When, she wondered, had she started to think about the winery as hers? Definitely not at first. For that first year, at least, she’d thought about it as Uncle Stan’s winery. A few times, she’d overheard Elliot refer to it as his winery, and while part of her had bristled at that—the part of her that thought Elliot had meant for her to overhear it—another part of her thought it was only right. It did feel like either Uncle Stan’s winery or Elliot’s winery, for a very long time. But now she understood how Elliot felt. Because yes, while it felt like their winery, theirs together, it also felt like hers.
She wished she could talk to Uncle Stan. Ask him why he’d left the winery to her and Elliot equally. Had he just done it that way because he would have felt bad leaving it to Elliot alone, like it would have hurt her feelings? It would have, a little, but she would have understood, she would have expected it. Had he thought she would just be a silent partner and let Elliot do everything? She didn’t think so—Uncle Stan knew her too well to expect her to be silent about anything—but she wasn’t sure. Had he expected her to sell her half of the winery to Elliot? Elliot had no business sense—he was just all about the wine. Which made for excellent wine but would not make for a very successful winery. Or had he wanted her to actually chip in, become invested in this place, and in these people, like she had? To do things he wouldn’t have done, and probably wouldn’t like that she was doing, like all the social media content, renovating and expanding the tasting room, this party? She had no idea.
She went to her meeting, paid absolutely no attention for an hour, and then got in her car and drove home. When she walked into her house, she stood there and looked around. No. She couldn’t be at home alone all night. She had so much to do for the party, but all she would do was think about Luke. She texted Sydney.
MARGOT
Save me a seat at the bar
She texted back right away.
SYDNEY
Someday I’m going to make you make reservations, like a normal person
Margot laughed.
MARGOT
Never. Be there in ten
When she slid onto her seat at the bar, Sydney raised an eyebrow at her.
“Wine kind of night, or cocktail kind of night?”
Margot let out a sigh.
“Cocktail kind of week, more like.”
Sydney poured something or other in a shaker, along with ice, and then strained it all into a coupe glass.
“Here. And food is on its way, I’m sure.” Then she inclined her head slightly to Margot’s right. “Also. I got you a present.”
Margot took a sip of her cocktail—ooh, tart, and very strong, just what she needed—and then shifted her eyes to her right, certain what she would find.
A man. She shook her head.
“Why not?” Sydney asked. “It worked last time. Plus, you need a palate cleanser. You told me that you did!”
Margot picked up one of the arancini that landed in front of her.
“It worked well last time?”
Sydney laughed.
“I guess that depends on your definition of ‘well.’ It absolutely worked well until you got to work the next day, didn’t it?”
Margot just looked at her. Sydney sighed.
“Fine, just throw my present away like that. But haven’t you been saying that this is what you need to get over the last time?”
Sydney walked away without giving Margot a chance to answer.
“I’m not under the last time,” she muttered. At least Sydney hadn’t been able to call her on that lie.
“What was that?”
The man next to her turned to her, a curious, friendly expression on his face.
“Oh.” Shit. “I was just . . . chatting with the bartender.” She sighed. “She’s a friend of mine—she likes to push my buttons in the way that friends do.”
He laughed.
“I get that.” He hesitated, then turned to her all the way. “I’m Matt.”
She swore she could hear Sydney cackle. She held back a sigh. Fine.
“I’m Margot.” She’d at least ask this question right off the bat. “What do you do, Matt?”
He smiled at her.
“I’m a lawyer. I live in San Francisco, but I’m in town for a conference. I had to escape the conference hotel, you know how it is.”
A lawyer. Thank goodness. And he was definitely not the lawyer who occasionally did work for Noble—that lawyer was a woman.
“Oh, I know how it is,” she said. “Sometimes you need to get away.”
He laughed.
“Yeah—when you’re at these things, if you go to the hotel bar, you invariably run into a million people from the conference, and it’s just more hours of work. And the networking would probably be better for my career, but tonight I wanted a break from all of that, if you know what I mean.”
Oh, did she.
“I definitely do. I live up here, and almost everyone who lives here is more or less in the industry—we don’t quite all know each other, but there are a lot fewer than six degrees of separation, let’s put it that way.” She nodded in Sydney’s direction. “As you saw. If I want to take a break from work, I have to leave the state.”
He laughed. She did like a man who laughed at her jokes.
“Surely, not the whole state? Can’t you just go down to San Francisco?”
She took a sip of her cocktail and shook her head.
“I love the Bay Area, don’t get me wrong, but that’s work, too—I own a winery up here, so I spend a lot of time down there or in L.A. marketing our wines. Which is great, and we’ve been successful at that. But that’s why I have to get out of California for a true break. No restaurant is safe.”
His eyes opened wide when she said she owned a winery. She used to lie about that, or sort of minimize her role there to men. Say she was an executive at a winery, or she worked in sales at a winery, or sometimes just she worked at a winery. All of those things were true, but not the truth. And eventually, she’d gotten sick of it. If men were scared off by that, so be it.
They usually were.
Would Luke have been? If she weren’t his boss?
She didn’t think so.
“Oh wow, you own a winery?” Matt asked, and leaned in a little closer. Hmmm, apparently he wasn’t scared off. “Which one? That sounds amazing.”
She tossed her hair back, more for the benefit of Sydney, who she was sure was watching.
“Noble Family Vineyards,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun, and also a lot of hard work. I don’t do it by myself, of course—my brother and I are the co-owners.”
“How does that work, to own it with your brother? I can’t imagine being in business with any of my siblings,” Matt said.
It would be easier if Elliot didn’t hate that she was the co-owner. And if he respected what she did. And if he stopped doing things like hiring people without talking to her about it first. God, why did she keep thinking about Luke?
“We have a pretty good division of labor,” she said.
She and Matt talked for the next hour, as food kept appearing in front of Margot. Matt seemed like he’d finished eating, but made no motion to leave.
Finally, Margot asked for, and paid, her tiny bill, and Matt did the same.
“I should be getting home,” she said.
He stood up when she did.
“So should I,” he said, like she’d known he would. “Breakfast session tomorrow morning, unfortunately.”
They walked out of the bar together. Margot refused to even look in Sydney’s direction, but she knew her eyes were on them.
Matt stopped her on the sidewalk.
“My hotel is this way, if you’d like to walk with me? Maybe have a nightcap?” He took a step closer to her. When she didn’t move away, he took another.
“I . . . That sounds . . .”
Before she could finish, he bent down to kiss her.
The kiss was very nice, just like Matt. But after a little while, Margot took a step back.
“I’m sorry, Matt. I should get home. It was lovely to meet you, though. Really.”
Matt stepped back and smiled at her.
“It was lovely to meet you, too.” He pulled a card out of his pocket. “Just . . . just in case you change your mind.”
She smiled at him.
“Thanks. Have a good day tomorrow.”
He nodded.
“You, too. Maybe I’ll stop by that winery of yours sometime.” She knew that was her cue to give him her card.
She didn’t do it.
“I hope you do,” she said instead.
She watched him walk away, then went back into the Barrel.
“Excuse my language, but what the fuck are you doing here?” Sydney asked her when she sat back down at the bar.
“He kissed me,” she said.
Sydney raised her eyebrows.
“And?”
“And nothing. Just . . . nothing.” Margot sighed. “A perfectly nice, nothing kiss.”
Sydney looked at her.
“And are you sure that nothing wasn’t because of you-know-who?”
Margot stared down at the bar, and then back up.
“It wasn’t about him in the way you mean. It’s not like I’m saving myself for him, or anything like that. But . . . I knew immediately, as soon as he kissed me, that it would be good with him. That it would be great with him. That first kiss, it was . . . My whole body responded to him. And so when I know it can be like that, why waste my time with a kiss that feels like nothing? Why waste Matt’s time when I felt nothing?”
Sydney pursed her lips.
“I don’t think Matt would have thought his time was wasted.”
Margot pursed her lips right back.
“And doesn’t that make it worse?”
“Point taken.” Sydney lifted her hands in surrender. “Oh well. You tried.”
Margot dropped her head to the bar.
“Yeah. I tried,” she said. God damn it.
She pulled herself upright and shrugged.
“Okay. I’m going to walk home now.”