Red Red Wine (Tastes of Seduction) Read Online Free PDF Page A

burning ring flew off her finger.
    “What are you doing here?”
    She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
    Declan’s mobile phone rang, the trill shattering the silence, loud enough to pierce her eardrums and vibrate across her skull.
    With as much strength as she possessed—which was close to none, seeing as her arms were heavy as boulders and useless as jelly—she flung the ring at him, spun around and fled from his room.
     
     
    The night was dark, but the crescent-shaped moon that had just risen made it a whole lot easier to see. It also made it easier to avoid the deviant, killer rocks on the pathway, one of which Andrew’s big toe had become intimately acquainted with.
    Served him right for walking around an unfamiliar wine estate at midnight. But he’d needed the air and the exercise. And he’d needed to escape from his thoughts. They seemed to be cramming themselves into his head at a rapid rate.
    At home he didn’t give himself time to think. He set his goals and worked towards them methodically. Whether it was work or personal, he knew what he needed to do and he did it, focusing 100 percent on the task at hand.
    Here in the Hunter, there was no task at hand. No goal to accomplish, no deadline to meet, no parent to care for. Which meant he got to spend hour upon hour with all the thoughts he usually pushed aside.
    Even the not-so-subtle flirting of the waitress who’d served him dinner earlier at the Harvest Restaurant hadn’t distracted him enough to stop those thoughts crowding his head. They left Andrew wondering when everything had changed. When had he, the carefree son of two wonderfully loving and nurturing parents, become the parent? When had he become the adult? Wasn’t it just yesterday he’d been the relaxed uni student with not a thought, worry or responsibility in the world?
    Maybe he should have taken the waitress up on her offer. Phoned the number she’d left on his bill alongside the little smiley face and the words “call me”. It would have been a perfect opportunity to jump back into his carefree ways. Have a little uncomplicated fun for a night—or a weekend. Lose himself in the pleasures of a feminine body.
    But while the thought appealed, the cute waitress did not. Nope, hard as he tried to get her out of his mind, the only woman who held any appeal right now was the one who’d walked into the hotel carrying her wedding dress.
    Stupid. So bloody stupid to become instantly infatuated with someone he could never have, but all it had taken was one look and he’d fallen. Now he was destined to spend the rest of the weekend regretting not only dementia and pneumonia, but also his very pathetic social life.
    After months of being alone, he’d finally met someone he’d like to get to know better, and of course, she was totally off-limits.
    Murphy’s fucking law.
    The sweet scents and mass of bush-like shapes looming up ahead told Andrew he was approaching the rose garden. Blake had spoken about it at length, and how one of his lovers, Angus, had done a spectacular job creating the garden. Perhaps in the daylight hours, Andrew might have been better able to appreciate Angus’s landscaping brilliance, but at night, with little more than instinct and a half-moon guiding the way, Andrew had to go by Blake’s word alone. Tomorrow he’d get a better view.
    He did breathe deeply though, inhaling the seductive aroma of the roses. The smell grew stronger the closer he got, until he found himself weaving his way through hundreds of thorny, flower-laden bushes, headed towards the hulking, dark building in the center.
    A gazebo.
    At night it looked dark grey, but Andrew had glimpsed it earlier from his window. It was white and striking in its grandeur, the roof steepling at the center and wood lattice surrounding its hexagonal sides. He circled the building until he reached two long wooden stairs leading up into it. That was when he froze, surprised to find he wasn’t alone.
    Someone sat on the