Intoxicating (8 page)

Her mind spun. She wanted him. Wanted him now. Wanted his hard body buried deep inside her until neither one of them knew where she ended or he began.

“I want you,” she dared, reaching her hand down to touch his erect shaft. “Need you.”

Wyatt pulled back. “No, no. You're moving too fast. Slow down.”

Kiara whimpered her protest. “Tease.”

“You love that about me.” He chuckled.

“Humility is not your strong suit.”

“You love that about me too.”

In the distance, she heard the door to the wine cellar open, but her mind was so preoccupied she didn't really heed the noise.

“Kiara?” Maurice called, his voice anxious.

She froze in Wyatt's arms, when she should be
springing away from him. If Maurice caught them like this…

“Kiara! Are you down here?”

Kiara moved away from Wyatt, turned her back on him, blindsided, dumbfounded. Lost.

Reserve: Term used to indicate
a wine of higher quality.

M
AURICE MET HER
in the middle of the cellar, a deep scowl on his face. “There you are.” He looked harried. “I've been calling and calling your cell phone.”

Kiara ran a hand through her hair, tried to sober up after the inebriation of the things she'd done with Wyatt.

“Your shoes are untied.”

“Oh.” Kiara bent to tie them, grateful for an excuse to hide her face from her cousin. That's when she realized she didn't have her glasses. “What's up?”

“We have a situation.”

“What kind of situation?”

“That cat I told you not to adopt—”

“What?” Alarm spread through her. She felt numb. Please don't let anything have happened to the stray. She knew she shouldn't have fallen for him, but she had. “What's up with Felix?”

“Felix's caused a big problem.”

Relief pushed out the alarm. “But he's okay?”

“The cat's fine, but we might not be.”

Kiara felt Wyatt come up behind her. Ashamed of the way she'd acted and what she'd done, of what they'd almost done, she didn't turn to look at him. She saw Maurice glance past her to Wyatt, a stern, big-brotherly expression on his face. Did they look guilty?

“Just tell me what happened,” Kiara said.

“Where are your glasses?” Maurice asked.

“Here,” Wyatt passed them to her.

She slipped them on her face. “Thanks.”

Maurice looked from one to the other and raised his eyebrows.

“What happened?” Kiara repeated.

“I was taking the tour group through the barrel room and the cat leaped out from behind one of the barrels.”

“How did Felix get in the barrel room?”

“I suppose he followed someone in and you know how spooky it is there to strangers.” Maurice loved to string things out, escalate the drama. He'd inherited the bulk of the Romanos' theatrical genes.

“Bottom-line it for me, cousin.”

“Your cat jumped out of the shadows and brushed against a woman in super-high stilettos. She shrieked, freaked, fell and injured her ankle. Unfortunately, she's the excitable type and she's crying hysterically and babbling about a lawsuit.”

Dammit. Kiara was already on the move, headed for the barrel room, Maurice and Wyatt at her heels.

“She's not in there,” Maurice said.

Kiara stopped, spun back around. “Where is she?”

“I had Trudy get Uncle Gino's wheelchair and take her to the tasting room. I figured she'd be more comfortable there.”

Kiara didn't know if that was a good move or a bad one. The woman might be more comfortable in the tasting room, but what if moving her made the injury worse? “Call Doc Foster. I'll go try to fix this.”

“Kiara,” Wyatt said.

She didn't want to talk to him. Not now. Not when her heart was still beating so chaotically. She had other fish to fry. Her family needed her.

But his hand was on her shoulder. Calming, reassuring.

“I could try to smooth things over. Talk her out of those lawsuit noises.” Wyatt flashed her an earnest grin. “C'mon. What have you got to lose but unwarranted litigation? I do have a background in PR.”

Public relations wasn't Kiara's strong suit. She didn't have the patience for superficial niceties. She could do it when she had to but it was a job she didn't mind handing off to someone else. “Okay, yes, fine. Give it your best shot.”

While Maurice got on his cell phone to call the local doctor, Kiara and Wyatt rushed from the winery to the main house.

Just outside the tasting-room doors, the robust smell of lasagna wrapped Kiara in a warm hug of tomato sauce and cheese. And she knew without having to be told that her grandmother was working the Romano brand of charm on their visitor. Good job. They didn't need the likes of Wyatt Jordan. Her passionate family—with their love for food and wine—had it covered.

Kiara cast a sideways glance at Wyatt as they entered the room. He wore a smile the way most men wore T-shirts—casual, soft, always at the ready. But she already knew that smile could turn devilish in an instant.

The man was a paradox, a puzzle that fascinated her analytical mind. Part of him was slacker—the worn-out jeans, the battered sneakers, the shaggy hair. But beneath the obvious exterior, she detected more. His nails were clipped short and buffed. Not manicured, but well cared for. Kiara's own nails should look so good. His body, while not overtly muscled, was toned and lean. And he led with an ingrained self-confidence that came from knowing he had the world by the tail. How many slackers could claim that?

He slipped off his glasses and tucked them into the front pocket of his shirt. Then he reached for the door with one hand, placed his palm at the small of her back with the other. She turned to meet his eyes, noticed his impossibly long eyelashes and felt her heart constrict.

No.

To think that she'd almost made love to him. Her stomach pitched.

He gave her a wink. Apparently he thought what had happened in the cellar meant something. It hadn't. She'd set him straight as soon as she had a chance.

Kiara moved away from his distracting hand, asserting her independence. She didn't need him directing her.

An amused expression crossed his face, as if he found her prickliness delightful.

Kiara frowned. It was all part of his shtick. The way he was around women, charming and disarming. The endearingly naughty armor he wore.

Well, not her. She wasn't falling for it. However, she couldn't help herself when it came to Bella Notte and hoped his handsome face would hold some sway with the visitor who'd hurt her ankle in the barrel room.

The litigious woman sat in the wheelchair with her bare foot propped up on a stool and cradled by pillows. The other foot was encased in a fire-engine-red stiletto. Kiara's family surrounded the woman. Grandmamma on her right, Grandfather on her left, Trudy behind the wheelchair.

She was in her mid-thirties, possessed a sharp nose and lips that thinned out when she scowled, and right now she was scowling hard, even as Grandmamma slid a thick slice of homemade lasagna in front of her.

“Oh, I don't eat food like this.” She sniffed. “I take my health very seriously.”

Which is why, Kiara thought, a little uncharitably, you wore spike heels to take a winery tour. She bit down on her tongue to keep from saying that.

Grandmamma looked distressed. No one turned down her lasagna. Ever.

“Of course you do,” Wyatt murmured. “Anyone can see that. Look at what great physical shape you're in.”

“Who are you?” the woman asked suspiciously.

So much for Mr. Silver Tongue.

Okay, that was gloaty. She shouldn't gloat. He was supposed to be on her side.

“My name is Wyatt…Jordan,” he said and reached to take the woman's hand.

She eyed him as if he was a personal injury lawyer who'd just agreed to take her case and a simpering smile stretched across her face. “Janet Hampton.
Miss
Janet Hampton.”

“Janet.” Wyatt closed his other hand over their joined palms, looking like a polished diplomat. “I want to express my sincere apologies for any distress this mishap might have caused you.”

Grandfather shot a look at Kiara that said
Who is this guy?

Kiara shrugged, sent him a silent message.
Let him do his thing.

“Well,” the woman said. “That filthy animal shouldn't be kept where wine is stored.”

“The cat is a stray who showed up here, but you are one-hundred-percent correct. I do hope you'll forgive Bella Notte's oversight.” Wyatt still had hold of her hand and he drew up a chair with his other hand to sit beside her wheelchair. Wyatt was giving the woman his full attention. He never looked right nor left. He didn't even blink. It was as if his entire world had narrowed to that woman.

He would make a brilliant politician.

“It's a dangerous situation,” the woman said. “Not to mention bad luck to have a black cat cross your path.”

“Black cats can be scary,” Wyatt placated.

“My ankle could be broken, not merely sprained.”

“It certainly could and you're probably very tired after a morning filled with wine-tasting. Am I right to assume that Bella Notte was not the first vineyard on your tour today?”

“It was my third stop,” she admitted.

“I know when I go wine-tasting, my head gets a little fuzzy. I have a tendency to drink more wine than I taste.” Wyatt chuckled. “But you look like a woman with a lot of willpower. I'm sure that you avoid getting tipsy at tastings.”

“Absolutely,” the woman said. The brightness in her eyes and the way the
ly
slid off her tongue told Kiara that yes indeed she
was
tipsy.

“That's really good, because being tipsy in those
killer Jimmy Choos might cause anyone to fall and hurt their ankle,” he pointed out.

Jimmy Choos? How did Wyatt know what brand of shoes the woman had on? Kiara wouldn't know Jimmy Choo from a choo-choo train.

“They might be a bit too tall for wine-tasting,” Janet conceded.

A bit? They were four-inch heels! Kiara stifled her outrage to keep from saying exactly that.

“We'll pay for your medical bills, of course, and we'd like to offer you a free return tour to the winery with a group of your friends. Maybe during harvest season so you can see the vineyards in full action.”

Seriously? He was making offers on behalf of Bella Notte? Kiara was affronted, but at the same time admitted she would have made the same offer, and she had given him her permission to handle it.

“Are you single?” Janet asked, and then giggled girlishly. “I suppose that question was inappropriate.”

“It wasn't inappropriate at all,” Wyatt assured her. “And yes, I am single.”

The woman swooned before Kiara's very eyes. “So am I.”

“Isn't that a lovely coincidence,” he said smoothly. “Perhaps we could get together sometime.”

Seriously? He was asking her out? Jealousy nipped at Kiara. Not ten minutes ago he'd been about to have sex with her and now he was asking out this woman who might sue Bella Notte?”

“How about today?” Janet asked.

“Let's wait and see about your ankle.”

Kiara gritted her teeth. She was just about to say something tacky when Janet said, “You know, it really
isn't Bella Notte's fault that a stray cat jumped out of the shadows. I mean it could have happened anywhere.”

“It could have,” Wyatt agreed.

Kiara fumed. Actually, she was glad this had happened. Now she saw what a huge mistake she'd been about to make with Wyatt. Relief. That's what she felt. Relief that she'd escaped.

“If you just take care of my doctor's bill I don't think there will be a need for any litigation.”

“From the moment I laid eyes on you I knew you weren't the kind of woman who would sue an honest, hardworking family like the Romanos over something they couldn't control.”

“Of course not.”

Kiara placed a hand over her mouth. Was the woman so oblivious to Wyatt's obvious machinations? He was catering to her worries to get her to drop her threat of a lawsuit. Couldn't she see through that?

Be glad she can't see through that.

“Janet, I'm going to stay right with you until the doctor comes to check you out, and then I'll escort you back to your lodgings. Are you staying here on Idyll?”

“I am at the Idyll Inn, room eleven.”

“That's good.”

There was a knock on the door and Maurice came in, followed by Dr. Foster. He was a thin man with a bushy beard and round wire-framed glasses. Kiara thought he looked a bit like Sigmund Freud. He was a holdover from the past, a doctor who still made house calls.

Everyone scattered to go about their business. Trudy went to take over with the rest of the tour group who'd been sent to mill around in the gift shop. Grand father went to take Trudy's place manning the gift shop.
Grandmamma carried her lasagna offering back to the kitchen and Maurice left to back the van up to the door to give Janet a return lift to the inn.

The doctor examined his patient and, throughout it all, Wyatt held Janet's hand.

Kiara watched, arms crossed over her chest. Wyatt was amazing, but, of course, he excelled at getting women to do what he wanted them to do. Just as he'd had her shimmying out of her dress down in the wine cellar.

Kiara's face burned with shame. She couldn't believe she'd done that. Had no idea what had come over her.

What she couldn't figure out was why a guy like him wanted to be at Bella Notte and why he was so eager to help. Everyone in Kiara's family was open, honest and trusting. Not she. Maybe it was the skeptic in her, her scientific mind that led her to doubt everything until it was proven conclusively.

Maybe she was simply born distrustful. But her ability to see things objectively instead of romantically like every other Romano was what had brought the winery back from the brink of bankruptcy. It was the reason her family had put her in charge over Maurice, who was older, after her father got cancer. Maurice had been really angry about it, but the winery was truly a family affair and everyone but his own wife had voted for Kiara to helm Bella Notte.

She took her job seriously, but she had to admit her weaknesses. She didn't possess the necessary social skills to head off a potential lawsuit the way Wyatt had just done. She was a straight shooter. She got to the point and spoke her piece. Blunt, she'd been called.

The doctor finished his examination and diagnosed a
minor sprain. Somehow, Wyatt sweet-talked Janet into signing a waiver saying she wouldn't sue Bella Notte for her injuries. Then he wheeled her from the tasting room into the waiting van.