Page 8 of How To Tempt The Off-Limits Billionaire

He was about to drive on when Ro placed her hand on his thigh. “Hold on a sec... I need to ask you something.”

Unless she removed her hand, he wouldn’t be able to think of anything but moving her hand a few inches higher. Yep, around her his brain shut down and all he could think about was tasting her wide mouth, exploring her soft, pale skin.

Ro lifted her hand to brush her bangs out of her eyes and Muzi took a slow, deep breath.

She’s off-limits, Triple M. Remember that.

“Why do you want this property?”

Muzi frowned, caught off guard. “Sorry?”

Ro’s eyes narrowed to slits of deep blue. “You heard me. I looked online and there are many vineyards for sale in this area alone and the reason everyone is selling is because the wine industry is struggling to survive. Most vineyards are cutting back, not expanding so...why do you want this property?”

Muzi ran his hand over his head, silently cursing. He’d underestimated her. Ro was obviously smarter and more insightful than he’d given her credit for. He shouldn’t be surprised. After all, her brothers were two of the smartest guys on the planet.

He needed to give her an explanation, one she could believe. If he found C’Artegan vines on this property, he’d be the one to bring wine made from a thought-to-be extinct old-world grape to the market. The Clos du Cadieux board would kiss his damn feet if he achieved that and his position in Mimi’s company would be unassailable. He didn’t want to lie but he was reluctant to tell her about his quest in case the news leaked and Susan found a way to spike his plans.

“You are obviously looking for an explanation I will buy,” Ro told him, her voice frosty. “If you don’t want to tell me then just say so.”

Okay, then. “I don’t want to tell you.”

At his blunt statement, hurt flashed across her face. He watched, fascinated, as she sat up straight and primly crossed her legs, staring straight ahead. “Fine.”

He was old enough to know that when a woman said fine in that tone of voice, she was anything but. Crap, how could he fix this?

Before he could say anything, Ro turned and handed him a tight smile. “You are the only person, apart from my brothers and their partners, who knows who I am, who knows about my changed circumstances. You know my biggest secret, something my parents don’t even know...but, sure, keep your little secret aboutmyproperty.”

Dammit.She had him between the tips of a sword and a spear.

Muzi stared out his window, seeing the weeds between the neglected vines. If he told her, and Susan found out, he’d be risking his future Clos du Cadieux plans. But, really, given the huge secret she was keeping about her identity, he doubted she’d let his secret slip.

But trust was hard, it was something that had to be earned. And he made people work harder than most. Sharing information was also difficult; he was a guy who preferred to keep his own counsel. Talking always made him feel like he was standing on a mile-high precipice waiting to fall to a stone slab below.

Ro released an annoyed huff. “Just drive, Muzi.”

Instead of obeying her terse command, Muzi jerked his head toward the overgrown vines. “How much do you know about wine and grapes and cultivars?”

Ro half turned in her seat to face him, her expression puzzled. “I know grapes make wine. And that I own a wine farm and that I like wine,” she replied. “So, basically, nothing.”

He thought as much. “Right. A ‘cultivar’ is a grape variety that has been selectively cultivated to produce a certain type of wine. The vines beyond that fence produce Merlot.”

Ro nodded, interest bubbling in her fabulous eyes.

“Bear with me because I need to give you a quick history lesson. In Languedoc in France, sometime in 1863, a farmer discovered that something was killing his vines. The blight and destruction spread through France and into other countries in Europe and they eventually discovered it was the phylloxera aphid causing the damage. Over fifteen years, the wine industry in Europe was decimated, and France was the hardest hit. Many old and rare cultivars were annihilated.”

“That’s very interesting but how does it relate to St. Urban?” Ro asked.

“I did my master’s thesis on lost cultivars and I tracked down some documentation suggesting that one of your ancestors brought back a cultivar from France before the phylloxera outbreak. A cultivar that was supposedly wiped out in Europe. The cultivar is called C’Artegan.”

“And you want to find this cat...cart...cultivar?”

He smiled at her mispronunciation of the word. “Yep. I’m sure St. Urban has C’Artegan vines.”

“Surely someone would’ve discovered it by now?” Ro asked, sounding doubtful. “I mean, can’t you just walk the land and see whether there are different types of vines?”

“There are some obvious differences between cultivars, but there are only subtle differences between the Merlot and C’Artegan. Those differences all but disappear when the vines are diseased or have been neglected. Nobody from your family has farmed this land since the 1920s and it’s very possible that information on the C’Artegan cultivar was lost and everybody has simply assumed that all the vines are Merlot.”

Ro crossed a long slim leg. She wore a short-sleeve minidress in a deep green, covered with tiny flowers, a fun and flirty dress that didn’t suit her oh-so-serious face. “And because of a hunch, and some vague documentation, you want to buy this property?”

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