Betrayal Read Free Page B

loved it all: their acres of grapes, their illustrious winery, their luxurious resort.… More than all of it put together, though, she loved her grandsons.
    She stood staring down at Rafe and Eli, at the tops of their heads, hair matted with sweat and exertion. Rafe attacked her steps with a pry bar. Eli, hampered by one cast on his arm and another on his foot, tossed the splintered wood into a pile.
    Noah was nowhere in sight.
    She viewed the two oldest sternly. “Where’s Noah? Did he leave?”
    Rafe and Eli scowled, lowered their tools, and reached up to her for their water.
    She held the bottles out of their reach. “Well?”
    Eli wiped his forehead on the arm of his blue denim shirt. “We buried him under the hydrangea.”
    Sarah wouldn’t have minded the sarcasm… but beneath his mockery lay that wealth of anger. “Where is he?” she insisted.
    Rafe raised his voice and called, “Hey, Noah! Come out; Nonna thinks we’ve killed you.”
    Using the tall hole where the stairs used to be, Noah ducked out from beneath the porch. He grinned up at her, a half-cocked grin she recognized from his childhood. Whenever he looked like that, it meant he was in trouble and hoped to charm his way out.
    She didn’t think he could charm his way out of this.
    “I’m okay. But I need to get you some mouse killer for under the porch. When one ran across my foot, I jumped so hard I about knocked myself out.” He rubbed his head.
    His brothers laughed, and Rafe smacked him on the place he rubbed.
    Noah socked Rafe in the belly, and for good measure smacked Eli on his fit arm.
    For a moment, things were almost normal.
    Then the laughter died and Eli and Rafe stepped away from Noah as if he sported a suspicious rash.
    “Drink some water,” Sarah said hastily. “I don’t want you boys getting dehydrated.” She handed out the bottles, and though she was upset with her grandsons… pride swelled in her.
    Even covered with dirt and sweaty with exertion, they were long limbed and healthy, filling out their T-shirts and jeans in a way that made young women watch with profound appreciation.
    Of course, how could these boys be anything but attractive? Their father was a movie star, as charismatic as the full moon and with just about as much parenting sense. Gavino, her only son, careless, unfaithful, selfish—and her greatest failure. But he’d produced sons, and these boys were everything for which a grandmother could hope.
    Eliseo—Eli—was the oldest, thirty-four, with the Di Luca family’s dark hair and his beauty-queen mother’s big brown eyes. He was tall and lanky, muscled by long hours working in the vineyards. At the same time, he had the rare and exquisite sensibilities of a man who produced wines that tasted of green grass and spring, of redripe berries and summer, of warm spice and autumn. He was a genius with the grapes, and for that, he was venerated, adored, and feted.
    Luckily for him, he’d recently met the love of his life, and Chloë had cut him down to size and made him human again.
    Raffaelo—Rafe—was thirty-one, with dark hair and electric blue eyes. His mother, one of the world’s foremost Italian movie stars, and his father had created a young man so handsome that before the age of ten, he’d been a star himself. But he’d hated the phony emotions that his parents portrayed so convincingly, and as an adult he’d become a real hero. He’d joined the military, then created his own security firm and done everything he could to protect Sarah and everyone he loved from harm.
    But he had almost lost the woman he loved. He’d almost lost Brooke. That had broken his false pride, given him new perspective, and now he treasured his wife in a way that made Sarah proud.
    If only… if only she understood what madness drove Noah.
    Genoah—Noah—at twenty-eight was the youngest of Gavino’s boys. His dark hair was his father’s. His guileless green eyes… Sarah didn’t know whom he’d inherited his