Revenge at Bella Terra
by Christina Dodd
(Scarlet Deception # 2)
The Di Luca family is never without excitement. Eli Di Luca, the wine expert in the family has been keeping a secret from the rest of his family. The vineyard is struggling. His accountant fled town and left behind a trail of stolen money and debts to the IRS that if not repaid soon will shut down his business. Except he doesn't have the money to pay it back and doesn't want to ask his family for anything and let them know about the issues he had.
So a solution comes along. Mr. Conte, a millionaire and somewhat Eli's business partner wants him to marry his daughter and give him grandchildren. Eli comes from a good family so he offers to pay ofrf all of Eli's debt if he can get his daughter to marry him. Bad choice? Yeah maybe.
Eli is very serious and the type of guy that does for everyone else but holds himself behind high walls that no one can come through and get to know the real him. But Chloe finds the cracks.
Chloe Conte is younger than him, she's independent, she's adventurous, she's an author. Just finished her first book, had massive success, and is now struggling with the stress of writing a second book that would be as good. Her father offers her to spend time with Eli and enjoy beautiful California to get over her writers block.
Chloe is onto her dad's scheming about getting her married, but Eli seems genuine and for the most part he is. I liked that throughout their relationship he was *mostly* honest and himself. There were only a few pushes along the way that he had to do to get her to agree to marry him. But at a certain point, I just got pissed off that he waited that long to come clean. Should've been sooner.
There is still mystery and suspense! There is still a missing bottle of wine, yes the same one that seemed to have started the Di Luca problem in book one, but now we find out there's more to that bottle than the old wine it contains. It has something else of value in it. And people are willing to kill for it.
This was a good installment in the series and in my opinion better than the first one because I liked the characters better. I am looking forward to the next book since it will be about the youngest Di Luca, and he seems to have a dark past hidden somewhere!
