More than a Mistress

"It doesn't matter," Travis said, his hand on the doorknob. "I don't know the name of the vineyard, so I doubt if I'd know the name of—"

"Here it is." Jonas looked up. "Lady's name is Thorpe. Alexandra Thorpe."

Travis felt the floor tilt under his feet. "Alexandra Thorpe?" he said hoarsely.

"Uh-huh." His father gave him a slow smile. "Is that a problem, boy?"

Their eyes met. Travis thought about asking what the old man knew, about how he could possibly know it...

And then he thought of the woman who'd haunted him ever since he'd walked out of Thorpe House two weeks ago, and about putting an end to this nonsense, once and for all.

"No," he said calmly, "it isn't a problem. Not in the slightest."

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALEX had known people would whisper about the auction.

She also knew that no one would dare say anything to her face. What was said behind her back didn't matter. Let the gossips speculate to their souls' damnation. She would pay no attention.

No, she thought, as she walked along a row of grapes at Peregrine Vineyards, the whispers about that night didn't bother her.

But the dreams did.

She dreamed about Travis Baron. Erotic dreams, the kind that left the sheets twisted between her thighs. Sometimes she awakened flushed with heat, the all-too-real feel of Travis's kisses on her mouth. Even thinking about it now made her bones feel as soft as the pulp of the grapes in the fermenting vats.

She had other dreams, too. Tender ones, of Travis holding her in his arms, just holding her, nothing more. Or dancing with her, in a flower-filled garden, his kisses as soft as the whisper of the breeze. The dreams were silly; she knew that. They were half-remembered perfume commercials, playing in her head. Grown women did not have such girlish, romanticized flights of imagination.

High overhead, a hawk cried out its pleasure as it soared toward the sun on a thermal current of hot valley air. Alex tilted her head back, looked up and wondered what it felt like to be so free. She had never been free, not of the responsibility to live the life first her father, and then her husband, had laid out for her. And it had seemed enough, until that Friday evening, two weeks ago, when she'd gone into the exciting embrace of a stranger.

It had taken her a while to understand why she was wasting her time thinking about a man who didn't deserve it but, finally, she did. It was because she didn't have enough to keep her busy.

The idea—that there was more to life than the things that filled hers—had actually been perking for a while.

She'd never really thought about the way she lived before. She'd been raised to be an obedient daughter in the expectation that she'd marry someone in the same circle of people she'd known all her life, and that she'd be an excellent hostess and a good wife to him. She was an expert at making half an hour's worth of polite conversation about absolutely nothing and planning an elegant meal for ten or two hundred. She'd never questioned her role: she'd deferred first to her father's wishes and then to her husband's. She'd hated her marriage but she'd probably have stayed in it, if she hadn't returned home one day and found Carl in her bedroom with another woman.

Oh, yes. Until two weeks ago, she'd played her role impeccably.

Alex paused and scuffed her bare toes in the cool, sandy soil.

Her father would have turned purple at the sight of her walking around this way. Carl, too. It isn't suitable, they'd have said, but their shock would have been nothing compared to that of her attorneys and business manager when she'd refused to simply sign away Peregrine Vineyards without first meeting the prospective buyer, even though the vineyard had been for sale for several months without so much as an offer.

Her business manager had looked vaguely alarmed. "Surely, you're not having second thoughts about selling Peregrine? We've explained how much money it would take to make the vineyard profitable, Ms. Thorpe, and that we are convinced it's not worth the investment."

"You have. And I still wish to sell. But I want to meet the buyer."

"Whatever for?" one of the lawyers had asked.

She thought about telling them that she'd decided to take a greater interest in the workings of her inherited estates but from the looks on their faces, she'd decided it might be best to leave that news for another day. Instead, she'd told them that she had a special fondness for Peregrine, which was true enough.

She'd seen the winery years before, when she'd inherited it. Carl had taken her to the Napa Valley for what she'd foolishly thought was a romantic getaway weekend but had only been his way of checking out the property. Her disappointment had been minimal; by then, she'd known not to expect much from her marriage. What had surprised her was that she'd fallen in love with Peregrine on sight. The acres of grapevines, the gently rolling hills, the big Victorian farmhouse standing on a grassy rise...