Fielder's Choice Read Online Free PDF Page B

the possessiveness under the humor in his tone. Last autumn they’d started out light—fun, no strings—just the way she liked it. But lately he’d been angling for a commitment. It was time, he’d said. For both of them. She liked Marcel—he was certainly the most interesting man she’d met in a long time. He shared her love of the fast-paced life of Paris. And she couldn’t complain about their sex life—the man was a wizard in bed. But commitment didn’t come easily to her. It was a constraint she preferred to avoid.
    And deep down she felt that he saw the union of their families as a sort of merger, a business deal. The Tavonesi family had the best olives in Sonoma. Now the best grapes as well. Throw in her brother Simon’s organic, high-end fruit and vegetable farm, and her family had almost every front covered. Marcel’s family brought old-school Champagne, one of France’s finest, to the table. Marrying her would diversify and extend the reach of his family’s empire.
    She might not love Marcel—wasn’t really sure what loving a man felt like, wasn’t sure she wanted to know—but life with him was smooth and easy, skimmed along like a breeze on a lake. And he had a way of making her feel like the sexiest woman on earth. But she was in no mood for marriage or a merger of any sort.
    “It’s California , Marcel. Not a cowboy in sight.” She offered the words with a teasing tone, but since she’d met Matt Darrington, her feelings were in a jumble.
    “Ah. I will sleep easier tonight. But I would enjoy my evening better if you were here.”
    His sultry voice laced a path of desire deep into Alana. Already she missed the languid nights of delicious sex. Sex never had her jumbled; it was always good. Only now she was having racy dreams of Marcel as well as another man. A man whose face she couldn’t quite see. A man she’d easily wager was Matt.
    “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I’ll call you at the end of the week.”
    “I’d rather have a visit; I can meet you in New York. Your people can handle the farming details. I know something of the business, remember?
    “You told me your idea of farming is to show up for the awarding of the medal for your family’s Champagne and leave before the celebration becomes dull.”
    “You wound me,” he said, laughing. “But it does sound vaguely like something I might’ve said. I give up. But don’t forget—the Versailles gala is in August. No excuses. You are my special date.”
    She hadn’t forgotten. The gala to celebrate the restoration of Versailles was to be a highlight of her summer. She’d planned to fly there right after her diving vacation in the Seychelles.
    But that was before Nana had died and left her the ranch to deal with.
    It stung that Nana hadn’t let on that she was ill, much less that she was dying. She hadn’t shown any signs of being near the end of her wild and exuberant life. Worse, her death had left a gaping hole that Alana hadn’t expected. But the guilt that lanced through the grief squeezing in her chest hurt more. If she hadn’t blown off her grandmother’s request that she visit, hadn’t instead dashed off to Paris into Marcel’s arms and the buzz and whirl of parties and nightclubs, she wouldn’t have missed the last days of Nana’s life.
    Guilt intensified the nagging feeling she’d had for the past few months, as she’d been dogged by something that wouldn’t reveal its name even before she’d been called back to deal with the ranch. Immersed in the vibrant nightlife of Paris, she frequently forgot about the odd sensation that sometimes jabbed at her in the midst of charming company and opulent parties, the strange ache that made words and laughter lose their verve. Until she’d walked up the hill and seen the land spread out before her, she’d managed to ignore the chafing that had been softly but insistently abrading her soul.
    But now, faced with the breadth of the ranch property, its