The Italian Billionaire's Christmas Miracle

“But it does interfere with our holiday.”

“Not mine,” Gail returned cheerfully. “We came here to unwind and I’m more than happy to spend half the day lazing here or on the beach. In case you haven’t noticed, both are littered with gorgeous men, which is probably a lot more than can be said about what’s-his-name from the vineyard.”

“Domenico Silvaggio d’Avalos.” Arlene let each exotic syllable roll off her tongue like cream, and thought that one glance at his aristocratic face and big, toned body would be enough to change Gail’s mind about which of them had stumbled across the better deal.

“What a mouthful! How do you wrap your tongue around it? Or are you on a first-name basis already?”

“Not at all. He’s very businesslike and quite distant, in fact.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it really matters. Just as long as you leave here knowing a heck of a lot more about running a vineyard than you did when you arrived, he doesn’t have to be witty or charismatic, does he?”

“No.”

Arlene did her best to sound emphatic, but something in her tone must have struck a hollow note because Gail removed her sunglasses, the better to skewer her in a mistrustful gaze. “Uh-oh! What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” she insisted, not about to confess that, in the space of three hours, she’d almost fooled herself into believing she might have met Mr. Right. Gail would have laughed herself silly at the idea, and rightly so. There was no such thing as love at first sight, and although a teenager might be forgiven for believing otherwise, a woman pushing thirty was certainly old enough to know better. “I find him a little…unsettling, that’s all.”

“Unsettling how?”

She aimed for a casual shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe ‘intimidating’ is a better word. He’s larger than life somehow, and so confidently in charge of himself and everything around him. I don’t quite know why he’s bothering with an ignoramus like me, and I guess I’m afraid I’ll disappoint him.”

“So what if you do? Why do you care what he thinks?”

Why? Because never before had she felt as alive as she did during the time she’d spent with him. “His mood changed, there at the end,” she said wistfully. “I could hear it in his voice and see it in his expression, as if he suddenly regretted his invitation. He seemed almost angry with me, although I can’t imagine why.”

Gail popped her sunglasses back in place and turned her face up to the sun. “Arlene, do yourself a favor and stop analyzing the guy. Bad-tempered and moody he might be, but as far as you’re concerned, he’s the means to an end, and that’s all that matters. Once we leave here, you’ll never have to see him again.”

She was unquestionably right, Arlene decided, and wished she could find some comfort in that thought. Instead it left her feeling oddly depressed.

That night at dinner in the main house, the reaction of his brothers-in-law to what he’d done was pretty much what he expected. Mock disgust and a host of humorous comments along the lines of, “Where do you find these lame ducks, Dom?” and, “Just what we need at the busiest time of the year—the distraction of a useless extra female body cluttering up the landscape!”

His sisters, though, twittered like drunken sparrows, clamoring for more personal information.

“What’s her name?”

“Is she pretty?”

“Is she single?”

“How old is she?”

“Don’t just sit there looking stony-faced, Domenico! Tell us what makes her so special.”

“What makes her special,” his uncle Bruno declared, stirring up another flurry of over-the-top excitement, “is that she could be The One. Trust me. I have seen her. She is lovely.”

The squeals of delight that comment elicited were enough to make him want to head for the hills. His mother and sisters’ chief mission in life was to see him married, and the last thing they needed was Bruno or anyone else encouraging them. “Don’t be ridiculous, Uncle Bruno,” he snapped. “She’s just an ordinary woman in the extraordinary position of finding herself with a vineyard she hasn’t the first idea how to manage. I’d have made the same offer if she’d been a man.”

But she wasn’t a man, and no one was more conscious of that fact than Domenico. Throughout their extended lunch, he’d been struck by the sharp intelligence in her lovely gray eyes. But it took more than brains to succeed in viticulture, and given her small, delicate bones, he wondered how she’d begin to survive the tough physical demands of working a vineyard.

Not my concern, he’d told himself, more than once. Yet he admired her determination and he’d enjoyed their spirited debate on marriage, enough that he’d been tempted to ask her out to dinner, just for the pleasure of getting to know her better. Until she let slip that she hadn’t come to the island alone, that was—and then he’d felt like a fool for not having figured it out for himself. If she was not a raving beauty, nor was she as plain as he’d first supposed. Rather, she possessed a low-key elegance of form and face that any discerning man would find attractive.

Too bad another had already staked a claim to her, he’d thought at the time, covering his irritation with a brusqueness he now regretted. She’d almost flinched at his tone, as he spelled out what he expected of her when she showed up tomorrow morning. If it weren’t that she was in such dire straits, she’d probably have flung his generous offer of help back in his face. He would have, in her place.

Aware that his family continued to stare at him expectantly, he said, “At the risk of ruining your evening and dashing all hope of marrying me off before the last grape is picked, I feel compelled to point out that this woman is already spoken for. Not only that, she’s here for only two weeks, after which our relationship, such as it is, will come to an end.”

“But a great deal can happen in two weeks,” Renata, his youngest sister, pointed out, ogling her husband. “Our honeymoon lasted only that long, but it was all the time we needed for me to become pregnant.”

“Lucky you,” Domenico replied testily, amid general laughter. “However, my ambitions with this woman run along somewhat different lines, so please don’t start knitting little things on my behalf.”

That gave rise to such hilarity that, so help him, if he’d known at which hotel Arlene Russell was staying, he’d have phoned and left a message saying something had come up and he’d had to cancel their arrangement.

Domenico Silvaggio d’Avalos was already directing operations when Arlene showed up as planned at the back of the winery, the next morning. Stepping away from a crowd of about thirty men and women being loaded into the back of two trucks, he eyed her critically, then gave a brief nod of approval. “You’ll do,” he decided.

“What a relief, signor!”

Either he didn’t pick up on her lightly sugared sarcasm, or he chose to ignore it. “Since we’ll be working closely for the next several days,” he announced briskly, “we’ll dispense with the formality. My name is Domenico.”

“In that case, I’m Arlene.”

“Yes, I remember,” he said, rather cryptically she thought. “And now that we’ve got that settled, let’s get moving. Those people you see in the trucks are extra pickers hired to help bring in the harvest. Stay out of their way. They have a job to do. If you have questions, ask me or my uncle.”

She’d have saluted and barked, Yes, sir! if he’d given her half a chance. But he herded her into the Jeep and followed the two trucks up the hill to the fields, talking on his cell phone the entire time. When they arrived, his uncle was already assigning the extra laborers to their designated picking areas under the leadership of one of the full-time employees, but he stopped long enough to welcome Arlene with a big smile. “Watch and learn, then you go home the expert,” he shouted cheerfully.

Hardly that, she thought. But hopefully not a complete nincompoop, either.

“Although some cultivators bring in machinery to get the job done quickly, we handpick our grapes,” Domenico began, wasting no time launching into his first lecture.

“So I see. Why is that?”

“Because mechanical harvesters shake the fruit from the vines, often damaging it. This can result in oxidization and microbial activity which, in turn, causes disease. Not only that, it’s virtually impossible to prevent other material also being collected, especially leaves.”

Oxidization? Microbial? Whatever happened to plain, uncomplicated English?

Covering her dismay at already finding herself at a loss, she said, “But isn’t handpicking labor intensive, and therefore more expensive?”

He cast her a lofty glance. “Vigna Silvaggio d’Avalos prides itself on the superiority of its wines. Cost is not a factor.”

“Oh, I see!” she replied weakly, and properly chastised, wondered how she’d ever manage to redeem herself for such an unforgivable oversight.

Unfortunately her woes increased as the morning progressed. Although recognizing that she’d had the extreme good fortune to find herself involved in a world-class operation, what struck her most forcibly as the hours dragged by was that her back ached and the sun was enough to roast a person alive.

Under Domenico’s tutelage, she picked clusters of grapes using a pair of shears shaped like pointed scissors. She learned to recognize unripe or diseased fruit, and to reject it. Because bruised grapes spoil easily, she handled the crop carefully, laying the collected clusters in one of many small buckets placed at intervals along each row.

Not that she’d have understood them anyway, but none of the migrant workers had much to say for themselves. They bent to their task with dogged persistence, seldom sparing her so much as a glance. Once assured that she wasn’t about to lay devastation to his precious crop, Domenico essentially ignored her, too, and Bruno was too far away to offer her a word of encouragement. Over the course of the morning, however, four women found occasion to stop by separately, each offering a friendly greeting and, at the same time, subjecting her to a thorough and somewhat amused inspection. Even if they hadn’t introduced themselves as his sisters, she’d have had to be blind not to see their resemblance to her mentor.

“Don’t let my brother wear you out,” Lara, the first to pay a visit, counseled, her English almost as flawless as Domenico’s. “He’s a slave driver, especially at harvest time. Tell him when you’ve had enough.”

Not a chance! Arlene knew from the way Domenico periodically came to check on her that he was just waiting for her to throw in the towel—which she would have done, if her pride had permitted it. But despite a dull, persistent ache above her left eye which grew steadily worse as the morning passed, she refused to give him the satisfaction.

The sun was high when a van rolled to a stop on a dusty patch of rocky ground some distance away from the fields. At once, the sisters converged on it and started unloading its contents onto a long table set up under a canvas awning supported by a steel frame.

As everyone else working the fields downed tools, Domenico approached Arlene. “Time for a break and something to eat,” he declared, in that lordly take-it-or-leave-it manner of his.

By then, the pain in her head was so severe, starbursts of flashing light were exploding before her eyes and she wasn’t sure she could crawl to where the women were laying out baskets of bread and platters laden with cheese, thinly sliced smoked meat and olives. But either he was blessed with second sight, or the stabbing agony showed on her face because, just when she feared she’d pass out, he grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet. “Still want to run a vineyard?” he inquired smoothly.

“You bet,” she managed, and disengaging herself from his hold, managed to totter off and collapse in the shade of the awning.

Following, he eyed her critically. “How much water have you drunk since you got here?”

“Not enough, I guess.” She squinted against the painfully bright glare of the sun beyond the awning. “I did bring a bottle with me, but I finished it hours ago.”

“You didn’t notice the coolers at the end of each row of vines? You didn’t think to ask what they were for?”

“No.” She swallowed, the smell of warm yeasty bread, olives and sharp cheese suddenly causing her stomach to churn unpleasantly.

He let fly with an impatient curse and strode to the table, returning a moment later to thrust at her another bottle of water, this one well chilled. “It didn’t occur to me you’d need to be told to keep yourself properly hydrated. I assumed you had enough sense to reach that conclusion unaided.”

Another of his sisters, this one well into pregnancy, happened to overhear him. “Domenico, please! Can you not see the poor woman has had enough for one day?” she chided, hurrying forward with a plate of food. “Here, signorina. I’ve brought you something to eat.”

Arlene grimaced, by then so sick from the pounding in her head that she was afraid to open her mouth to reply, in case she threw up instead.

With a sympathetic murmur, his sister lowered herself carefully to her knees. “You are in distress, cara. What can I do to help you?”

She tried to shrug away the woman’s concern but, by then, even so small a movement was beyond her. “I have a bad headache here,” she mumbled, pressing her hand to her temple, and hating herself for her weakness almost as much as she hated Domenico for witnessing it.

“More than just a headache, I think,” his sister said, glancing up at him. “It is the emicrania, Domenico—the migraine. She needs to be looked after.”

“I can see that, Renata,” he snapped.

“Then drive her down to the house and let Momma take care of her.”

“No!” Horrified by the idea, Arlene managed to subdue another wave of nausea long enough to articulate her objection without embarrassing herself.

Renata took ice from a cooler and wrapped it in one of the linen cloths lining the bread baskets. “Do you have a rented car, cara?” she asked, placing it gently at the base of Arlene’s skull.

“Yes, but not here. My friend dropped me off this morning.”

“Just as well, because you’re in no shape to drive.” Once again, Domenico hoisted her to her feet, this time showing more care than he had before. “Avanti! Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“I’m taking you back to your hotel before you pass out. I don’t imagine your friend will appreciate having you flat on your back—at least, not in your present condition.”

If she hadn’t felt so lousy, she’d have challenged him on his last remark. Instead she submitted to being bundled into the Jeep, leaned her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes.

To his credit, he drove carefully down the rutted track from the vineyard so as not to add to her discomfort, but when they reached the paved road, he wasted no time covering the miles into town. Beyond a terse, “Which hotel?” he mercifully made no other attempt at conversation.

Once arrived, he ignored the hotel’s No Parking sign, stopped the vehicle right at the front door, and came around to help her alight. “What’s your room number?”

By that point almost blind with pain, she sagged against his supporting arm. “Four twenty-two.”

“You have a key card?”

“Yes.” She fumbled without success in her tote.

He muttered indistinctly under his breath—something unflattering judging by his tone—found the card himself, and hoisting her off her feet, strode past the doorman and across the lobby to the elevator just as its doors swished open and Gail emerged.

Stopping dead in her tracks, she let out a horrified gasp. “Heavens, Arlene, what happened? You look like the wrath of God!”

“Step aside, per favore,” Domenico ordered, when she continued to block his entrance to the elevator. “I wish to take her to her room.”

“Hold on a minute!” Gail replied, clearly not the least bit fazed by his autocratic manner. “You’re not taking her anywhere without me.”

“Indeed? And who are you?”

“Arlene’s roommate.”

“You’re her friend?”

“You’re her mentor?” she shot back, imitating his incredulous tone. “The one who’s supposed to be teaching her everything there is to know about growing grapes?”

“I am.”

“Well, congratulations! You’re doing a fine job, bringing her home dead drunk in the middle of the day.”

“I’m doing nothing of the sort!” he snapped. “What kind of man do you take me for?”

“You don’t want to know!”

“Gail,” Arlene protested weakly, “it’s okay. I have a headache, that’s all, and just need to lie down until it passes.”

Gail’s face swam into her line of vision. “Sweetie, what kind of headache has you practically passing out?”

“A migraine,” Domenico interjected on an irate breath. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

“Oh.” Her tone suddenly less confrontational, Gail backed into the elevator. “I’m…um…sorry if I came on too strong. I’ll help you get her upstairs.”

“Close the shutters,” Domenico instructed, when they reached the room. “I understand it helps to have the room darkened.”

While Gail scurried to obey him, he lowered Arlene to the bed farthest from the window, then sat on the edge of the mattress and stroked a cool hand down her forehead. “Close your eyes, cara,” he murmured, and even in the depths of her misery, the shift in his attitude was not lost on her. Whatever had given rise to that unspoken edge of hostility between them yesterday and which had continued into this morning, melted in the deep, soothing warmth of his voice.

“I’ve never seen her like this before,” she heard Gail whisper from the other side of the bed. “Shouldn’t we call for a doctor?”

“She doesn’t usually suffer from migraines?”

“Not that I’m aware of, and if anyone would know, I would. We’ve been best friends ever since college.”

The mattress shifted slightly as he rose to his feet. “Stay with her and keep the ice pack at the back of her neck.”

Panic lacing her voice, Gail hissed, “You’re just dropping her off, then leaving? What if—?”

“I’ll be back,” he said, as his footsteps receded quietly over the tiled floor.

As soon as she heard the door click shut behind him, Arlene struggled to sit up. “Gail…? I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh, cripes!” Gail slipped an arm around her shoulders and eased her to her feet. “Okay, sweetie, come on. I’ll help you to the bathroom.”

They made it with seconds to spare. Wrenching and horrible though it was while it lasted, vomiting seemed to ease the stabbing ferocity of the pain just a little.

After rinsing out her mouth and splashing cold water on her face, Arlene lay down on the bed again and managed a feeble smile. “Don’t look so worried. I promise not to pull a repeat performance.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Gail said, crossing to peer through the peephole as a knock came at the door. “You just took ten years off my life. Now lie still and look pale and interesting. Your Sir Galahad’s back, and he’s not alone.”

“How is she?” Domenico inquired, the minute he set foot in the room.

“About the same,” Gail told him. “But she threw up while you were gone.”

Oh, please! Arlene whimpered silently. Haven’t I suffered enough indignity for one day, without your sharing that with him?

“Then it’s as well I summoned professional help. This is Dr. Zaccardo,” he added, as a middle-aged man with prematurely gray hair advanced to her bedside.

“It is as you suspected.” After a brief examination and a few pertinent questions, the doctor stepped back from the bed and nodded so energetically at the other two that Arlene shuddered inside. “I will leave this medication with you,” he continued, reaching into his medical bag for a small bottle. “See, please, that she takes two tablets immediately and, if necessary, two more at six, this evening. However, treatment now is such that a migraine is usually dispelled in a matter of hours. If she shows no improvement by nightfall, you will contact me, but I do not expect to hear from you. By tomorrow, she will be herself again. Arrivederci, signor, signorine.”

With that, he was gone as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving Arlene to deal only with Domenico who didn’t seem disposed to leave with equal dispatch. Instead while Gail brought her two pills and a glass of water, he went to the desk and wrote something on the pad of paper supplied by the hotel.

“If you’re concerned at all, you can reach me at any of these numbers, and this one is Dr. Zaccardo’s,” he told Gail. “Regardless, please call me this evening and let me know how she’s doing.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“I want to hear from you anyway. You’ll be staying with her, of course?”

“Of course.”

“Until later, then.”

The next time Arlene was aware of her surroundings, the room was completely dark except for the soft glow from a lamp next to the armchair by the window, where Gail sat reading.

Cautiously Arlene blinked. Dared to turn her head on the pillow. And let out a slow breath of relief. No flashing lights before her eyes. No stabbing pain above her left temple. Nothing, in fact, but a cool, delicious lassitude—and a gorgeous bouquet of pink roses on the coffee table, some distance away.

“You’re awake!” Gail exclaimed softly, setting down her book and coming to the bed. “How’re you feeling, sweetie?”

“Better,” she said. “Much better. What time is it?”

“Just after eight. You slept for over six hours. Do you need more medication?”

She sat up carefully. “I don’t think so. But I’d love some water.”

“Sure.” Gail plumped her pillows, then filled a glass from the carafe on the desk.

Arlene sipped it slowly, letting the slivers of ice linger a moment on her tongue, then slide down her throat.

“Well?” Gail watched her anxiously.

“So far, so good.” She indicated the roses. “They’re lovely, Gail, but you should’ve saved your money. I’m not going to die, after all.”

“Oh, they’re not from me! He sent them. They arrived a couple of hours ago. Here, see for yourself.” She handed over a card, signed simply Domenico. “Not long on sentiment, is he?”

“Apparently not.” Nevertheless, a sweet, ridiculous pleasure sang through Arlene’s blood that he’d cared enough to send her flowers in the first place.

“Pretty good at dishing out orders, though. I suppose I’d better give him a call and let him know you’re feeling better.”

She retrieved the notepad from the desk, punched in one of the numbers he’d written down, and almost immediately began, “Hi, it’s Gail Weaver…. Yes, I know what time it is…. Well I did, as soon as she woke up…Just now…Well, I will, if you’ll stop interrupting and let me finish a sentence…! No, she says she doesn’t need them…. Because she’s a grown woman, Mr. Silvaggio de Whatever, which means she, and not you, gets to decide what she puts in her mouth…. I don’t know. I’ll ask her.”

She held the phone at arm’s length. “Do you feel up to talking to his lordship, Arlene?” she inquired, loud enough for half the people in the hotel to hear.

Arlene nodded, unable to keep a straight face. When was the last time anyone had spoken to him like that, she wondered.

“Hello, Domenico,” she said, picking up the handset on the bedside table.

“I hear you’re recovered.” Seductive baritone verging on bass, his voice stroked sinfully against her ear and vibrated the length of her body. “I’m greatly relieved.”

“Thank you, both for your concern and for the flowers. If a woman has to suffer a migraine, waking up to pink roses does make it a little easier to bear.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying them.”

A pause hummed along the line, which she took to mean the conversation was at an end. “Well, I’ll say good night, then—”

He cut her off before she could finish. “Arlene, I blame myself for what happened today. Expecting you to work as long as others who are used to our climate was unforgivable of me, and I apologize.”