The Villa

way."
     
    "Some game." Maguire slid behind the wheel. "Give me a nice, clean 'I killed him because he cut me off on the freeway' any day of the week."
    "Drake's running scared. Shaking down to the toes. She thinks DeMorney set all this up and she's in line to take the fall."
    "He's a slick son of a bitch."
    "Yeah. Let's pump up the pressure on him. The slicker they are, the harder you squeeze."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
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    He wasn't going to tolerate it. The idiot police were certainly on the Giambelli payroll. He had no doubt of it.
    Of course they could prove nothing. But the muscle in Jerry's cheek twitched as doubts danced in his head. No, he was sure of that. Sure of it. He'd been very, very careful. But that was beside the point.
    The Giambellis had publicly humiliated him once before. Avano's affair with his wife had put his name on wagging tongues, forced him to change his life, his lifestyle. He could hardly have remained married to the unfaithful slut—particularly when people knew.
    It had cost him placement and prestige in the company. In his great-uncle's eyes, a man who lost a wife to a competitor could lose accounts to a competitor.
    And Jerry, always considered the La Coeur heir apparent, particularly by himself, had been taken down a painful peg.
    The Giambellis hadn't suffered because of it. The three Giambelli women had remained above it all. The talk of Pilar had been respectful sympathy, of Sophia quiet admiration. And there was never talk of the great La Signora.
    Or hadn't been, Jerry reminded himself. Until he'd made it happen.
    Years in the planning and stylish in its execution, his revenge had cut through to the core of Giambelli. It had sliced through the family, keen as a scalpel. Disgrace, scandal, mistrust, and all brought about by their own. Perfection.
    Who'd been taken down a peg now?
    Even with all his planning, his careful stages, they were turning it on him. They knew he'd bested them, and they were trying to drag him under. He wouldn't permit it.
    Did they think he'd tolerate having his associates speculate about him—a DeMorney? The idea of it made him shake with black, bitter rage.
    His own family had questioned him. Questioned him on business practices. The hypocrites. Oh, they didn't mind seeing their market share increase. Had they asked questions then? But at the first sign there might be a ripple in the pond, they laid the groundwork to make him a scapegoat.
    He didn't need them, either. Didn't need their sanctimonious questioning of his ethics, or his methods, or his personal agenda. He wouldn't wait for them to ask for his resignation, if they would dare to do so. He was financially comfortable. It might be time to take a break from business. An extended vacation, a complete relocation.
    He'd move to Europe, and there his reputation alone would ensure him a top position with any company he selected. When he was ready to work again. When he was ready to pay La Coeur back for their disloyalty.
    But before he restructured his life yet again, he would finish the job. Personally, this time. MacMillan thought he didn't have the guts to pull his own trigger? He'd learn differently, Jerry promised himself. They would all learn differently.
    The Giambelli women were going to pay dearly for offending him.
     
    Sophia zipped through her interoffice e-mail. She'd have preferred attending to the reports, the memos, the questions personally in her San Francisco office. But the law had been laid down. She didn't go to the city unaccompanied. Period.
    Tyler refused to be pulled away from the fields. The weeding wasn't complete, the suckering was just begun, and there was a mild infestation of grape leafhoppers. Nothing very troublesome, she thought with a little twist of resentment as she answered an inquiry. The wasps fed on the leafhopper eggs. That's why blackberry bushes, which served as hosts for the predator, were planted throughout the vineyard.
    Hardly a season passed without a slight infestation. But there were stories, and those who loved to tell them, of an entire crop being devastated by the little bastards.
    She wouldn't budge Tyler until he was certain it was under control, and by that time, she'd be so busy with the last-minute details of her mother's wedding she wouldn't be able to spare a day to go into the office, much less out to the vineyards.
    When the wedding was over, the harvest would begin. Then no one would have time for anything but the