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“Good. Then you can explain it to me.”
“It was my father’s lifeblood, Noah. He spent his whole life dreaming of producing the best wines possible. I can’t just give it up.”
“I haven’t asked you to.”
“Not yet.” She could feel the muscles in her jaw tensing. Not now, she thought to herself, don’t ruin it now. We just made beautiful, heavenly love. I love you hopelessly. Don’t betray me! Not now.
“But you think I will.”
She ran a trembling hand through her hair. “You already offered to buy me out.”
“And that bothers you. Why?”
He seemed sincere. She didn’t want to think that he had the ugly ulterior motives of which her attorney had warned her. She didn’t want to believe he was like his infamous father. “It’s just too soon . . . after my father’s death. I don’t want to give up everything he believed in. Not yet.”
His thumb persuaded her to tum her head and look at him. “Does it mean that much to you—what your father wanted?”
“We were very close.”
Noah rubbed his thumbnail under his lower lip. “Close enough that you’re willing to sacrifice everything in order to prolong his dream?”
“It’s not a sacrifice. It’s what I want to do.”
Noah sighed and his breath ruffled her hair as he tightened his grip around her waist and pulled her closer to him. “Oh, beautiful lady—what am I going to do with you?” She was a puzzle to him, an intriguing, beguiling puzzle for which he had no answers.
“Trust me,” she replied in answer to his rhetorical question.
“I do,” he admitted fervently.
She wanted to believe him, but couldn’t forget the dark shadows of doubt she had seen in his clear blue eyes.
“Tell me about your husband,” Noah suggested, carefully changing the topic of conversation. The faceless man who had married Sheila, impregnated her and then left her had been eating at Noah since the first night they had been together.
“I don’t like to talk about Jeff.” It was a flat statement, intent on changing the subject.
“Why not?”
Her fingers curled into tiny fists, and she had to force them to relax. “It still bothers me.”
“The divorce—or the marriage?”
“The fact that I made such a big mistake.” She pulled herself out of Noah’s warm arms.
“Then you blame yourself.”
“Partially, I suppose—look, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I didn’t mean to pry . . .”
Sheila waved his apology aside. “No . . . you didn’t. I don’t know why it bothers me so much.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re still in love with him.”
Sheila’s head snapped back as if his words had slapped her in the face. “You’re wrong. The answer is probably just the opposite. I don’t know if I ever loved him. I thought I did, but if I had loved him enough, perhaps things would be different.”
“And you would still be married?”
She nodded mutely, trying to repress the urge to cry.
