Sandra Marton - Brazilian Nights

“Let me get this straight. You expect me to believe your motives are purely altruistic? That you want to buy this ranch to save it?”

“I know you do not think highly of me—”

Dante laughed.

“Perhaps I have done some things I regret. Don’t look so shocked, mio figlio. A man nearing the end of his life is entitled to begin thinking about the disposition of his immortal soul.”

Dante put the folder on the desk. This was turning into one hell of a strange day.

“I ask only that you fly to Brazil, look things over and, if you deem it appropriate, make an offer on the ranch.”

“The market’s going to hell in a hand basket and you expect me to set aside my work, fly to South America and make an enemy of yours an offer he cannot refuse?”

“Very amusing. And very incorrect. Viera is not my enemy.”

“Whatever. The point is, I am busy. I have no time to stomp around in cow manure just so you can assuage a guilty conscience.”

“This is a far simpler thing than I asked of your brother.”

“Yeah, well, whatever you asked him, I’ll bet he told you what I’m going to tell you.” Dante shot to his feet. “You can take your so-called conscience and—”

“Have you ever been to Brazil, Dante? Do you know anything about it?”

Dante’s jaw tightened. The only thing he knew about Brazil was that it was Gabriella Reyes’s birthplace, and what the hell did she have to do with anything?

“I’ve been to Sao Paulo,” he said coldly. “On business.”

“Business. For that company of yours.”

“It’s called Orsini Investments,” Dante said, even more coldly.

“It is said you are excellent at negotiating.”

“So?”

His father shrugged. “Why ask a stranger for help when one’s own son is considered the best?”

A compliment? Pure bull, sure, but, dammit, it hit its mark. Why not admit that?

“Well,” Cesare said, on a dramatic sigh, “if you will not do this thing…”

Dante looked at his father. “I can only spare a couple of days.”

His father smiled. “That will surely be enough. And, who knows? You might even learn something new.”

“About?”

Cesare smiled again. “About negotiating, mio figlio. About negotiating.”

A world away, more than five thousand miles southwest of New York, Gabriella Reyes sat on the veranda of the big house in which she’d grown up.

Back then the house, the veranda, the fazenda itself had been magnificent.

Not anymore. Everything was different now.

So was she.

As a child on this ranch, she’d been scrawny, all legs and pigtails. Shy to the point of being tongue-tied. Her father had hated that about her; the truth was, she couldn’t think of anything about herself that he hadn’t hated.

This place, the verandah, had been her sanctuary. Hers and her brother’s. Arturo had been even less favored by their father than she had been.

Arturo had left the ranch the day he turned eighteen. She had missed him terribly but she’d understood, he’d had to leave this place to survive.

At eighteen, Gabriella had suddenly blossomed. The ugly ducking had become a swan. She hadn’t seen it but others did, including a North American who had seen her on a street in Bonito, doubled back and handed her his business card. A week later she’d flown to New York and landed her first modeling assignment. She’d loved her work…

And she’d met a man.

She’d been happy, at least for a little while.

Now, she was back at Viera y Filho. Her father was dead. So was her brother. The man was gone from her life. She was alone in this sad, silent house, but then, one way or another, she had always been alone.

Even when she had been Dante Orsini’s lover.

Perhaps never as much as when she had been Dante’s lover, if she had ever really been that. She had warmed his bed but not his heart, and why was she wasting time thinking of him? There was no point in it, no reason, no logic—

“Senhorita?”

Gabriella looked up into the worried face of the ama who had all but raised her. “Sim, Yara?”

“Ele chama lhe.”

Gabriella shot to her feet and hurried into the house. He was calling for her! How could she have forgotten, even for a moment?

She was not alone. Not anymore.

HE FLEW to Brazil by commercial jet. Falco was using the Orsini plane.

Based on the way they were dressed, he figured that most of the other passengers in the first-class cabin were going to Campo Grande on vacation. The city was near something called the Pantanal. His travel agent had started gushing about the area’s trails, the canoeing, the amazing variety of wildlife.

Dante had cut her short.

“Just book me into a decent hotel and arrange for a rental car,” he’d said curtly.

He was most assuredly not heading to South America for pleasure.

This was strictly business. His father’s business, and that he’d let Cesare push the right buttons ticked him off no end.

“Mr. Orsini,” the flight attendant said pleasantly, “may I get you something?”

Somebody to examine my head, Dante thought grimly.

“Sir? Something to drink?”

He asked for red wine; she launched into a listing of the choices available and he stopped himself from snarling at her the way he’d snarled at the travel agent.

“Your choice,” he said, before she could ask him anything else.

Then he opened his briefcase and read through the papers his father had given him.

They didn’t tell him very much that he didn’t already know. The Viera ranch ran thousands of head of cattle as well as a relatively small number of horses. It had been owned by the same family for generations.

A vellum business card bore the name, phone number and address of Juan Viera’s lawyer. A note in Cesare’s handwriting was scrawled on the back:

“Deal through him, not through the Vieras.”

Fine.

He’d call the man first thing, maybe even tonight. Brazilians kept late hours; the times he’d been in Sao Paulo on business, dinner never started much before 10 p.m. Whenever he called the lawyer, he would request an immediate meeting. He’d explain the purpose of his visit and make an offer for the ranch.

How long could that take? Maybe not even the two days he’d allocated for it.

He felt his mood lighten. With luck, he might be heading back to New York in no time.

It was midevening when he stepped off the plane.

Thanks to the time change, he’d lost two hours. Too late to phone Viera’s attorney and maybe that was just as well. All he wanted to do after the seemingly endless flight was pick up a car, get to his hotel, shower and eat something prepared by a human being instead of an airline catering service’s assembly line.

The hotel, in the town of Bonito, maybe twenty minutes from the Campo Grande Airport, met the requirements he’d laid out to his travel agent. It was comfortable and quiet, as was his suite. He showered, changed into a pale blue cotton shirt and faded jeans. Room service sent up a rare steak, green salad and a pot of coffee, and Dante settled down to leaf through the documents again.

Maybe he’d missed something the first time.

Ten minutes later he tossed the papers aside. No. He hadn’t missed anything. What he’d hoped to see was something about the filho of Viera y Filho. Why Cesare was so convinced that the son’s stewardship would lead to disaster. A hint as to why his father should give a damn.

But there was nothing.

Dante took a bottle of beer from the minibar, opened it and stepped onto a small balcony that overlooked a moonlit pool. He was exhausted but he knew he wouldn’t sleep. The long flight, the time change, the fact that he was still angry at being here…