Page 3 of Winter
Nancy frowned and opened her mouth to speak but just then the door opened and a wave of customers came in. For the next couple of hours, they barely had a chance to exchange words and it was only when Scarlett greeted them noisily that Inca looked up from her work.
“Yo, yo, yo, you old crumblies. Still alive? Good.”
Nancy rolled her eyes and Inca laughed. Scarlett Moyer might be nineteen years old and a
brutally confident young woman, but they still loved her. She was bright, funny, and didn’t stand for any nonsense, but she had a big heart. Dressed, as always, in her short skirt with Doc Martins and a T-shirt that readSmile Muthaf*cka, she snapped her gum and gave them both a cheesy grin. Inca studied her apparel.
“That T-shirt needs a comma,” she said thoughtfully and Scarlett laughed.
“Only you, Inkyminx, would be more offended by a grammatical error than by foul language.” She grabbed a Sharpie from the counter and added the missing comma afterSmile. “Happy?’
“Definitely. Now, get to work, slave.” Inca grinned at her young friend. There might have been nine years between them, but they’d clicked the minute Scarlett had walked into the teahouse two years ago. Scarlett, an undergraduate at the University of Washington, was wise beyond her years, and Inca trusted her implicitly.
Now Scarlett slipped her apron around her tiny waist. “I have gossip,” she said, as she began to stack cups in the sink. “Someone, or rather,someones, have bought the old Fletcher mansion.”
Inca’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? After all this time?”
“Yup. And you’re never going to believe who.”
Nancy rolled her eyes impatiently. “Just spill it, Scarlett.”
Scarlett grinned. “If I said the nameWinterto you, who would you think?”
Both Inca and Nancy looked blank and Scarlett gave a hiss of frustration. “God, Grandmas …”
She grabbed Inca’s iPad from the counter and quickly pulled up a photograph and newspaper article. “Tommaso and Raffaelo Winter.Lookat them.”
Inca glanced quickly at the photograph. She saw two young men with identical, dark curly hair and intense green eyes. “I have no idea who they are,” she said, turning back to her work. Nancy took the iPad from Scarlett and read the article aloud.
“The Winter Twins, heirs to the Winter Property fortune, are billionaires in their own right. The brothers, thirty-five, decided to relocate from their native Italy to Washington State to pursue their respective careers. Tommaso Winter is working with the US government to promote clean energy in the Pacific Northwest, whereas Raffaelo Winter is the owner of the international club franchise,Zensual,that will be opening a new club in Seattle at the end of the month. Widely considered the two most eligible men on the planet, the Winters will have the pick of the Seattle social elite to choose from when they arrive in the State. The twins are still reeling from the death of their Italian mother, Silvana, who lost her battle with cancer earlier this month. Silvana Winter was divorced from the boy’s father, Edgar Winter.”
Inca had stopped listening, but she caught Nancy’s tone and grinned at her. “You hate them already.”
Nancy shrugged. “Poor little rich boys. Strange that two thirty-five-year-olds still live together.”
“Twins,” Scarlett shrugged, by way of explanation. “They are gorgeous though. Look, Inca, look at those eyes, those bodies …God.”
Inca grinned. “Drooling at work is most unseemly, Scarlett.”
“Butlook…” She shoved the iPad back at Inca who, sighing, took it. Scarlett wasn’t wrong. Tommaso and Raffaelo Winter were heartbreakingly handsome; they had that brooding, sexy thing going on. Inca studied them, trying to pick out the differences. Raffaelo’s eyes were wary, his curls slightly longer and wilder, but that was it. They looked like movie stars. Inca handed the iPad back.
“You know what they look like? Trouble.”
Scarlett grinned. “Yeah …fantastic.”
Inca opened her apartment door, rolling her eyes and giving him a disapproving look. “It’s eleven p.m.”
Olly shrugged.
“Come on in.” Inca stood back to let him pass and squinted at him. “Nancy told you, right?”
“Question is,” Olly said, “why didn’t you?”
She fixed him some tea, and Olly thanked her as she passed him the cup. Inca sank into the sofa, pulling her legs up under herm and studied her friend with a critical eye. Olly, at thirty-three, was five years her senior. His light brown hair was cut short, his hazel eyes crinkled at the edges. Clean-cut, all-American, Olly Rosenbaum was the epitome of trustworthy and noble.
“You’re not my bodyguard, Olly.” She softened her words with a smile. “It was really nothing. I handled it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Olly raised his eyebrows at her. Inca rolled her eyes.
