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“Now your shoes will be even heights. We’ll get you another pair,” he said with a smirk as her jaw fell open. Suddenly everything was just too much. She should put this guy in his place. She should put Elliot in his place! She should bill this little visit by the hour. She should—
Destin stood abruptly, his hand on his hips and his pelvis right in her line of sight. She blinked. What was she thinking?
“I don’t have any ice,” he murmured as he looked around the room. “You’ll just have to keep it elevated.” Sliding another bench close to her, he propped up her leg. She focused on keeping her skirt down as it bunched up to midthigh, the rip in the fabric straining wide. “How does that feel?”
“It’s fine. Really...” As in really attractive, maybe even more so in his casual clothes than he’d been in a jacket last night. His face was all angular planes and strong jaw. That perfect brow remained in a frown, unsatisfied. He stepped around her and disappeared through a door she hadn’t noticed.
She took a moment to scan her surroundings. Empty light sockets dominated the walls, but a few strategically placed bulbs illuminated the room with a soft warmth. Stone walls and high ceilings were accented by long archways and dusty cherrywood beams.
The wine cellar was in her files, but there was no mention of it being in working order. She assumed it had been above ground and destroyed. Across the room, white sheets were draped over other furniture. The ghostly round outlines suggested bar tables that probably once sat in a lounge area. Glass display cabinets were empty. Oil lamps sat unused on the shelves, and wires poked from the ceiling, suggesting a chandelier had hung over the table at one time.
Sitting and dining rooms in a wine cellar weren’t uncommon, especially in new wineries. They could have had tastings there, or offered tours and events. The winery in Bordeaux hosted weddings in their cask room.
She leaned against the lip of the dining table and ran a hand over the smooth wood. Could the furnished cellar be a selling point? Maybe, depending on who the client was. It could be a storage room, a novelty playroom of some sort, even a fun office space. She could come up with a ton of ideas.
She made a mental note to ask Destin if he was planning on keeping the furniture.
Scrapes and shuffles behind her echoed from the open doorway to her left. Bracing herself on her arms, she leaned over and peered over the threshold. The large chamber accommodated stacked oak barrels and a wall lined with black corked bottles. Nicole felt a shiver of excitement. The cask room—where the wines matured in oak barrels before bottling.
She twisted farther, trying to see the expanse, only to be met with a wall of chilled air. Goosebumps tightened her skin, and she started to pull back but stopped when she noticed one barrel was standing upright and away from the rest. A spigot was tapped into the top, a small empty wine glass off to the side. PH strips were strewn on the spigot lid.
During her time in France, Nicole had participated in many batch tests where acidity levels were checked before fermentation and again at bottling time. Titration kits were preferred, but PH strips were good for a quick read. Could there be wine in there still? Since the fire had happened four years ago, she supposed there could be several batches about to reach maturity.
Nicole’s brain began running through the property file she’d read over several times. Nowhere did the asset sheet mention viable wines. She was sure of it. Everything on the property should have been calculated into the property value. She made a mental note to check again.
She heard Destin’s boots before she saw him. Unaware he was being watched, he walked to a corner of the room and then tapped a few buttons on a wall panel. A fine mist—so fine you could barely see it—lifted from three or four tiny sprinklers placed strategically around the casks.
No way. She’d heard of the innovative cooling system designed to control humidity, but had never seen it in action.
Oh, yeah. There was wine in there. Lots and lots of wine.
With his back still to her, Destin bent over and placed his hand in the mist, waving his fingers to catch the temperature. Her thoughts jumbled a bit. She was unable to do anything but stare. Her gaze ran over his back.
She whipped herself to a proper sitting position. What was happening—had it been that long since she’d been with a man? Her last boyfriend had been eight months ago. And now she was laid up underground in another country with a French wine lover.
Why was she thinking about this? Was this the beginning of Stockholm syndrome?
Destin shut the door behind her. He presented several wool blankets, and with those gentle hands, he tucked a folded mound under her ankle. Then he unfolded another and, shaking it out high into the air, let it float down over her body.
“There, you’re still a bit damp. These will keep you warm,” Destin said, tucking the fabric around her legs, making a cocoon from her upper body down and around her feet. Subtle scents of laundered wool filled her nose, again giving her the feeling that those blankets hadn’t remained there untouched for four years. The cellar was a valid asset.
But all thoughts were erased when he stroked her thigh with his palm.
She found herself slightly lifted onto one side as he wrapped her in the blanket like a burrito. He made painstaking efforts to tuck her in, leaning over her body, bunching the blanket under her legs and behind her back. His soft hair brushed her nose, and the clean scent had her insides dancing.
She was achingly aware of the man in front of her. She didn’t move on account of his handiwork, but the most intimate part of her was screaming to get out.
It was unlike her, this physical reaction to someone she barely knew, and yet here she was, lusting after his body like a teenager who’d just hit puberty. Honestly, she’d seen plenty of hot men. Had slept with...well, who was counting, but she was in her late thirties and dated maybe one or two guys a year, which equated to...oh, God. Well, she’d seen a man before, anyway, and this one was average.
He lowered himself onto another bench across from her, glancing at the dog before bring his blue eyes up to hers.
Okay. He wasn’t average.
“Thank you. Again. I, uh... I’m a little embarrassed,” Nicole said, searching for conversation, hoping to distract herself from his allure.
“Don’t be. I’m just glad you’re all right. You could have gotten stuck on the roads. Are you warm enough?”
“Yes. These are bulletproof,” she joked, pulling her arms out and tucking the blanket under her armpits. “I’m already getting hot.”
“Good. The temperature stays pretty cool down here, so being wet isn’t a good idea. Trust me. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten stuck in here.” Destin looked around, as if trying to think of things to say.
After a long moment, Nicole spoke on autopilot. “So, this is the wine cellar.”
His nod was slow, and he had a sad look in his eyes. “This was the wine cellar.”
Her heart twisted. “You have a lot of furniture down here. Did you do tours?”
“We had plans for tours and tastings, as well as a sustainable dining experience in the future. Everything was to be farm to table, from the wine to the produce—we had just started a garden. My neighbor, Bruno, has a free-range animal farm. He would have provided the meat.”
“Free range?”
“Meaning they have shelter but no cages. He has acres, and the animals roam freely within his land borders.” He chuckled. “They’ve been known to get spooked and break out on days like this. After a particularly bad storm, we found a herd of his cows grazing on our lawn.”
Nicole thought of New York during a storm. The subways slowed, cabs were impossible to find and umbrellas were instruments of death to pedestrians who couldn’t bob and weave. Maybe being in a wine cellar with a handsome man wasn’t so bad, especially when he laughed like that.
“How often do these storms happen?”
“Four to six times a year, I’d say—mostly when the seasons change. Nina, my wife, was good at planning for disasters. Hence the blankets.” His gaze stayed on the table for a minute. Then he jumped up and grabbed a leather backpack from the floor. He took out a wrapped sandwich. “How about some food? It’s a Bauru—roast beef, tomato, mozzarella and pickles on French bread. A classic Brazilian sandwich. We can share.”
She hadn’t realized she was hungry until he mentioned food. “Sounds delicious. Do you always carry lunch in your bag?”
“Only if I know I’ll be busy. I’ll warm it for us. There’s a lightly stocked kitchenette with a hot plate through that archway.”
“Nice. It’s like a combination wine cellar and bomb shelter. Our buyers will definitely be into this.”
Destin lowered his gaze and swallowed whatever he was going to say. He just smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I’m sorry if I interrupted something important,” she said quickly.
He glanced at the cask room, then to her. “No, just cleaning it out.” There was a strain in his voice that said otherwise.
He wasn’t ready for this sale, her instincts told her. It wasn’t the first time she had come up against reluctant sellers. But something was different. She couldn’t put her finger on it; maybe it was because of the tension between him and Elliot at dinner the night before, but something was off.
He placed the sandwich on the table and fished in his bag again. He gripped a bottle of water and a Red Bull in one hand. “And I have these.”
“You really are a lifesaver.” She reached for the water and he slid it across the table. She twisted off the cap and drank deeply.
“You need to save some of that.”
She stopped and pulled the bottle from her lips. “Why?”
“We may be here a while.”
“How long is a while?”
He strode to the stairway door and pulled it open. Magnus, thinking his master was leaving, sauntered to his side. The rain was a roar, and the humidity was palpable. Destin closed the door and turned toward Nicole.
“I can hear it,” she said. “It’s bad. I hope I have damage insurance on that car.”
“I hope you do, too.” He grimaced. “We may be here overnight.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you joking?” She looked around. “Where would we sleep? And I have clients tomorrow afternoon.”
His eyes changed. “That quickly?”
“Yes. That’s why I needed a tour today.” He looked shocked, or rather, devastated. “You don’t look happy.”
He blinked, then turned his back to her. His voice came out in a half whisper. “I am. Of course I am.”
She wasn’t convinced. “Destin, you can voice your concerns. The transition is always difficult for the seller.”
Destin turned and fixed a cold blue gaze on her. “I look forward to the sale, Miss Parks. The faster the better.”
Chapter 6 (#uc45316d4-c185-533d-a9f8-11b16cad4029)
Destin strode to the kitchenette and fired up the hot plate, his mind racing. She wasn’t supposed to get this far. The previous agents had never seen the inside of the cellar—he’d seen to that.
Destin replayed the words his father had said to him at the beginning of the year. Armand Dechamps had stood at the head of the board of directors table, his hair graying, leaning on a gold-tipped cane, but still formidable. His business advisors surrounded him.
“Between your start-up costs, the insurance company refusing to process our claim and the property taxes on idle land, Brazil is financially draining us. We have to sell now, unless you have another idea to make revenue.” Armand had narrowed his gaze. “Are you sure there is no more wine in that cellar, Destin?”
Stunned and speechless at the turn of the discussion, he’d looked at the man who’d taught him how to tell time by the sun’s placement in the sky and simply said no. He’d lied; there was wine, and remembering how his father tried to take it from him, he didn’t feel bad about lying.
Destin knew his father’s techniques like the back of his hand, and he’d applied everything he knew to make the awarding-winning Cab Franc for Dechamps France. But he’d experimented in Brazil, making his own signature Cab Franc—lighter bodied, ruby red, tart berry flavors with ethereal hints of earth, rose and violet.
Dechamps Brazil ended up in Wine Spectator magazine, was featured in blogs across the world and began to win awards of its own. Local businesses were supplied with Dechamps wines at a discount and every week they were sold out at the Saturday market.
Wine was for the people, and they implemented a direct-to-consumer subscription plan. After three years up and running, Dechamps Brazil surpassed expectations.
And that’s when their father tried to shut them down.
His father’s jealousy was a blow Destin hadn’t seen coming. Suddenly he’d found himself in a legal battle with his father over the rights to his own wines. The French team had taken over production of Destin’s signature Cab Franc, and distribution was to be solely commercial—no more direct to consumer.
Destin and Elliot had fought to split from Dechamps France, but under their contract, anything produced under the Dechamps umbrella belonged to their father. Even if they split, they couldn’t take the wine with them. Even Elliot, the one who was so much like their deceased mother, hadn’t been able to reason with Armand.
Destin had been prepared to go to court. He’d never gotten the chance. The fire took everything he’d loved, except the cellar.
For months after Nina’s funeral, he’d eaten little, said little and seen no one. The château where he lived now had originally been a place for their father to stay when visiting. Destin had spent six months on that couch, grieving. Food would magically appear in the kitchen—Elliot’s doing, although they never spoke about it.
One morning he’d walked the three miles to the winery and seen the damage—scorched earth, melted metal and crumbling stone. The air had still smelled charred and ash had still been blowing in the wind. But he’d noted that the outer, more dense foliage had begun to regrow. Shining green leaves were poking out of the wreckage and quivering on shaky new stems. The terroir had lost water and nutrients, but the land still lived.
With renewed hope, he’d run through the thousand vines. Once vibrant, all were broken, wilted and black. As far as he could see, no grape had survived. He’d worked his fingernails into the branches, looking for life on one after another. And found nothing.
Tears had blinded him when his gaze dropped to a dead vine in the very last row. Gnarled and bent, at first glance it seemed to have nothing left, and the vine had somehow twisted itself half out of its planting hole. Destin had run his fingertips down the rough stem, then stopped when they met a yellow, half-gone leaf. Under the leaf had been one small, rotting grape. Again, with his fingertips, he’d picked at the gray bark on the curved underside of the vine and peeled it back. It was green. A healthy, bright green.
He’d checked every vine, marking those with potential to live and immediately replanting them in the untouched soil behind the cellar. There was no man-made irrigation there, and the place had had to be cleared in order to let in the sun. And sixty of the eighty-six vines he’d replanted had survived.
Now, everything was done by hand, from the de-stemming to the bottling. He didn’t even have a label. Only two batches were about to reach maturity. With the help of a few of their old farm hands, they were on track to produce about two thousand bottles this year.
And it was on the strength of those batches that he’d planned to rebuild. But he had to do it alone, since Elliot had moved on to other business ventures, and was afraid of their father’s wrath. His bother had promised to keep Destin’s plans a secret.
It had taken almost a year, but Destin had amassed a small team of investors—friends from school and business contacts who were ready to help—and with a relatively small upfront investment of his own, he could replace the production equipment. He just needed to secure the land from his father.
It was his one shot to keep what was rightfully his. And he wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way.
He had been checking the vines when the sky opened up, and then Nicole had come crashing through the doorway.
The sight of her, drenched and out of breath, had burned itself into his brain. She had been light as a feather in his arms, her skin hot and slippery from the rain. He’d breathed in the subtle scent of coconut from her hair. Her shirt had gaped from a popped button, and he’d glimpsed her full cleavage, which was barely restrained by a brown satin bra. He wondered if she wore panties to match, then pictured her nude, before deciding that line of thinking wasn’t helping.
She was too capable, too unpredictable...too beautiful.
Deep in his thoughts, Destin placed the sandwich on the hot plate and accidentally burned his knuckle. He hissed and popped the singed flesh into his mouth.
“Do you need help back there?” Nicole called out.
Destin realized he had been hiding for several minutes. “No, I just...” Was thinking of making love to you and almost burned off my fingers. Destin spied a lone mason jar of stew he’d left there a few weeks ago. “I found some stew for us.” He grabbed a small pot, emptied the mason jar into it and placed it on the hot plate alongside the Bauru.
Quietly, he peered around the corner into the main room. Nicole was checking her ankle, the blanket shoved aside and her lower leg visible. She swatted at Magnus, who was inspecting her every movement with his wet nose. The dog planted his butt on the floor, and she praised him with cute noises as she lightly stroked his head.
She had no gloss on her full lips, and her eye makeup had washed off, leaving small black smudges under her eyes. Her hair was still damp and was transforming into tousled waves. And those legs...even the night before, they’d had him mesmerized. Recalling the softness of her calf and the rip in her skirt, he cursed under his breath. Those legs were going to be the end of him.
Dammit—he had no time for sexual attraction, especially under the circumstances, but there was something about this woman. She was smart, ambitious and knowledgeable about wine, which almost made her a threat.
He just wanted her gone. For the sake of his wine and—he rubbed at his knuckle—his sanity.
* * *
Being trapped in a small space with a handsome man would have been great if that small space had been a hot tub, but the stone walls and the damp, cold air of the wine cellar, although possibly romantic at one time, felt more like a dungeon. Nicole was wrapped in blankets, her bare leg awkwardly stretched out onto the bench. Her tote bag was wet and crumpled in the middle of the table. She’d lost a button on her shirt, and she refused to think about what her hair was doing.
She blew out an annoyed breath. Why was she thinking about her appearance? Destin was her client, not a prospective boyfriend. And he had a girlfriend. She recalled watching Destin and Thereza leave the restaurant, sure they were going to continue the rest of their night naked. But, still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were not together. He’d said as much at the bar, and for a split second, she had believed him. What do you care? she chided herself. Guys like him don’t have girlfriends. They had side pieces, probably all models.
Nicole was huddled under her wool blanket when Destin came out of the alcove, three steaming bowls balanced in his arms. Delicious smells accompanied him. Her stomach howled when he placed a bowl and spoon in front of her. Magnus shot from the floor and dug in the second Destin placed the second bowl by his paws. Then Destin set his bowl down, went back to the kitchen and brought out two more plates, each holding half of a sandwich.
He placed one by her bowl, then slid into a chair across from her and gestured at the food with his spoon. “Bon appétit.”
She shifted on the bench and dipped her spoon into the stew. She let out a small sound of pleasure and allowed the tastes to linger in her mouth before scooping up another bite. Her lips pursed to blow a cooling breath across the hot stew, and shifting her gaze, she caught him staring.
“This is good,” she said after several spoonfuls.
