LITMIR.BIZ

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tried to say.

      “Go ahead and stomp off now, Bren, but think about what I’ve said. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

      Her knees were trembling, but Brenna tried hard to keep her head up as she left the kitchen. Once in the safety of her bedroom, she closed the door and leaned against it before her legs could give out completely.

      She’d never seen Jack like that. Not even after their last fight, when she’d packed her bags while Jack had called a car to bring her back here. When pushed, Jack turned silent and broody, not coldly calculating. And since Jack never made empty threats…Damn it. She’d been fooling herself to think they could move beyond their past and forge any kind of business relationship. She’d had no idea his dislike of her was so strong that he’d rather destroy everything Max had created out here than work with her.

      She looked skyward. “Why’d you do this to me, Max?”

      No answer came, and she flopped on the bed, wrung out, yet still jumpy from the evening.

      Jack’s sarcastic rebuttal of the one argument he really shouldn’t be able to question had thrown her off her game. Of all the things for Jack to bring up…Hell, she’d practically forgotten; why hadn’t he? Oh, the optimism and arrogance of an eighteen-year-old girl in love. She groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. Back then she’d figured Max and her mom would run Amante Verano forever. She, on the other hand, would take her knowledge out into the wide world, educating the masses on wine-making, visiting wineries in France and Italy and bringing new ideas back to their vineyard—in general, just getting the hell out of Sonoma and doing something more. Jack had embraced that idea, encouraged it.

      But the wide world hadn’t had a place for her, and she’d come home. Then her mom had died…

      Amante Verano was where she belonged, it seemed. And she’d accepted that, thrown herself into it, made it her life.

      She couldn’t let Jack undermine that. Not now. No matter how much Jack hated it.

      Or her.

      For the second time that day Jack let Brenna stomp away, wondering when he’d lost his lauded ability to finesse a situation. What had possessed him to think he’d be able to handle this negotiation just like any other of the hundreds he’d done? Make the plan, work the plan—common sense and good business tactics had always worked for him before. Except when it came to Brenna. Bren just knew the right buttons to push to cause him to lose his temper—a hard pill to swallow, since he never let his temper loose any other time.

      Hell, who was he kidding? Brenna was his button. Nothing between them had ever been steady or calm or predictable. It was all drama and tension and theatrics.

      Oh, they’d started with a bang. But once the initial glow had faded their relationship had fallen apart with alarming speed. All the dreams and plans and excitement had crumbled under the strain of reality, and “love” just hadn’t been enough. Before long they’d just made each other miserable.

      Except in bed. The familiar heat spread over his skin. Making love to Brenna was like holding a live fuse too close to the gunpowder: hot, dangerous, explosive.

      And ultimately destructive.

      But they’d been young then, too young and stupid to realize sex wasn’t enough to hold them together until it was too late. No matter how great it was.

      If tonight was any indication, his body hadn’t forgotten that in the intervening years. Her plain, mostlikely organic cotton pajamas did a good job of camouflaging what was underneath, but his body had reacted anyway, reigniting that old urge to get her under him as quickly as humanly possible.

      But reality hit home pretty quickly once Brenna started in on him. While his hands had still itched to touch her, he’d been reminded exactly why they were in this mess in the first place.

      Regardless of their past or their present, he didn’t necessarily relish the idea of destroying her dreams for this place. But that didn’t mean he wanted to be a part of it, either. Max might have found someone willing to build his little wine-making dynasty, but Jack didn’t want to play along. And, Brenna, for all her talk of a partnership, couldn’t really want him around either.

      Not after everything.

      He needed something stronger than water to drink. A look around revealed several bottles of wine but little else, and nothing of interest. Wine on the counters, wine in the cupboards, wine in the largest non-commercial fridge he’d ever seen. Was there a damn beer anywhere on the property?

      Max would have Scotch in his desk. He always did. His passion for wine-making couldn’t have squelched his love of a good single malt.

      Jack had to pass Brenna’s bedroom to get to the office. Light escaped around the doorframe, but the room was silent as he paused in front of the door, debating whether he’d made a mistake in letting Brenna walk out in the middle of their discussion.

      Discussion? Right. He seemed incapable of having a civilized discussion with Brenna about anything. Between her temper and the emotional attachment she had to this place, the chances of any civil discourse seemed remote.

      The Amante Verano business office was large—larger than such a small operation probably needed, but that was just Max’s style—and Max’s desk dominated the room. A smaller desk he assumed was Brenna’s sat at an angle to Max’s. He recognized the set-up; he’d learned the family business in much the same fashion—except the view from the offices of Garrett Properties encompassed San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, not acres of vines.

      The second drawer on the left-hand side produced the Scotch he had been looking for. He leaned back in Max’s chair as he poured two fingers and contemplated Brenna’s desk. His father had initially planned for that desk to be Jack’s, from where he would run the winery as well as the hotels. It hadn’t mattered that he didn’t want to.

      Hell, after Max had gotten over the shock of Jack and Brenna’s elopement he’d been practically gleeful over the “merger.” The divorce had given Jack a valid reason to stay away all these years, but it seemed Max was trying to have the final say after all.

      “Sorry, old man. You can’t make me run this place.”

      No matter what Brenna wanted to believe, she wasn’t even the main reason he wanted out from under Amante Verano. Max’s first business ate up enough of his life as it was, especially since Max had all but turned the hotels over to him completely once this winery had become his focus. The complication of Brenna didn’t add any appeal, though.

      His body disagreed, growing hard again at the thought of her. Good God, it had been ten years. Shouldn’t he be past that by now?

      He sipped the Scotch in silence for a few minutes, willing his body to get over it. When he heard a noise to his right, he looked up to see a barefoot Brenna slip quietly into the room.

      “I thought you had to get up early in the morning.”

      Brenna jumped, a small cry escaping her as she turned around to locate the voice. Her hand fell away from her throat as she found him, and her shoulders dropped. “Damn it, Jack, you scared the life out of me. What are you doing in here?”

      He shrugged. “I could ask you the same thing.”

      “It’s my office.” Brenna’s chin lifted in challenge.

      Unable to resist prodding her, he raised the glass in salute. “And now it’s half mine.”

      Brenna shook her head. “Whatever.” She slid into her chair and turned her back to him as she booted up the computer. “I need to do some work, so if you’ll excuse me…?”

      She wanted him to retreat so she wouldn’t have to? Hardly. “Go ahead. You won’t bother me at all.” Brenna’s hands tightened around the armrests of her chair, and even in the semi-darkness of the room he could see the white knuckles. If he listened carefully, he’d probably be able to hear her grinding her teeth next.

      He

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