Too Close to the Sun (11 page)

No, the Winsteds weren't ready to sell
Suncrest yet. But that didn't mean they would never be. In fact,
Max's call hadn't put Will off in the slightest. He remained as
convinced as ever that one day, one day soon, the Winsteds would
cave.

Will lifted a blue Lucite cube from atop the
low coffee table in front of his sofa and twisted it this way and
that. Suncrest was a winery in transition, a winery in flux. He
respected Ava Winsted—he judged her to be a fairly canny
operator—but he found it hard to believe that at this stage of her
life she wanted to pour her energy into Suncrest. And Max? Max was
a lightweight. Will calculated that the young heir, who'd never
really had to do a day's work in his life, would tire of running
Suncrest once he got a whiff of just how unglamorous the day-to-day
gig could be.

Fine. Will would remain at the ready to
relieve both Winsteds of their burdens. And he would prove—to
himself and everyone else at GPG—that his strategy of focusing on
Suncrest and Suncrest alone had been correct.

And in the meanwhile, perhaps he could focus
on another quarter? He smiled and bent to return the Lucite cube to
the table. Some things required more effort than others, but then
some things—or people—were worth it.

An image of Gabby DeLuca rose in his mind.
Passionate, sexy, strong-willed Gabby DeLuca. A highly attractive
woman who also showed a lot of backbone.

For example, take how she felt about
Suncrest. Clearly it was a huge part of her life and of her
father's. The fact that she loved it as she did, though she didn't
own a piece of it, spoke well of her—of her passion for her work,
her loyalty, her good heart. It was understandable that she'd
gotten so upset on learning of his desire to acquire it.

So maybe she was a little naive about
business. So what? He wasn't hiring her to run one of GPG's
companies. In fact, one of the things he liked about her was how
different she was from him, how refreshingly noncorporate.

"Will?" His sister stepped inside his
office.

"Beth, you famous CEO, you." He enfolded her
in a hug, then frowned and pulled back. "Is it my imagination or
have you lost weight?" That wasn't all that had changed in the two
months since he'd last seen her. She'd cut her hair fashionably
short and streaked it, and was wearing more makeup than usual. Her
sleek navy-blue suit was also a departure from her former
preference for spring-bright colors. "You look great," he told her,
though he wasn't fully convinced he liked this chic new version of
his only sibling.

"Ah, I was getting sick of the same old, same
old." She pulled away. "How are you? You look a little tired."

"No more than usual. Sit down." He waved her
toward his cocoa-colored leather sofa. "Do you have business in
town?"

They both sat. "A few meetings," she said. "I
had some this afternoon and I've got a few more tomorrow morning.
Then I head back."

"Quick trip."

"Hm." Her gaze skittered away.

He regarded her. Something else was
different, beyond her appearance. Was the workload getting to her?
Well-established as Henley Sand and Gravel might be—their
grandfather had founded it sixty years before—running a sizable
construction-supplies business was no cakewalk. Especially not
while raising two boys, aged seven and five, though her husband,
Bob, more than pitched in with the childrearing.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her.

"I could eat."

Will chatted about this and that on their
ten-minute walk along the Embarcadero, Beth remaining
uncharacteristically quiet. Once they arrived at the waterfront
restaurant where he'd booked a table—which boasted killer bay views
and even better seafood— "You order," she told him, without even
glancing at the menu.

This was not Beth's style, either. Will set
his own menu aside and leaned close across the linen-draped table.
"What's wrong?"

She hesitated.

"Come on, Beth. I can see something's
bothering you."

"All right. This is why I really came out
here, anyway." She threw up her hands. "It's Bob. He wants to move
back to Philadelphia."

Will frowned. "That's where his family's
from, right?"

"And now his father's got some health
problems. They're getting older, but aren't we all?" She shook her
head. "He says that after nine years of doing what I want, we
should do what he wants for a change."

"I didn't realize he wasn't doing what he
wanted in Denver."

"It was news to me, too."

Will was silent for a moment, pained by the
hurt in his sister's carefully mascaraed blue eyes. "Is he
serious?"

"Very." She gave a short, harsh laugh, with
no hint of humor in it. "He already sent out resumes. He wants to
make the move this summer, before the new school year."

"Do the boys know?"

"No. I'm praying it just goes away. I'm
actually hoping the economy stays sucky so maybe he won't get any
offers." Her eyes teared up then. She made a choking sound and
tried to hide her face with her hand. "And I'm afraid that if he
does get an offer, he'll go without us."

"Oh, Beth, he wouldn't do that." Will reached
a consoling hand across the table, but his sister just shook her
head and dug in her handbag for a tissue.

So this was why Beth had come into town—to
tell him this. It must be serious. Yet if a tornado had cut a swath
from Kansas to San Francisco, Will couldn't have been more
surprised. Beth and Bob's marriage had always seemed rock solid to
him, like his parents'. From the moment Bob had appeared on the
scene Beth's senior year in college at Boulder, he and Beth had
seemed made for each other. Both engineers. Both skiers. Both
kid-lovers and eager to start a family. They even looked the same,
like brother and sister, blond and athletic and outdoorsy. When the
boys came, the picture was complete. Both had everything they'd
ever wanted.

A waiter swept past and laid a basket of
bread on their table. Beyond the windows, the bay waters did their
ceaseless dance. Puffy clouds scudded across the twilit sky, while
white lights began to shiver on the opposite shore as Berkeley's
bohemian night came alive.

Will watched Beth stare out the windows with
blank eyes. This explained the weight loss, the new look. She was
doing what she could to entice, to hold on. If Bob were there, Will
knew he would have wanted to throttle him. Though he probably would
have been wise to wait for Bob's side of the story.

Which Will could easily imagine. Beth always
saw her family and Bob never saw his. When he went out to Colorado
for college, he didn't necessarily intend to stay forever. Henley
Sand and Gravel had become a bigger part of his life than he'd ever
imagined. His wife was tied to Henley S and G's CEO job.

And Will knew why. Because it wasn't good
enough for that damn brother of hers. It was too pedestrian, too
humdrum, too small a stage for a Harvard Business School
graduate.

Will hung his head, guilt rising in his
throat. Once in his life—
once
—the Golden Boy had rebelled.
One of his greatest fears had always been that someday it would
come back to bite him.

"You know, Beth . . ." He didn't quite know
how to say it. He knew that was because he didn't say it nearly
enough. "I hope you understand how much it means to me that you
stepped in to run Henley S and G. I wouldn't be able to do what I'm
doing if you hadn't. And it's probably not how you imagined your
life, being tied to it, and to Denver."

She shook her head. "Look, Will, Denver is my
home. And I'm tied to that company because I want to be." She
leaned forward to force him to meet her eyes. Her voice was low and
passionate. "So what if when we were growing up we always thought
you'd run it? Times change!" She gave a little snort. "It's not
like Japan, where the emperor's got to be male."

He pinched the skin between his eyes. "But
sometimes I still feel like a shirker."

"Working eighty hours a week? I don't think
so." She made a scoffing sound. "Anyway, what do you think I should
do?"

"About Bob? I'm kind of out of my depth
giving marital advice."

"Take a stab at it."

The devil sat on his shoulder and whispered.
Tell her that whatever Bob does, she should stay in Denver.
He tried to shake Beelzebub off, though it wasn't easy. "I don't
know," he said. "It sounds like a midlife crisis to me."

"At thirty-two?"

"You guys started young."

"That's true."

"I'd try to ride it out. I think there's a
good chance he'll give up the idea. He may even go back to Philly
to interview and realize he's not that crazy about it. He may
realize he doesn't really want to live that close to his family
again. You don't know. Maybe he's just trying to make a point."

"Well, he's certainly done that."

They sat silently for a time, then again Beth
spoke. "Maybe you're right." Her expression grew more hopeful. "I
hope so." She sighed and took one last swipe across her nose with a
tissue before stuffing it back in her handbag. "Okay, I'm
officially ready to talk about something else." She tried to put a
smile on her face, but only partly succeeded. "Let's dissect
your
love life."

Gabby DeLuca
. He had to admit it was a
stretch at the moment to link her name with that phrase, yet if
hope was on the menu, she was the woman who came to mind.

"I did meet somebody who's pretty
interesting," he told his sister.

"Good!" She narrowed her eyes at him. "So why
do I get the idea there's a problem?"

"Well, for one, I'm trying to buy the winery
she works for."

"For one? There's more?"

He sipped from his water before speaking.
"She thinks I'm a capitalist pig."

Beth arched her brows and reached for her
menu. "She reads you like a book. I like her already."

*

When Tuesday night finally rolled around,
Gabby cursed herself for having agreed to meet Vittorio. When he'd
called out of the blue on Saturday to announce that he was in Napa
Valley and wanted to see her, why had she agreed? she asked
herself. What had she been thinking?

She hadn't been thinking about
not
seeing him. That rebel idea had been shot down instantly, like an
enemy aircraft. She knew she ran a high risk of heartbreak. She
feared her recovery would be seriously set back. Yet she also knew
she could not pass up the chance to see Vittorio for the first time
since she'd left Castelnuovo. Maybe, she told herself, seeing him
might actually help her. Maybe he'd changed in some horrible way
that would make her wonder how on God's earth she'd ever fallen in
love with him. Maybe he'd gotten grotesquely fat or gone bald or
sprouted nose hairs.

Or maybe she was trying to rationalize what
she was about to do, which on some level she was ashamed of. Going
out of her way to see Vittorio after what he'd put her through made
her either a fool or a glutton for punishment. Or both. She noticed
she told no one about her intention to meet him—not Cam, not Lucia,
not her mother, not her father. No one. Because she knew they'd try
to talk her out of it, or insist on going along, and she knew she
wanted to be alone with him.

For in a tiny, mischievous part of her brain,
where naughty ideas lurked and pranced, she wondered if maybe
Vittorio hadn't gotten married after all. Maybe he'd pulled out at
the last minute, so overwhelmed by his love for Gabriella DeLuca
that he couldn't possibly wed another. Maybe he'd succeeded in
bringing his parents around. Maybe the senior Mantuccis were
willing to accept her now, seeing how their beloved Vittorio was
still—one year later—so desperately in love with the pretty
American.

Who was, after all, of Italian descent.

She arrived at Bistro Jeanty slightly late so
as not to appear overanxious. That had required sitting in her car
for ten minutes, which had required parking on a side street so
Vittorio wouldn't happen to see her when he himself arrived. She
had deliberately chosen a restaurant as the place to meet in the
hope that being in a public place would keep her from screaming or
throwing things or maybe even crying. And she'd dressed down—black
slacks and sweater, minimal jewelry, subtle makeup—both because she
didn't want him to think she'd gotten all dolled up just for him
and because she knew he liked her best this way.

She ordered herself to be strong, exited her
car, marched into the tiny restaurant—cozy and chic and French—and
felt something akin to a heart spasm when she spied him at a table
in the rear, looking as handsome and sweet and wonderful as ever.
Lovable, loving, warmhearted Vittorio.

Wearing a wedding ring.

"Gabriella." He rose from his chair and
grasped both her hands, then kissed her cheeks, Italian-style. His
dark eyes were alight with the fire she remembered; his features
were as straight and Roman; he was as tall and lanky and well
dressed in the casual but expensive clothes he purchased twice
yearly in Milan.

Damn
.

"You look beautiful," he murmured.

So do you
, she almost said, their
little private joke, though it didn't seem all that funny anymore.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting," she said instead, which wasn't even
true.

They sat. The business of fine French dining
buzzed on around them. People chattered and clinked glasses, and
oohed and ahhed over their selections. One thought chanted nonstop
in her brain:
It's Vittorio. Vittorio. Vittorio
.

"What brings you to the valley?" she asked
him.

"Business. You know, it's gorgeous here. As
lovely as you told me."

He had never come home with her while they
were dating. When she returned to California to visit, which she
did twice, she traveled alone. It was one of the few points of
contention between them. It was also an omen, she realized later,
that she had failed to heed. There had been a reason he didn't want
to meet her family or to see where she came from. On some primal
level, he must have known he wouldn't do right by her.