movement beneath his hand. He must remember to thank the lovely lady at the concierge desk for her superb taste. The wrap-around silk dress in a delicate shade of teal moulded to Phoenix’s curves like a second skin. It was classy and sexy at the same time, and he was having a problem keeping his hands off her.
The famous restaurant, with its decorated walls and swathes of bright-coloured fabric overhead, was surprisingly intimate and elegant for a room decorated to resemble the inside of a circus tent. The maître d’ seated them at one of the most sought-after tables, at a picture window overlooking the Bellagio’s famous fountains. Lyrical piano music underscored the muted sounds of conversation. Max held out her chair for her, before taking his own seat across the table.
While Phoenix studied the menu, Max chatted to the sommelier, finally ordering a bottle of wine from his own vineyard. In the time it took for the wine to arrive, he entertained Phoenix with a history of the wine they’d be drinking. Her eyes didn’t glaze over, and she asked intelligent questions, so he figured she wasn’t faking being interested.
“You love what you do,” she observed, smiling and softening towards him as she first breathed in the aroma of the wine, then took a cautious sip. “Nice. Though I have to admit I know absolutely nothing about wine except how to drink it.”
“Then you’ll be my most honest critic.” Her honesty was one of the most appealing things about her. He swirled the wine around in his glass. “Last night you told me you moved to Vegas because you lived here as a child. Tell me about it.”
“I’m the one at the disadvantage here. You already know so much about me. Tell me about yourself.”
He shook his head. “I’ll get my turn.” He wanted her to talk about herself, to relax and open up. In his experience, most people felt more comfortable talking than listening. He’d been trained to be a very good listener.
Phoenix didn’t look at him but focussed her eyes instead on the view beyond the expansive windows. “The year we lived here was the happiest time I remember. Not that I wasn’t happy a lot in my childhood, but my mother was still alive then. She sang in a show at one of the big hotels. She had the most beautiful bluesy voice imaginable.”
Her mother, he remembered, had died less than a year after they’d left Vegas. Phoenix had been only ten. He couldn’t imagine losing his mother. He’d been so lucky, surrounded by adoring parents, his beloved grandmother, nannies, and a brother who’d been in equal measure his best friend and greatest rival.
“My father had a day job playing piano in a classy restaurant much like this one,” she continued. “We had dinner together as a family every night, and then Mom would read me a bedtime story, tuck me into bed, and go out to work.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Most of the time.” Her restless fingers played with the stem of the wine glass. “But like everything in life, it didn’t last. Daddy hated it – playing piano for people who barely heard it. As with all true artists, he needed to be challenged, to try new things. So he joined a rock band, Mom left the show, and we followed him on tour. After that, I don’t remember spending more than six months in any one place.”
“Must have been tough getting a decent education when you kept moving.”
She shrugged again. “I got the best education anyone could ask for. I’m a graduate of the University of Life.” She smiled that wide smile that lit up her face and made her eyes sparkle. There were gold specks in her dark eyes, he noticed, that gave her a luminous quality. “There’s probably not much I haven’t seen or done. And I read a lot. You can find out everything you need to know from books.”
He didn’t disagree. But her education was a world away from his. He thought of the six years he’d spent in an elite French boarding school, tied to a desk where books had been dry and dull, and life beyond the windows had seemed to pass him by. He’d dreamed of a life like hers.
He’d been destined for Oxford and the kind of studies that would turn him into a good diplomat, an asset to his country. A dull asset to his country. Until he’d bucked the system and chosen to study wine-making in California instead. His father had hit the roof and their relationship had never been the same since. Never would be, now his father was dead.
“What are you thinking about?” Phoenix asked. She laid a hand on his, and the heat radiating from her was both electric and calming at the same time, like being burrowed in bed beneath a warm duvet during a storm.
“I think we should order our meal. Have you chosen yet what you want?”
She frowned and released his hand.
Once he’d summoned the waiter, and they’d placed their orders, Phoenix turned her direct gaze on him.
He tensed. He’d told her a lot about himself yesterday. Now in the clear light of day, or at any rate the clear light of the sunset deepening over the desert, he was sure those confidences were better kept in the dark. He didn’t want to freak her out until she knew him better.
“Tell me about your family,” she prompted.
He sucked in a breath. This was the question he most hated. From the moment he’d been old enough to talk he’d been cautioned not to talk about family. One never knew what would make its way to the ears of the press. Which was why last night he’d chosen the most discreet chapel they could find in Vegas and why he’d used his fake ID.
But today Phoenix didn’t have a clue who he really was. She saw him as nothing more than what he’d become, a Californian vintner. There was a freedom in that.
He sipped his wine, taking a moment to think through what he would say, how to skirt the truth without lying. He valued honesty above all else, and didn’t want to start their married life with lies. “My father inherited the family business. He’s always been big on duty and family.”
“Was his death sudden or expected?” Phoenix cupped her chin in her hand, listening avidly.
“Very sudden. He had high blood pressure for years, but this was his first heart attack and he was dead within half an hour.”
Sympathy filled her eyes. She nodded. “How are you holding up?”
No-one but Grandfather had asked him that before now. Back home in Westerwald the only thing everyone had been concerned with was “what now?”
He’d told the old man he wasn’t sure. He still wasn’t. “We were never that close. Rik was always our father’s favourite son, the one most like him.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Her gaze sharpened. She wasn’t going to let him get away with the evasion.
“Conflicted. I feel guilty that I didn’t make amends before he died. And of course I’ll miss him. He was a big presence in my life, even if we never saw eye to eye.”
“I sense a ‘but’ in there.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “But now that he’s gone, I feel as if I’m finally free of his expectations. Rik will take over the family business and I’m free to do what I want.”
“How does your brother feel having to take over the business while you get to do whatever you want?”
He shrugged. “Rik has always been big on duty
