The Villa

A wedding. Celebrate our marriage. Champagne, flowers, a gorgeous couple."
    "Honeymoon's sexier," Trace commented as he refined his other sketch. "Same elements, but in a snazzy hotel room. Wedding dress hanging on the door and our couple in a lip lock with champagne on ice."
    "If they're in a lip lock, they're not going to be thinking about drinking," Ty said.
    "Good point. Hold the kiss, but the rest is great. Show me…" Her hands began to move. "Anticipation. Silk, flowers, and put the flutes in their hands. Give me eye lock instead of lip lock. Go, my children, and create magic. See what you can get me in the next few hours. Think: Moments. The special and the ordinary."
    She recrossed her legs as her team headed out, talking over one another. "Not bad, MacMillan. Not bad at all."
    "Good. Can we go home now?"
    "No. I've got a lot of stuff to deal with here, and more to pack up in order to set up an office at the villa. Can you draw?"
    "Sure."
    "That's a plus." She scooted off the desk to cross over and dig a sketch pad from a wall of shelves.
    There were a lot of things on the shelves, Ty noted. Not just business junk, but the knickknacks people, particularly female people, in his opinion, seemed to collect. Leading the pack of the dust catchers were frogs. Little green frogs, larger bronze frogs, dancing frogs, fashionably dressed frogs and what appeared to be mating frogs.
    They didn't seem to jibe with the sleekly dressed woman who bulleted down office corridors on high heels and smelled like a night in the forest.
    "Looking for a prince?"
    "Hmm?" She glanced back, following his gesture. "Oh. No, princes are too high-maintenance. I just like frogs. Here's what I see. A kind of montage. The vineyards, the sweep of them in the sunlight. Vines pregnant with grapes. A solitary figure walking through the rows. Then close up, enormous baskets of grapes, just harvested."
    "We don't use baskets."
    "Work with me here, Ty. Simplicity, accessibility, tradition. Gnarled hands holding the basket. Then on to the casks, rows and rows of wooden casks, dim light of the caves. The mystery, the romance. A couple of interesting-looking guys in work clothes drawing out the free flow.
    We'll use red, a lovely spill of red wine out of a cask. Then different workers tasting, testing. Then finally a bottle. Maybe two glasses and a corkscrew beside it.
    "From vine to table. A hundred years of excellence. No, from our vines to your table." Her brow furrowed as she pictured the ad in her mind. "We lead with the hundred years of excellence, then the montage, and below: From our vines to your table. The Giambelli-MacMillan tradition continues."
    She turned back to him, looked over his shoulder, then let out a snort. He'd been sketching while she talked, and the result was circles and stick men and a lopsided column she supposed was a bottle of red.
    "You said you could draw."
    "I didn't say I could draw well."
    "Okay, we're in some trouble here. Sketching isn't my strong suit, though compared to you, I'm da Vinci. I work better when I have some visual aides." She blew out a breath, paced. "We'll make do. I'll have the team fax me sketches as we go. We'll coordinate schedules so that we can hold a weekly session either here or at my office in the villa."
    She dropped down on the arm of his chair, frowned into space. She was tuned in to her team, and had sensed the undercurrents. It was something she needed to deal with right away. "I need a half hour here. Why don't you head over to Armani, and I'll meet you there."
    "Why am I going to Armani?"
    "Because you need clothes."
    "I have plenty of clothes."
    "Honey, your clothes are like your drawing. They meet the basic definition, but they aren't going to win any prizes. I get to outfit you, then you can buy me the proper vintner attire." She gave his shoulder an idle pat, then rose.
    He wanted to argue, but didn't want to waste time. The sooner they were finished and driving north, the happier he'd be.
    "Where's Armani?"
    She stared at him. The man had lived an hour out of San
    Francisco for years. How could he not know? "See my assistant. She'll point you in the right direction. I'll be right behind you."
    "One suit," Ty warned as he walked to the door. "That's it."
    "Mmm." They would see about that, she thought. It might be fun to dress him up a bit. Sort of like molding clay. But before the fun started, she had work. She walked back to her desk and picked up the phone. "Kris, can I see you