Royals: His Hidden Secret. Kelly Hunter
God knows what exactly, but something that would satisfy Gabrielle and the children.’
Children? Bewilderment took the edge off her defiance and her shame, and she grabbed it for the lifeline it was. ‘What children?’
‘Gabrielle’s children.’
‘Gabrielle’s pregnant?’
‘No.’
She hadn’t been drinking. Swear to God, she hadn’t touched a drop. But she couldn’t for the life of her follow this conversation. ‘Do you think that some day we might manage a simple comprehensible conversation?’
‘Working on it, princess.’
‘Oh, I can tell.’
‘Stop,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m working on it. It would help a great deal if you worked on it too. Do you want us to be at loggerheads on Gabrielle and Luc’s wedding day?’
‘No, but—’
‘Zip.’ His hand signal repeated the order. ‘Neither do I. We’re starting again. Here and now. Do you still want to see the vineyard?’
‘Yes. But not if—’
‘Stop!’ he ordered, exasperation writ clearly on his features. ‘I swear you’ve become irritatingly argumentative in your old age.’
Old age? She was twenty-six. ‘Better that than an autocratic bore.’
He sent her a sinner’s smile. ‘You’re not bored.’
‘This is never going to work,’ she muttered as her body responded lovingly to that smile.
‘I knew you’d see it my way eventually,’ he said. ‘But for the sake of this wedding, let’s pretend there’s at least an outside chance that it might. Twenty minutes to tour the plant. Another twenty to show you the vines, after which I’ll take you up the hill and show you the view. An hour, at most, and during that time we shall attempt to find new common ground. How hard can it be?’
‘You’re right. We need to think positive,’ said Simone. ‘No touching. No talk of the past. No incendiary comments. No problem.’ She needed to stop thinking about that heart-wrenchingly beautiful tattoo. ‘Got any alcohol?’
‘Follow me.’
He showed her the crushing plant, the mixing, processing, and ageing vats—stainless steel and state-of-the-art, all of them. The bottling equipment was older and labour-intensive, but his volumes were small at the moment too. Doubtless he would trade up and it would be replaced when volumes grew.
The brand-new wine storage shed stood behind the processing one and if it lacked a little something by way of character when compared with the storage caves of Caverness, well, that was only to be expected. Temperature controlled and ruthlessly organised, his oak barrels stood in neat rows, pale as sand and also very new.
He noticed her frown and gave a Gallic shrug. Seasoned oak wine barrels were a rarity in Australia and the people who had them held them, he told her. They were impossible to import. He’d had to buy new.
He kept strictly to the topic of winemaking.
Simone aided his endeavour by asking technical questions.
Rafael gave technical answers and stayed at least three metres away from her at all times.
Apart from the hungry snake of desire in the pit of her stomach, her greedy eyes, and his warning glares, everything seemed to be going very well.
Only forty-nine and a half minutes to go.
They headed for Rafe’s work vehicle, a high-wheeled table-top truck and completely incompatible with a knee-baring sundress. Her dress rode up to high thigh as she settled into the passenger seat. Damn Gabrielle and her wardrobe suggestions. She knew she never should have listened to them. Rafael’s hands went to the steering wheel and stayed there. His knuckles turned white. His gaze turned black.
‘Fix it,’ he said tightly.
She fixed it.
Rafe drove. He wasn’t three metres away from her now. Simone battled the tension that came with enforced proximity and tried to think of questions that would make it go away and stay away, but she was running out of questions and Rafe’s answers were getting shorter. Yes, the trellising was his design. He’d wanted maximum sunlight, better air flow through the canopy and easier picking. Yes, the companion planting worked to keep pests away. The predatory ladybirds he released onto the vines also worked to keep pest numbers low.
Yes, he did eventually have to spray towards the end of the growing season. Yes, it wiped out his ladybirds. He released new ones straight after harvest.
Yes, the ducks were in residence in order to keep the grubs down.
No, they did not have names.
He showed her the dam and the wetlands below the vines. Half a dozen waterfowl and a pair of magnificent black swans had made the wetlands their home.
The swans didn’t have names either.
He drove up a steep dirt track to the top of a hill and showed her the lay of his land while the minutes ticked away, the silences grew longer, and the tension between them reached excruciatingly lofty heights.
‘What time is it?’ she said.
‘Four thirty-eight.’
Thirty-eight minutes in each other’s company without bloodshed was good. ‘You about ready to call it an hour?’
‘God, yes,’ he muttered gruffly, and that was that.
He stood staring at the view while she got in the truck and smoothed her skirt down her legs as far as it would go. ‘It’s all good,’ she said. ‘You can get in now,’ she added, and sent him a bright and guileless smile to deflect the glittering gaze he shot at her.
He got in. They started down the dirt track at speed. Rafe was clearly in a hurry to put an end to this tour. It wasn’t wimpish to cling to the door handle and start reciting the Lord’s Prayer, was it?
He shot her a glance, still glittering but this time tinged with amusement. He slowed down a fraction.
‘I got a letter today,’ he said.
Letters were good. Of course…it all depended what was in them. She eyeballed him cautiously.
‘It was from someone calling himself Etienne de Morsay. Apparently, he’s the head of some remote kingdom on the edge of the Pyrenees. Do you know of him?’
‘Yes.’ It was a startling enough statement and question to get her attention and chase pesky things like unwanted desire for dark angels bearing grudges into the shadows for a time. ‘He was one of my father’s school friends. We used to stay at his estate whenever my father took us to Spain. He was always very nice to Luc and me.’
Simone frowned, remembering the tightness in Luc’s expression upon seeing Etienne de Morsay at the Hammerschmidt auction. ‘He was also the one who bid against Luc for the Hammerschmidt vineyard. The one who pushed the price through the roof. What did he want?’
‘He wants me to work for him for three months and oversee the restoration of a vineyard on his estate. He’s done his homework. He knows a lot about what I’ve done here. I’m trying to figure out how he even knows about me.’
‘Not from me.’ Simone shook her head. ‘I haven’t had any real contact with Etienne in years. He came to Daddy’s funeral. He attended the Hammerschmidt auction. Luc spoke with him afterwards.’ From a distance they’d looked like jaguar and lion at war over the same prey. Gabrielle had been with them for a time, remembered Simone, but she’d cut out fast. ‘Maybe Luc mentioned you. Or maybe my father did, years ago. I don’t know how you turned up on his radar. What I do know is that this isn’t a small commission. It’s a very prestigious one with significant