way he could fall between the cracks, or maybe because he knew no jetty in its right mind would dare dump a Chatsfield into the briny depths.