Читать книгу A Taste Of Desire - Chloe Blake - Страница 16

Chapter 4

Brazil’s blinding afternoon sun rose high above a vast, unkempt field and beat down on Destin’s back as he squatted inside the remnants of a burned and crumbling building. Though he kept his dark head bent, his thin T-shirt did little to shield him from the sun’s hot rays, and he shifted himself into the triangle of shade provided by the partial wall blackened by fire patterns. He swiped at the sweat beaded on his neck and shooed away Magnus, his German shepherd, as he cleared rocks and sticks from the piles of ash, brick and stone that peppered the dirt floor.

He’d found things in the rubble before: a hairbrush, broken crystal decanters, a melted tobacco pipe. But he never found what he was truly looking for—answers. What had happened to his life? Each artifact he found felt like a piece of a puzzle that still eluded him. His wife and everything they’d worked for had disappeared in one night.

He tossed a rock at the charred wall, wishing he could as easily toss the guilt. It had been his idea to start a branch of Dechamps in Brazil, and he and Nina had taken such pride in their new home. They’d had high hopes to build something here, the way his father had done in France. But she was gone now, and it was all his fault.

Yet the thought of letting it go made his stomach turn.

Nicole Parks. Her dark eyes had been haunting him since he left the restaurant the night before. Even after he’d dropped Thereza off at her apartment, refusing to have a nightcap—despite her offer and the suggestive way she’d kissed him goodbye.

His mind replayed his interaction with the feisty attorney over and over. She had a sharp wit and self-assurance. Her poise and direct way of speaking were unnerving, he decided, as if weighing the pros and cons. He’d bet she was stubborn, too. An inner voice told him that those qualities probably made her a good lawyer. A second inner voice reminded him that Nina had been just as bold.

When Nicole had mentioned potential buyers the night before, Destin found he couldn’t listen to the possibility that his failed aspirations might become a success story for someone else. Jumping out of his seat was a reflex, one he had instantly regretted. Once he’d stood, he found that, as much as he wanted to leave the conversation, he hadn’t wanted to leave Nicole’s presence.

The attorney held a certain fascination for him that he couldn’t deny. She was clearly intelligent, and at times had been rather charming. A classic beauty, she’d worn little makeup at dinner, which was a refreshing change from the heavily made-up women at the restaurant. She was tall, about five foot seven, he guessed, and curvy. He had a sneaking suspicion that she might fit against his tall frame quite nicely.

And she was a supertaster. What were the odds of that? He imagined taking her to his workspace in the cellar, letting her taste the wines that had been aging in their barrels since before the fire. Feeding her the foods and desserts he’d paired them with.

Bouncing another rock against the wall, he rebuked himself for those thoughts. Nicole Parks was working for his father. No matter how intriguing she was, he had to make sure that she didn’t succeed.

His soot-covered fingertips swiped at a rock, uncovering a glint of silver. He dug out the small rectangular shape, rubbed it, popped off the top then closed it shut. A lighter. He weighed it in his hand and flipped it around, using his thumbs to clear the dirt. An engraved D became visible. Clutching the lighter hard in his palm, he pulled his fist to his lips and closed his eyes as if in prayer.

He slipped it into his pocket, slapped his hands on his cargo pants, grabbed his shotgun and left the forsaken structure. His four-legged companion loped ahead of him as his boots trod hard through the brush of the surrounding forest, his shotgun in one hand and a small bouquet of wildflowers in the other. The dog waited for him at their destination, a small gravesite with two markers.

He placed the flowers on the graves, and they mingled with the dead petals of the previous bouquet.

Thunder cracked overhead. Clouds had darkened and gathered, suggesting a storm, the quick and fierce kind that Rio Grande was famous for.

They turned back, moving quickly, he and the dog noticing the mass evacuation of the forest inhabitants. Raising his gun, he shot and missed a large brown rabbit when it bounced high in the air. Even the dog couldn’t catch it. Clearing the trees, the pair moved swiftly toward the wine cellar, a high stone structure with a wide wooden door. Just before they entered, the dog barked and turned toward the vastness of the untended plantation. Destin cocked his gun, listening. He heard a car approach in the distance.

* * *

Spectacular. The word resonated over and over in Nicole Parks’s mind as she looked out over the countryside of Rio Grande and navigated the winding mountain road in her rental SUV. Elliot had offered to hire her a driver, but she enjoyed the freedom that renting a car gave her. According to her GPS, she was just twenty minutes outside of Porto Alegre and about ten minutes from the Dechamps winery.

Miles and miles of exuberant nature grew out from the knolls and stretched far into the distance. She eased up on the gas pedal so she could take longer glimpses at waterfalls, rushing streams and small canyons—areas completely undisturbed by human intervention.

In contrast, each cliff-side wind of the road allowed a peek into the valley at the multicolored box homes of the favelas. They sat one on top of the other, climbing up the bottom of the mountain like steps and sprawling around the city like a horseshoe. From what she’d read, the favelas were riddled with crime. From her vantage point, they seemed calm and beautiful.

On the map, the digital dot of her car looked like it was marching up and over a cliff. She had to be close. Yet there were no road markers, and the farther she got up the mountain, the denser the overgrowth of vegetation became, so much so that the sun had to fight to get through. She wondered if anyone would find her if she mysteriously disappeared; she hadn’t passed a car or seen a soul for miles.

Minutes later her GPS spoke in a soothing, robotic tone over the radio and air conditioner, telling her to turn right in a quarter mile. She crept farther and farther forward, trying to spot a gate or a gap in the greenery. There was nothing—but then she saw it, a spike with a tarnished brass top wound by dirt and vines. A driveway marker, perhaps? She nosed her SUV through the brush, and sure enough, it gave way. A jagged road became visible, and she followed it until the overgrowth became like a wall. She rolled to a stop, excited to explore before Elliot arrived.

She checked her appearance in the rearview: makeup still intact, ponytail smooth, white button-down shirt tucked into a burgundy pencil skirt. She let out a nervous yelp when her phone rang on the seat next to her. Surprised that she still had reception in the middle of nowhere, she placed a hand over her racing heart and lifted the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

“You made it?” She pictured Senior Global Real Estate Advisor Gustavo Escarra swiveling around in his giant leather desk chair overlooking Central Park.

“Hey, boss. Yeah, I’m at the winery now. Elliot Dechamps is meeting me here in a few minutes.”

Nicole filled Gus in on her dinner the night before. “They seem eager to get rid of the place.” Silence. “Hello? Gus?” She sighed, wondering if the call had dropped.

“Nicole?”

“I’m here. You cut out for a second.”

“I said, how does the place look?” Gus asked.

“I haven’t gone in yet, but it’s already an overgrown mess. We may have to persuade the client to spend some money landscaping. I’m talking bulldozers, the works.”

“Well, this might be worth it. We’re going to have to get appraisals on everything from the irrigation pipes to the number of dead vines. And quickly. We have a lot of interested buyers who want to see this place immediately.”

“I’m on it.”

“And I don’t have to tell you that your promotion will be waiting here when you close this deal.”

“Consider it done,” Nicole said nonchalantly. But she began to feel that rush of a potential sale, and her new life with a big office and a kid in her lap dangled in front of her. “Oh, and say hi to Don for me. What’s he working on, by the way?”

Gustavo chuckled, always finding the rivalry between Nicole and Don amusing. Don was a smooth-talking Chi-town native who liked to pitch himself against Nicole’s New York street swag. “Don is taking care of a celebrity home sale. I’ll tell him you said hello.”

Nicole’s eyes lit up. Celebrities were the worst clients! “Just so you know, I am going to rub this in his face.”

“Have at it,” Gustavo said. She could hear him smile, and her skin pricked with more than just excitement. She’d learned much from Gustavo and she admired him, probably a little more than she should.

Okay, she had a crush on her boss.

He was about ten years older and stood over six feet tall with a nice body. And he looked great in a suit. Well groomed, handsome, and of course, wealthy—with a few homes around the globe.

He was perfect. Everything she wanted in a man.

And married to some former Miss Universe pageant winner who was also the mother of his three beautiful children.

Whatever. My Gustavo is out there. Somewhere. Right?

The question brought up images of Destin. She couldn’t tell if he was a player or a perfect gentleman. Was he a chauvinist or a boyish joker? One thing was certain: he was damaged goods. And as much as he tried to mask it, those moments when his eyes had darkened during their discussion about the land spoke volumes.

Again she told herself that her interest in him was derived from pity. She’d lost family too. Except she’d gone back to her hotel room after dinner and found herself thinking of Destin’s intense blue gaze and his mischievous smile. She liked his size and saw herself in the crook of his arm. What would his beard feel like against her cheek when he kissed her?

Get a grip! No. She refused to be attracted to him. Broken men couldn’t be fixed. She’d tried and failed too many times. She was thankful he wasn’t interested in the sale of the land. She doubted she’d see him again.

But still, she wondered if he’d made love to Thereza that night, and felt the smallest twinge of jealousy at the thought.

Grabbing her keys and the old black-and-white picture of the Dechamps winery, Nicole jumped out of the SUV to search for an entrance. The formidable vegetation gave no hint of a door. For all she knew, she was at the wall of Jurassic Park. Her small heels sank into the dirt and she worked to pull them out, her skirt hindering her movements, only to have them sink back in.

Exasperated, she opened the back of the car and rummaged through her tote bag for her flip-flops, but found only her blazer and wallet. She’d really misjudged this little adventure. Shoving her keys and phone in her bag, she slung it over her shoulder, stepped carefully around the other side of the car and squeezed herself through an opening between two large palm trees.

Nicole definitely wasn’t in New York anymore. Dead leaves rustled, something chirped overhead and the trees seemed to bend toward her. She freaked, moving forward as fast as she could, following a natural path, dodging twigs coming at her head and swatting at leaves that scraped her arms. She stumbled forward into a clearing, caught herself and then squinted up at her surroundings. She recognized the skeletal remnants of the winery instantly.

She held up the black-and-white picture, locating the main house, and studied the photo before dropping her arm. The fire had taken half of the front building. Rooms were roofless and exposed. She noticed the other vine-covered buildings that were spread out farther back—burned, crumbling and neglected. Behind them in the far distance were rows upon rows of gnarled and broken grapevines. The massive trees in the picture, now decayed chunks in the ground, must have been how the flames traveled from one building to the next.

During her summer in France, she’d enjoyed waking early to help with the harvest, walking between the vines, breaking for a four-course lunch feast with her host family. Love and laughter were served with the pinot noir. This place hadn’t seen that in a long time. It was desolate, scarily so.

She snapped some pictures on her phone, noticing in one the dark sky in the corner. Tipping her head back, she saw clouds race by—some dark and thick, others white as cotton balls—but the sun seemed to scare them away. The surrounding trees swayed hard, then stopped. The air smelled like fall leaves. It was a bluebird day, hot as hell, though. She swore the humidity was getting thicker.

She took in the seclusion of the plantation—a great selling point. Again, the trees rustled and a loud thud startled her, as if something heavy had fallen, and it occurred to her that she was in a foreign country, in the wilderness, alone. She listened carefully for people or, God forbid, animals. Being a city kid, she was tough, but wild things were not her forte.

She turned to go back to the car, suddenly aware of a large shadow rising overhead. Thunder cracked, and the darkened sky flashed with lightning. A droplet, followed by a few more, fell on Nicole’s head and shoulders. She lunged forward to find her path back to the car, catching her heel in the already-soft ground. The sky became darker still, and the clouds unleashed. Her ears filled with the rush of the water within the surrounding trees, and rain pelted her eyes. She again tried to move forward, but her exit path had disappeared in the downpour.

A dog barked from not too far away. Through the rain, she could see its black-and-caramel form standing alert inside the open doorway of a small shack. A shack with a roof!

She wanted to run there, but what if the dog wasn’t friendly? Or had rabies? The dog barked again and took off into the rain. She rushed forward toward the open door, her heels sliding all over the place, but she pushed on. Breathless and soaked, she felt the cool air on her skin as she made it inside the shadowed doorway. She swiped at her eyes, blinking rapidly, and ran straight into a body.

The scream she let out could only be described as bloodcurdling. She shoved her back against the wall and focused on a dark silhouette across from her. The figure moved into a shaft of light.

Her breath caught when she recognized Destin’s concerned blue eyes.

“Destin! Oh, my God, you scared me.”

“Nicole! What the...are you all right? That fallen branch didn’t get a piece of you, did it?” His voice sounded melodic over the pounding of the rain, and it took her a second to register that he had asked her a question.

“I—I don’t think so.” She didn’t even know one had fallen near her.

“May I?” Without hesitating, he stepped closer, his head bent toward hers, and ran light fingers from her neck over her shoulder, carefully scanning for nicks and scrapes. She shivered, but it wasn’t from cold.

She watched his every movement, silently noting his perfectly straight nose and full lips. Michelangelo himself could have carved his cheekbones. His gaze stopped at the V of her soaked white shirt. He looked up and quickly stepped back.

“I don’t think you’re injured!” he shouted as the rain increased.

She slumped against the wall and tried to steady her breathing. Her lungs felt heavy with moist air. “What are you doing here? I thought you were heading to France.”

The thunder crack was deafening, and lightning streaked the sky. Destin shook his head. “Not in this weather. I came to make sure the drains were open—if not, the cellar could flood. What are you doing here?”

“I’m meeting Elliot.”

Destin shook his head rapidly. “I spoke to my brother this morning. He was going to call you to cancel.”

Nicole lifted her phone. Sure enough, a voicemail symbol popped up.

“I’ll leave. Just let me catch my breath. My heart is racing. It’s so humid,” she said, pulling at her shirt, wincing when she saw one of her buttons pop off and hit the ground. Quickly she pinched her shirt over her cleavage. When she looked up, Destin’s gaze darted away. He cleared his throat.

“You can’t drive in this, Nicole. You don’t know these roads.”

Just then, a streak of wet fur came bursting into the doorway, and the dog shook water all over them both. Nicole jumped and let a loud shriek. On shaky legs, she stepped away and heard an audible snap. Just as her heel gave way and her body lurched toward the floor, she was suddenly airborne and hoisted into strong arms.

“Whoa,” Destin said, his lips inches from hers. “I got you.”