One Sultry Summer: Three Sexy Contemporary Romances Boxed Set Page 19

  “You’ve brought me to the ends of the earth to live,” Emma said to Trent when she walked into the office of Wild West Adventure Tours.

  He pushed away from the desk and got to his feet. “That didn’t take you long.”

  “I went back to Tarrytown.”

  “Oh?”

  “And I saw my parents.”

  “Oh.” His tone flattened.

  “They like you.”

  “You told them about my company.”

  “Well, yeah, but it turns out they really liked you all along.”

  Trent frowned. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “It’s true. They were just scared we’d end up with their life. Married too young with too many kids too soon, so they warned you off. But I’m not them, and this is my decision.”

  Trent stalked across the floor, scooped her up in his arms, and hugged her tight. “You were my first and I...” He paused and swallowed. “I want you to be my last.”

  “Oh, Trent.” She didn’t mean to cry, but sweet tears of joy slid slowly down her cheeks.

  “Don’t leave me hanging here, sweetheart. Is that a yes?”

  In answer, she stood on tiptoes and cupped the sides of his dear face with both palms and kissed him with a fervency unlike any other.

  And they both knew in their heart of hearts it was truly meant to be.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  Who would have ever suspected a year ago that a chastity belt would change all of our lives?” Izzy asked.

  The friends were at Jackdaw’s again on a Thursday night, celebrating Emma and Trent’s wedding on Saturday.

  Bianca St. James Santos just smiled a sly smile and placed a hand on her rounded abdomen. Her baby, Thomaz Junior, was due at Christmas. Her husband, Thomaz, sat beside her, a protective arm around the back of her chair. Bianca was now working for Thomaz as his vice president and right-hand woman. They’d just flown in from their home in Rio and were staying at the Manhattan apartment they kept for when business brought them to New York.

  Jake and Madison were holding hands under the table. On Monday after Emma and Trent’s wedding, he and Madison were headed to Belize on an orchid hunting expedition. Jake had a ring in his pocket, and he was planning to propose to her in a field of orchids. Just the day before, his old friend Joe had called him from the Greek Isles where he was on an around-the-world cruise. Sounding happier than he had in years, Joe told him about the special woman he’d met on the trip. “Love,” Joe had said, “is the biggest adventure of them all.” And Jake knew he was right.

  Emma leaned against Trent, her head on his shoulder. He calmed her in the midst of the crowd and noise. She couldn’t believe how quickly she’d grown accustomed to the quiet wilderness of Colorado nor how deeply she’d fallen in love with the serenity of the mountains. Trent leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Do you miss New York?”

  “No,” she murmured, “not at all.”

  “Let’s have a toast.” Madison raised her glass. “To Thomaz—for designing the ultimate lingerie.”

  “I second that,” Jake added.

  “To Thomaz,” Emma echoed, her hand on Trent’s knee.

  “We owe you big-time.” Trent nodded and raised his glass.

  They toasted Thomaz, and then everyone cast a glance at Izzy.

  “Hey, don’t give me pitying looks, people. Your little chastity belt helped me most of all.” Izzy grinned.

  “How’s that?” Emma asked.

  “It’s taught me self-control, and with the money I made off you guys, I paid off my credit card debt.”

  “But you didn’t find anyone to love out of the deal.” Bianca made a sad face.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “What do you mean?” Madison asked.

  A sly expression crossed Izzy’s face. “Hunter and I have been dating.”

  “Oh, Izzy,” they all exclaimed in unison.

  “So how’s the sex?” Emma asked and giggled when Trent tickled her in the ribs.

  “I don’t know,” Izzy admitted.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Bianca blinked.

  “We’ve been seeing each other for three months, and tonight’s the night.” Izzy crossed her fingers. “Right now, as we speak, we’re playing Catch Me if You Can.”

  “And I caught you,” said a deep masculine voice.

  They all turned to see a handsome blond man stride over. He slid his arms around Izzy. “Honey, I’ve gotta tell you, that chastity belt is killing me.”

  “Amen!” Everybody at the table laughed.

  “I don’t suppose I can be Cherry Forever,” Izzy said, referring to her cartoon alter ego.

  “Izzy!” came the unanimous cry.

  With that, more toasts were made, more food was eaten, more hugs and kisses shared. Then one by one, the couples said good night and went home, each believing that they had, in their own way, won the bet and received the sweetest reward.

  Dear Reader,

  Readers are an author’s life blood and the stories couldn’t happen without you. Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed One Sultry Summer, I would so appreciate a review. You have no idea how much it means to me!

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  To check out my other books, you can visit me on the web @ www.loriwilde.com.

  Much love and light!

  —Lori

  Excerpt: The Billionaire’s Secret Summer

  At dawn on the first day of June, Wyatt DeSalme stood on the bow of the ferry watching the mist-shrouded island that lay just off the coast of Northern California slide into view.

  The churning engines vibrated up through the deck floor, and he tasted salty sea air. Seagulls chattered like gossiping biddies, and the excited voices of the young men and women surrounding him, nursing their gourmet coffees and noshing on free pastries, grew in tone and tempo as the mist parted.

  Suddenly, the jagged, double-barrel bluff known as Twin Hearts jutted straight up from the middle of the island, glistening in the jubilant glow of morning light.

  This was it.

  His destination.

  The strangest feeling passed over him, a feeling that said, If you do this, you’ll never be the same.

  An uneasy knot settled in the pit of his stomach.

  I don’t wanna go.

  How come? Normally, he loved role-playing. Secret agent man had been his favorite game as a kid, not cowboys and Indians like his brothers. Why the sudden impulse to stay rooted on the boat while everyone else disembarked?

  What’s the matter? Chicken?

  The taunt came from the back of his mind, but it was the voice of his oldest brother, Scott, issuing the chanting dare from childhood along with an excess of poultry noises, a dare Wyatt had never been able to resist.

  It was why he’d broken a collarbone climbing a quince tree when he was ten, and why he’d fallen through the ice on a barely frozen pond when they’d visited their maternal grandparents in Kansas one Christmas.

  The taunts, dares, bets, and challenges had gone a long way toward forming his character. Always eager to prove himself to his older brothers, he had turned into a bold adventurer. Now here he was at thirty-one, still trying to win their approval.

  As a disguise, he wore dark-framed, non-prescription lenses and two days’ growth of prickly beard. Over the past few months, he’d let his hair grow out, getting ready for this covert game, and it curled in waves to his collar.

  Wyatt hadn’t worn his hair this long since college, and an errant strand kept flopping across his brow whenever he tilted his head forward.

  He had on blue jeans with a hole in one knee, a gray knit cap, and a gray hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with the Berkeley University logo, a school he had not attended but wished he had. He’d gone instead to Princeton, as was family tradition, and had dropped out in his sophomore year.


  His sneakers—purchased at a thrift shop—boasted broken shoelaces and thin treads. His watch, also from the thrift store, was a cheap drugstore brand. He’d left the Rolex at his condo in Athens. No belt. No socks.

  His goal?

  Downplay his looks. Make himself as nondescript as possible. Fitting in with the opposite of his customary behavior.

  Normally, Wyatt adored wearing a tux to high-society parties, driving his Lamborghini on the autobahn, gambling in Monte Carlo, and generally being the center of attention.

  The dodge seemed to be working. He’d been on the boat for over an hour, and not a single one of the hot coeds on board had shot him a second glance. Which was both reassuring and a bit of an ego-crusher.

  “So,” said one of those gorgeous coeds to another as the engines stopped churning and the ferry glided toward the dock. “Do you think the legend of Idyll Island is true?”

  Wyatt, eager to eavesdrop on their conversation, moved closer to the two young women who stood near the railing watching the ferry workers prep for landing. A good corporate spy kept his eyes and ears open.

  “What’s that?” asked the second girl. The petite brunette looked barely legal, but he’d heard her say earlier that she was an intern at Belle Notte Vineyards, so she had to be at least twenty-one. Still, she could pass for a high school student.

  You’re just getting old.

  He quickly batted away that thought. He was thirty-one, in the prime of life, at the top of his game.

  “Oh, you haven’t heard? It’s amazing. So romantic.” The first girl, a blonde with a pert ski-slope of a nose, dramatically clutched both hands to her heart. “Here’s how the story goes. Way back, a long, long time ago, when the founder of Bella Notte, Giovanni Romano, was our age, he fell in love with a girl from the mainland. One night in June, Giovanni took the first bottle of wine produced from his vineyard, along with his sweetheart, Maria, up to the top of Twin Hearts.”

  The blonde paused and gestured at the towering bluffs.

  “Did they do it up there?” The brunette giggled.

  Wyatt rolled his eyes but sidled closer.

  “I’m sure.” The blonde grinned slyly. “They shared the wine underneath the full moon, and then Giovanni asked Maria to marry him. She said yes. They were married in the vineyard the following June and lived happily ever after for sixty-four years.”

  “Aww, that’s so sweet.”

  “Giovanni and Maria’s three sons did the same thing with their girlfriends. And then their sons did too. No one in the Romano family has ever been divorced. Nor has anyone who has ever shared a bottle of wine with their true love on Twin Hearts during a full moon in June.”

  “No one?”

  The blonde shook her head. “No one.”

  “Wow,” said the brunette. “Those are some crazy odds.”

  What a load of bull, Wyatt thought, but in spite of himself, he was charmed by the legend. He had to admit that the Romanos sure knew how to stir up a myth for publicity, and he wondered how much of the boutique vineyard’s success was tied into that far-fetched story.

  “Well, I’m not here for romance,” the blonde said. “I’m here to learn winemaking from the best.”

  “Couldn’t get an internship at DeSalme Vineyards, huh?”

  “No,” the blonde admitted sheepishly. “But this is better.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Belle Notte’s a small winery, run by a woman.”

  “And there is that legend.”

  “I told you I’m not interested in romance. Now hooking up with a hot guy...” She cast a sidelong glance at the deckhands docking the boat. “Absolutely. I’m just not in the market for happily ever after.”

  Me neither.

  Wyatt slid an appraising glance over the blonde. Apart from her youthfulness, she was what his brothers would refer to as one of “Wyatt’s Lamborghini women”—fast, sleek, and expensive to maintain. She possessed a smoking body, expensive haircut, and designer clothes.

  Too bad he couldn’t afford the distraction.

  “Not even if...you know...like you met somebody special, like, The One?” the brunette asked.

  The blonde tossed her head. “I’m not ruling anything out, but yeah, I’m not interested in long-term. Not for years and years and years. I want to be like Kiara Romano, running my own winery by the time I’m thirty. You can’t achieve something like that if you let your heart rule your head.”

  “It also helps to inherit a winery.”

  “There is that.”

  “Or marry into one.”

  The blonde sniffed. “I want to be the one in the driver’s seat.”

  “It’s not always pleasant behind the wheel. I heard Kiara never dates.” The brunette lowered her voice and said something he couldn’t hear.

  Wyatt cocked his head, straining to listen, but it was too late. The women were moving away from him, heading to where everyone else was disembarking and climbing into the waiting vans whose doors wore mural wraps of Bella Notte Vineyards.

  At this hour of the morning, it seemed almost everyone on the ferry was a new intern headed for Bella Notte. Wyatt found himself in the same van with the chatty coeds. They ended up introducing themselves. The blonde’s name was Lauren, the brunette’s Bernadette.

  As the caravan of four vehicles, each carrying six interns, drove up the hillside, the mist seemed to move with them, rolling away from the coast, rising up to cloak Twin Hearts.

  The landscape was arid earth on one side of the bluff, verdant valleys dotted with vineyards on the other. Idyll had the same grape-friendly climate as the Napa Valley region, the same easygoing feel.

  The entrance to Bella Notte was as quaint as everything else on Idyll. A vine-covered stone wall flanked buildings reminiscent of Tuscan wineries. Beyond the buildings stretched rows of perfectly manicured grapes.

  Wyatt had grown up in vineyards, and honestly, they’d never interested him—too much hard work to be sure— but now, looking at this place, breathing in the scent of the rich, loamy soil, his chest tightened, and he felt oddly inspired.

  His brothers would get a good laugh out of that. Why should he feel inspired by this tiny winery, while the big, sprawling corporate affair that was DeSalme Vineyards left him cold?

  That reminded him of why he was here. To find out exactly what Belle Notte was doing that had caused this tiny boutique winery to take a surprising bite out of DeSalme’s market share.

  Their wines were supremely good. What were they doing differently? His brothers had paid to have the wine analyzed, but they’d been unable to detect why it was so special. They needed a corporate spy on the inside, and he was it.

  A tall, dark-haired man met the group and ushered them into one of the stone buildings. He moved with a dreamy, loose-limbed stride, as if walking on a bank of clouds. He wore his hair long, swept off his forehead and tied back with a leather strap. He had a cluster of purple grapes tattooed on his right forearm, and he wore a shirt made from hemp.

  A raven-haired woman, wearing a gauzy blue dress, ambled across the yard to join them. She nestled against the tall man and turned her face up to receive a long, soulful kiss from him. With genuine affection, the man patted her butt, then gently tugged her along beside him.

  It was cool inside and minimally furnished with a large, sturdy wooden table and a long row of matching chairs. It was obviously a tasting room set up for the tourists who paid extra for lessons on wine and food pairing.

  The place smelled of grapes: sweet and robust and intoxicating.

  It was a familiar scent that never quite left Wyatt’s nostrils, no matter where in the world he sailed his yacht. But here in this austere room, he could not shake the aroma of home.

  The back door opened, revealing a long corridor paneled in rich mahogany. Everyone turned in unison.

  A woman about his own age entered the room, dressed in a style that Wyatt could only describe as “you’re not getting a gander at the goods, sma
rt guy.”

  She wore round wire-framed granny glasses, a shapeless, floral dress that he associated with women over sixty, and a burgundy-and-green Bella Notte chef’s apron.

  The dress hem hit her at mid-calf, and her feet were shod in battered tan hiking boots with thick rubber soles. A pair of simple gold studs lay nestled in her earlobes, and her complexion was as sun-kissed as field grapes and completely without the artifice of makeup. She’d pulled her dark auburn hair back in a haphazard ponytail, escaping strands poking out in every direction.

  For some weird reason, the song “Every Which Way but Loose” popped into his mind.

  She raised her head, and her stunning green eyes slammed into his, and his heart just...stumbled.

  A sudden memory flashed through his mind.

  He was a child running through the grapevines, playing tag with his brothers and cousins during some outdoor event hosted by his family, the air rife with the smell of barbecue. He couldn’t have been more than four or five. He’d reached the end of the row and then...boom.

  Out of nowhere a little auburn-haired, green-eyed girl appeared. Momentum had been against him, and he’d knocked her flat on the ground. She’d lain there staring at him in exactly the same way this woman was staring at him now.

  As if he was an ugly bug in her breakfast cereal.

  She knows!

  Uncustomary panic seized him.

  This was more than a game, he realized suddenly. There was more than his pride at stake. He’d told his brothers he could do this, and Wyatt hated to fail.

  Besides, he was ready for more responsibility. He was tired of being the butt of his older brothers’ jokes. He deserved to be a real part of the multibillion dollar DeSalme legacy. If he could deliver Bella Notte’s secret, it would prove him worthy, and they’d have to stop dismissing him as just their playboy kid brother.

  To wriggle out of her glower, he did what he always did when he aimed to charm women. He grinned and winked wolfishly.