Drunk on Love(15)

“Are we going to talk about this?” he asked.

She finally met his eyes. The relaxed, cheerful mask dropped from her face.

“Close the door,” she said.

He closed it, very gently.

“No, to answer your question,” she said as soon as the door was closed all the way. “Other than to say that one, it obviously can’t happen again, and two, no one can know it happened. Especially not my brother.”

Did she think he was going to spread this around? He wouldn’t do that.

“Of course not,” he said. “Do you want me to quit? I can just leave at the end of the day and not come back. I’m sure I can find something somewhere else.”

Why had he said that? He didn’t want to quit. But now he had to if she said yes.

She lifted a hand to her face and closed her eyes. He waited for her answer.

“No,” she finally said. Why was he both relieved and disappointed by that? “First of all, it would probably violate some sort of employment law if I said yes. And we’ve been short-staffed, it’s been a challenge to hire people who are both intelligent and likable, and my brother actually liked you, which is rare. I’ll feel way too guilty if we lose you because of me.”

“Okay,” he said. He turned to open the door, and then stopped and turned back around. “I have one question to ask you, though. Were you going to text me?”

She looked in his eyes, for one long moment.

“I think it’s best if I don’t answer that question.”

She turned back to her computer screen. Okay. He got the message.

He opened her door and walked back out into the tasting room.

Well, this wasn’t how he’d expected his first day at work to go.

But damn it. He wished she’d answered the question.





Four


MARGOT FLED FROM THE winery that evening like she was escaping something. Which was more or less true. Luke had left before she did, but by the time she got in her car, hours before she usually left the winery, she felt like she couldn’t be inside the building for another second or else she’d explode.

Why? Why why why did the guy she’d had fantastic sex with all night have to be her new employee? What had she done in this life, or a previous one, to deserve that kind of karmic punishment?

Thank God, at least, that Elliot was so focused on wine that he never noticed anything and hadn’t seemed to pick up on the way she and Luke had stared at each other when they’d walked into her office that morning. Or the way she’d tried to avoid looking at him after that first shocked moment.

Should she have told him to quit, when he’d walked into her office later that day, for the confrontation she’d known they had to have? She still wasn’t sure. Yes, obviously, she didn’t want him working at the winery, what a fucking HR minefield that was. Especially with the way he’d looked at her, first in the tasting room and then right before he’d left her office. It had made her remember the night before—and that morning—all too well. It had made her whole body remember how it had felt to be touched by him, kissed by him. He couldn’t keep looking at her like that. If he did it again, she’d have to tell him so.

Even though, God, she wanted him to keep looking at her like that.

It figured that this would happen. That as soon as she was feeling confident about her role at Noble, as soon as she’d really settled into the job, felt like she was starting to make it her own, felt like she could actually be good at this thing, something would happen to remind her that she didn’t deserve to be there.

Her phone rang. In the second before the number popped up on the screen in her car, she wondered which would be worse right now: Elliot calling, because he somehow knew what she’d done, or Luke calling, because he’d gotten her phone number from somewhere and wanted to, like, talk this whole thing through some more, or something. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw it was Sydney.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself,” Sydney said, an amused tone in her voice. “I believe you have a story for me? Meet me for drinks?”

Margot slammed on her brakes for a yellow light.

“How did you know?”

Had Luke told someone, who told someone else, who told Sydney? She knew Napa Valley was just one big sprawling, wine-soaked small town, but this was fast even for the Napa rumor mill. Oh God, then the rest of her staff would find out any second, because Taylor knew everybody.

It would still take Elliot weeks to find out, though—he was so far outside the rumor mill that he didn’t even know it existed. But this meant she’d have to tell him.

“How did I know?” Sydney laughed. “Well, I guessed something happened after I saw the two of you walk out of the Barrel together last night, and I saw that very tender way he steered you past those annoying tourists Mark had just dealt with.”

Of course. Sydney knew only that something happened last night. She didn’t know about today.

“But I guess I was right and there’s much more to this story,” Sydney continued. “Which (a) I’ll take that thank-you anytime you want to give it to me, and (b) why didn’t I get a text about this at some point today? Obviously this means (c) we’re meeting for drinks within seconds.”

Thank goodness it had been Sydney who’d seen her and Luke together last night, and not someone else. But then, if it wasn’t for Sydney, she never would have introduced herself to Luke in the first place.