Crush on You (2 page)

Five years later, Alessandra shuddered again.

“Allie,” Giuliana said, her voice more insistent. “Look, this is really urgent.”

“What?” she asked, her throat so tight that the words were half-whispered. “What is it?”

“You’ve got to come out.”

“No.” She couldn’t. Not wearing the wedding dress and not with sorrow carving at her insides like a knife. Bowing into herself, she pressed her fists against the hard, shriveled rock of her heart.

“It’s about the cottage.”

Alessandra’s head came up. The raging grief gave a little hiccup. “What?”

“The cottage. That’s the problem we’ve been trying to tell you.”

A contractor was renovating the historic residence of the original founders of the winery, Anne and Alonzo Baci. The cottage was an essential element of Alessandra’s brainchild—that of offering the winery as a wedding destination. This service would provide a new revenue stream for the family business and the success of her plan would prove to the bank, to her sisters, to everyone, that Tanti Baci should remain in their hands. To that end, she’d already jumped through hoops to get the right zoning, building, and events permits.

She took a step toward the hall. “What kind of problem?”

“The guy you hired says he has a better offer. He’s packing up right now and claims he’s not coming back.”

“No!” A flush of rage shot over Alessandra’s skin. She flew to the door, wrenching it open and then pushing past her sisters even as she noted their startled faces. “You’re wearing . . .” Giuliana choked on the rest of her words as her gaze took Alessandra in from head to toes.

Following her sister’s eyes, Alessandra saw her white satin high heels. With a little growl, she kicked them off, then reached down to yank Stevie’s rubber thongs right off her feet. Wearing them herself, she rushed away, feeling her tiara sliding as the hem of her wedding dress fluttered in the breeze of her outrage.

Her pajama bottoms flapped around her ankles and her heaving breaths threatened to lift her breasts right out of their boned nest. She’d never managed to get the dress completely buttoned, she realized, which meant God must be off somewhere enjoying a fly-fishing tournament.

Behind her, she heard her sisters sputter as they trailed her down the stairs.

“Maybe you should change first . . .”

“There are, um, people out there who might get the wrong impression . . .”

Not a word they said stopped her. Nothing could do that.

Even her flinty heart couldn’t weigh her down. As a matter of fact, she welcomed its stoniness now. If anyone looked at her twice, if anyone got between her and the success of the weddings she’d booked for Tanti Baci—the weddings that would save the winery—she was going to rip the worthless thing from her chest and use it to murder the one who got in her way.

In the middle of a leafy vineyard, leaning against the warm side of his half brother’s Range Rover, Penn Bennett decided his first day in Napa had all the elements of a great night of television. He should know, as the “star” of
Penn Bennett’s Build Me Up
, a four-year-old prime-time show that had been in Nielsen’s top ten for the past two seasons. When asked to describe the program’s premise, he’d once quipped that it was about improving deserving families’ homes as well as their self-esteem, one low-flow toilet at a time. Yet he knew the appeal had nothing to do with water conservation and even went beyond watching muscled men wield power tools.

It was all about the story, man.

Liam, the oldest of the two legitimate Bennett siblings, ran his hand through dark blond hair that had surprised the hell out of Penn the first time he’d seen him. It was the exact shade of his own, and the physical similarity didn’t end there. Before this, Penn had never known a soul who looked like him.

“Sorry about the delay of your wine country tour,” the other man said. “I know I told you this was going to be a brief stop.”

Penn waved the concern away. He wasn’t on a tight agenda—he was on an escape mission. Here, miles from the mistake he’d made in L.A., he intended to enjoy a few weeks of pure R & R. No work. No women. No trouble.

Liam frowned, shoving his hand through his hair again. “You’re being damn decent about all this.”

Penn settled himself more comfortably against the vehicle. “All this,” he knew, referred to the recent revelations in Calvin Bennett’s will. They’d surprised Penn, true, but it was obvious the news of his father’s extramarital affairs had rocked Liam’s well-ordered world. A half-smile crossed Penn’s face. Yeah, good TV drama in the making.

Big family shake-up: check.

His head tilted back to take in the blue sky that was a perfect match to the seventy-five-degree sunshine. A raked-gravel parking lot separated the torn-up bungalow from the entrance to wine caves carved into the hillside. Standing as sentry on either side of the caves’ double doors sat two dwarf lemon trees planted in halved wine barrels. Orderly rows of paper bag-brown grapevines with their lush, spring-green growth covered the rolling acres surrounding them. Penn’s showbiz-trained brain imagined an aerial view of the countryside in the opening credits.

Sweeping visual appeal: check.

Just then a woman came into sight, flying toward them from the direction of a simple, two-story farmhouse. Ah, yes, he thought. The final element to complete the necessary triumvirate of Hollywood small-screen success.

Beautiful, busty young woman: check.

His eyes narrowing on the oncoming figure in the white strapless number, Penn straightened. Based on her determined expression and the strange getup she was wearing, the TV show he was building in his head might be pitched with a logline that went something like “
Desperate Housewives
meets
Say Yes to the Dress
.” When he caught himself moving toward her, he forced his body back against the warm metal of the car. Knight errant wasn’t a role that suited him.

Liam, however, let out a muffled oath and seemed unable to stifle the same impulse that had struck Penn a moment before. He surged forward to intercept the small figure with her cloud of dark hair, her froth of wedding dress, and her—were those pajama bottoms? But she shoved Penn’s half brother out of the way without a blink, her rubber thongs flapping against the soles of her small feet as she sped toward the battered Ford F-150 pulled alongside the cottage.

A couple of Hispanic men were loading tools in the bed while the truck’s owner, a sweaty guy with a stubble of hair on his nearly bald pate and a beer belly stretching out his grubby T-shirt, looked on. Wedding Dress Girl didn’t hesitate to get a handful of that dirty cotton in her small fist. “Newton Smalls, what do you think you’re doing?”

Newton Smalls backed away from her evident temper, but his movement only served to further stretch his stained shirt. He blinked down at her, both hands raised in a placating gesture. “Now, Alessandra . . .”

“We had a deal, Newton.”

“I
gave
you a deal, you know that. But I can’t afford to turn down a better paying job. My sister’s husband called. He needs me for a spec house in Oregon and the pay is good if I get there right away.”

Two more young women hurried up, obvious kin to Wedding Dress Girl. Dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties, all three. One of the newcomers was tall and capable-looking. The other was shorter, with sharper edges, or maybe that was just because of the look she threw like a knife at Liam.

His half brother stiffened. “Christ, Jules, I’m just the messenger. You can’t blame me for Newton bugging out because I’m the one who discovered it.”

“You’re trespassing,” she hissed at him.

He sucked in a breath, his expression hardening. “Giuliana, the Bennetts may be silent partners, but we still have a stake here.”

The taller young woman took her life in her hands and stepped between the invisible blades swishing through the air. She held out her hand to Penn. “Stephania Baci—Stevie. That’s my older sister, Giuliana, and the strangely dressed creature is Alessandra, the youngest of the three of us.”

“Penn Bennett,” he said, accepting her firm shake.

“The bastard,” she added, then grimaced. “Sorry. Maybe you don’t care for irreverence.”

“I’m a big fan of irreverence,” he assured her. He liked this forthright Baci, though his gaze wandered toward Wedding Dress Girl again. She’d left off manhandling the construction foreman in order to reach into the truck bed and lift out one of the items just loaded.

“You’ll need this to get back to work.” She was so little, the air compressor nearly toppled her over.

Penn found himself stepping forward again, only to halt as Newton plucked the heavy contraption out of her hands. “Alessandra, I don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t have time to find someone else to do the job!” she countered, and wrapped her hands around a 2 x 4 that she drew from the top of a stack of wood resting in the truck’s bed. As she pulled, a sparkly thing caught in her hair fell free. She tripped on it, going to the ground in a tumble of white skirts and striped-cotton legs.

Penn closed half the distance between them before she was up on her rubber thongs again, her temper at fever level if the flush on her face and on her over-exposed breasts was anything to go by. She had a small mouth with puffy lips that were two shades redder than her cheeks. It was one of those mouths that had a man thinking of something more than kissing. Put that together with the dark wavy hair, and he could just imagine twisting his fingers in those silky strands to urge her forward and, well . . .

If he wasn’t a guy burned out on trouble and women, then he might have been seriously turned on by the small, sexy package. Except he
was
a guy burned out on trouble and women and if the odd outfit she was wearing was anything to go by, a bad temper wasn’t her worst fault.

She was trying to get to the items in the truck again, but Newton was blocking her way. Steam came out of her ears and she stomped a foot, scattering gravel. “This isn’t right!”

“We agreed, Allie. The price I quoted you was so cheap you told me I could take a better offer if one came my way.”

“One wasn’t supposed to come your way!” Gravel flew beneath her rubber thong again.

Her sister Giuliana made a cautious approach. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure out something.”

Alessandra’s head whipped around. “Like forgetting about our promise to Papa? Like selling the winery? Is that what you mean?”

Stephania started forward. “Allie—”

“You, too?” The girl in the wedding dress and pajamas spun to confront her other sister, anger still blazing across her delicate features. “You’re willing to let go of our birth-right, our heritage, our history? This place is our
heart
, Stevie.”

Liam stepped forward. “Still, maybe it’s time to call it quits.”

At his quiet words, all the fire in Alessandra was quenched. Her gaze took in the united wall of her two sisters and Penn’s half brother. Her shoulders slumped, her head dropped.

A moment passed, then she took a long breath and turned to Newton again, looking up at him through her tangle of dark lashes. Her voice was husky and halting. “You can’t leave me like this,” she told the man.

The atmosphere instantly changed. Where minutes before it had been charged with the rioting atoms of Wedding Dress Girl’s fit of pique, now it was a different emotion coloring the air.

Bemused, Penn crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on the Range Rover again to take in the little show. Alessandra’s small face tilted up and she turned those velvety brown eyes—was that a sheen of tears?—on the construction worker. “Please, Newton. You can’t leave me like this,” she repeated.

Newton appeared on the verge of crying himself. “Allie . . .” he whimpered. From the other side of the truck, Penn heard the two guys muttering to each other in Spanish.
Idiot!
he heard one say to the other.
He’s looking her in the eyes. Everyone knows not to look her in the eyes.

Who did they think she was, Medusa?

“Newton . . .” Wedding Dress Girl implored again, one perfect tear dangling at the end of one perfect bottom lash.

Surely the guy wouldn’t fall for this. Penn glanced around, ready to share a laugh at her so-obvious ploy, but was astonished to see everyone else frozen, their stricken gazes glued to the little drama queen. How come they were so taken in? Had four seasons of assisting histrionic pre-teens select bedroom decor given him a special bullshit detector? Nah, it wasn’t the tweenies who had honed his sense of the over-dramatic, it was the woman who’d walked away with a wheelbarrow full of his cash and, well, his wheelbarrow, among other things, that had done that.

So, fine, maybe he was a tad more cynical than most.

Newton whimpered again. “Okay, Allie. All right. All right, I’ll stay.”

Sunshine didn’t come brighter than her sudden smile. She rushed the contractor for an exuberant hug, and then gave one to each of his workers, too. Giuliana came next, then Stevie, and even Liam managed to take her embrace without his stiff spine breaking in half.