Be Mine Forever (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel) (6 page)

He watched Tammy go all bubbly with recognition as she sauntered over to give him a proper Tammy Welcome Back, and after their run in with Kayla, he could only imagine what Sara was going to think.

“Well, well, well, Trey DeLuca’s back.” Arms flung wide, completely oblivious to Sara, she plastered her generous breasts against him in the most uncomfortable hug of his life.

“Hey, Tammy.” Two cordial pats between the shoulder blades and Trey stepped back, untangling himself. Even though Trey and Tammy hadn’t hooked up since college and were nothing more than friends now, suddenly seeing his life through Sara’s eyes made him uncomfortable—and a little embarrassed.

“Talk about weird timing,” she went on, wiggling her fingers at his sisters-in-law who wiggled back—fully amused at his situation. “Last night I dropped off one of my regulars and his current arm candy at the Napa Grand. Told them to be sure and order that famous oyster platter. Always a winner, right?”

She winked and he was screwed.

“I hear they have fluffy robes too,” Sara said with a laugh, confirming that he was a total and complete idiot. With an amused look of her own she glanced down at his coat. “Send me the bill.”

“How about you give me a private dance lesson and we call it even?” he offered but she was already hugging his sisters-in-law good-bye.

“Even better,” she said. At her comment, he felt his shoulder relax a little. He still had a shot to make this right. Then she added, “Call the studio and ask for Heather. She handles all privates.”

He started to argue that Heather couldn’t handle
all
privates, since Sara was headed toward a “special” one right now, but she had her umbrella in hand and was through the door before he could even open his mouth.

He watched her cross the street and wanted to throttle himself because, yup, those leggings looked as good going as they did coming. And he was never going to get that dance.

Ten minutes and a stern lecture from his sisters-in-law later, Trey ducked through the revolving glass doors of the Napa Grand Hotel. One of the more well-preserved beaux-arts masterpieces on the West Coast, the Napa Grand was the oldest hotel in town. It was also the only hotel in town. This week, Trey happened to call it home.

Marc’s hotel was the only place left in St. Helena that was connected to his family and didn’t reek of domestication. Or painful memories.

Shaking a few globs of glitter off of his coat, he rode the elevator to the top floor and strode down the hallway, loosening the top button of his shirt. It had already been one hell of a week and it was only Tuesday. Thanks in part to Abby’s “few” meetings, which had turned into a catastrophic calamity of errors. Starting with a shipping error of the worst kind and ending with Trey stuck in the minivan for a grand total of twenty-two hours—since its retractable seats made it the
only
available car in the family that could handle the fifteen cases that needed to be rush-delivered to Santa Barbara. Something his brothers found freaking hilarious.

He didn’t know how it happened, but it seemed as though every time he came home, he was thrust into a shitstorm of problems he was expected to fix. None of them his.

Blaming his mood on exhaustion, Trey fished out his key and opened the door. All he wanted was to eat lunch, take a hot shower, and go to bed.

Strike that.

All he wanted was to eat lunch, take a hot shower, and go to bed—with Sara. But since Sara wasn’t interested in playing hooky today—or ever again, thanks to Tammy—and his suite was filled with DeLucas, Trey didn’t think he’d even get to eat his lunch.

“Nice coat,” Marc said, taking in the pink handprints. “Do you have a matching clutch?”

“I was going to ask to borrow yours.” Trey dropped his to-go bag on the entry table and shut the door with his foot. “Glad to see that this hotel respects their guests’ privacy and security.”

“You should complain,” Marc said, resting his feet casually on the coffee table.

“Yeah, but I hear that the owner is a total prick.”

Trey purposefully remained standing, hoping that they’d all take the hint and get out. Not that there was any place to sit. Even if he wanted to pull up a cushion and share some small talk—which he most definitely did not—Marc, and all six foot three of him, pretty much consumed the entire couch, and Nate made himself at home in the overstuffed chair.

Gabe stood silently at the window, practicing his disappointed glare at the approaching storm outside. The air was so thick with tension, and the space so overflowing with DeLuca attitude, the room felt more like a casket than a luxury three-bedroom suite.

“Abby wants to make an offer on the land,” Gabe said. “I’m still looking into things on this end, but I came across a snafu that it seems only you can fix.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what the problem was or how he could fix it, but since Gabe’s tone gave him the feeling that this wouldn’t be a kid-brother-saves-the-day kind of talk, Trey decided to take that seat.

With a sigh, Gabe turned around and—
Jesus
—Baby Sofie was strapped to his front in some kind of parachute harness for babies. Face red, lips pursed, she took one look at Trey and started flailing all four limbs. “Da-da-da-da-DA!”

“With how fast the owners want to sell, and how difficult it is for a US company to acquire Italian land, I wanted to make sure we were all buttoned up on this end, just in case,” Gabe said over Baby Sofie’s jabbering. “So I called Drew. He suggested that
you
buy the land. Imagine that?”

Trey felt his stomach bottom out. Followed by his chest, then his heart. “I was going to tell you.”

Two years ago, Trey started looking into gaining Italian residency through their grandfather’s lineage. He’d called Drew, their lawyer and expert in all things corporate and foreign policy, to help him with the process. What started out as a temporary answer to an insane travel schedule quickly became a solution that would save his sanity.

“Really? When?” Gabe’s tone all business. “Would that have been before or after you shipped your stuff overseas and sent out housewarming invitations?”

Trey was delirious. He had to be. Because it took everything he had not to laugh. Or point out that gently bouncing up and down in tandem with a diaper monster while snarling words like housewarming and invitations was
not
intimidating. Then again, Trey had big, sparkly, pink hands on his chest.

“I don’t get to hang out at home and watch the business grow,” Trey pointed out. “Last year I spent more time in an airplane than I did in a bed. I hit a hundred thousand miles before summer even ended. I thought that buying a place I could use as a home base was a good idea.”

“I agree. Buy one here,” Gabe countered.

“We’re two hours from an airport.” And right in the middle of a tsunami of memories and regrets
.
“Between managing Marc’s hospitality friends, Nate’s new high-end collectors, and you dominating the domestic wine industry with your one-grocery-store-at-a-time campaign, I don’t even have time to sleep, let alone focus on new markets.”

Silent dialogue shot around the room from brother to brother as though he wasn’t sitting right there.

When their dad died, Trey went from having one father to three, making it three times harder to live up to expectations. The constant feeling that he somehow managed to always come up short was becoming suffocating as hell.

“I’m tired of dealing with corporate suits,” he explained. “There is no connection, no history there.”

“All right,” Nate said, surprising Trey. “What do
you
want to focus on?”

He thought about his day with Sara, how great it felt to talk over a glass of wine. How intimate the situation had been compared to the sale he’d just handled for Abby. It wasn’t that he wanted to quit his job, he realized. He just wanted to redefine it.

“I want to focus on the individual customer again, the ones who buy and sell over a good meal and a better bottle of wine. And I’d like to do it in a place that values the things that Nonno Geno built this company on. With people who don’t do business over the phone.” He shot a look at Gabe.

“Then moving to Italy has nothing to do with the fact that ever since Mom and Dad died, you can’t seem to keep your feet planted around home?” Gabe asked quietly and Trey felt that familiar knot, the one that took up residence in his chest a little over a decade ago, tighten to the point of pain. “Especially this time of year.”

“No.” Moving to Italy would allow him to feel connected to his family, without having to be reminded that he didn’t deserve them.

“Why didn’t you come to me before?” Gabe asked.

How to answer that?

“Between weddings and babies and everything else, there just wasn’t a good time.” And Trey had wanted to prove that he could handle it. As ridiculous as it was, he always felt like he was the tagalong. As though no matter how old he got, or how many deals he closed, he still had to prove that he was tough enough, man enough, worthy enough, to hang out at the big kids’ table.

Gabe gave a weary nod. “Then let’s talk about hiring a sales team to handle the domestic end.”

Trey blinked. “Are you serious?”

“It’s smart,” Gabe said, but Trey couldn’t help noticing that he sounded disappointed. “We’ve grown too fast for one person to handle. I’m just sorry that I’ve been too busy to notice. So if this is what you need, then I’ve got your back. Which means that you have until the end of the month to put a domestic team together. I want them local.”

“The end of the month? As in four
more
weeks?” Trey choked. “Here?”

“Yup.” Gabe grinned. “It will take you that long to put a stellar team together. Plus a few weeks with your family before you move to another continent won’t kill you.”

Maybe not, but the way his chest kept ratcheting tighter and tighter, it sure felt like it. But since Gabe was pretty much giving him everything he’d asked for, and more, including the belief that Trey would make the right decisions and, more important, the freedom to leave when it was over, Trey acquiesced. “Fair enough.”

Then he stood to politely ask his brothers to get out, when the door burst open and there stood ChiChi, dressed in a fur-collared, fuchsia rain slicker, matching galoshes, and a strand of pearls. Her hair was stuck to her head, her hand clutching a rolled-up newspaper, and her temper was dialed to seek-and-destroy.

Trey glared at Marc. “What? Is there a vending machine in the lobby with everyone’s room key in it?”

“Nope, just yours.”

ChiChi slammed the door and narrowed her eyes. Right. In. On. Trey. “I just got off the phone with Sara from Tap and Barre School of Dance.”

Well, at least Trey knew that Sara had the ability to use the phone. Now he had to figure out a way to get her to use it with him.

“She said that you haven’t signed up for lessons yet,” ChiChi chided, hand over her heaving chest. “Deidra Potter’s got forty years of dance on you, young man, and she is out to take what’s mine.”

Trey stood, walked over, and kissed ChiChi on the cheek. “Nonna, Mrs. Potter is not—”

ChiChi smacked the day’s issue of the
St. Helena Sentinel
right between the two handprints on his chest. “First she sells me tainted soil, killing my best pansies to up her chances of winning, and now she’s out to ruin my Valentine’s Day.” She smacked him again. “Read.”

Trey took the paper, unfolded it, and looked down at the headline and the six photos that followed, then read aloud, “Finalists for Winter Garden: Best in Show were announced Sunday by the St. Helena Garden Society. First finalist, Peg Stark, owner of Stark Corking, the largest plastic cork company in the valley—”

ChiChi flapped her regal hand impatiently. “Peggy got the green vote. Her granddaughter stuck her in a retirement home last Christmas. Her patio’s only six-by-eight. She recycled all those malformed corks from that discounted cork-making machine her son bought off eBay, and fashioned them into planter boxes. Keep reading.”

“Second finalist, Charlene Love—”

“Pity vote. For God’s sake, get to the important part. Here.” ChiChi pointed her pudgy finger at the bottom of the page with so much force she nearly punched a hole right through it.

“Holding the county record as an eighteen-time finalist, and nine-time winner, Chiara Amalia Giovanna Ryo, co-owner of DeLuca Wines and Ryo Wines…Congratulations, Nonna.” Trey looked up and went in for the hug but ChiChi fended him off with one arched brow and a pair of very pursed lips.

Trey sighed. ChiChi was nominated every year and every year she acted surprised, which meant that every year, Trey and his brothers were expected to act surprised. Only this year she looked pissed. Which could only mean one thing.

Skipping to the photo of Deidra Potter in feathers and some kind of weird flamingo, showgirl costume, Trey read the last line, “…will face off against the nineteen-time finalist, and eight-time winner, Deidra Potter, owner of Petal Pusher: Buds and Vines.”

“If she wins, she’ll tie me for the county record and her picture will go up next to mine in the Hall of Fame.” Trey refrained from pointing out that the “Hall of Fame” was a stretch of wall between the men’s room and a janitor’s closet in town hall. “She’ll put up that picture of her in those stripper clothes and shame us all. Make a mockery of the most treasured event in St. Helena history.”