Her Brazilian Billionaire: One Sultry Summer Book One Page 8

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  —Lori

  Excerpt: Her Alpha Nerd

  Madison’s banking on finding amore, but what about true love...?

  Jake Strickland pushed the heavy, black-framed glasses up on his nose, peering through the nonprescription lenses at the Power Point presentation projected on the wall of the main tiki hut. Damn things kept sliding down, and it was all he could do to keep himself from yanking the glasses off.

  Playing the role of orchid-loving geek was harder than it looked.

  “You know what they say about the amore orchid?” whispered Bunk Jones, the seventyish guy sitting next to him.

  Bunk was dressed much like Jake in a Hawaiian-print shirt, khaki cargo pants, and hiking boots. The old dude had started yapping at him on the long bus ride in from the San Jose airport and had apparently decided they were going to become bosom buddies. Jake had done his best to shake him, but it was a small group, and there weren’t too many places to hide in the Costa Rican compound.

  Jake didn’t ask, but Bunk told him anyway. “Legend has it that the amore orchid emits such potent pheromones that whenever you smell it, you have an irresistible urge to make love.”

  “What?” Jake jerked his head around to stare at the wizened fellow.

  Bunk nodded solemnly. “Yep, it’s true.”

  “So this orchid is like, what? Floral Viagra?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just sayin’...”

  “Is that why you’re here?” Jake asked.

  He really didn’t want to think about Bunk being on the prowl, but he supposed old dudes needed love, too. Hey, he wasn’t getting any himself. He’d been going through a dry patch of late, and this nerdy getup, complete with pocket protector and unkempt hair, wasn’t helping matters.

  “Is that so wrong?” Bunk asked.

  “Far be it from me to judge,” Jake said. “We’ve all got our reasons to be on this trip.” Some of them nobler than others.

  “I like studious, scientific women, and they tend to gravitate toward these things.” Bunk waved a hand.

  He was using an orchid-hunting group as a dating service? Jake scanned the scant pickings and shrugged. To each his own.

  “What about that one over there?” Bunk used his chin to point at a woman in her mid-twenties sitting on a stool at the front of the building beside the podium. “She looks interesting.”

  The young woman was dressed in a style that Jake would only describe as “mitts-off-the-merchandise, buster.” She had on baggy black jeans, a gray sweatshirt with Columbia printed across the front and a pair of hiking boots. Her hair was jet-black and fell to her shoulders, Cleopatra-style. She wore skinny, red-framed rectangular glasses and no jewelry whatsoever. Her skin was notebook-paper pale. A sheen of pink lip gloss rode her lips, and her mascara was the same color as her hair. Her eyes, from what he could see of them behind those glasses, were chocolate brown.

  Weirdly, his pulse skittered.

  Why on earth would he feel a sudden attraction? She was certainly not his type.

  “She’s too young for you,” he told Bunk.

  “Not for me. I got my eyes on Lucinda.” Bunk indicated a silver-haired woman in the first row. “I meant for you.”

  “Nah.”

  “Why not? You in a relationship?”

  “No way,” Jake said. “I’m footloose and fancy-free.”

  “Ah.” Bunk smiled. “You’re one of those.”

  It seemed like an indictment, and this from a coot old enough to be Jake’s grandfather. “I’m one of those what?”

  “The love ’em and leave ’em kind.”

  Jake was about to argue, then he shut his mouth. He didn’t intentionally set out to love ’em and leave ’em, but whenever a woman started talking about taking their relationship to the next level—i.e., commitment—Jake’s feet got twitchy.

  “You’re right,” Bunk agreed. “She’s too much woman for you.”

  “Who? Emo girl?”

  “Emo?” Bunk looked confused.

  “Never mind.” Jake waved a hand. “What makes you think she’s too much woman for me?”

  “That woman...” Bunk nodded as if he knew everything. “She needs a man who’ll stick around and find out exactly what’s going on in that brain of hers. She’s sharp as a tack. You can see that right off the bat.”

  Huh? Jake stared at emo girl.

  In that moment, she raised her head.

  Their eyes met, and for one second, he could have sworn he saw surprise in her eyes, as if she knew him. But in an instant the look was gone, and she simply glared at him like he was getting on her last nerve. Jake was the first one to break eye contact—not his usual MO.

  “Yep.” Bunk chuckled. “She’s too much woman for the likes of Mr. Love ’Em and Leave ’Em.”

  “Stop calling me that,” Jake snapped, irritated.

  “Hey, if the shoe fits...” Bunk shrugged. “Me, I’m going up there to talk to Lucinda.”

  And then the old man was gone, ambling down the grass aisle to the front row. He leaned in to say something to Lucinda who smiled up at him and scooted over so Bunk could take the seat next to her.

  Jake had to give the old dude props for moving fast.

  Just then, a man stalked through the back door of the tiki hut and up to the podium. He introduced himself as Professor Hampton from Columbia University and turned to emo girl perched on the stool.

  “And this is my number one research assistant, Madison Garrett. She’s doing her doctoral dissertation on the amore orchid.”

  Madison raised a hand and smiled at the group, but when her eyes met his again, the welcoming smile disappeared.

  What? She didn’t like him? That was unusual. Women almost always liked him. At least until they figured out that he wasn’t the long-term kind.

  Professor Hampton went into detail about the research project he and his team were engaged in. They wanted to find the amore orchid—which was assumed to exist only in Costa Rica—and get it listed on the endangered species list.

  If the group found out he was working for an orchid collector in Taiwan, his goose would be cooked, and he’d end up on the wrong side of a lynch mob.

  Clearly, these people took their orchids seriously. He didn’t get what the big deal was. It was just a flower. Jake had no real vested interest in the orchid itself. All he cared about was the sweet paycheck Tao Liu offered.

  Two weeks ago, Tao Liu had approached Jake at Joe’s Bar and Grill, his favorite hangout in L.A., and told him about Professor Hampton’s Costa Rican expedition. Jake had never smuggled orchids before.

  For the most part, his enterprises were legal, if perhaps sometimes a tad unethical, but his job gave him flexibility and the ability to see the world on someone else’s dime.

  Obtaining the orchids for Liu just seemed like a quick way to make a buck, and right now he was really hard-up for cash. Not for himself, but for Joe, the man who’d taken him off the streets and given him a home when he was a twelve-year-old runaway.

  Tough economic times had put Joe behind the eight ball, and he was about to lose the bar and grill. The place was all Joe had. Without it, Jake didn’t think his surrogate father would survive. It was time for him to give back to the only person who’d ever really believed in him.

  Of course, it was going to require a bit of subterfuge. Like maybe cozying up with Miss Madison Garrett. The idea wasn’t repulsive. Beneath the glasses and the frumpy clothes, she was actually not bad-looking. Why did she hide herself behind those glasses and that dark sheaf of thick hair?

  “The amore orchid is very rare, and there are collectors who will stop at nothing to have one—and that
includes hiring soldiers of fortune to beat us to the punch and steal them.”

  Jake forced himself not to slink down in his seat. Hey, he didn’t consider himself a soldier of fortune. The term had such pejorative connotations. He was a more daring adventurer—searching for buried treasure, acting as a guide in countries with iffy political situations, obtaining useful information for various groups and individuals. That’s how he saw himself. A man who dared go where others feared to tread.

  * * *

  Buy your copy of Her Alpha Nerd now.

  Excerpt: The Billionaire’s Secret Summer

  At dawn on the first day of June, Wyatt DeSalme stood on the bow of the ferry watching the mist-shrouded island that lay just off the coast of Northern California slide into view.

  The churning engines vibrated up through the deck floor, and he tasted salty sea air. Seagulls chattered like gossiping biddies, and the excited voices of the young men and women surrounding him, nursing their gourmet coffees and noshing on free pastries, grew in tone and tempo as the mist parted.

  Suddenly, the jagged, double-barrel bluff known as Twin Hearts jutted straight up from the middle of the island, glistening in the jubilant glow of morning light.

  This was it.

  His destination.

  The strangest feeling passed over him, a feeling that said, If you do this, you’ll never be the same.

  An uneasy knot settled in the pit of his stomach.

  I don’t wanna go.

  How come? Normally, he loved role-playing. Secret agent man had been his favorite game as a kid, not cowboys and Indians like his brothers. Why the sudden impulse to stay rooted on the boat while everyone else disembarked?

  What’s the matter? Chicken?

  The taunt came from the back of his mind, but it was the voice of his oldest brother, Scott, issuing the chanting dare from childhood along with an excess of poultry noises, a dare Wyatt had never been able to resist.

  It was why he’d broken a collarbone climbing a quince tree when he was ten, and why he’d fallen through the ice on a barely frozen pond when they’d visited their maternal grandparents in Kansas one Christmas.

  The taunts, dares, bets, and challenges had gone a long way toward forming his character. Always eager to prove himself to his older brothers, he had turned into a bold adventurer. Now here he was at thirty-one, still trying to win their approval.

  As a disguise, he wore dark-framed, non-prescription lenses and two days’ growth of prickly beard. Over the past few months, he’d let his hair grow out, getting ready for this covert game, and it curled in waves to his collar.

  Wyatt hadn’t worn his hair this long since college, and an errant strand kept flopping across his brow whenever he tilted his head forward.

  He had on blue jeans with a hole in one knee, a gray knit cap, and a gray hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with the Berkeley University logo, a school he had not attended but wished he had. He’d gone instead to Princeton, as was family tradition, and had dropped out in his sophomore year.

  His sneakers—purchased at a thrift shop—boasted broken shoelaces and thin treads. His watch, also from the thrift store, was a cheap drugstore brand. He’d left the Rolex at his condo in Athens. No belt. No socks.

  His goal?

  Downplay his looks. Make himself as nondescript as possible. Fitting in with the opposite of his customary behavior.

  Normally, Wyatt adored wearing a tux to high-society parties, driving his Lamborghini on the autobahn, gambling in Monte Carlo, and generally being the center of attention.

  The dodge seemed to be working. He’d been on the boat for over an hour, and not a single one of the hot coeds on board had shot him a second glance. Which was both reassuring and a bit of an ego-crusher.

  “So,” said one of those gorgeous coeds to another as the engines stopped churning and the ferry glided toward the dock. “Do you think the legend of Idyll Island is true?”

  Wyatt, eager to eavesdrop on their conversation, moved closer to the two young women who stood near the railing watching the ferry workers prep for landing. A good corporate spy kept his eyes and ears open.

  “What’s that?” asked the second girl. The petite brunette looked barely legal, but he’d heard her say earlier that she was an intern at Belle Notte Vineyards, so she had to be at least twenty-one. Still, she could pass for a high school student.

  You’re just getting old.

  He quickly batted away that thought. He was thirty-one, in the prime of life, at the top of his game.

  “Oh, you haven’t heard? It’s amazing. So romantic.” The first girl, a blonde with a pert ski-slope of a nose, dramatically clutched both hands to her heart. “Here’s how the story goes. Way back, a long, long time ago, when the founder of Bella Notte, Giovanni Romano, was our age, he fell in love with a girl from the mainland. One night in June, Giovanni took the first bottle of wine produced from his vineyard, along with his sweetheart, Maria, up to the top of Twin Hearts.”

  The blonde paused and gestured at the towering bluffs.

  “Did they do it up there?” The brunette giggled.

  Wyatt rolled his eyes but sidled closer.

  “I’m sure.” The blonde grinned slyly. “They shared the wine underneath the full moon, and then Giovanni asked Maria to marry him. She said yes. They were married in the vineyard the following June and lived happily ever after for sixty-four years.”

  “Aww, that’s so sweet.”

  “Giovanni and Maria’s three sons did the same thing with their girlfriends. And then their sons did too. No one in the Romano family has ever been divorced. Nor has anyone who has ever shared a bottle of wine with their true love on Twin Hearts during a full moon in June.”

  “No one?”

  The blonde shook her head. “No one.”

  “Wow,” said the brunette. “Those are some crazy odds.”

  What a load of bull, Wyatt thought, but in spite of himself, he was charmed by the legend. He had to admit that the Romanos sure knew how to stir up a myth for publicity, and he wondered how much of the boutique vineyard’s success was tied into that far-fetched story.

  “Well, I’m not here for romance,” the blonde said. “I’m here to learn winemaking from the best.”

  “Couldn’t get an internship at DeSalme Vineyards, huh?”

  “No,” the blonde admitted sheepishly. “But this is better.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Belle Notte’s a small winery, run by a woman.”

  “And there is that legend.”

  “I told you I’m not interested in romance. Now hooking up with a hot guy...” She cast a sidelong glance at the deckhands docking the boat. “Absolutely. I’m just not in the market for happily ever after.”

  Me neither.

  Wyatt slid an appraising glance over the blonde. Apart from her youthfulness, she was what his brothers would refer to as one of “Wyatt’s Lamborghini women”—fast, sleek, and expensive to maintain. She possessed a smoking body, expensive haircut, and designer clothes.

  Too bad he couldn’t afford the distraction.

  “Not even if...you know...like you met somebody special, like, The One?” the brunette asked.

  The blonde tossed her head. “I’m not ruling anything out, but yeah, I’m not interested in long-term. Not for years and years and years. I want to be like Kiara Romano, running my own winery by the time I’m thirty. You can’t achieve something like that if you let your heart rule your head.”

  “It also helps to inherit a winery.”

  “There is that.”

  “Or marry into one.”

  The blonde sniffed. “I want to be the one in the driver’s seat.”

  “It’s not always pleasant behind the wheel. I heard Kiara never dates.” The brunette lowered her voice and said something he couldn’t hear.

  Wyatt cocked his head, straining to listen, but it was too late. The women were moving away from him, heading to where everyone else was disembarking an
d climbing into the waiting vans whose doors wore mural wraps of Bella Notte Vineyards.

  At this hour of the morning, it seemed almost everyone on the ferry was a new intern headed for Bella Notte. Wyatt found himself in the same van with the chatty coeds. They ended up introducing themselves. The blonde’s name was Lauren, the brunette’s Bernadette.

  As the caravan of four vehicles, each carrying six interns, drove up the hillside, the mist seemed to move with them, rolling away from the coast, rising up to cloak Twin Hearts.

  The landscape was arid earth on one side of the bluff, verdant valleys dotted with vineyards on the other. Idyll had the same grape-friendly climate as the Napa Valley region, the same easygoing feel.

  The entrance to Bella Notte was as quaint as everything else on Idyll. A vine-covered stone wall flanked buildings reminiscent of Tuscan wineries. Beyond the buildings stretched rows of perfectly manicured grapes.

  Wyatt had grown up in vineyards, and honestly, they’d never interested him—too much hard work to be sure— but now, looking at this place, breathing in the scent of the rich, loamy soil, his chest tightened, and he felt oddly inspired.

  His brothers would get a good laugh out of that. Why should he feel inspired by this tiny winery, while the big, sprawling corporate affair that was DeSalme Vineyards left him cold?

  That reminded him of why he was here. To find out exactly what Belle Notte was doing that had caused this tiny boutique winery to take a surprising bite out of DeSalme’s market share.

  Their wines were supremely good. What were they doing differently? His brothers had paid to have the wine analyzed, but they’d been unable to detect why it was so special. They needed a corporate spy on the inside, and he was it.

  A tall, dark-haired man met the group and ushered them into one of the stone buildings. He moved with a dreamy, loose-limbed stride, as if walking on a bank of clouds. He wore his hair long, swept off his forehead and tied back with a leather strap. He had a cluster of purple grapes tattooed on his right forearm, and he wore a shirt made from hemp.