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Jack looked at her in surprise. “You have that kind of money squirreled away someplace? I’m impressed, Bren.”
“Well, no.” She paced as she tried to think fast. “I can’t do it now, but I will eventually. Maybe a little at a time over the next few years…”
“I’m not shackling myself to this place indefinitely.”
That’s right. He was just as trapped as she was with this partnership. That knowledge gave her a little spurt of courage and she smiled. “Then we seem to be at a stalemate.” Oh, that had to bother him, and the narrowing of his eyes told her she was right. She could end the night on a high note. “I’m going to bed. I have to get up early to get the grapes in. Make yourself at home. Or, better yet, go home. We’re done here.”
He stepped in front of her, blocking her path of retreat. Once again she was too close to his body, and her libido reacted immediately. “No, we’re not.”
She needed distance to get her body back under control, needed quiet and space to figure out what she was going to do. “Move.”
“What? So you can stomp off again? Try to stall some more? Stave off the inevitable?”
She had to tilt her head back, but she met his hard stare. “Inevitable? Selling is inevitable? Hardly.”
“If you knew a thing about business, you’d know there’s no way this partnership can work as long as we’re at odds. You can sell now, or lose everything later.”
Cold prickles climbed her spine. “You wouldn’t. You’d never intentionally let a business—any business—fail. It’s not in your DNA.”
Jack stepped back, finally giving her the space she needed, and she inhaled in relief. The relief quickly faded, though, as he tossed down the gauntlet. “There’s a first time for everything, Brenna.”
The sobering knowledge of what he was threatening settled around her. Granted, he couldn’t sell without her approval, but he could certainly make it next to impossible for her to do business at all. That scenario had never occurred to her, but something in his eyes told her he could do it. Would do it. Easily. Her eyes burned at the thought, and she bit the inside of her mouth to distract herself with physical pain. She would not cry in front of him, not now. She couldn’t get her voice above a whisper, though, when she asked, “Do you hate me that much?”
His eyes raked over her before he answered. “It’s just business.”
Oh, no, this crossed a line, no matter what he tried to say.
“Go ahead and stomp off now, Bren, but think about what I’ve said. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Her knees were trembling, but Brenna tried hard to keep her head up as she left the kitchen. Once in the safety of her bedroom, she closed the door and leaned against it before her legs could give out completely.
She’d never seen Jack like that. Not even after their last fight, when she’d packed her bags while Jack had called a car to bring her back here. When pushed, Jack turned silent and broody, not coldly calculating. And since Jack never made empty threats…Damn it. She’d been fooling herself to think they could move beyond their past and forge any kind of business relationship. She’d had no idea his dislike of her was so strong that he’d rather destroy everything Max had created out here than work with her.
She looked skyward. “Why’d you do this to me, Max?”
No answer came, and she flopped on the bed, wrung out, yet still jumpy from the evening.
Jack’s sarcastic rebuttal of the one argument he really shouldn’t be able to question had thrown her off her game. Of all the things for Jack to bring up…Hell, she’d practically forgotten; why hadn’t he? Oh, the optimism and arrogance of an eighteen-year-old girl in love. She groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. Back then she’d figured Max and her mom would run Amante Verano forever. She, on the other hand, would take her knowledge out into the wide world, educating the masses on wine-making, visiting wineries in France and Italy and bringing new ideas back to their vineyard—in general, just getting the hell out of Sonoma and doing something more. Jack had embraced that idea, encouraged it.
But the wide world hadn’t had a place for her, and she’d come home. Then her mom had died…
Amante Verano was where she belonged, it seemed. And she’d accepted that, thrown herself into it, made it her life.
She couldn’t let Jack undermine that. Not now. No matter how much Jack hated it.
Or her.
For the second time that day Jack let Brenna stomp away, wondering when he’d lost his lauded ability to finesse a situation. What had possessed him to think he’d be able to handle this negotiation just like any other of the hundreds he’d done? Make the plan, work the plan—common sense and good business tactics had always worked for him before. Except when it came to Brenna. Bren just knew the right buttons to push to cause him to lose his temper—a hard pill to swallow, since he never let his temper loose any other time.
Hell, who was he kidding? Brenna was his button. Nothing between them had ever been steady or calm or predictable. It was all drama and tension and theatrics.
Oh, they’d started with a bang. But once the initial glow had faded their relationship had fallen apart with alarming speed. All the dreams and plans and excitement had crumbled under the strain of reality, and “love” just hadn’t been enough. Before long they’d just made each other miserable.
Except in bed. The familiar heat spread over his skin. Making love to Brenna was like holding a live fuse too close to the gunpowder: hot, dangerous, explosive.
And ultimately destructive.
But they’d been young then, too young and stupid to realize sex wasn’t enough to hold them together until it was too late. No matter how great it was.
If tonight was any indication, his body hadn’t forgotten that in the intervening years. Her plain, mostlikely organic cotton pajamas did a good job of camouflaging what was underneath, but his body had reacted anyway, reigniting that old urge to get her under him as quickly as humanly possible.
But reality hit home pretty quickly once Brenna started in on him. While his hands had still itched to touch her, he’d been reminded exactly why they were in this mess in the first place.
Regardless of their past or their present, he didn’t necessarily relish the idea of destroying her dreams for this place. But that didn’t mean he wanted to be a part of it, either. Max might have found someone willing to build his little wine-making dynasty, but Jack didn’t want to play along. And, Brenna, for all her talk of a partnership, couldn’t really want him around either.
Not after everything.
He needed something stronger than water to drink. A look around revealed several bottles of wine but little else, and nothing of interest. Wine on the counters, wine in the cupboards, wine in the largest non-commercial fridge he’d ever seen. Was there a damn beer anywhere on the property?
Max would have Scotch in his desk. He always did. His passion for wine-making couldn’t have squelched his love of a good single malt.
Jack had to pass Brenna’s bedroom to get to the office. Light escaped around the doorframe, but the room was silent as he paused in front of the door, debating whether he’d made a mistake in letting Brenna walk out in the middle of their discussion.
Discussion? Right. He seemed incapable of having a civilized discussion with Brenna about anything. Between her temper and the emotional attachment she had to this place, the chances of any civil discourse seemed remote.
The Amante Verano business office was large—larger than such a small operation probably needed, but that was just Max’s style—and Max’s desk dominated the room. A smaller desk he assumed was Brenna’s sat at an angle to Max’s. He recognized the set-up; he’d learned the family business in much the same fashion—except the view from the offices of Garrett Properties encompassed San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, not acres of vines.
The second drawer on the left-hand side produced the Scotch he had been looking for. He leaned back in Max’s chair as he poured two fingers and contemplated Brenna’s desk. His father had initially planned for that desk to be Jack’s, from where he would run the winery as well as the hotels. It hadn’t mattered that he didn’t want to.
Hell, after Max had gotten over the shock of Jack and Brenna’s elopement he’d been practically gleeful over the “merger.” The divorce had given Jack a valid reason to stay away all these years, but it seemed Max was trying to have the final say after all.
“Sorry, old man. You can’t make me run this place.”
No matter what Brenna wanted to believe, she wasn’t even the main reason he wanted out from under Amante Verano. Max’s first business ate up enough of his life as it was, especially since Max had all but turned the hotels over to him completely once this winery had become his focus. The complication of Brenna didn’t add any appeal, though.
His body disagreed, growing hard again at the thought of her. Good God, it had been ten years. Shouldn’t he be past that by now?
He sipped the Scotch in silence for a few minutes, willing his body to get over it. When he heard a noise to his right, he looked up to see a barefoot Brenna slip quietly into the room.
“I thought you had to get up early in the morning.”
Brenna jumped, a small cry escaping her as she turned around to locate the voice. Her hand fell away from her throat as she found him, and her shoulders dropped. “Damn it, Jack, you scared the life out of me. What are you doing in here?”
He shrugged. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“It’s my office.” Brenna’s chin lifted in challenge.
Unable to resist prodding her, he raised the glass in salute. “And now it’s half mine.”
Brenna shook her head. “Whatever.” She slid into her chair and turned her back to him as she booted up the computer. “I need to do some work, so if you’ll excuse me…?”
She wanted him to retreat so she wouldn’t have to? Hardly. “Go ahead. You won’t bother me at all.” Brenna’s hands tightened around the armrests of her chair, and even in the semi-darkness of the room he could see the white knuckles. If he listened carefully, he’d probably be able to hear her grinding her teeth next.
He heard her sigh, then her fingers moved quickly across the keyboard, the clicking sound filling the silence. “The new hotel in Monterrey is selling the Pinot faster than I can get it to them. Max’s idea to market our wines in your boutique hotels was a fabulous one.”
“That’s nice.”
“It is.” She pushed her hair over her shoulder, causing it to spill over the back of the chair, where the light bounced off it in a coppery glow. “It means you may be seeing those profit checks sooner than you thought.”
That was supposed to convince him he wanted to own half a winery? “I don’t need the money.”
Brenna shrugged. “Good. I’ll buy new tanks instead.”
So much for polite conversation. “You just bought new tanks.”
Brenna spun in her chair, sputtering. “Are you questioning—?”
He shouldn’t prod her, but he just couldn’t stop himself. “Yeah, I am. You just bought new tanks. Italian ones. Very expensive. I saw the invoice.”
Bren straightened her spine, and she seemed to be trying for a lofty, all-business tone. “I’m slowly trying to replace all the old ones that desperately need it, and the best tanks come from Italy. Since the best equipment lets me make the best wines, it’s money well spent.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, why are you poking around in my invoices? I thought you didn’t care about this place.”
“I don’t. But since I now own half of it…” he loved the way her eyes narrowed every time he reminded her of that fact “…I have to make sure it’s running properly. It’s in my DNA, remember?”
“You know nothing about this business, so I think the silent partner idea is best.”
“I don’t do silent. Until I sell my half…” He let the sentence trail off and let her fill in the blanks.
It only took her a second to make the leap, and her hackles went up again. “Are you seriously planning to buck me on every decision I make around here?”
“Of course. Weren’t you listening earlier?” Brenna’s eyes widened, and he was lucky looks couldn’t kill. “But you know it would be really easy to get me away from your books. Sign on the dotted line, Bren, and I’m out of your hair.”
Brenna rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer. She started to type, then stopped as she leaned her head against the chair-back. “First you threaten to drive my winery into the ground. Then you threaten to drive me insane. To think Max used to say how good you’d be for this place.”
“There’s a simple solution, you know.”
“It’s not simple at all.” She moved her chair slightly, turning her profile his way. Her eyes were closed, and her throat worked as she rubbed her hands over her face.
“It’s a lot easier than you’re making it, Bren. You don’t want me in your business, and you know it. Sign off on the sale and I’m gone.”
“I’ve already said no. Come up with a new idea.”
Lord, the woman was stubborn. “There are no other ideas.”
“You’re going to tell me that the great Jack Garrett doesn’t have a Plan B?”
He swirled the drink in his glass. “I don’t need a Plan B.”
Brenna turned to face him again, and her voice turned conciliatory for a change. “Max wanted Amante Verano kept as a small family business. He didn’t want outsiders involved.”
“And what, exactly, are you?”
Brenna pulled back as if she’d been hit, and he regretted the harshness of his words.
“That’s unfair, Jack. We were a family, and this is a family business.”
“Brenna—”
She held up a hand. “Wait. Just—Just—” She took another deep breath and faced him across the expanse of Max’s desk. “I don’t want to fight any more. Especially not with you.”
“Then don’t fight me. Neither of us wants to be in this situation.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it and chewed on her bottom lip for a moment while she thought. “You’re right, you know. I don’t want you around anymore than you want to be here. But…” She took a deep breath. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she turned to meet his eyes. “I need you.”
The desire that slammed into him with those three simple words nearly caused him to drop his glass. Oh, part of him knew she was still talking about the damn winery, but his body was reacting to that throaty whisper—she’d whispered those words in his ear countless times as she’d wrapped herself around him.
Need. She’d always referred to him as a need. He’d nearly forgotten, but the response of his body proved those six months they’d had weren’t as deeply buried as he’d thought. He shifted in his chair, attempting to bring the reaction under control.
Brenna seemed not to notice. “Max was the brains behind the business. I’m sure you know that. And I could learn, but Amante Verano would suffer in the meantime. I know that’s why Max put us in this partnership—he always said the Walsh women made great wine, but they needed Garrett men to make it profitable.” She folded her hands in her lap, squeezing her fingers together as she talked. “It took me a while to figure out what he meant—beyond the MBA-approved business model, at least. The Garrett name opens a lot of doors.”
“You should know that from experience. You were a Garrett for a short while.”
She paled a bit at the reminder. “Don’t go there, Jack. What I mean is that as long as there’s a Garrett behind Amante Verano I can do business. Get loans to expand, for example. A small winery is a bank’s nightmare—unless there’s a Garrett on the books, of course, and then we’re golden. I just need you to back me—in name, if not spirit—for a few years. That’s all I’m asking.”
“You ask a lot.”
“Why? How? You don’t have to do anything.”
He just looked at her.
She nodded. “Except deal with me. And you hate that more than anything else.”
He’d never heard Brenna sound so flat, so lifeless. He’d almost prefer her anger to that toneless resignation. “I don’t hate you, Bren. But I’m not going to be your partner either.”
She cocked her head. “Once bitten?” she challenged.
“I’m not afraid of your bite.” In fact, the thought of her teeth on his skin brought back a slew of sensual memories. Unwilling to circle this topic again or battle with his body any longer, he stood. “Decide what you’re going to do. I’ll leave the sale paperwork in the kitchen.”
Brenna’s jaw dropped at his words, then she spun her chair back to her computer. He heard her mumble something under her breath as he turned to leave.
He doubted it was a compliment.
Chapter Three
“I SWEAR, Di, it’s frustrating. I just want to scream. Or something,” she muttered. Brenna positioned her clippers and separated the grape cluster from the vine with a satisfying, overly forceful snip.
“Picturing Jack’s neck, are we?” Dianne teased from the other side of the row of vines. Chloe napped peacefully in a carrier strapped to Dianne’s chest, her hat with its embroidered Amante Verano logo shielding her fat baby cheeks from the early-morning sun.
“It’s cathartic.” She snipped two more clusters and added them to the bucket at her feet. “And safer for Jack.”
