Chapter 2 - “Enjoying Yourself?”
“Enjoying yourself?”
Sophie stopped breathing.
The crystal glass remained pressed against her lower lip.
For one terrible second, her brain refused to process the voice behind her.
Then it did.
Slowly, Sophie lowered the glass.
Dante Romano stood in the doorway.
Black shirt. Black trousers. Sleeves pushed just far enough to expose his watch. His expression revealed almost nothing, which somehow made everything worse.
A guard stood behind him.
The guard was staring at the ceiling with the desperate concentration of a man attempting not to laugh at his employer.
Sophie swallowed.
“Define enjoying.”
Dante’s eyebrow lifted.
The guard coughed.
Dante looked backward.
The guard disappeared.
Traitor.
Sophie carefully placed the glass on the desk.
“I can explain.”
“I’m fascinated already.”
“I was dusting.”
Dante glanced at the abandoned feather duster.
“Thoroughly, apparently.”
“And then I noticed the bottle.”
“Dangerous sequence of events.”
“It really was.”
He entered.
Sophie became acutely aware that Dante Romano was much larger when walking toward her than when being discussed downstairs by employees who believed he could not hear them.
He stopped opposite her.
“You drank my wine.”
“Tasted.”
“Three times?”
Her face fell.
“You were watching?”
“Long enough to hear you insult both the wine and me.”
“I didn’t insult you.”
“‘You needed everyone to know you were expensive.’”
Sophie winced.
“That was circumstantial commentary.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Dante picked up the bottle.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Sophie blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You spent several minutes criticizing it. Finish.”
She stared at him.
Was this a trap?
Probably.
Everything about Dante Romano looked like a trap.
“The oak is too aggressive.”
His gaze remained steady.
“And?”
“It needs air.”
“And?”
Sophie hesitated.
“The bottle isn’t worth four thousand dollars.”
“Why?”
“Because price and quality aren’t the same thing.”
Dante poured wine into a second glass.
“Show me.”
Sophie’s fear temporarily lost a fight with irritation.
“You want me to prove your overpriced wine is overpriced?”
“Yes.”
“That feels dangerous.”
“So was stealing it.”
“I prefer unauthorized tasting.”
“Show me, Sophie.”
It was the first time he had spoken her name that way.
Not Miss Bennett.
Not you.
Sophie.
She reluctantly picked up her glass.
“Fine.”
For the next ten minutes, she forgot to be afraid.
She explained acidity. Tannins. Aging. Why the bottle had been opened too recently. Why expensive oak could flatten subtler fruit. She described the wine as “a handsome man who knows he’s handsome and therefore never developed a personality.”
Dante stared at her.
Sophie stopped.
“That metaphor got away from me.”
“Clearly.”
Then Dante did something she had never seen.
He laughed.
Not loudly.
Just once.
A low, surprised sound.
Sophie stared.
Dante’s amusement vanished almost immediately.
“Where did you learn this?”
There it was.
The question she had hoped he would not ask.
“My father.”
“Sommelier?”
“Winemaker.”
“Where?”
Sophie looked at the label again.
“California.”
Dante waited.
She did not elaborate.
His eyes shifted toward her hand.
She was gripping the glass too tightly.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
“What was his name?”
“Thomas Bennett.”
Something changed.
Tiny.
But Sophie saw it.
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“You said Bennett?”
“Yes.”
He placed his glass down.
“What vineyard?”
Sophie’s stomach tightened.
“Bennett Ridge.”
Silence.
Dante looked at the bottle.
Then at Sophie.
The playful atmosphere disappeared.
“How old were you when it closed?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Why?”
She gave him a humorless smile.
“If you paid four thousand dollars for that bottle, Mr. Romano, you can probably afford Google.”
Dante ignored the deflection.
“Your father died.”
Sophie stiffened.
“Car accident.”
“Seven years ago.”
She stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
Before Dante could answer, footsteps approached.
A tall man in a gray suit entered without knocking.
Luca Romano.
Dante’s cousin and chief financial officer.
Unlike Dante, Luca smiled easily.
Sophie had always thought that made him more dangerous, not less.
“Dante, Bellini moved the—”
Luca stopped.
His gaze landed on Sophie.
Then the bottle.
Then the glass in her hand.
His smile widened.
“Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” Sophie said.
“No,” Dante said simultaneously.
Luca looked delighted.
Dante’s expression hardened.
“What?”
“The Bellini dinner has been moved to seven.”
Dante checked his watch.
“Fine.”
Luca’s attention returned to Sophie.
“I didn’t realize the household staff were included.”
“She isn’t.”
Sophie handed Dante the glass.
“Wonderful. Then I’ll return to being employed for however many minutes remain.”
She moved toward the door.
“Sophie.”
She stopped.
Dante held up the bottle.
“Tomorrow. Six o’clock.”
She frowned.
“What happens tomorrow at six?”
“You’re going to tell me whether twelve bottles are worth buying.”
Sophie stared.
“I’m a maid.”
“At the moment.”
The words landed strangely.
Luca’s smile disappeared.
Sophie noticed.
Dante did too.
But neither commented.
“I finish at five.”
“Then I’m paying overtime.”
“How much overtime?”
Dante named a number.
Sophie turned around completely.
“For tasting wine?”
“For knowing what you’re talking about.”
“That is an alarming amount of money.”
“Take it.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow I have dinner with a man who claims his wine collection is worth eight million dollars.”
“And you think it isn’t?”
“I think everyone lies when enough money is involved.”
Something about the sentence felt heavier than wine.
Sophie nodded reluctantly.
“One night.”
“One night.”
She left.
Only after the door closed did Luca speak.
“That’s Thomas Bennett’s daughter.”
Dante looked at him.
“You knew?”
“I recognized the name.”
“You didn’t mention it when she was hired.”
“Why would I?”
Dante studied him.
Luca smiled again.
Too quickly.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m hiding something.”
Dante picked up Sophie’s abandoned glass.
On the rim was the faintest mark from her lipstick.
Then his eyes dropped to the bottle.
“Get me everything we have on Bennett Ridge.”
Luca’s smile disappeared again.
“Why?”
“Because Thomas Bennett didn’t die in an accident.”
The room became still.
Luca said nothing.
Dante looked toward the hallway Sophie had just entered.
Seven years earlier, Thomas Bennett had contacted the Romano organization three days before his death.
He claimed someone was using his vineyard distribution network to move millions of dollars in illegal funds.
He had promised evidence.
He never delivered it.
His car went through a guardrail forty-eight hours later.
Dante had been twenty-eight then, still fighting to control an empire inherited in blood and debt.
The Bennett case had disappeared beneath bigger wars.
Until now.
Until Thomas Bennett’s daughter had walked into his house wearing a pink uniform and criticizing his Cabernet.
“Dante,” Luca said quietly, “leave this alone.”
Dante turned.
That sentence was wrong.
Very wrong.
“Why?”
Luca recovered.
“Because the man has been dead seven years.”
Dante watched his cousin leave.
Then he looked down.
Something pale protruded from beneath the wine label.
Dante frowned.
He peeled back one corner.
A second label had been hidden underneath.
Not the vineyard’s commercial mark.
A handwritten inventory code.
TB-17.
Dante’s expression changed.
Thomas Bennett.
Seventeen.
He reached for his phone.
Then stopped.
Someone had entered his study before Sophie.
Someone had deliberately left this bottle on his desk.
And suddenly Dante understood something that made his blood run cold.
May you like
Sophie had not discovered the wine by accident.
Someone had wanted her to find it.
