While he typed, Emma talked. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the property I’m taking over.”
Richard’s gaze was fixed on his screen. “I have. It makes sense.”
“Makes sense how?”
He glanced at her briefly, expression neutral, then back to his computer. “You’ve wanted out of sales for a while.”
“I’m wired for upper management. Not a rep under my ex-husband.”
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . which makes the property make sense.”
“How is that?”
He paused. “You want a job that isn’t available. Father figured out a way to make you happy.”
Was that how their father was selling this?
“You agree with him?”
Richard narrowed his gaze. “He’s the boss, Em. We both know that.”
And neither one of them had gone out of their way to force what they wanted. In Richard’s case, he was thrown in as second in command and took all the stress that came with it.
“I hear the house is nice. Mom seems excited about it.”
“It’s beautiful. A little bit like yours and Kristen’s.” Their home had been built on one of the R&R properties close to the family home in Napa.
“We can’t wait to see it.” He clicked a few more keys. “This is odd. Why would anyone take you off the clearance list?”
“I’m not sure. Can you switch it back?”
He shook his head. “Not my area. I’ll talk to Kyle.”
Emma clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “Don’t you find it odd that Kyle has more authority in this company than I ever had?”
Richard leaned back in his chair. “Kyle worked for Dad long before your marriage or divorce.”
She sighed. “Wine is thicker than blood, right?”
Richard was quick to defend their father. “Dad put you in charge of the new winery. Not Kyle.”
In charge of the winery and owning the winery were two different monsters.
The distinction needed to be made . . . and it needed to be made soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I need to go to Napa,” Emma told Gio on a video call while sitting in her car. “To confront my father.”
Gio could see by her expression that she was spinning. The wheels in her head were turning a mile a minute.
“Has the lawyer gotten back to you?”
“Not yet. But I know what he’s going to say. I saw my brother today and from what he told me and what I’ve learned is that the common understanding is that my father bought land for me to manage for him.”
“I feel like you’ve already voiced this,” he said.
“I have, but hearing my brother’s take on things told me, even without a lawyer checking the legal crap, that my hunch is right. I knew my father loves his control more than anything.”
“All right . . . so you go to Napa, confront your dad. What’s the goal? To feel better?”
“I have to do something, Gio. I feel like a pawn on a chessboard. He’s ‘hinting’ to me that this is mine, but telling everyone else something different.”
“So instead of playing into his hand, have your pieces hovered and ready to win.” Gio was starting to understand that Emma was a person of action and not talk. Even if that jumping might get her into trouble. He’d heard that personality trait about redheads but had yet to see it for himself.
Until now.
“Have you answered last night’s question?”
She sighed. “Do I want the house?”
“Yeah.”
“I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to work for my dad anymore. I don’t want my ex-husband to have a position higher than me in my family business. I don’t want to be pulled around like a puppet waiting for Daddy’s approval. God, I’ve wasted the last decade doing that.”
Gio wished he was at her side to soothe her nerves that were dangling everywhere. “I doubt that time was wasted.”
“I want to yell at my father. To his face.”
“Will he respond to that?” Because it didn’t sound to Gio that her father cared.
“No. He hates temper tantrums,” she growled. “I’m so frustrated.”
“If you don’t take the house and you no longer work for your father, what will you do?” Gio was trying to get her to see what power she did have. Right now, he didn’t think Emma saw anything other than the wall in front of her.
“I could get a job in another winery in a heartbeat. And probably crawl up that ladder . . . unlike my own family winery.”
“Do you want that?”
She shook her head. “No. Not really, but I will if I have to. Or I make good on my threat and find a property of my own instead of this one.”
“I like the idea of you starting your own before you take a job with someone else,” he offered.
She sighed. “I do, too. That’s going to take time. All while this property just sits there.”
“Emma, darling. Hold off on the tantrum. Call me. Yell at me. And when you can answer the first question . . . then a plan can be made.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Gio knew she was frustrated, but damn, she was cute doing it.
“I hate this.”
“You know what you need?” He lowered his voice, lifted one corner of his mouth.
Emma caught on and smiled. “The answer to everything isn’t sex.”
“Maybe not everything, but it will help you relax.”
Her eyes started to shine as her thoughts shifted.
“I’ll be there tomorrow, bella. Unless you want me there tonight.” All she had to do was ask.
“Tomorrow is fine.”
Damn. “Am I helping you pack?”
“I have boxes, but I haven’t started. Not until I’m certain what I want to do.”
“Smart.”
“Will you meet me at the house?”
“Casa de Emma?”
She smiled. “I want you to see the scope. The work my mother has put into the house is fantastic. I hate to see that go to waste. Maybe you can help me make a decision.”
“Cara, that isn’t my decision to make.”
“No, but you’ve talked me off the ledge two days in a row now. I do value your opinion.”
Gio liked the sound of that. “I’ll meet you there.”
If you hit traffic at the right time, the drive to Temecula’s wine country wasn’t bad.
Gio pulled off the freeway a little over an hour from when he got on and started winding up the main road leading into the vineyards.
It really was beautiful. Maybe not Tuscany gorgeous, but lovely in its own way. He’d been drawn to the area as soon as he was old enough to drive.
His GPS pulled him off the main road a quarter mile before he saw the gated entrance to Emma’s home.
Shivers went up his arms as he took in the view.
Finished driveway, fountain . . . mature trees and a sprawling home that said Mediterranean, but not perfectly Spanish or Italian. Perhaps a Californian Mediterranean style was the best description. Tile roof and stucco walls, with a stone facade and iron porch lights.
As he did his best to close the gap in his lips from the enormity of what Emma was talking about, she emerged from the front door.