Her father.
Pau felt that same wash of fury and loathing take him over the way it always did at the very thought of the man. The vileness of Umberto Tavian had been the unifying glue between Pau and Giaco all these years. They had met at university and had become friends almost immediately. Back then, Pau had chafed at his father’s restrictions much the way Giaco did, though he had not responded to those restrictions the way his friend had. Pau might have found his father’s expectations stifling, but he knew thathisfather had operated—always—from a place of honor. That had made a difference.
So, too, had it made a difference that Pau idolized his father. Bernat Calixto had always seemed to Pau to epitomize all that a man was meant to be. As a child he might even have said that he loved his father, wildly, though he had quickly learned that such sentimentality was not welcomed.
His father might not have loved him. But he’d taught Pau to love the land, and that had been enough. Even today, he told himself that was enough.
He’d been fresh out of university when his father had died. An apparent heart attack, they told him. Bernat had simply keeled over in the midst of his beloved vines and, at first, Pau had accepted that. His father had loved this place above all else, as well he knew. Bernat had turned his own father’s lackadaisical gesture toward the ancient winemaking capabilities of their land into an empire, and Pau had understood without it ever having to be explicitly stated that his father loved his varietals and his grapes more than he ever did his son.
Not that this was in and of itself a bad thing, to his mind. Because loving the wine was loving this land, and this land was their family’s legacy. They were all bound to hold it and make it better, so that the Calixto name would not die out under their watch. Simply…continue. That was the requirement.
It was the least a Calixto heir could do, Pau had always thought. And maybe there was no better way for a man to love his son than to make it plain to him who he was and why it mattered that he grow up to honor the land that so many of his ancestors had toiled over across the centuries.
Pau had believed that. He had grieved, but he had accepted that he had been lucky enough not simply to chafe beneath his father’s sense of honor, but to grow old enough to appreciate it.
It was not until he was going through his father’s things in the aftermath of his death that he had discovered the truth. That Bernat had developed a deep, trusted friendship in his last years. Bernat had become a part of a particular group of European vintners, had become embroiled with their leader in a variety of ways, and had died with the full belief that he was about to lose everything that he built here.
The legacy of the Calixto family hung by a thread—and Bernat’s sense of honor hinged on that legacy. Oncontinuing.
The man he’d trusted had manipulated him there. Umberto Tavian. Rich and vile and always positioning himself to take advantage of others. A little bit of research made it perfectly clear that Umberto had likely befriended Bernat for the express purpose of taking over the vineyard—as that was what he’d done with the others in the vintners’ group Umberto had created to begin his foray into global winemaking.
What he wanted was the Calixto Enterprises business, of course, which Bernat had turned into a multinational wine concern.
At first Pau thought the coincidence of his knowing Giaco was too great to be anything but planned and likely a plot in and of itself, but he soon thought better of that. Umberto merely liked to collect things that made him wealthier and more powerful, and he did not care at all who he hurt in the process. He had perhaps only begun to think about wine thanks to Giaco’s friendship with Pau, but there was nothing more sinister there. Umberto hadn’t sent his impossible son off to Cambridge as some kind of spy. The very idea was ludicrous.
For one thing, Giaco was ungovernable. He’d never do it. He’d be a shit spy.
That meant Bernat had been collateral damage.
Not long after Pau’s discovery, Pau and Giaco had vowed that they would take Umberto down.
Giaco had already gotten his revenge, though it had taken years. Pau had thrown himself into the family business and pulled it back from the brink—and out of Umberto’s claws. Umberto, who clearly believed that Pau had no idea what an influence he’d had on Bernat. Or perhaps he simply assumed that no one else cared about the fate of their relatives, as he certainly did not.
Pau had made it seem as if Umberto was finally getting what he wanted from the Calixto family, only to snatch it away from him at the very last moment. Worse, he’d made it clear that he was giving Giaco the very thing Umberto had wanted all this time.
It was satisfying—but it wasn’tpersonalenough for Pau.
Bernat might have loved only his vines, but Pau was his son. He’d looked up to his father. He’d wanted, badly, to live up to his father’s example.
He knew he would never possess a thread of his father’s honor.
So now it was Pau’s turn to twist the knife in deeper. He was quite certain that his friend had no idea how Pau intended to go about claiming his own, private revenge. Pau might even have given Giaco reason to believe that he was as satisfied as Giaco was with the deal they’d pulled off, so that no one would suspect what Pau was up to. The deal they’d engineered left Umberto with significantly less power and money—the only thing the old man cared about—than before.
But Pau had always known that there was one more chess piece to play.
He’d understood full well that there would be consequences for playing it, but that hadn’t stopped him.
It wouldn’t stop him now.
For here he was with Umberto’s pregnant daughter—Giaco’s pregnant sister—who had not only slept with Pau but gifted him her innocence. It really was looking a lot like victory.
He tamped down his temper with the strength he’d learned over these long years, and gazed at her.
“Please,” he invited Leontina. “Tell me about your father.”
She sighed, and looked down at the food without reaching for her plate again. “He’s always made it clear that the only utility I offer him is in who he can marry me off to. It’s very dynastic. Very dramatically otherworldly, you might even say.”
“It is par for the course among men of his wealth and station.” Pau shrugged. “After all, everything is a game to them. Why not a child’s happiness?”
