drew in a short sharp breath, laced with frustration.
‘But you haven’t even tasted the wines or seen the winery yet.’
‘The wine is good. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here with a contract in my pocket. Don’t you understand? Chatsfield Hotels wants to buy your entire vintage, down to every lock, stock and French oak barrel. We’re not about to change our minds whatever you show me. We’d be better off using our time getting agreement over the contract.’
Her blue eyes flashed like sun on ice, as cold and sharp as the wind that needled around his ears. She swept one arm around in an arc over the vineyard. ‘I knew you weren’t interested in a tour. But then, you’re not actually interested in any of this, are you?’ She was staring right at him, right into him, shaking her head while those ice-blue eyes continued to try to slice him to pieces with laser precision.
‘Don’t take it personally. I’m here to do business, not play tourist.’
‘Have you ever tasted our wines?’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘You’re unbelievable! I bet you don’t even know the first thing about wine!’
The hackles on the back of his neck rose. If she only knew. But he wasn’t about to tell her. ‘I know a bit about wine, yes.’
She smiled then, if you could call it a smile, because there was no light dancing in those blue eyes. They were cold and glassy and filled with bad intentions. ‘You know “a bit” about wine then?’ she repeated, nodding. ‘An expert indeed. So I guess you know there are two kinds of wine, right? Red and white?’
He felt the skin pull taut over the bones of his cheeks, felt his lips draw back into a snarl, but his voice, when it came, was tight and purposeful and betrayed nothing of how close he was to losing his control. ‘I wouldn’t quite put it that way.’
‘Oh, of course not,’ she said, any pretence at civility abandoned and left smoking in the heat of her delivery. ‘I was forgetting. Because there are actually three kinds of wine. You are a Chatsfield after all. You weren’t just born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you were born clutching a champagne flute in your hand.’
His hands formed fists, and if there’d been a champagne flute in either of them, it would have shattered, like his control, into tiny pieces.
Nobody judged him.
Not since his father had made it clear he didn’t need a son and Franco had subsequently dropped out of Eton and stormed off to Italy in rebellion had he been judged and found guilty by anyone other than himself.
And he was his own harshest critic.
So he was hardly likely to sit back and be found guilty by the likes of this woman.
She knew nothing of him.
Nothing!
The scar in his side ached as a familiar guilt assailed him—guilt for when he’d discovered what he’d unwittingly left behind in England—guilt for the years he’d lost and the pain he’d caused. Guilt that he’d been unable to save his child’s life just twelve short months later.
Nikki.
And pain lanced him as sharp and deep as it had that day, ten years before, when he’d learned that everything he’d done—everything he’d given—had come to nothing.
Curse the woman!
She knew nothing. But nothing in his agreement with Christos Giatrakos said he had to educate her, to explain. Nothing in his agreement said he had to apologise. He didn’t want her understanding or her forgiveness. All he needed was her damned signature on the dotted line.
‘Chatsfield Hotels want to buy your wines and we’re prepared to pay top dollar for the privilege.’ His voice was as calm and reasonable as he could manage under the circumstances, a thin veneer of civility over a mountain of reason and he’d make her appreciate just how much reason if it killed him. ‘We’ll not only purchase the entire vintage, but your precious wines will be showcased exclusively in the executive lounges of our hotels all over the world. You will never get a better deal. So why the hell won’t you even attempt to listen to what I have to say?’
Her chin kicked up. ‘Maybe because I’m not interested in what you have to say. If Chatsfield Hotels were actually serious about buying Purman Wines, they should have sent someone who knows something about wine and winemaking—not some messenger boy!’
If she’d slapped his cold cheek with the palm of her hand it couldn’t have stung as much as her ice-cold words, and far from the first time he cursed Christos Giatrakos for putting him in this position.
If he didn’t need to seal this deal—didn’t need this woman’s cooperation—Franco could have climbed back in the helicopter and left then and there.
But he couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t give frosty Ms Purman and her ice-blue eyes the satisfaction. She might be standing in his way now, frustrating his efforts to get a quick closure, but he’d get what he’d come for.
He had to. He could not risk losing his distribution from the Chatsfield Family Trust. He would do a deal with the devil himself to save it.
So he swallowed down cold air smelling of damp earth and wet grass. He could not afford to antagonise this woman any more than he clearly already had, so he would not rise to her bait, but that didn’t mean he must take her barbs and insults lying down. He might at least call her on it.
‘Do you treat all your potential customers like this, Ms Purman? Or are you singling me out for special treatment?’
The woman smiled, and now it was more than light that danced in her ice-blue, scathing eyes, there was cold, hard satisfaction. She was enjoying this. ‘I’m afraid I am singling you out. Does that make you feel special, Mr Chatsfield?’
Her brazen admission sent white-hot fury pumping through his veins and pounding at his temples, hammering at his skull like he wished he could hammer sense into her. He was here to bestow the biggest contract this woman was ever likely to see in her lifetime, and yet she couldn’t have been less welcoming were he the grim reaper come to harvest her grandfather’s soul.
Somehow he managed to force a smile to his features, although he had to work hard to move his lips beyond a tight thin line.
‘I think we’re wasting our time here. I think we should go and talk to your grandfather. At least he seems a little less averse to doing business with the Chatsfield Hotel Group.’
‘Fine, we’ll do what you want. We’ll go and see Pop.’ She smiled again and, unlike him, seemed to have no problem finding the necessary muscles to make it stick. ‘But you see, we’re a partnership, Pop and me, and you need both our signatures on that contract. So I warn you now, don’t go getting your hopes up.’
‘THIS IS RIDICULOUS!’
Franco Chatsfield was not a happy man.
They’d
