Revenge at Bella Terra Read Online Free PDF Page B

less torture himself reading some female idea of scary suspense.
    “Is she going to stay in the house with you?” Nonna asked.
    “No. I’m putting her in the guest cottage.” Eli hoped that would silence most of the curiosity.
    After all, he wasn’t giving up his privacy for a woman. Or her muse.
    Not yet.
    “As soon as you can, bring her to dinner,” Nonna ordered. “I would love to meet my new favorite author.”

Chapter 5
    C hloë Robinson looked around at the quiet two-lane road that ran through a remote part of Bella Valley.
    She looked at her bug-splattered blue Ford Focus.
    She looked at the right front tire, so flat it was resting on the rim.
    Damned tire.
    Damned deadline.
    Lately she blamed everything on her deadline, on being late with her book, on having second-book syndrome. She wouldn’t have driven over the nail if she weren’t distracted by her plot, by being halfway through a book that seemed slow and clunky, weighed down with too many expectations. Her first book had been written so easily, had been so much fun, and only when it hit the bestseller lists had Chloë realized that if she wanted a career writing books, she’d have to do it again. And again.
    Yep. This was definitely the fault of her deadline.
    And Eli Di Luca. It was his fault, too.
    She sighed.
    It was also her own fault. What kind of fool was she to stand in front of her father and proclaim that all she needed to finish this book was a quiet place to write?
    She dragged her suitcases out of her trunk, stacked them beside the road, and found the spare, the jack, the tire iron.
    Saying she needed a quiet place to write was just an excuse, and a stupid one, too. She didn’t expect him to take her seriously.
    But like a pudgy Italian whirlwind, he had come back with the invitation from Eli Di Luca to stay in a guest cottage on his California estate and finish her book.
    Papa said Di Luca was a fan.
    Papa obviously thought his daughter was a gullible idiot.
    She dug the spare out of the trunk and rolled it over onto the dusty shoulder of the road.
    One quick trip to the Internet showed her what she already knew—Eli Di Luca was a successful, handsome Italian, exactly the kind of guy her father had been flinging at her.
    On the road, a car slowed and stopped.
    She tensed, stood, tried to look tall and tough.
    A guy, who did not look tall and tough, called, “Looks like you know what you’re doing!”
    “I do.” She did. Because eight years ago, when she’d taken driver’s training, her instructor had made her change a tire. She hadn’t done it since. She didn’t know if she could loosen the lug nuts or get the jack to work right. But only a fool would ask a strange man for help....
    Not that he was offering. “Do you need me to call someone for you?”
    “No, I already called.” Her smile was more a baring of her teeth.
    The garage had said they were busy and it would be two hours. The bastards.
    She said, “I figured while I was waiting, I might as well give it a try.”
    “Power on!” He rolled up his window and drove away.
    “Yeah, thanks.” She read the directions in the trunk about how to assemble the jack, and did it . . . on the third try.
    She wished she were back in Texas, where some man would stop, swagger over, and tell her to rest her pretty self while he changed her tire. She’d do it, too.
    Okay. If she’d had this flat while driving through west Texas, home of tarantulas and dust storms, she would have waited a long time before she even saw a man. But other than Mr. Power On, it wasn’t as if they were coming out of the woodwork in California, either.
    Men had their place in the world.
    Taking out the garbage.
    Opening jars.
    Fixing flats.
    The irony of having a flat tire here, within two miles of her goal, did not escape her.
    What other reason—except being late on her deadline—could explain that kind of bad luck?
    The deadline. Second-book syndrome.
    And her father.
    God help her. She loved him.