The Wine Prince: Vine of Obsession

By Rebecca Bernadette Mance

“How are you Elizabeth?” His voice was like a luxurious bath sponge stroking over her skin. He touched her shoulder. She found air somehow and turned into his voice like turning her face to sunlight after standing in a cold wet storm.

She dumped herself into his eyes. And the look she found there left her falling.

Want nearly blinded her.

His voice dropped low and soft. “How is your day going?”

She scanned for Martin and found him glaring at her with warning. “I appreciate your kindness, but you don’t need to worry about scheduling me time to eat and to take a break.”

“I want to reward you for hard work and to persuade you to come to me with your needs and wishes.”

Bethy felt tingling heat creeping across her face and neck. She drew her eyes from his and dipped her head to take a bite of food while she digested his words. Her heart accelerated furiously.

Martin was nearly burning holes into her. Unfortunately for all of them, Chevalier didn’t move away, instead he sat down next to her. He elegantly folded himself into the chair. She piled up her fork and shoved it into her mouth.

What did he mean?

Maybe she could tell him about Martin’s threats.

Bad idea.

Martin had worked there for three years and despite his cheating in school, did what appeared to be a good job running the office, so her word against his was certain to make her the loser in this instance.

“Work has its own rewards.”

He chuckled. “Then there are also bonuses for excellent employees.”

She nearly dropped her fork. Her eyes shot to his. “What do you mean?” Her hand shook as she scooped up some rice and shoved it into her mouth.
He smiled oh...so sexily. So...sensually...the tempting devil. “It means whatever you wish, but you must surrender to me completely to find out because I accept nothing less.” (Erotic Romance - Sequel to The Letter)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca Bernadette Mance
• Release date: Apr 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311522566

Rebecca Bernadette Mance

Rebecca Bernadette Mance has lived in Florida, Texas, California and now lives on a farm in Kentucky, Finnegan's Run, named after a California Collie that passed away on the farm. She has a husband Joe and son Joseph, both who served in combat, Vietnam and Afghanistan, respectively. She owns her own remote California paralegal business called E-Global Legal Support Services LLC serving California and Arizona clients. Rebecca worked in the Bay area for over ten years as a litigation secretary and paralegal and wrote books during the long commutes on BART. Besides running E-Global and writing, Rebecca works on her farm with nearly 50 fruit trees, gardens and a small forest and thick tree-line to support local wildlife. Her favorite thing to do is to walk the land or sit on the front porch with a glass of wine and her two Collies, Mr. Oliver and Magic Merlin. Favorite quote: "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass...it's learning to dance in the rain." "As an Indie writer I find that it is a jungle out there sometimes, you are going to take it in the gut because you do everything yourself without backing....When book strikes a controversial chord, it invites trouble, but it also makes for an excellent book. I have learned that to be a good story teller, you have to break rules, you aren't perfect, you don't have professional editors unless you can afford them....but you pour your heart into the book and in the end, it is what drives you to write. Being an Indie writer has been an amazing experience...it means you take the hits, but you write exactly what you want to write, with all of its flaws and beauty...and I think that is what writing is really about...it is the story, the characters...being submerged in a moment and truly feeling that moment. I write with my own rules.....I feel deeply every book I write...from The Letter, The Chosen One, Iron Horse King, Once Upon A Misty Bluegrasss Hill, Silent Magic Music and now my latest two books book which are light erotica, The Wine Prince - Vine of Obsession and The Medici Prince - Glass of Obsession. Thank you to all my fans, friends, family and supporters. I can't believe that I sell books every day all over the world. I am utterly humbled. My blog follows are from countries all over the world and in places I may never have a chance to visit. That is an accomplishment for a girl who once did sleep in her car. Follow my blog at RebeccaMance.com."

Book preview

Chapter 1

Wine is sunlight, held together by water! Galileo Gallilei

The effect of seeing him was singularly profound. And her world was forever changed.

His aura blazed around him. His presence was tangible and electrifying.

And he was utterly exquisite….gorgeous…magnificent.

In fact, he was so beautiful, he made her heart hurt.

Bethy’s breath caught and she was suspended out to the edge of an endless personal universe. She was locked into the instant of time that held him and was dangling without mental solid ground to stand upon.

And it finally happened.

She had at long last found the reincarnation of Cary Grant.

Oh damn him…to add to everything else fabulous about him…

He was Cary Grant.

Only in a single glance it was obvious he was infinitely more perilous.

And of course Bethy did know Cary Grant when she saw him. She was utterly obsessed in fact. Forget that he was allegedly dead. That terrible rumor was dispelled in her mind at this wrinkle in the time zone.

She had watched and reviewed the legend’s movies countless times. Bethy Worthington knew his every unique movement and facial expression. She had memorized just how he progressed his hands, walked, and tilted his head.

And, of course, how he smiled. The legendary smile.

Even the tone of the man’s voice matched Grant’s exact pitch. Smooth dark brandy just waiting to seduce…in ways whispered about, or sometimes explicitly spelled out in illicit books.

It was true...even though Cary Grant was famous and not of this earth any longer, by some miracle of reincarnation he stood only yards away in front of her.

Only this version was infinitely more carnal than the original Cary.

This man was of extraordinary physical form and in the living world moving with the timeless grace wrapped in utter and complete masculine power, sensual prowess and crowned with a manly elegance that was the signature Cary Grant.

Why did they not make men like this anymore that a regular girl could even hope to have?

Modern men could have learned a lot from Cary Grant. Nobody had to tell Cary to be sensitive, wonderful, sensual beyond a fantasy, and to be three steps ahead or know the right things to say. To a naive woman, to an experienced one….or to a socialite in her first season in San Francisco…he would say just the right thing. He didn’t need to read it in a book…not Cary Grant.

And not this exceptional specimen of a man.

He wasn’t a yuppie trying to pretend to be something he was not…he just was…him… classically handsome, gracefully masculine and gifted with timeless charm.

And in this case, packed with super-sexy-male magnetism.

She sensed some hazardous inner-fire in this man. And that intrigued her even more. He viewed the world with the eyes of a man who expected everything, and got everything exactly as he expected.

He shaped the world to suit him. God help the one that stood in the way. And his dark sensual power touched everything around him, even while he smiled like a brilliant angel.

The look in his beautiful sapphire eyes made you wonder….what did he want and expect? You were certain it was something outside your imagination. And if it was something within your imagination, you would never admit it.

It had to be decadent and forbidden.

But, the legendary actor that had so mesmerized her thoughts throughout her adult years that she compared every man to him finally met his match. Of course, all the other men fell woefully short. And she had eventually decided to settle.

Until this moment she never believed a man like him existed.

John-Pierre Chevalier.

That was his true name.

A woman at her advanced age of thirty-three, having survived a bitter break-up, could hate a man with such an elegant name to match his Cary Grant image. She did hate herself on some level for being so taken with a man so dazzling and so far out of reach.

It was so utterly unfair that one could be so damned rich, live on a winery and look and carry himself like Cary Grant only with a sexy new edge. Oh and how could she brush over the fact that he didn't just live on a winery?

He was the Wine Prince.

That was the handle attributed to him by the society papers both in San Francisco and Napa Valley, both of whom followed his movements with newsy obsession.

Dammit. She could pretend to hate those society page write-ups, but she followed everything about him like a weird obsession.

Which was nearly as crazy as her Cary Grant fascination.

In the case of Chevalier, was her fixation because he concocted the finest wines that graced the most discriminating tables, not just in the United States, but also across Europe and Asia?

All of that certainly did capture her imagination, because she had studied winemaking since the first time she tasted an excellent Cabernet Sauvignon her father opened for her on her 18th birthday. From the instant she took her first sip of the fruity concoction, everything had changed.

Wine had become her other personal obsession.

Was she drawn to Chevalier because he had won so many awards that she was certain he probably had stopped bothering to count them? Would she stop counting if she was occupying his place and fabulous existence?

Better question, did all those awards fit into one room?

She was jealous, but only in a good way.

So how to convince him she should be his new partner? They could make wine together and dance in the moonlight or … perhaps do something more erotic…

The image of ex-fiancée Gary, in an effort to be erotic trying to spoon moldy whip cream out of an expired container to spread over her, killed that thought.

Okay…so maybe she and John-Pierre could just make wine together. Forget the dancing in the moonlight part. Especially forget the erotic part…she could not possibly keep up with someone like him.

Though somehow she doubted he was the moldy-whip-cream type.

But he of course would never look at her with desire and she didn’t want him to, in truth.

After all, who wanted to compete with his following of bimbos with thin legs and perky perfect sized breasts...spa tans...professional wax jobs...impeccably manicured nails...and everything else?

Cary Grant had never made her feel like this. The movie star had flipped her heart a thousand times, but no, he had certainly never made her think like this.

Just then, Chevalier laughed a sexy laugh that danced through the folds of the long billowing ginger and gold curtains that licked the sunlight and caressed the fall breeze. The drapes were merely a framed canopy for the long wooden rough tables that had come from a gargantuan fallen sequoia tree and were finished with a clear varnish to protect and enhance the beauty and irregularity of the wood.

Oversized lush sunflowers, as fresh as if they were still on their stalks, were strewn with whimsy amongst their leaves and flowed all the way down the dark tables.

Beyond them, rows and rows of grapevines waved elegantly in the September sun, reminding everyone that the beauty and the moment was all theirs.

Beautifully browned chickens on skewers were finding their own finest-most-worshiped- moment over an open fire, manned by smiling caretakers basting them with loving brushes.

That was the only thing that kept her from feeling sorry for those unfortunate fowl. They were never going to get any better than they were at this moment.

The scent of fresh herbs floated in the air, seducing the hungry guests into finding a seat in the perfectly tempered shade.

Behind the makeshift pits, more of the vines of life and love rolled along gentle hills with the just-turning-grapes ripening themselves gracefully into becoming the nectar of the gods.

Bethy could have enjoyed the moment quietly sitting and being reflective with her glass of wine ... a concoction from heaven...but she had to make the moment instead.

And this was her moment.

She simply had to corner Cary Grant.

Not Cary Grant! Yeesh…She had to stop thinking of him as Cary Grant….what if she actually called him Mr. Grant by accident?

His name was John-Pierre Chevalier…keep that in your head.

How utterly cliché his name was when you thought about it. But she would never tell him that of course. It was like his mother knew exactly what he would do when he grew up so she named him perfectly. His name was as dashing and sexy as he was.

Besides all that, conveniently his name looked fantastic on his wine bottles. Gold raised letters on a black label with his French coat of arms in delicate display along one side in a continuous pattern made for a bottle that screamed from the shelf to be purchased.

His kingdom fit around him like a perfect mantle.

The vast property of his winery that surrounded her was all too utterly romantic to be real, including the old stone structures that littered the estate with too much ease and beckoned to be explored like secret magic cottages in England or France.

She forced her eyes back to the mission. The man that was her mission, Mr. Chevalier, was entering the food line chatting with a couple in front of him that looked like some of his wine members. If she hurried she could get just behind him.

Maybe she could convince him between the rice and the roasted chicken to take her on as his partner.

Not.

Nearly knocking over the smiling and attractive young man delivering wine samples, Bethy made a hasty apology and hustled into the line attempting some semblance of elegance for her haste and clumsiness.

Unfortunately, she was neatly cut off and thwarted by a buxom redhead with the same goal to be next to him smiling large seduction at Mr. Chevalier.

Her smile was too feline. But didn’t they all have that special secret smile for him? She had seen it dozens of times in the span of an hour. Oh sure, most of those healthy young beauties were too young to know who Cary Grant was….someone who made actors today seem shallow and almost comical in their attempt at a presence.

However, these young women undoubtedly recognized the superior male magnetism…the charm…the timeless masculinity that embodied Mr. Chevalier. And even advancing into his early fifties, he was too handsome to be permitted.

She caught a glimmer in his hair in the sunshine.

What? Of course he would have just that perfect touch of grey on his very black-brown hair that just touched his sideburns to frame him in the perfect image of worldliness and elegance.

The redhead leaned toward Mr. Chevalier giving him a full dose of her assets.

Ugh.

Bethy would never be able to talk to him about anything of substance while he was in the line with that pretty distraction next to him.

Unless, of course, she resorted to something rash and absurd like bashing her opponent over the head with the fine white china plate she clutched in between her fingers.

Which is about what it would take to get his attention away from someone that looked like this bombshell redhead vying for his attention at the same time.

Bethy did not have false illusions about who she was. Her parents had taught her to love herself even if she was less than perfect and less than perfectly beautiful.

Unfortunately for the advancement of this moment, she was far less than perfect.

On a more intimate level she could never hope to land the grand now-legendary matches consistent with that of her ancestors.

She was certainly not fat, that wasn’t the issue. She just wasn’t razor thin, which was the optimal in current trends; trends for the last twenty years, in fact, to be considered beautiful. If you were not fragile, you had to have a lot of muscles… be super-athletic. She was neither. She just walked or went to the Super-Day Fitness Club twice a week for an hour just to be able to eat what she liked and still fit into her clothing.

But even when she tried hard to diet and work out more often…well….she was always just lush...curvy. And apparently that was simply what her body wanted to be.

Sure her face might be considered a little pretty if she didn't have to compete with someone really young. Like the redhead in front of her capturing John-Pierre Chevalier and pulling him in like an octopus with everything she had in her power in that moment…which was a vast array of assets.

Admirably, his eyes did stay fixed on the redhead's face and not her boobs.

Big points for Mr. Chevalier on being able to resist a peek at the tight t-shirt, even if he probably was viewing her at the bottom of his eyes, undetected and in the ways of a gentleman.

She was still unlikely to be spared a glance in the meantime. Bethy looked down to compare her own wardrobe decision to that of the short-short-tank-top-perfectly-perky-redhead.

Doomed to be ignored.

Unless she impressed him with her intellect.

Dressed in her bohemian flowered skirt and a fully-covered-lacy top to court her personal whimsy, she was unlikely to draw the slightest glance from him. Her feet were strapped into her sturdy sandals with unpolished nails.

No attention would be thrown her way. So she might as well enjoy the moment of good food and wine…because that was all she was likely to enjoy as she stood behind the pretty redhead.

She resorted to shifting on her feet while she waited to obtain her portion of the elaborate spread of food. Obviously she must abandon any thought of talking to him … Super Sensual Cary Grant…while in this line.

Thinking ahead, she glanced to his designated lunch seat with a tiny glimmer of hope that most women would not think that far ahead. She could contrive to arrive to where he was sitting before him and secure an empty seat next to him…or at least near him.

Wrong again.

Women in plenty and men in fewer were crowded together near his chair in a proximate smothering anticipation, pretending they just happened to be right there and didn’t know he was coming back with his plate.

But who was she to be critical? She had hatched the very same plan, only too late.

When she came up to the heaping rice bowl the spicy aroma made her mouth water. Consolation for her failure of the moment was the delicious food. And oh how she did love food.

The redhead had skipped the rice.

Of course.

If she also skipped rice would her boobs shrink to a perfect-perky size and her waist look like a Barbie doll?

Rice with rabbit and seafood ma’am? The young male blonde food attendant likely a college student on summer break, smiled at her brightly.

She nodded taking in his nametag. Oh yes, please a nice spoonful Jason.

While generous-Jason piled her plate high with the aromatic rice, Bethy chanced a glimpse at Mr. Chevalier.

To find him staring past the chattering redhead at her own heaping plate.

Okay….so she had asked for a second helping! So what?

Could she just die right now?

His brow quirked up and a devastating I caught you smile played around his lips.

She looked like a pig….and they both knew it.

How humiliating.

Then his gaze, sparkling blue in the afternoon sunshine, fired into hers. Prickling heat jetted across her face. Bethy never blushed…she was too old for that and nobody moved her in just that way…but in this mortifying instant…she blushed, hot and red…from her neck to her forehead.

There was nowhere to hide from his knowing smile and intense eyes.

She wanted to drop her sinful plate. She wanted to somehow pretend that it wasn’t hers.

Could she feign that the redhead was her friend and thrust the plate in her face? This is yours Ginger…and this is the last time I am carrying food for you!

But one look at Ginger would reveal that she never took a second helping and probably not even a first, of starchy things like rice…maybe vegetables and the like.

His sparkling gaze slid away from her singed cheeks with a slight nod and a killer lift of his lips…and he continued through the line with the chatting redhead, who never noticed a thing.

The secret small smile never did leave his lips.

Taking two chicken breasts was obviously out of the question now, though she was mightily tempted as she gazed at them covetously with their succulent browned skin covered with fresh herbs. She took one and speedily moved away before giving into the temptation.

She took a seat under the canopy next to a friendly couple that she learned, after introductions, lived in southern Napa.

Despite the continuing heat in her cheeks, she sneaked a peek at where Mr. Chevalier had ended in his seat within her perfect view.

At least she had pulled that off.

If she could not advance her agenda she could at least enjoy the view.

And really, she should not have made such a perfect hog of herself right in front of him. Would she have wanted to sit with him after that? Oh, well, it could have been worse…she could have taken the second piece of chicken never knowing he saw the whole thing….

And even if she had been standing next to him, it wasn't like she could or would explain her obsession with food.

Oh how she missed her old winery job where she helped with such events. Of course, she knew it had been a bad idea from the start to go to work with a guy she was dating. Gary had been the manager at the Montique Winery and she had been the wine tour guide.

They had lived together for a year before he started hurting her. It started small, just grabbing her hand or her arm too hard. However, in a very short amount of time it escalated to a slap across the face when he got mad about something trivial.

And it continued to accelerate.

Why hadn’t she stopped it before it had gotten so far?

When his fists landed her in the hospital with a black eye, a broken nose and cracked ribs, she knew that she was never doing that again.

When she was released from the hospital, she had gone to their apartment in Calistoga flanked by her dear friends Summer Beck and Bart Stein and packed all the way through Gary’s apologies and pleading. He was only sorry because he didn’t want her to follow through with the police report. But she had filed the report anyway in the end.

It had been the right thing to do when considering that maybe the next woman who made the mistake of dating him would check out the police records before moving in with him. She certainly would never get involved with a man again without a full background check!

Of course, she was done with men now. The string of selfish young men that expected her to pay her own way and often theirs as well, only to wind up with Gary the Great, left her just that bit bitter about men.

He blamed her in the end. Of course, they always did apparently. She wasn’t sexy enough. She wouldn’t do the whip cream….

But it had mold after all….wasn’t the sexy-whip cream-scene supposed to be fluffy and fun...not moldy and melting?

So it was over between her and any man. She was completely dedicated to remaining single. Men would have one purpose and only one purpose if she even wanted them for that. But if she did when she was finished with them, they would leave before morning.

But she was only interested in casual sex if anything at all now.

She would do it in the dark with someone who didn’t pretend to love her. As cold as it seemed, it had to be better than her few disastrous relationships.

If they didn’t think she was sexy enough later, who cared?

Gary’s were the last stinky boxer shorts she would ever pick up off the floor.

Her mother and grandmother on her father’s side had filled her head with romantic stories and she had read a good many herself. Her family assured her that there was a great love for her out there, just as there was for every woman and man in their family.

She had sat with them for hours as they discussed the great loves and deep passions of her ancestors and most particularly that of William and Victoria Worthington.

Gary was her final attempt to find a great love. But if she had been honest, she must have known right from the start that they would never share the kind of all-consuming affair that her notorious forebears had shared.

The dramatic break-up had been six months ago. She now was working as a waitress at the Rosemary Sprig restaurant in San Francisco…living in a quaint little well-worn Victorian house with her best friends Summer and Bart…who talked her into moving here from Texas originally.

She was following her dream of being a vintner. She had lived with them while she went to school and then again after Gary. They welcomed her back with open and eager arms when things fell apart with Gary. They had raced to the hospital when Gary hurt her and later waited for her in Bart’s car while she packed her things. Summer helped her get the job at Rosemary Sprig, where she also worked.

She enjoyed living with her friends. They had always been close. Good friends were so much safer and less emotional than boyfriends. Bart had decorated the apartment with tasteful pieces he acquired working at the interior decorating studio, save her bedroom which was filled with her over-large furnishings purchased with high hopes of a house of her own, a family and a perfect husband to share her large bed.

But she was on a new journey now, hoping for an interview and a job at another winery.

This winery.

Even though the waitress job was not her ultimate dream, it was a nice job that got her by until she could get back on track to her objectives. It wasn’t Summer’s ambition either so they, together with Bart, talked of their dreams over popcorn and cheap wine.

But she was still barely making enough to not be going into the hole every week because of Gary and his need for a BMW that she co-signed for and he didn’t make payment on.

Her father, Butler Worthington, had warned her that studying wine-making was not a profitable course of study and an unlikely career choice unless you made it big. The jobs in that field were difficult to obtain and the competition was tough.

He lived in Texas and fretted in his offer about sending her money every week. She lied and said she was fine. She loved and respected her father very much. She was too old to make him worry or mooch off of him. That meant she kept a brave, bright front up when she spoke with him on the phone.

Besides, she still made enough money to tuck a little away each week.

She had to admit that her father had been exactly on target about the job market for would-be vintners. However she was still not sorry for the choice to follow her passion. And she wasn’t giving up just because Gary had rather put a bit of a painful complication in front of her to block her path.

All of that had landed her into this moment. Now she was here trying to get back on track again with a fresh start at the premier St. Helena winery.

Mr. Chevalier just happened to have a possible opening. Sadly his vintner of 20 years, Archibald Kane, had been killed along with his wife Ann in a tragic traffic accident. His brakes failed on the coastal road going down toward Big Sur.

Bethy had studied his work relentlessly and was heartbroken over his loss though she had never met the man. She could only imagine the loss to Chevalier.

Rumor had it that Mr. Chevalier was searching for a replacement. For now he was relying some on Archibald's understudy...Martin Blake...who was rumored to be having a secret relationship with Archibald before he died.

Unfortunately, Bethy knew Martin Blake better than she wanted to. They had been friends at one time having met in first period chemistry sitting next to each other. In fact, they had done a lot of things together outside of school until Martin asked her to help him cheat.

While in school, over coffee at cafés and cocktails at Harry’s Starlight room, they both had obsessed over Archibald’s work. Both coveted the dream to be like Archibald…to work at a