An Exquisite Challenge

He looked tired, she noticed, the lines at the sides of his mouth more pronounced than usual, the hand he used to rub his eyes shifting back to cradle his neck. The stress was getting to him.

She walked over to the bar. “Scotch?”

“Soda and lime if you have it. I have to drive back to the vineyard tonight.”

“Aren’t you swamped back in New York?” he asked as she handed him his drink and perched on the sofa beside him. “How can you possibly take on a job like this?”

“Some things have moved around in my calendar.” Moved permanently, as in out of her calendar, but he didn’t need to know that.

He sat back and took a sip of his drink. “Us working together is a bad idea, Alex.”

“These are extraordinary circumstances.”

“We will kill each other.”

“No,” she countered, “we will learn to work together. I haven’t even tried to be nice to you.”

His smile flashed white against his olive skin. “That thought terrifies me.”

She gave him an earnest look. “I’m the only person who can do this, Gabe.”

He set his drink down and pushed a distracted hand through his hair. “If I gave you the business, and I’m not insinuating anything here, would you do the work yourself or will it be a case of bait and switch with the juniors doing everything?”

“I’ve never done a bait and switch in my life,” she said matter-of-factly. “If you hire me, you get me.”

Oh. That didn’t sound right. She hadn’t meant get her. But he knew what she meant, right?

He shot her a sideways look. “What is wrong with you? Sit down properly, for Cristo’s sake. You’re completely on edge.”

She pushed herself deeper into the sofa. She was on edge, dammit. It was stupidly hard to concentrate with Gabe plastered across the sofa of her hotel room looking hellishly hot in a shirt and tie that would have been ordinary on any other man but made him look like stud of the century.

“Alex?”

“Sorry?” She lifted her gaze to his face.

He sighed. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “It’s been a long day.”

He pursed his lips. Took a sip of his drink. “Convince me I should let you do this.”

She got up, found her briefcase and pulled out a file. “Here are five case studies of events I’ve pulled off in this amount of time,” she said, handing it to him. “I can make this the most spectacular debut for your wine. I promise you that.”

He flipped through the folder. “This is impressive.”

“So make the call.”

He put the folder down on the coffee table and sat back. The movement drew her attention to his superb, muscular thighs. They were so good they were impossible not to ogle.

“Even if I did agree you are the right choice,” he said evenly, “we still need to discuss our other problema.”

“What other problem?”

“That problem.”

She frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He lifted a brow. “Tell me that was not a distinctly lustful look.”

“That was not lustful. That was—”

“Alex.” He angled his body toward her and captured her gaze. “You’ve been jumpy since the minute we walked into this hotel room and we both know why. You keep wondering what it would have been like to have that kiss in Lilly and Riccardo’s garden and so do I.”

Ahh. The almost kiss. The thing she couldn’t get out of her head no matter how hard she tried. She’d been slightly tipsy, standing on a stool unstringing lanterns from a tree after all the guests had left her sister’s welcome-to-summer party, when Gabe had come looking for her. She’d been caught so off guard by his sudden presence she’d nearly fallen off the stool. He’d caught her and swung her to the ground, but kept his arms around her waist. The knowledge that he had been about to kiss her had made her grab her slingbacks and run.

She scowled at him. “I’m working on about four hours’ sleep, that’s why I’m jumpy. Maybe you should just say yes to the contract so I can get some rest and—” She stared at him as he moved closer. “What are you doing?”

He lifted his hand and splayed his fingers across her jaw. “Figuring out how bad this particular problema is before I make up my mind.”

“There is no problem,” she croaked. “And if we’re going to be working together, I—”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” he cut in, his gaze purposeful. “Right now we have no working relationship whatsoever.”

They did have heat. They definitely had heat. She swallowed hard as it washed over her and made her pulse dance. “If I make this really bad you’ll say yes?”

His gaze darkened. “It isn’t going to be bad.”

No, she acknowledged, heart pounding, it wasn’t. Slicking her tongue across dry lips, she told herself she just needed to stay in control. Prove to him this attraction between them was wholly avoidable. But when he shifted his thumb to the seam of her lips in the most erotic opening to a kiss she’d ever experienced, she caved like a ton of bricks.

Her first taste of Gabriele De Campo lived up to every fantasy she’d ever had. Hot, smooth and utterly in control, his mouth slanted unhurriedly over hers, exploring every dip and curve with a leisurely enjoyment that made her want to curl her fingers into his shirt and beg. She resisted with the small amount of willpower she still possessed, but it was like being dangled over a ledge a hundred feet above the ground and told to hang on when you knew you were eventually going to fall.

She’d known he’d be good. Just not this good.

For a minute, for just one glorious minute, the temptation was too great and she let her mind go blank. And let herself savor what she’d been craving for a very long time.

He sensed her softening. Slid his hand to the back of her head and took her mouth in a drugging, never-ending kiss that upped the hotness quotient by ten. Off balance, she had to dig her fingers into his shirt and hang on.

“Lex,” he murmured, sliding his tongue along the seam of her lips. “Give me more.”

She was going to stop this in about five seconds. She was. He demanded entry again and she gave it to him. The feel of his tongue sliding sensuously against hers made her insides coil tight. This was more than a kiss, it was a full-out assault on her common sense.

And it was working.

She yanked herself out of his arms, her chest moving rapidly in and out. Her five seconds were definitely up. Way past up.

“That was not fair.”

“You need to admit you have a problem to solve it,” he murmured dryly. “Now we know.”

“We also know we can control it,” she pointed out. “Look it’s done. Presto,” she said, waving her hand at him. “Never to be had again. Curiosity’s over.”

He picked up the file and got to his feet. “Be at my office at ten tomorrow.”

She stared at him incredulously. “You’re leaving me hanging?”

He waved the file at her. “I need to read this.”

“That kiss was nothing, Gabe.”

“I’d like to see what something is.”

She watched as he straightened his shirt. Mortification sank into her bones. Why the hell had she allowed that to happen? She was supposed to be convincing him of her professionalism, not her skills in the necking department.

She followed him to the door. “You won’t regret it if you give me this job, Gabe.”

He gave her a long look. “Che resta da vedere.”

She scrunched her face up. “What does that mean?”

“That remains to be seen.”

He left. She picked up her shoe and threw it at the door. His soft laughter came from the other side. “Use the deadbolt, Alex.”

Despite her bone-deep fatigue, it took a hot shower and an hour of fretting to get herself anywhere near sleep. Gabe had been playing her and playing her well. Establishing a reason not to give her the business. She’d just been too busy being a spineless fool who couldn’t resist his Italian charm to see it.

After all these years of walking away, it had taken jet lag to do her in.

She whacked her head against the pillow and closed her eyes. If she got another chance, if he gave her the job tomorrow, she wasn’t making the same mistake twice.

CHAPTER TWO

MORNING BUMPER-TO-BUMPER traffic on Highway 101, with every motorist in northern California fighting their way into San Francisco with an aggressive zeal that said they were ten minutes late for a meeting and short on temper, wasn’t helping to improve Gabe’s mood. In fact, it had sent it to a whole other level.

He cursed, checked his blind spot and accelerated into the left-hand lane, which appeared equally blocked, but the movement at least made him feel as though he was doing something.

“Maledizione,” he muttered. “I should have stayed in the city last night.”

“One of San Francisco’s most eligible bachelors, devoid of a date on a Thursday night?” His brother Riccardo’s taunting voice sliced through the high-tech speakerphone.

“I was at an industry party.” He scowled at the tinny box. “Mention the bachelor thing one more time and you’ll be talking to empty air.”

His brother chuckled. “I’m just jealous I never made the list.”

As if. Riccardo had dated five times a man’s usual share of the styled-down-to-their-pinkie women who inhabited the island of Manhattan and it hadn’t been until he’d met Lilly and fallen flat on his face for her that the parade had ended. His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “They probably figured they were doing the female population a favor.”

“Maybe so.” Humor flavored his brother’s response. “Speaking of women, talk to Matty lately?”

“No.” It struck him as strange now that he thought about it. Matty and Gabe were close and usually talked once a week. “What’s up?”

“A woman, I think. He won’t talk about it. You should call him.”

Gabe wasn’t sure his cynical attitude of late was going to be of much use to his younger brother. Matty was the Don Juan of his generation—he thought love made the world go around. Gabe wasn’t sure how he’d acquired that notion in their particular family, but that was for Matty to figure out. Not his problem. Matty’s issue was likely of the which-one-do-I-pick variety, anyway.

“What happened to the Olympian?”

“I don’t know. He hung up shortly after I asked him if her flexibility was useful in bed.”

“You don’t say?”

His brother’s tone turned businesslike. “How are the events going, by the way? Do you need me in Napa or can I just do NYC?”

Gabe’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “They’re getting there. We’re working through some kinks at the moment.” He checked his rearview mirror and moved back to the center lane. “New York’s fine. I can handle Napa.”

“Bene. The doctor said to keep a close eye on Lilly for the next few weeks.”

“You should be there,” Gabe muttered distractedly, his brain on five hundred people at his vineyard in three weeks. “How did Marco take the news of a little brother?”

“He’s estatico. Already picking out which trains his little brother can and cannot use.”

Gabe smiled. “Already a De Campo.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

“Nessuna.” Marco was an exuberant brute of a little boy so much like his father and the rest of the De Campo brothers it was like watching one of them as a child. Gabe was glad the little guy was going to have a brother, because his had been a lifeline in a childhood marked by his parents’ coldness. His father’s survival-of-the-fittest regime had reigned supreme in Montalcino, his mother’s lack of interest in her children blatantly apparent. A business merger between two important families did that to the family dynamic.

“I heard,” Riccardo said evenly, “that Alex flew over there to do the events.”

Gabe grimaced. “I fired the PR firm. They were spewing out garbage that was all wrong for the brand.”

“Three weeks before launch?”

“It wasn’t working.”

“So you’re letting Alex step in?”

“I’m thinking about it.” Truth was, Alex’s portfolio was brilliant. The campaigns she’d included had all been for established brands launching products with breakout potential. Just like The Devil’s Peak. Not only had her campaigns been sophisticated and clever with the big buzz potential he was looking for, they’d also been exactly the tone and feel he’d wanted in the last PR agency’s ideas.

“The board is only giving me so much leeway with the Napa investment.” Riccardo’s quietly worded warning came through the speaker. “At some point they’re going to rein us in, and I’d prefer that time be when you’ve had a chance to make things happen and they’re compelled to keep investing.”

Gabe stiffened. “You think I’m not well aware of that?”

“A launch event is a launch event, fratello, not the second coming of Christ. Get it done. Don’t let yourself get in the way of your success.”

Old animosities surged to life—charged, destructive forces that skimmed just beneath the surface. If he’d inherited his father and grandfather’s wine-making brilliance and the ability to play with the chemistry of a wine until it melted on the tongue, Riccardo had mastered the ability to see the big picture. It was the one trait, Gabe was sure, that had catapulted his brother over him to CEO, aside from the fact that Riccardo was the eldest, and Antonio was traditional to the hilt.

He scowled. “Are you questioning my judgment?”

“No,” his brother said matter-of-factly. “I’m saying we’re treading close to the line.”

Which was true. He’d seen the latest profit-and-loss statements for the Napa operations and they weren’t pretty. They weren’t meeting profit targets they’d established at launch eight years ago and there were reasons for that, yes, like the fact that The Devil’s Peak and his other star wine had matured faster than they’d expected and he’d invested in bringing them to market. But the board didn’t know they were about to reap huge financial rewards. To them, he was a number.

He let out a long breath. “These risks we’re taking—they’re going to pay off. You know that.”

“There isn’t a doubt in my mind.”

The quiet confidence in his brother’s reply made him sink his head back against the headrest. “Dispiace,” he murmured. “It’s been quite a week.”

“Get yourself laid. It’ll help.”

“I’m too busy to get laid.”

“A man is never too busy to get laid.”

The gospel according to Riccardo. Gabe shook his head. “Do you have a problem with me hiring Alex?”

“I’m staying out of this particular discussion,” his brother returned dryly. “Better to leave it to your impartial judgment rather than face my wife’s wrath. But I will say, I’ve heard she is the best in the business.”

Gabe wouldn’t describe his attitude toward Alex as impartial, particularly after last night. But this wasn’t personal, it was business.

He and Riccardo debated which quarterback would prevail in the weekend’s football game, arranged to talk after Gabe’s meeting tomorrow with a restaurant chain they’d been courting and signed off.

Traffic started to move. He put his foot down on the accelerator and forced himself to focus on the decision at hand. Hiring Alex was the right thing to do. She might be the only person who could save him. The fact that she made his blood pressure rise by about ten points just by being in the same room shouldn’t have anything to do with it. And yet...the feel of her soft, lush mouth under his last night slammed into his brain with a force that was distinctly off-putting. The hazy desire in her big blue eyes when she’d pulled away. That was what was making him hesitate. Alex’s ability to get under his skin.

She was the type of woman you took to bed once, got out of your system then banished from your head forever. But given their familial ties, he couldn’t do that. He had to see her on a regular basis. So he’d restrained himself. Until that night in Lilly and Riccardo’s garden. Until last night. And even though he’d now assured himself she’d be spectacular in bed, she was off-limits. It pained him to admit it—but he needed her. In a couple of hours she’d be working for him. And if there was one thing he never did, it was mix business with pleasure.

* * *

Alex was two large coffees into an official snit when Gabe deigned to make an appearance at his airy warehouse office space in downtown San Francisco. It had surprised her at first, the modernity of the building, given De Campo’s historic lineage, but Gabe, his chatty PA Danielle had told her, was contemporary both in his design taste and in the way he chose to make his wines in Napa, using a blend of new and old-world techniques.

She sat up straighter in the cream-colored leather chair, her senses switching to high alert. Gabe was dressed in another of those beautifully tailored suits, this time a charcoal-gray that made his green eyes pop, and it took her pulse from zero to fifty in a second flat.

His gaze slid over her. “Scusa. Traffic was murder.”

She bit her tongue. “No worries.”

“Buongiorno,” he murmured to Danielle, requesting an espresso and for her to move his next meeting, before waving Alex into his office, an equally large, open space that offered a superb view of the city.

She sat down in the chair he pointed to and took in the hard line of his jaw. “You’re not going to give me the job.”

He shut the door, walked around the desk and sat down opposite her. “I want to get a few things straight before I give you my answer.”

She felt the need for a preemptive strike. “If it’s about the kiss, I—”

“Are you even capable,” he asked harshly, stripping off his jacket, “of muzzling that mouth of yours while I lay this out?”

Whoa. Someone had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning... His face was all hard lines and tense mouth, his broad shoulders ramrod straight under the crisp light blue shirt. “Okay,” she agreed carefully, “I’m a mute until you tell me I can speak.”

His eyes flashed and she had the feeling he would have taken that comment elsewhere had he not been so focused on the subject at hand. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk. If that was supposed to intimidate her, it didn’t. “I will let you manage these events on four conditions.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to snap back that he needed her as much as she needed him, but she pressed her lips together and sat back in the chair.

“One,” he began, “I brief you today, you put an idea I like on my desk by Monday and you’re in.”

She nodded. She was nothing if not good under pressure.

“Two. If for any reason creative differences make it impossible for us to work together, I can fire you at any time.”

Hot anger singed her veins. “You are too much.”

He held up a hand, an icy, calm expression on his face. “You’re a mute, remember?”

She was going to be a killer in a second.

“Three,” he continued. “You have nothing to do with Jordan Lane. He is the competition and you will not do work for him. And four—” he trained his gaze on hers “—what happened last night doesn’t happen again.”

“You started it,” she burst out like a three-year-old.

“And now I’m ending it.” His lips tilted downward. “This is the most important launch of De Campo’s modern history, Alex. There is a ten-million-dollar ad campaign behind it. We don’t get to screw up.”

No kidding.

He pushed her portfolio across the desk. “I looked at this. You’re incredibly talented.”

She glowed at that. “Thank you.”

“I want you to work on the events. I know you’re right for this. Which means,” he added grimly, “we need to learn to work together. We need to put our personal differences aside. Put this inconvenient attraction we have for one other aside. And get this done.”

Inconvenient attraction? She supposed that’s what it was, but she didn’t like the distasteful way he said it. As if she were a bug running across the gleaming wooden floor he wanted to crush.

His gaze was on her, expectant. She lifted a brow. “Am I allowed to talk?” He nodded. “Sooo,” she began, “I’m all for that.” She had precisely one month’s office rent in reserve and she’d like to pad that, not kiss him again. “I also have no interest in working for Jordan Lane.”

“Bene.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, his dictatorial terms secured. “This is the way it’s going to work. You show me the theme—I approve. Then I see everything at every step in the process. Invitations, decor, suppliers.... Any major decision—I approve it.”

Alarm bells started to ring in her head. “Look, I know you had a bad experience with the last agency and the pressure is on, but that’s not how I work.”

“It is now.”

She reined in the urge to tell him he’d lost touch with reality. “We have three and a half weeks to pull these events together, Gabe. We’re going to have to move at lightning speed and even then, it’s going to be a minor miracle if we pull it off.”

His face was hard, implacable. “Tell me now if you can’t do it.”

“I can do it,” she barked, leaning forward and resting her palms on the desk. “But I think it’s nuts. You’re the vice president of De Campo Group. You have a wine to get out the door in a few weeks. You really want to be approving catering menus?”

“I’m creating a brand,” he returned harshly. “Everything depends on first impressions. So if I want to approve a catering menu, I will.”

“What about one of your marketing people back in New York? Surely they can work with me?”

“They’re not close enough to the ground.”

“Then get them here.”

His scowl grew. “This launch is mine, Alex. The culmination of years of blood, sweat and tears. I want to be intimately involved. You play by my rules or you don’t play at all.”

She pressed her lips together. “Do I need your approval to go to the bathroom, too?”

“Scusi?”

“Nothing.” She tapped her fingernails on the desk in a staccato rhythm. “Those poor buggers,” she muttered under her breath, feeling sorry for the last agency. But maybe it should be poor her. Because she was going to have to spend the next month of her life working for him.

“What did you say?”

She looked up at him, the tilt of her chin defiant. “I said, ‘poor buggers.’ As in I feel sorry for the old agency to have had to work with you. Are you sure they didn’t quit?”

His eyes glittered. “Are you sure you want to talk to your boss like that?”

“You’re not my boss yet.” She threw his words from last night back at him, wishing that didn’t put her head squarely back on that kiss. “I haven’t signed the contract yet. You realize I could walk out of this office right now and you’d be screwed, right?”

“But you aren’t going to do that.” He waved her portfolio at her. “I thought it was odd you weren’t booked solid, so I did some homework this morning. You just lost your biggest client, Alex. Swallowed up by a multinational. You need me.”

Her stomach dropped. “It had nothing to do with our work.”

“I’m sure it didn’t. Your reputation is exemplary.” He threw the portfolio down on the desk. “What remains are the facts. It’s me or Jordan Lane, and I can guarantee you, you want to pick me.”

She could guarantee that, too. She stared mutinously at him, hating nothing more than being boxed into a corner, but unfortunately, that’s exactly where she was. “You know what they say about great leaders, Gabe? They surround themselves with good people, they don’t get caught up in the minutia and they let their disciples make them look good.”

His gaze cooled. “Earn my trust, then. Although something tells me you are far from trainable.”

She held her hands up in the air in mock surrender. “You’ll get every menu. You might want to consider joining us at the hip, though.”

Her attempt at a joke didn’t seem to have the intended effect and she wondered if she’d hit a nerve with the leadership thing. “Elena has a room ready for you at the house,” he said abruptly. “It makes more sense for you to be there where you’ll have much more access to me.”

And why did that sound like a very, very bad idea? The kiss from last night flashed through her head again. Her burying her hands in his shirt and begging for more. Him walking away. Sure, it would be more convenient for her to stay at the winery, given the event was going to be held there, but her and Gabe in the same house? Was that asking for trouble?