She was at the winery; she couldn’t think about Luke. She had a million things to do today, little things to wrap up after the party; there were guests coming to the tasting room all day, she already felt guilty for how late she was, she had to be on, bright, smiling, welcoming, all day. She couldn’t let Luke distract her.
Like he’d been distracting her for months. Ever since that first night, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him. She’d thought about him every single fucking day since then. He’d put her off her game. Yes, the party had gone okay, but just think how much more organized she would have been if he hadn’t been around, doing things like causing her to zone out in the middle of the day thinking about him and making her decide to stop working at six instead of eight and bringing her dinner and giving her massages and putting her in the right frame of mind to write the newsletter so people would open it and come to the party and—
She had to stop thinking about this. She needed to get her head in the game, forget about him, at least for the next few hours while she was at work. She could wallow later, at home.
She went into the winery through the back way, so she could avoid talking to the guests in the tasting room. It usually put her in a good mood to walk through the tasting room in the morning when there were already guests there—she got to greet everyone, smile at them, see how much fun they were having. It usually gave her a little boost to start her day. But right now, she needed some time. She’d go in later, say hi to whoever was there, make sure the staff knew she was around if they needed her, thank them for their hard work yesterday. But she needed a moment to turn herself back into Margot Noble, co-owner of Noble Family Vineyards, and not the Margot who sobbed in the shower this morning.
She sat down at her computer and flipped it on. She automatically checked the sales for the last day, like she did every morning.
Wow.
Either people had gone home from the party and decided to order even more wine, or all of the posts on social media—including the ones about Porter Eldridge—had boosted their profile, or something else, but their sales had risen dramatically last night and this morning, even excluding the wine they’d sold at the party. And a bunch of people had joined the wine club overnight.
Whatever had inspired this, she’d take it.
She spent the morning replying to emails and calls from VIPs and friends of hers and Uncle Stan’s who had been at the party and wanted to congratulate her, or who had missed it and wanted to apologize. She managed to convince most of that second group to make it up to her by buying wine. She got off one of those calls with a smile on her face. See? That was better.
When she went out into the tasting room, Taylor and Marisol both grinned at her and beckoned her over to meet the guests. She laughed and flirted and complimented them and recommended other wineries for them to visit, and they all laughed and smiled along with her. Okay. She could do this. She loved this. She didn’t need Luke.
She walked over to Taylor and Marisol, both pouring new flights at the bar, before she went back to her office.
“Hey, you two. You all, the whole staff, did an incredible job at the party yesterday, and I’m so grateful. Take a day off this week or next—paid, I’ll cover your shifts. Just let me know what day.”
Taylor glared at her.
“Shouldn’t you be the one taking some time off?”
Margot waved that away.
“I will, I will. I’ll plan an actual vacation soon.”
Eventually. Once she had time and mental space to plan something. When that would be, she had no idea, but she’d figure it out someday.
Taylor turned to Marisol.
“What day works best for you?”
“Is next Friday okay?” Marisol asked. “It’s my birthday, and I wasn’t going to ask, but . . .”
Margot smiled at her.
“Of course it works! That’s perfect—have a great birthday.” She turned to Taylor. “I’m not letting you off the hook here.”
Taylor sighed.
“Fine, I’ll do this Thursday. My sister wants me to go wedding dress shopping with her, which . . . whatever, but now she won’t be mad at me.”
Thursday. The day Luke would be at his interview, for the job he cared about more than her. She’d take over for Taylor, be in the tasting room all day; that was just what she’d need.
“Perfect. Thanks again, guys.”
Margot walked back toward her office, still thinking about Thursday, and Luke. She supposed it would be better to be here and busy in the tasting room all day that day, than to be in her office most of the day, on calls and looking at spreadsheets and getting distracted by why he was going down there for the interview and why he’d told Avery and not her and why she wasn’t as important to him as he was to her and why her too-good-to-be-true life had fallen apart in a matter of hours.
Why had she even thought it could be true? She’d known Luke would leave, she’d known this was only a temporary thing for him, she’d known that from the very beginning. He’d told her at the bar that first night that he was only in Napa for three months, max. How had she convinced herself otherwise? How had she let herself think he would change all of his plans for her?
She went back to her desk and stared at her computer. Congratulatory emails were still pouring in, sales numbers were great, and huh, there was an email from Elliot, forwarding her a question from a journalist. This was all that really mattered; this was everything important to her. If three months ago she’d been able to see her inbox today, she would have been over the moon.
So why did it feel so bad?
* * *
THURSDAY MORNING LUKE WALKED through those gleaming glass doors again. It felt like he’d never left, but it also felt like it had been years since he’d been there. So much had happened in his life since then. With all that time in Napa. And with Margot.
He’d been furious when he’d left her house on Sunday morning. Angry and hurt that she’d turned this whole thing around on him, made it a bad thing that he’d gotten this interview. He’d hoped she would be excited for him, impressed, that she’d congratulate him for this achievement.
Margot was probably just pissed about the Avery thing, which, fine, he’d been stupid about that. But he’d apologized, and she’d said they were okay. And then she’d exploded on him five minutes later about his interview? It made no sense.
Why wasn’t she happy for him? This was a big deal. She knew that! He’d told her how bad he’d felt about quitting—she should have been thrilled for him that they’d tacitly acknowledged how wrong they’d been to treat him the way they had. That they knew how good he was.
But he hadn’t heard from her since he left her house on Sunday morning. She hadn’t even texted him this morning to say good luck. He’d checked his phone again, right before he’d walked inside, and nothing.
His former grandboss—a term he’d always found revolting, but that people insisted on using—came out to get him.
“Luke! Glad to have you back, we’ve missed you around here.” He had a bigger smile on his face than Luke had ever seen before. Okay, they were definitely giving him special treatment here.
They went straight into a conference room, where four other people—three of whom he knew—were waiting for him. There was a quick preamble of greetings, but as soon as he sat down, they started peppering him with questions. But he was ready for them.
He was glad he’d spent all week, when he wasn’t at the inn, prepping for this interview. See, it was good he hadn’t had Margot around; he wouldn’t have had time to really throw himself into planning for this.
He spent almost all day on campus, talking to different groups, standing in front of too many whiteboards, having lunch, chatting with former coworkers. It all felt so familiar that when he was finally on his way back home, he almost took the wrong freeway exit, to drive back to his old place, instead of to Napa.
He was sitting in traffic when Avery called.
“Hey! How’d it go today? Do you want to get a drink and fill me in? Or do you have plans with Margot?”
He’d ignore that last question.
“It went well,” he said. “And sure. But I’m still on my way back and there’s a ton of traffic, so give me an hour or so?”
“Okay,” she said. “But if it went well, why does your voice sound like that?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like you’ve been kidnapped and this is a hostage phone call and you have to tell me it went well because they have a gun to your head,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Nothing’s wrong. I was great, they were all excited to see me back. Way more excited than I expected, actually. I think I have a pretty good shot at the job.”
He finally got past the accident that was slowing everything down, and sped up.
“Then why did you just sigh like that when you said you have a pretty good shot at the job?” she asked.
Huh. He hadn’t done that on purpose.
“Oh. I didn’t mean to.” He sighed again and caught himself. “It’s just . . . I don’t know, it was weird to be back there.”