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CHAPTER ONE
The glorious morning sun glowed radiantly over the sprawling estate owned by Mayberry Hill’s most affluent family, the Romeros. The breathtaking scenery of the massive Romero Winery and Vineyard in all its miles of fresh green grass that seemed to go on forever into the horizon and vibrant rows of flourishing crops could be seen from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the study at Romero Manor. Toni Romero sat, once again, in the study surrounded by several of his successful grandsons whom he had a hand in raising from their teens to young men. The Romeros were all dressed in their finest suits. Only the growing look of disdain on the elder Romero’s face made it evident that this morning’s family meeting was not going to be a pleasant one.
Another scandal threatened to mar the reputation of the Romero family. This time, Zack Romero was the target.
“What do you think will happen if the press gets wind of this despicable…video tape, Zack?” Toni growled.
Zack leaned against the study desk with his arms folded across his chest. He was getting ready to give a tour of the winery to a few college students from the class where he was guest lecturing this semester. Nothing seemed to be going good right now.
“I’m sure I can handle it if that does happen. If!” Zack answered in a cool, low voice.
“Zack! This is a sex tape! A sex tape! This is much more critical than you could imagine.”
Dios Mio! His grandfather had a point. Zack's brother, Lucas, was plagued by some woman who’d claimed he was the father of her unborn child—a huge fiasco last year that almost blew up in his face. But this? This was different. Zack's ex, Selina, had a video recording of their rendezvous in Vegas.
For chrissake! The explicit lovemaking was wild as sin on that video. He’d certainly performed some delicious sexual acts that could very well be illegal in some of the countries that distributed his company’s products. The kinky things he’d done with her in that tape were more than X-rated. Heck, if that ever got out there would be no turning back. For the first time during the family meeting Zack felt uncomfortable and loosened his silk Italian designed tie. He slid his fingers through his hair.
“He’s right, Zack,” Pamela, the family’s press secretary intervened. “We need to do pre-emptive damage control in case the tape does get out.”
“If the tape gets out,” Carl shot to his brother’s defense.
The young men were dressed in corporate attire and getting ready to venture out to their prospective businesses. But one thing was certain about the Romero family—during times of crisis or impending trouble, they banded together like a pack of protective wolves. They were tight. Family came first. They would drop what they were doing and meet up at the grand estate to deal with matters if at all possible. Currently, Zack’s other brothers, Jules, Alonso and Dion, were out of town. Jules was in Europe opening up a franchise; Alonso, who practiced medicine, was in Haiti opening up a clinic; and Dion had flown to New York to deal with a merger. Lucas was with his pregnant wife Maxine but Carl remained by Zack’s side, brainstorming on a plan of action. Antonio III was with his wife Lucy and their toddler, Anderson.
