Read Online Love in the Vineyard (The Tavonesi Series Book 7) by Pamela Aares - Free Book Online

did anything to cool the heated charge storming her senses.
    He removed his sunglasses and laid them on the table.
    She looked into his eyes. They crinkled at the corners with his smile. Maybe a walk in a garden would be okay. He didn’t look like an aggressive man. But then, they often didn’t. Hadn’t she just heard a horror story from one of the other women at Inspire? About a husband turning violent the day after the young woman had said I do ?
    “Adrian.” She repeated his name, hoping she didn’t sound like the moron she was feeling herself to be. “It must be wonderful to have sisters, Adrian.” She said his name slowly. It gave her time to think.
    She didn’t want to share details about her life. Didn’t want him to know she lived in a homeless shelter. Didn’t want him to know the shame that nagged her day and night. And she sure didn’t want him to know where to find her. What if he turned out to be like Eddie? Looks and behaviors could be so deceiving.
    But somehow, deep down, she also wanted to trust him—at least enough to enjoy a fine spring day. Enough to flex the relationship muscle that Mary had pointed out needed to be flexed before it withered away, maybe forever. She was tired of living an impoverished emotional life. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the party—she’d forgotten her troubles for a few brief hours. Had fun for the first time in longer than she could remember. Dancing with him had revived the part of her that wanted to live . To laugh. To resurrect the playful spirit that had survived in spite of her horrific childhood.
    In a flash, she knew how she wanted to play the day.
    “I have reasons for what I’m about to ask of you,” she said, trying to steady her voice and not let her fears get the best of her. “Reasons I’m not free to share right now.”
    He sat forward in his chair, his gaze steady on hers.
    Suddenly self-conscious, she lowered her gaze to the table.
    He fingered his sunglasses, and she couldn’t help but notice his hands—big, tanned, strong looking and well manicured. A rich man’s hands. She resisted the impulse to pull her own hands below the table and sit on them. Hers were callused, and she almost never got the dirt from gardening out from under her cuticles and nails.
    “I’d like to try an experiment.” She forced the words out before the cowardice blooming in her throat swallowed them up. Forced her chin up too. “That is, if you’re willing.” He watched her face as she took in a breath. “I’d like to keep to your friend Parker’s rules from the masquerade—that we don’t reveal details about our particular identities.” She bit her lip and then tried on a smile. “I’d like to extend our game just a bit longer. I’m liking the mystery.”
     

     
    Tasha was more beautiful than Adrian remembered.
    And just as skittish.
    Whatever she was hiding, the continued anonymity she was proposing suited him just fine. He liked the idea of being seen as an everyday man, just another guy living in Sonoma. And he liked a woman who could ask for what she wanted.
    “I’ll play,” Adrian answered. “But just exactly what rules are you suggesting we follow?”
    He had to admit her proposal added an edge of raciness to the day, an edge of challenge and the allure of fantasy. Maybe she wasn’t afraid, as he’d first thought she was. And maybe, like him, she too wanted to be liked for who she was in this time. In this moment.
    In Rome, almost everyone he ran into knew he was from one of the oldest Roman families. They knew his cousins and cousins of cousins. Knew of the vast Tavonesi wealth. When he first moved to the Bay Area with his father and siblings, he’d loved that they’d all had a degree of anonymity.
    But now that he’d started to revamp the vineyard, in the Napa and Sonoma circles he traveled, he’d lost the privacy of those early days. His worth, his prospects, his heritage were on the surface, easy for anyone with a computer