“I’m here,” she said as he pulled onto her street. “That little blue house.”
He stopped in front of her house, and smiled at her. His smile had some of that heat from the night before in it.
“Margot. It was a pleasure.” Laughter jumped into his eyes. “Actually—quite a few pleasures.”
She grinned back at him.
“Likewise.”
He leaned in to kiss her, and it felt natural for her to meet his lips with hers. At first she thought it was going to be a simple, chaste goodbye kiss, but then her tongue slid into his mouth, and his fingers tangled in her hair, and the kiss became a lot more. Finally, she pulled away.
“I should, um, go,” she said.
He kissed her softly again.
“Maybe we could . . . see each other again sometime?”
This guy was so nice he even wanted to pretend it wasn’t a one-night stand.
“Yeah, maybe,” she said.
He pulled open the console between the two front seats and grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen.
“What’s your number?” he asked.
Oh, he was serious? She hadn’t expected that. He looked at her for a second, and his smile faded.
“Why don’t I give you mine?” he said.
He scrawled a number on the paper and handed it to her, and she tucked the paper with his number on it into her wallet.
“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for the ride home.”
She opened the car door and turned to him.
“Bye, Luke. Have a good week.”
He grinned at her.
“You, too, Margot. It started off well, at least.”
She laughed the whole way up to her door.
Once she got inside, she immediately pulled her phone out of her bag. Okay, thank goodness, there were no emergency text messages from her brother this morning. Not like that happened often—it had happened only four times since she’d started this job—but it would be just like him for the fifth to happen when she’d woken up in some stranger’s bed.
Some twentysomething stranger’s bed.
She laughed out loud, stripped her clothes off, and got in the shower.
When she got out of the shower, she pulled her Monday dress off its hanger. Because she hated both early mornings and making decisions when she was tired, she’d long ago simplified certain things about her life. Hence, her Monday dress: It was a simple black wrap dress with short sleeves, and she wore it every single Monday. She could add accessories, dress it up or down, wear a heavy cardigan over it in the winter, etc., and she was almost positive no one had ever noticed that she wore it every Monday. That was the great thing about living in a temperate climate—she could wear the same dress all year and be just fine.
She turned on her coffee maker while she put on moisturizer, attempted to make her hair look like it was in purposeful beachy waves instead of like she’d just been fucked senseless, and swiped on some mascara. She tucked her favorite red lipstick in her bag, filled up her travel thermos with coffee, and then got in the car for the drive up to the winery.
She unlocked the front door of the winery when she arrived, but she knew Elliot was already there. He was probably just in the barn out back, where all of the winemaking happened. He always got here before her, though she often left after him. Early on, she’d tried to prove herself and get to the winery before him, just so he’d know she really meant it, that this wasn’t just a lark for her, that she was really dedicated. She’d tried for a whole week, and by the time she’d arrived one morning, triumphant, at six a.m., and saw his truck already in the parking lot, she knew it was time to give up.
She walked into her office and spent time before her nine-thirty call doing some of the organizing of her desk and her emails that she’d meant to do the night before—before she’d driven off, furious, to the Barrel. She grinned to herself. For once, she was glad she’d left some work unfinished.
The whole time she worked, she could feel that hum in her body. She was sore, almost everywhere; she was pretty sure she was developing a significant hickey on her right collarbone; she was exhausted from lack of sleep. And she felt fucking fantastic.
Since she’d moved to Napa, she’d kept her head down, worked hard at the winery and at becoming a part of this community, to prove to her brother and everyone else that she was committed to this job, to this life. She had occasionally let men next to her at bars strike up conversations with her, but they’d always been either obnoxious or boring. Luke had been neither.
She glanced over at her bag, hanging on the back of her office door. His number was still there, tucked inside of her wallet. Would she call him? Luke, of no last name. Hell, that might not even be his real first name. She hadn’t expected him to give her his number, just like she hadn’t expected him to drive her home. The man certainly had been polite, that was for sure. Her grin grew wider. Polite, and excellent in bed. She liked that combination.
Did he actually want to see her again? Or had he just given her his number because he was polite, and so it wouldn’t so obviously be a one-night stand? Was he hoping she didn’t text him, so he wouldn’t have to either ghost her or reluctantly go out with her again? Had he even given her a real number? It was weird that he’d written it down for her, right, and not just put it in her phone?
She shook her head. No, it was better not to find out. She didn’t want to spoil the memory of last night. And this morning. They’d been close to perfect. Why mess with perfection?
She swiped on lipstick and reached for her phone. This was just a phone call, not video, but she liked to put lipstick on before important calls to give herself a little boost. She dialed the number of the head of the restaurant group she’d been wooing . . . though, she was pretty sure he thought he was wooing her, which was just how she liked it. In her love life, she’d never been a fan of playing hard to get with men, but in business it was a strategy that hadn’t failed her yet. It was especially key in the wine business, where part of the allure was to seem exclusive—Elliot hated it when she said this; he liked it to be all pure and about the wine, but that’s why he was the winemaker and she was in charge of the business side.
Midway through the call she folded her hands together.
“Oh, thank you, Jeff,” she said in a cool tone, even though she wanted to jump up and down. She was very glad this call wasn’t a video call—her face might have betrayed her. “We have pretty limited quantities, so I don’t want to overpromise, but I think we can make this happen.”
Even she was impressed with herself for this one.
“I’ll take what you can give me,” Jeff said. “I’ll get the new wine lists ready now.”
She tried not to let herself smile, just in case it showed in her voice.
“Excellent,” she said. “I’ll email you the details.” She glanced at the clock on her wall. Oh God, it was after ten already?
“Jeff, I have to run, I have another call in a few minutes. But I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Margot. And . . .”
For a busy executive, it took forever to get this guy off the phone. But finally, a few minutes after ten, she managed it.
That call couldn’t possibly have gone better. Of course she knew how much wine they had to sell him, but you couldn’t promise people like this everything all at once.
She’d actually wanted to get off the phone before ten so she could greet the new people starting in the tasting room today. She hadn’t heard anything at the door—maybe they hadn’t arrived yet. She stood up to go out into the tasting room to check. Just then, her office door swung open all the way.
“Oh good, there you are,” her brother said. “I heard you on the phone, so I let our new staff in. You already know Marisol, but I’d like to introduce you to Luke. Luke Williams, my sister and the CEO of Noble Family Vineyards, Margot Noble.”
Margot could only stare. Standing next to her brother in her office doorway, in a white button-down shirt and jeans, was Luke. Her Luke. The Luke whose bed she’d woken up in that morning. Wearing—she was pretty sure—the same jeans she’d pulled off him last night.
How the hell did she get herself into this?
* * *
LUKE WAS PRETTY SURE that the stunned look on Margot’s face exactly echoed the look on his own face.
He’d slept with his new boss? Seriously? After everything that had happened with his old job, this was supposed to be his nonstressful new job, the one just for fun, to give himself something to do. And now he’d done this? He had the wild impulse to laugh out loud, which he barely overcame.
Margot recovered before he did. A bland, businesslike smile descended over her face, and she walked around her desk to them.
“Hi, Marisol. Hi, Luke.” She held out her hand first to Marisol, and then turned to him. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to Noble Family Vineyards.”
Not by the slightest look or wink or curve of a smile did she intimate that they’d already met. Or that they’d had sex less than three hours ago.