The Sicilian's Bride Read Online Free PDF

way you do, but I think it’s aged well, don’t you?” she asked him after they’d both tasted it.
    “Not bad,” he said and set his glass down on a ledge. “We won a bronze medal for this if I remember right.”
    “You must have won many medals.”
    “We have, but some contests are more important than others. The Gran Concorso Siciliano del Vini is coming up in a few weeks. We plan to take away a gold this year.”
    He didn’t want to brag or look overconfident. But this was going to be their year. Winning the medal and getting the Azienda back. Two victories that would erase the losses of the past once and for all. He knew it. He felt it. If he kept a hawk eye on the land, the vines and the wine production, they’d end up with the prize and the best dessert wine Sicily could produce too.
    He was proud of their wine, proud of the medals they’d won. Nothing wrong with letting her know that. He turned to Isabel. “Now that you’ve seen the place, it’s time to go.”
    “I haven’t been upstairs yet.”
    What could he say? You won’t like it? Knowing her, that would guarantee she’d insist she would like it. She didn’t yetknow about the bedroom off the kitchen where the servants once lived, and he sure wasn’t going to tell her. Instead he led the way up the narrow staircase, Isabel following behind him. There it was, a small room with a narrow sagging mattress on a metal frame. And better yet, a huge gaping hole in the ceiling.
    “It needs major roof repair,” he said. As if she hadn’t noticed. No one in their right mind could say anything positive about a hole in the roof. But she did.
    “Why?” she said. “If it doesn’t rain, it will be wonderful to look up at the stars at night.”
    He groaned silently. There was no point in telling her bats would fly into the room. She’d probably welcome them. He’d never met anyone like her. There wasn’t a woman in Sicily who’d accept living under these conditions. What was it about this woman? Was she really capable or just stubborn and unrealistic?
    “I know it needs work,” she said, a trace of defiance in her voice. “I know there’s no running water or electricity, but, as I said, I’m not afraid to pitch in and get things done. And I’d like to hire someone to help me.”
    “That won’t be easy,” Dario commented. It was true. All the able-bodied men were at work in the vineyards. “Most people are busy with the crush.”
    “Which reminds me, I want to see the vineyard.”
    “Of course.” That, Dario thought, could help matters; she’d see how withered the vines were.
    They went back downstairs and out into the hot sunshine where they walked up and down the path between the old vines. Dario followed behind Isabel, noticing the way her hips swayed enticingly as she walked, how the perspiration dampened the back of her neck, admiring in spite of himself her red-gold hair, which she’d tied back, gleaming in the sunlight. But only as he would admire a painting by Titian,with cool detachment. His detachment was cool until his mind jumped to the thought of her as the half-clothed subject of a lush Titian painting.
    A surprising jolt of desire hit him in his chest. He’d been immune to the allure of women since his affair with Magdalena had ended so disastrously. Could his libido be alive and well again? Maybe all it took was knowing he’d finally recovered and was back in charge of his life and his vineyards. And then a glimpse of a Titian-haired heiress didn’t hurt as long as she didn’t stay too long. All he asked was for life to return to the way it was—pre-drought, pre-fungus, pre-Magdalena. He was almost there. He felt a new surge of energy, a feeling of hope close at hand, as close as the vines on either side of the path.
    Dario deliberately turned his attention to picking and tasting a grape here and there, much safer than watching the woman. Another surprise—the level of sugar in the neglected fruit. Soon they could be