Catherine Spencer - The Italian Billionaire's Christmas Miracle

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

DOMENICO didn’t usually involve himself with tourists. They were not, as a rule, vitally concerned with the wine industry except as it applied to their drinking habits. That morning, though, he happened to be crossing the yard to his office at the rear of the main building just as the latest batch of visitors filed from the vineyard toward the public section at the front. All but one headed straight for the tasting room. She remained outside, earnestly questioning his uncle Bruno who, at almost sixty, had forgotten more about viticulture than Domenico himself ever hoped to learn.

Although professional enough not to dismiss any question, regardless of how trivial it might be, Bruno was not one to suffer fools gladly. That he appeared as engrossed in the conversation as this visitor, was unusual enough for Domenico to stop and observe.

Tall, slender and rather plain, the woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. And, he surmised, noting the slightly pink tint to her fair skin, newly arrived in Sardinia and not yet acclimatized to the sun. Unless she wanted to spend the rest of her holiday in bed with sunstroke, she should be wearing a hat. Tying up her hair in a careless ponytail that left her nape exposed was asking for trouble.

His uncle must have thought so, too, because he guided her to a bench set in the shade of a nearby oleander. More curious by the second, Domenico lingered just within earshot.

Catching sight of him, Bruno waved him over. “This is the man you talk with,” he told the woman. “My nephew, first he speaks the good English to make better sense for you. More important, what he does not know about growing grapes and turning them into fine wine, it is not worth knowing.”

“And my uncle never exaggerates,” Domenico said, smiling at the woman. “Allow me to introduce myself, signorina.”

She looked up and, for a moment, his usual urbanity deserted him. Suddenly bereft of speech, he found himself staring like a goatherd.

She was not beautiful, no. At least, not in the conventional sense. Her clothes were modest: a denim knee-length skirt, white short-sleeved cotton blouse and flat-heeled sandals. Her hair, though shiny as glass, was a nondescript brown, her hips narrow as a boy’s, her breasts small. Nothing like the annoyingly persistent Ortensia Costanza, with her vibrantly dramatic good looks and ripe curves. If Ortensia exemplified blatant female sexuality at its most hungry, this delicate creature fell at the other end of the spectrum and almost shied away from him.

She was, he decided, the kind of woman a man could easily overlook—until he gazed into her large, lovely eyes, and found himself drowning in their luminous gray depths.

Recovering himself, he continued, “I’m Domenico Silvaggio d’Avalos. How may I help you?”

She rose from the bench with lithe grace, and offered her hand. Small and fine-boned, it was almost swallowed up by his. “Arlene Russell,” she replied, her voice pleasantly modulated. “And if you can spare me half an hour, I’d love to pick your brain.”

“You’re interested in the wine industry?”

“More than interested.” She allowed herself a quick, almost rueful smile. “I recently came into possession of a vineyard, you see, but it’s in rather sad shape, and I need some advice on how to go about restoring it.”

Smiling himself, he said, “You surely don’t think that is something that can be dealt with in a few words, signorina?”

“Not in the least. But I’m committed to doing whatever I have to, to make a success of it, and since I have to start somewhere, what better place than here, where even a novice like me can recognize expertise when she sees it?”

“Spend an hour with the girl,” his uncle muttered, reverting to Sardu, the language most often spoken on the island. “She is thirsty as a sponge for information, unlike those others whose only thirst is for the wine tastings they’re now enjoying at our expense.”

“I can’t spare the time.”

“Yes, you can spare the time! Invite her to lunch.”

Her glance flitted between the two men. Although clearly not understanding their exchange, she correctly identified the irritation Domenico now showed on his face.

Her own mirroring utter disappointment, she murmured, “Please forgive me, Signor Silvaggio d’Avalos. I’m afraid I’m being very thoughtless and asking far too much of you.” Then turning to his uncle, she rallied another smile. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, signor. You’ve been very kind.”

As opposed to me, who’s behaving like a world-class boor, Domenico thought, an unwelcome shaft of sympathy at her obvious dejection piercing his annoyance. “As it happens,” he heard himself saying before he could change his mind, “I can spare you an hour or so before my afternoon appointments. I won’t promise to address all your concerns in that time, but at least I can direct you to someone who will.”

She wasn’t deceived by his belated gallantry. Picking up the camera and notebook she’d left on the bench, she replied, “That’s quite all right, signor. You’ve made it plain you have better things to do.”

“I have to eat,” he said, sizing up her too-slender length, “and from the looks of it, so do you. I suggest we make the most of the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.”

Although her pride struggled to fling his invitation back in his face, practicality overcame it. “Then I thank you again,” she said stiffly. “I’m most grateful.”

He took her elbow and turned her toward the Jeep parked next to the winery’s huge rear double doors through which, soon, the harvested grapes would be brought for crushing. If she was nervous about hopping into a vehicle with a stranger, she hid it well, asking only, “Where are we going?”

“To my house, which lies a good five kilometers farther along the coast from here.”

“Well, now I really feel I’m imposing! I assumed we’d eat in the winery’s bistro.”

“That is for the tourists.”

“Which is what I am.”

He put the Jeep in gear and started off along the paved road leading to his estate. “No, signorina. Today, you are my guest.”

He was a master of understatement, Arlene decided.

She’d learned from the tourist brochures she’d collected that Vigna Silvaggio d’Avalos, a family-owned vineyard and winery going back three generations, was one of the best in Sardinia and that it boasted a prime location on the coast at the northern tip of the island, just west of Santa Teresa Gallura.

The elaborate coat of arms adorning the wrought-iron gates at the estate’s entrance hadn’t really surprised her. It, as well as the building whose handsome facade housed a state-of-the-art winery, tasting room, shop and garden bistro, were more or less what she expected of an operation touted as producing “internationally acclaimed wines of impeccable quality.”