Getting the paperwork should be a mere formality, in which case, he’d be back in Milan with this deal sorted and signed and on that jerk CEO’s desk before the ink was even dry on the contract.
And if his father—his famous father, who hadn’t given him two minutes of consideration since he’d been born—had thought for a moment that he would be cowed by the prospect of sorting out a new wine contract for Chatsfield’s prestige hotel chain, he had another think coming.
He might have dropped out of school at sixteen and fled the Chatsfield media circus before it could consume him, but he’d still managed to learn a thing or two along the way. Maybe his father might finally realise that?
He snorted.
Not that he cared either way.
The plane bumped through clouds on its descent and he looked out the window, searching for his first glimpse of Adelaide, but there was still no sign of anything approaching a city. Instead below him spread an undulating carpet of green dotted with tiny towns connected by winding ribbons of bitumen. There were forests of pine and the dull grey of eucalypts, interspersed with open fields, and vineyards too, marching in regimented lines across the hillsides. Somewhere down there, he figured, must be Purman’s cool-climate pinot-chardonnay block that provided the fruit for their award-winning sparkling wine.
A burst of rain spattered against his window, obliterating the view, and Franco reclined back in his seat as the plane bumped its descent over the hills. Not that he had to know where exactly, because as soon as the plane landed and he cleared customs, he was heading straight to Purman’s Coonawarra head office, one more short flight away. He didn’t want or need to see anything else. His job was to fill in a few final details on the contract he had ready and get a signature. It wasn’t like he was here to have a holiday. In fact, the sooner he’d put Giatrakos—the jerk—back in his box and ensured the funds from the Chatsfield Family Trust kept flowing where he wanted them to, the better.
Right now, that was all he cared about.
It might be winter but the weather was worse than wintry, it was foul, and Holly had come in from the vineyard to escape it while she made them both a sandwich for lunch. Above the pounding of the rain on the roof she barely registered the noise at first. Even when she did make out the distinctive whump-whump of chopper blades, she didn’t pay it much attention. They weren’t that far from the airfield after all, and there was a steady trade in sightseer flights, although admittedly more common in the warmer months.
But the noise grew progressively louder and closer and Holly stopped slicing cheese as a shiver of premonition zipped down her spine. Could it be him?
She grabbed a tea towel to wipe her hands as she crossed to the glass doors that looked out over acres of vines, now mostly bare and stripped of their leaves, to see a helicopter hovering above the lawns that doubled as a rudimentary helipad when occasion demanded.
Her grandfather wheeled alongside her as the chopper descended slowly to the ground.
‘You reckon it’s him?’
‘Who else could it be? Clearly it’s somebody who likes to make an entrance. It figures it’d be a Chatsfield.’
‘You don’t know that, Holly.’
Her hackles did.
Her bones did.
‘It’s him,’ she said, before balling the tea towel in her hands and unceremoniously flinging it across the room to land in the sink with the same unerring certainty. She slid open the door to air that was so cold and crisp it might snap, the rain squalls moved on for now, and from the edge of the verandah they waited as the chopper’s motor wound down, the blades’ revolutions slowing.
And even though it was near-freezing outside, her blood simmered with resentment. Did he honestly imagine they’d be impressed at such a grand entrance?
Not likely.
The passenger door popped open and their visitor jumped out and Holly’s skin prickled.
Tall, she registered. Around six foot if she wasn’t mistaken, though it was hard to tell given how far he had to duck his head under the rotating blades. And then he straightened and she could see his face and he could be nothing other than a Chatsfield, with his chiselled good looks and the tendrils of his bad-boy hair flicking like serpents in the down draft from the blades.
The prickling under her skin intensified and spread until even her breasts tingled and peaked. The cold, she told herself as she clutched her arms over her chest and pressed her fingernails tight into her flesh. Damn this cold and damn this man who was smiling as if he was welcome here.
As if he imagined he was going to get a slice of Purman Wine action.
Not on her watch.
‘Angus Purman?’ he said, extending a hand to her grandfather. ‘Franco Chatsfield. It’s good to meet you.’