The sacrifice is enormous—especially for Isabel and Jorge. I’ll add it to all the other things they’ve done for me that I can never repay.
You can’t have a meltdown now. Not in front of him.
I cough to cover a sob that’s threatening to spill out into the room, but it only calls attention to my distress.
Antonio lifts his head and opens his mouth as if to say something, but instead, he gives me a moment to collect myself.
“I apologize,” I murmur. “It’s been a long few weeks.”
“Don’t apologize. Raw emotion is honest. Being honest with me always pays off. Always.”
I simply nod, because I don’t trust the words to come out without wobbling. I don’t care one iota about being honest with him. With any luck, our paths will never cross again.
“Now I’m going to be honest with you. I need to make a call.”
Thank God. I start to stand, thinking he’s leaving, but he shakes his head. “Don’t get up. I’ll only be a minute.”
So much for God’s mercy. At least I’ll have a small break from him and his intensity.
10
Daniela
Antonio walks over to the window on the far end of the room and looks out so that I can’t catch more than cryptic bits and pieces of the conversation. Although it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in his call.
I’m focused on his back. Wide at the top, tapering gently into a perfect vee.
His suit jacket fits like a glove. The luxurious fabric stretches across his broad shoulders in a way that makes my mouth water.
It’s true. I wish it wasn’t, but I won’t kid myself.
He holds the phone to his ear with his left hand, while the right is high on the window jamb. The set of his arm, with his long fingers against the wood, evokes a memory. My eyes glaze over, and I feel the fluttering between my legs again.
I’m mesmerized by those strong hands.
Just like that day.
When we were tweeners, my friends and I stalked Antonio and his buddies, Cristiano and Lucas, like they were celebrities. Although my crush was one-sided, it didn’t stop me from scribbling “Daniela + Antonio” inside hand-drawn hearts in my notebooks.
It was a harmless crush—until the day we caught him kissing Margarida Pires, in an alley on the edge of the square. Margarida was my friend Susana’s older sister. She was beautiful, with hair the color of spun gold, and round, full breasts that men of all ages stared at for too long.
Susana, Elisabete, and I were on the balcony outside my family’s apartment in the city, spying on Antonio and Margarida. Susana and Elisabete couldn’t stop giggling at them kissing, but I was hypnotized by the way he touched her, and how she responded.
Margarida’s back was flush against the stone building, and his right hand was braced above her head. They were pressed against each other, like lavender stems between the pages of a book.
Antonio brushed his lips and clever fingers over her skin, whispering so only she could hear. When he buried his mouth in her neck, Margarida’s eyelids fluttered closed, and her head fell back, her bruised lips forming a perfect O.
I could almost hear her gasps—almost feel her pleasure, like it was mine.
“Hey,” one of my guards called to them, when he caught us spying. “Get a room if you don’t want an audience.”
They looked up at where we were crouched on the balcony, behind the iron rails. Margarida turned away, but Antonio jerked his chin in our direction with a shameless grin on his gorgeous face.
Another guard shooed us off the balcony, so I didn’t see any more. But that didn’t stop my eleven-year-old imagination from conjuring all sorts of scenarios involving passionate kisses and declarations of undying love.
That night, I replayed their kisses over and over, and as the pressure grew, I rolled on my tummy and squirmed against a decorative pillow, humping the firm bolster until my whole body shook.
Every time I saw him after that, every time his name was mentioned, I imagined his lips on mine. I dreamed that all his kisses belonged to me.
Then my mother was murdered.
After that, I never imagined kissing anyone. Not that there was much opportunity for meeting boys. My father holed me away for my safety, and the little girl with dreams of passionate embraces and romantic love became just a short chapter in my saga.
But then a few months ago, Antonio visited my father here. I watched him arrive through my bedroom window. He wore a tailored suit that hugged his body like the one he’s wearing today. He was older than the boy I remembered, and more serious, but still breathtaking.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t pull myself away from the window—away from him, with his full lips and dark, wavy hair combed off his face, the ends gently grazing the back of his collar. His gait was tall and proud, like it had always been. But from a distance, there was a roughness about him that hadn’t been there before. It added some mystery that made him even more enticing.
And even though I shouldn’t have, even though it desecrated my mother’s memory, I sat in my room while he was downstairs with my dying father, and fantasized about kissing him again.
That night, after the lights were out and the house was quiet, my fingers teased the wet, swollen flesh between my thighs, whispering his name in the dark as I writhed on the mattress.
“Aside from having good people in place, do you have a plan for the harvest?”
His deep voice startles me. Plan? It’s all I hear, sending a wave of terror through me.
11
Daniela
“For managing the harvest,” he explains, eying me carefully.
For managing the harvest. Relax.
“Yes,” I reply, a little too breathy. “It’s in place.” I was so wrapped up in my little fantasy, I didn’t notice him end the call, and the word plan—
You need to pull yourself together, Daniela.
“There’s nothing extraordinary about this year that should make the grapes more or less valuable than last year,” I add, still reeling.
Antonio shrugs and lowers himself into the chair. “Such a pragmatist. I like to think every year has the potential to be a vintage year, right up until the end. But you’re probably right.”
He seems less agitated, now, and since he’s going to find out anyway, maybe I should plant some disinformation. I’ve already done this with a few people who work here so they won’t be alarmed when the time comes.
If I lay the groundwork with Antonio, he won’t be surprised when he learns I’m not in Porto, and he can shut down the inevitable gossip right away. The less gossip, the quicker I’ll fade from everyone’s mind.
My heartrate ticks up as I prepare to lie, but not enough for him to notice. “Actually, we’re so organized for the harvest, that I’m going to visit my father’s elderly aunt in Canada. She’s my only living relative. They were close, but he didn’t tell her he was dying because she was too frail to travel. I’ll tell her in person. It was my father’s final request.”
He eyes me warily. Maybe that was too much information in one fell swoop. Like a staged story. I make a concerted effort not to squirm—it’s not easy.