The Villa

intention of developing serious feelings for Tyler MacMillan.
    God, it was infuriating to know she had.
    Worse, he'd been exactly and perfectly right in his rundown of her. She was pissed off, she did feel betrayed, she was feeling hurt and vulnerable and she wished Tyler was six thousand miles away in California. Because she wanted, so desperately, for him to be right here. Within easy leaning distance.
    She wasn't going to lean. Her family was a mess. The company she'd been raised to run was in trouble. And the man who would very likely become her stepfather was lying in the next room with a bullet hole in his shoulder.
    Wasn't that enough to worry about without thinking about her fear of commitment?
    Not that she had a fear of commitment. Exactly. And if she did, Sophia decided and sat down again, she'd just have to think about it later.
     
    He slept for two hours and woke feeling like a man who'd been shot, David supposed. But one who'd lived through it. Now that he was sitting up and being fed minestrone, he decided he could start thinking again.
    "You've got your color back," Sophia told him.
    "Most of my brain, too." Enough to realize she was playing with her soup rather than eating it. "Feel like filling me in?"
    "I can tell you what's been done, or what I know. I don't imagine I can fill in all the gaps. They're looking for Donato, not only the police but a private investigator hired by my grandparents. They've interviewed Gina. I'm told she's hysterical and claims not to know anything. I believe her. If she did know something, and Don dumped her and the kids in the middle of this mess, she'd scramble to make trouble for him. They haven't been able to identify the woman he's been seeing. If he's in love with her, as he told me, I imagine Don took her along for company, so to speak."
    "Rough on Gina."
    "Yeah." She pushed away from the table, tired of pretending to eat. "Yeah. I was mildly fond of Don. Could barely tolerate Gina and felt even less warmly toward her progeny. Now she's deserted by her cheating, stealing, possibly murderous husband. And… damn it, I can't feel for her. I just can't."
    "It's not impossible she pushed Don financially so he started to dip."
    "Even if she did, he's responsible for his own choices, his own actions. Anyway, it's not that. I just can't stand her. Just can't. I'm a horrible person. But enough about me."
    She waved that away, picked up a small hunk of bread to nibble and tear at while she paced. "It's assumed that Don had funds stashed, funds he bled from the company. Enough to run on for a while, I suppose, but to be frank with you, he's just not smart enough to stay underground."
    "I agree with you. He had help in all of this."
    "My father."
    "To a point," David said, watching her. "And after he died, maybe Margaret. Their take in this, if they had one, was minimal. Not enough to convince me that either of them had a starring role."
    She paused. "You think they were used, rather than users?"
    "I think your father might have simply looked the other way. As for Margaret, she was just finding her rhythm."
    "Then she was killed," Sophia said quietly. "My father was killed. It could all circle back to this. Somehow."
    "Possibly. Still, Don isn't coolheaded enough, isn't long-thinking enough to have set up the kind of scam that slipped by the Giambelli accountants for several years. He was the inside man, with the connections. But somebody drew the blueprint. Maybe the mistress," he added with a shrug.
    "Maybe. They'll find him. Either sunning himself by the surf on some tropical beach or floating facedown in it. While they look, we put the pieces back together."
    She came back, sat. "Donato could have tampered with or hired someone to tamper with the wine."
    "I know."
    "I'm having trouble with the reason. Revenge? Why damage the reputation, and thereby the fiscal security, of the company that feeds you? And kill to do it?"
    She paused, studied his bandaged arm. "Well, I guess he's shown he has no real problem with that area. He could have done it all." She pressed her fingers to her temples. "Killed my father. Rene's a high-maintenance woman, and Dad needed plenty of money. He knew he was being phased out of Giambelli. He'd burned his bridges with Mama, and I'd let him know he'd set the ones between us smoldering."
    "He was responsible for his own choices, Sophia." David used her words. "His own actions."
    "I'm resigned to that. Or very nearly. And I can imagine what those