The Delicious De Campos. Дженнифер Хейворд

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      Riccardo was halfway into the backseat when Gabe threw up his hand. “Sit the hell down. I’m going to drive into a wall if you keep this up.”

      Riccardo sat back, pulling in a deep breath. “Keep your mouth shut until you know all the facts.”

      “You never talk so how would I know them?”

      “Try living with the Ice Queen.”

      “She wasn’t always like that,” Matty murmured. “Maybe you should ask yourself what happened.”

      “Maybe you should mind your own business.”

      That set the tone for the forty-five-minute drive north of the city to Westchester. Riccardo kept his gaze on the scenery while Gabe and Matty caught up. Suburban New York blurred into a continuous stream of exclusive green bedroom communities. But if the scenery was tranquil, his mood was not.

      What did they think? He was going to make the De Campo name a player in the North American restaurant business by being home for dinner at six every night? That he was going to claim his birthright by being any less driven and focused than his father Antonio? He rubbed his hand across his unshaven jaw and shook his head.

      “You never wanted to hear what I had to say,” Lilly had lashed out at him the other night. “I’m through groveling at your feet, begging for your attention...”

      Dio. Was he really that bad?

      There’d been a time when he’d been much more laidback. When he’d been driving a racecar for one of Italy’s top teams and all he’d been focused on was winning. The shockingly alive feeling of driving a car at one-hundred-eighty miles an hour finally free of his father’s iron grip. He had eaten up life with the appetite of a man determined to savor every minute.

      And every beautiful woman who came along with it—like the froth on top of his espresso.

      But Lilly had not been one of those easy-to-attain women who had chased him from track to track. Lilly had been the ultimate challenge. The one woman he could never have enough of. Her sharp wit, her loving nature—before she’d turned cold—and her bewitching sensuality had made her the hottest woman he’d ever touched. He had been consumed with the need to possess her, body and soul. And it had almost made him make the biggest mistake of his life.

      He shifted in his seat. The sheer stupidity of what he’d almost done was something that would haunt him forever. He had kissed Chelsea Tate with the intent of taking her to bed at the absolute lowest point of his marriage. When Lilly wouldn’t talk to him and he’d felt so alienated in his own home he hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d wanted to prove he didn’t need her, that he didn’t love her so much that it was sending him straight to hell. But all it had done was backfire on him when he’d kissed Chelsea and realized Lilly was the only woman for him.

      A bitter taste that had nothing to do with the espresso he was consuming filled his mouth. Lilly, on the other hand, seemed to have moved on as easily as if she was shifting to the next course at dinner.

      His fingers dug into the flimsy paper cup. If he had to sleep in that bed with her one more night with her freezing him out—warning him away from those sweet, soft curves that were his and his alone—he wasn’t going to be responsible for his actions.

      The tension in the car spilled out into the brisk morning as they parked in front of the Westchester house and stepped from the car. Riccardo took a big breath of the clean, woodsy air and felt the tension seep away as the soul-restoring properties of his home on the lake kicked in. He’d fallen in love with the beautiful rolling countryside on his first visit here, to a business associate’s home on the Hudson River. When this estate had come up for sale he’d snapped it up as an escape for him and Lilly. But he’d been so busy they’d rarely ever made it out here.

      Another promise to her he hadn’t kept.

      To hell with Matty.

      Locating the chainsaw, he applied his frustration to the tree and they managed to take the huge old American white oak down without hitting the house—which was a good thing, since it had to be ninety feet tall and at least three feet in diameter.

      Afterward they sat beside the huge old tree, now sprawled in front of them, drinking cold beer out of the can. As different as they all were—Gabe, the intense, serious one, obsessed with the craft of winemaking, who’d known what he’d wanted to do from the time he’d been a little boy; Riccardo, the rebel oldest son; Matty, the in-touch-with-his-feminine side youngest—they were as close as three brothers could be. Even scattered around the globe, with Gabe spending most of his time in Napa Valley, where their vineyards were located and Matty in Tuscany, where he oversaw the company’s European operations.

      Maybe it was because their mother Francesca, who had come from one of Europe’s oldest families, hadn’t been the nurturing type. Maybe that was what had bonded the three of them so tightly. Because they were all each other had alongside Antonio’s domination. It was sink or swim in the De Campo family, and they had learned to survive—together.

      Gabe set down his beer and looked at Riccardo. “Any idea where Antonio’s head’s at?”

      He shook his head. They called their father Antonio because he was not only their father, he was the dominant, larger-than-life figure who had transformed the small, moderately successful De Campo vineyard his grandfather had passed along to him into a force to be reckoned with in the global wine industry.

      Gabe shrugged. “Everybody knows it’s going to be you. You’ve been the de facto head of the company since Antonio started scaling back.”

      Riccardo searched his brother’s face for any sign that the logical heir to the De Campo empire harbored any bitterness toward him after his father’s decision to put Riccardo in control of the company when he’d fallen ill—despite the fact that Gabe had been the obvious choice with Riccardo off racing. But his brother’s face was matter-of-fact. As if he’d long ago given up fighting his father’s predisposition for his eldest son.

      Riccardo took a long swig of his beer. “It’s impossible to predict what Antonio will do.”

      Particularly when teaching his eldest son a lesson seemed to be a greater priority than doing what was right. Antonio had never forgiven Riccardo for wasting his Harvard education on a racing career. No matter how good a driver he’d been—he’d been on track to win his first championship title when his father had fallen ill—Antonio had never forgiven him for his decision. He’d seen racing as a frivolous, ego-boosting activity that pandered to his son’s ego and was disrespectful to the family—to everything Antonio had raised him to be. He hadn’t talked to his eldest son for years, and had only relented when Riccardo had returned to take the reins of De Campo.

      Now Antonio was letting Riccardo sweat his guts out in purgatory.

      Rolling to his feet, he reached for the chainsaw. “Let’s get this done.”

      He worked his way from one end of the tree to the other, with his brothers hauling and stacking the pieces. His muscles relaxed and his head cleared. He was nothing if not a man who knew how to solve a problem. His wife might think this was the way it was going to be, but she had it all wrong. This icy détente was ending. And it was ending tonight.

      * * *

      Lilly adjusted the plunging bodice of the lavender gown for the millionth time СКАЧАТЬ