Aged for Seduction Read online

  AGED FOR SEDUCTION

  (A Tuscan Vineyard Cozy Mystery—Book Four)

  FIONA GRACE

  Fiona Grace

  Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books (and counting); of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising five books (and counting); of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books (and counting).

  Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

  Copyright © 2020 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Roxana Bashyrova, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE

  LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY

  MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)

  DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)

  CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)

  VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)

  KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)

  PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)

  SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)

  FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)

  CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)

  TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY

  AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)

  AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)

  AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)

  AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)

  AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)

  AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)

  DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  Olivia Glass was beginning to panic.

  She didn’t have a clue what was scribbled on the handwritten list in front of her, and she was running short of time to figure it out.

  “What does it say? Quick, quick!” Nadia, the vintner at La Leggenda winery, leaned across the tasting counter, drumming her nails on the polished wood. Impatience fizzed from every inch of her petite frame. Olivia could feel it like an electric force.

  Frowning in concentration, Olivia peered at the writing. It was a messy scrawl, not helped by the fact the original had been blurrily screenshot before being emailed to the winery and printed out.

  “I’m trying! Another minute and I’m sure I’ll get it,” Olivia reassured her.

  Narrowing her blue eyes in concentration, Olivia angled the list so that it was in the beam of one of the elegant spotlights above the tasting counter.

  The page was headed “Willing Lift.” Or so Olivia had thought at first glance. It was only after a confused while that she’d realized this loopy, chaotic script actually said “Wedding List.”

  Since it was the list of requirements for the wedding venue, supplied by the bride-to-be, Olivia thought she should probably have figured that out earlier. It showed how bad the writing was!

  “Okay. We’ve got the champagne flutes and the gold serviettes and the crystal beads,” Olivia recapped, counting on her fingers. She had thought for quite a while that item read “crystal bears.” Working it out had been a lucky save.

  “Yes, yes, yes, we have all that, but I need the rest. I have to leave now,” Nadia entreated. “These items must be purchased in Florence and the stores will close in an hour and a half.”

  Olivia felt like pulling out her blond hair in handfuls. Why had the bride-to-be scrawled these requirements down and not typed them out?

  The list had been written on a letterhead titled “Big Bob’s Debt Collectors, New Jersey, USA. You Ring, We Bring!”

  Presumably, the bride-to-be worked for Big Bob? Why else would debt collector’s stationery be used to compile a list of wedding arrangements? And if she worked there, couldn’t she use a printer? Olivia was sure she must be employed on the admin side—the “You Ring” and not on the kneecap-busting “We Bring” side of the business.

  She was beginning to regret being the only English speaker at La Leggenda. That was why the list had ended up in the tasting room where she worked as sommelier. It had been passed from the handsome Marcello, the eldest of the Vescovis who owned this magnificent Tuscan winery, to Nadia, his younger sister, and then at the speed of light, on to her!

  “Couldn’t you stop in at a drugstore in Florence?” Olivia asked, as a brilliant idea struck. “I think you need to do that.”

  “A drugstore?” Nadia frowned, looking puzzled. “Why?”

  “Because they’re used to reading physicians’ scrips. You know how bad doctors’ handwriting is? I’m sure a pharmacist could interpret this at a glance.”

  Nadia snorted with laughter.

  “Or I might come back with a bag of headache pills and hemorrhoid cream! No, Olivia, this is your job!”

  “I could use a headache pill at this point,” she complained, peering more closely at the jumbled writing again.

  “Walls to be draped with—chiffon!” Olivia exclaimed in relief, as the scribble made sense at last. “Walls to be draped with chiffon which MUST BE—”

  She stopped again. The last word had defeated her. And it was critically important. MUST BE what?

  “It begins with a ‘P,’” she stated after some intensive scrutiny.

  “Pleated?” Nadia guessed helpfully.

  “No, it looks like a shorter word than that,” Olivia puzzled, wishing that
the curlicues would form into a coherent shape.

  “Pleated is not a long word,” Nadia argued. “Shorter still? Plain? Pearl?”

  “Pink!” Finally, it made sense. “Must be pink.”

  Nadia’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Olivia in disbelief.

  “Pink? For a wedding? Olivia, it is impossible! This is a marriage of adults, not the christening of a girl child.”

  Olivia shook her head, staring down at the page.

  “I know, it doesn’t make sense,” she admitted. The vision of La Leggenda’s restaurant draped in fuchsia chiffon was mind-boggling. But the more she looked at it, the less like any other word it seemed to be.

  If she got this wrong, La Leggenda’s first-ever tourism wedding would be ruined. She couldn’t let that happen. And there was no time for another shopping trip. This was it, make or break.

  Feeling flummoxed, Olivia wondered if she should turn the paper upside down and try reading it again.

  Perhaps she needed to read it with fresh eyes. She raised her head for a moment, staring around the spacious tasting room, and turned to look behind her at the imposing display of oak barrels that formed a dramatic backdrop to the counter.

  She turned back again hurriedly as, from the restaurant, came a disbelieving shriek.

  “Pink? A five-tier wedding cake, frosted in baby pink? Mio Dio, it cannot be!”

  Olivia recognized the outraged tones of Gabriella, the restaurant manager and her erstwhile rival.

  Nadia tilted her head, listening.

  “A pink cake? Can it be the theme color?” she asked incredulously.

  “It sounds like it,” Olivia agreed.

  “Well, then. Pink it is. Pale pink chiffon, perhaps?”

  “Yes, if the cake is baby pink, I guess the drapes should match.” Olivia nodded.

  “Unbelievable.” Nadia rolled her eyes. “I had better go, because if the stores close, we will not have any pink at all.”

  She hurried out of the tasting room. As she opened the door, a blast of cold air rushed in. Olivia saw it was fully dark outside. A strong wind was howling, and she was pretty sure it would be raining, too. Winter had well and truly arrived.

  Shivering, she ran over and closed the tall, stately door.

  In the silence that followed, she could hear Marcello’s voice from his office down the tiled corridor. He’d been barricaded in there all day, working through a massive list of logistics.

  “White chairs, per favore. Blue-white, not cream, according to my instructions. Is that possible?”

  Olivia could imagine him in there, leaning forward on his leather chair, his head tilted sideways so that a stray lock of dark hair fell over his handsome face—the strong jaw line accentuated by the warm glow of his desk lamp.

  “Yes, a surround sound system for the after-party. I will email you the specs for the speakers. They seem very particular about the sound they want,” she heard him say, sounding frazzled.

  Olivia felt that way, too. This was the first large wedding that La Leggenda would be hosting, and she wasn’t sure why Marcello had even proposed it. Did the winery need the money badly? She felt cold inside as she wondered if they’d landed in another financial predicament. Despite good sales in recent weeks, Olivia knew that the second vineyard near Pisa, which La Leggenda had recently purchased, had cost far more in upgrades and renovations than they’d expected.

  Perhaps Marcello was planning ahead to take the winery through the lean days of mid-winter. After all, a wedding of more than one hundred guests was a massive event.

  It was their first ever such function, and quite frankly, Olivia was dreading it.

  In her previous life as an advertising accounts manager in Chicago, she had hated events. Not only were they a nightmare to organize, but the only predictable thing about them was their unpredictability. Bizarre and unforeseen things always ended up going catastrophically wrong at the last minute.

  Olivia glanced down at the scrawled list again.

  The hundred guests were all coming from America. In fact, the wealthy party was from New Jersey, which as a native New Yorker already worried her. She knew how picky—all right, that was a polite word—how obnoxious a group of wealthy American tourists could be in a foreign environment, if they weren’t used to other countries’ strange and different ways, and expected the same levels of service that they received at their local Ruby Tuesday. Especially if they had the notorious “Jersey attitude”!

  Attitude or not, this bride sounded fussier than average. Olivia dreaded the tantrums that might ensue if the chiffon was the wrong pink, or the furniture had a hint of cream.

  At that moment, Gabriella hurried into the tasting room, muttering angrily to herself. Her streaky, tortoiseshell hair had come loose from the swept-up do she’d sported that morning. Stray locks were dangling over her perfectly made up, although now rather smudged, face.

  She headed toward Olivia and, for once, Olivia didn’t feel her usual surge of defensiveness.

  As Marcello’s ex-girlfriend, who had kept her job after she and the handsome winery owner had broken up, Gabriella had resented Olivia from the start, sensing immediately that there was a romantic spark between her and Marcello. However, to Olivia’s frustration, the spark had never flared into an actual romantic fire. Then, at the end of fall, Marcello had confessed to her that although he wanted it to happen, he couldn’t risk complicating their working relationship. As the head sommelier who also handled the winery’s marketing, Olivia had become too valuable to La Leggenda.

  She and Marcello had reluctantly agreed to stay friends, and Olivia was sure that Gabriella had sensed the change in their dynamic, with her finely tuned instincts.

  At any rate, she’d been less hostile toward Olivia since then. Now, instead of the furious glower Olivia had been expecting, Gabriella rolled her eyes at her in a not-unfriendly way.

  “This wedding!” she exclaimed. “I need to be paid more to deal with all of this. These people! Their demands! A pink wedding cake giving birth to many cupcakes? A personalized cupcake for every guest with their name on? There are one hundred and eight cupcakes. People will be drunk and take the wrong one and then what? And as for the wedding pizzas, I have never heard of such a stupid thing! Steak pizzas! Rib pizzas! Burger pizzas! Taco pizzas!”

  She ran her perfectly manicured fingers through her hair.

  “I know,” Olivia agreed, amazed that she was able to speak with genuine empathy. “I’m worried the entire winery will be put off Americans after the wedding!”

  Gabriella gave her a sly smile.

  “Don’t worry,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “I am already.”

  Olivia stared at her in consternation. Then Gabriella burst out laughing.

  “I am joking,” she explained. “Tell me, where is Jean-Pierre? We need to organize the wine list.”

  “I am here.” The tall, temperamental French youth whom Olivia had recently hired as her assistant sommelier hurried through from the storage room. “There are many types of wine on this list that we do not have. Peach wine? Strawberry wine? Wine and Coke blend? How will we satisfy our guests?”

  “We will supply labeled carafes of juice and soda, and they may mix their own,” Gabriella decided.

  “Good idea,” Olivia agreed. “The basics should probably be our famous La Leggenda white blend, and the red blend that’s heavy on the Merlot. Both of those are excellent quality wines that will appeal to the sophisticated palate of a wine lover as well as to the—”

  She hesitated, not wanting to insult tourism visitors who also happened to be her fellow countrymen. Luckily, Gabriella had no such scruples.

  “As well as the tasteless Philistines who will be attending this event,” she spat. “Come, Jean-Pierre, let us work out how to arrange the carafes.”

  She whirled away, with Jean-Pierre following in her wake.

  Olivia drew a deep breath. The wedding rehearsal would take place the day after tomorrow, and on Sat
urday, the wedding itself would be under way.

  She let her breath out again slowly. In a short while it would all be over. Perhaps she was overdramatizing the situation, and there was no reason to dread it so much.

  After all, it was just a wedding.

  What could possibly go so badly wrong?

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was fully dark when Olivia drove her elderly Fiat pickup through her farm’s gateway. There was a gate, but since it was old and rather rusty, and at the bottom of her fix-up list, she had taken to leaving it open.

  She breathed a sigh of happiness as she stopped the car outside the farmhouse. She never lost the feeling of gratitude and amazement that she was the owner of this twenty-acre farm, located on stony, hilly ground, but with a mysterious history and the most beautiful view in the whole of Tuscany.

  How lucky she was to be living in this humble but homely abode, Olivia thought, turning off the windshield wipers and listening to the patter of rain on the car’s roof, while admiring the faint outline of the farmhouse’s stone walls. Even though she’d plunged most of her life savings into the dilapidated building and spent the rest on fixing it up, Olivia didn’t regret it for a moment. It was an exotic world away from the neat but characterless apartment she’d owned in Chicago.

  Olivia squeaked in surprise as a nose nudged her from behind.

  It belonged to her adopted orange and white goat, Erba, who had started following Olivia home when she’d first begun working at the winery. Now, Erba commuted to and from La Leggenda with her. When it was sunny, they walked. In rain and storms, Erba traveled in the back of the car.

  “Sorry, Erba! I’ve been dreaming and it’s dinner time,” Olivia apologized to her goat. “Time to feed you and put you to bed.”

  She scrambled out, pulling up her jacket’s hood to protect her from the cold, spattering drizzle. Then she and Erba made a run for the farmhouse. Instead of going in the front door, Olivia rushed around to the back, where a brand new wooden Wendy house had been installed outside the kitchen courtyard.