Page 42 of Lighting Up Christmas

“What?” He watched, fascinated, as she swallowed.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Want more sparkling water or coffee before we discuss your site?” she asked as if she were the hostess. She slid off the barstool.

He caught her wrist. He didn’t mean to. He just did. Her skin was soft, warm, and her wrist delicate despite her height and the physical nature of her job. He could feel her pulse tap.

“What did you feel?”

She looked down at his fingers loosely shackling her wrist. Was he scaring her? He didn’t intend to, and he imagined she didn’t scare easily. With her strong jaw, determined stride, and glint in her eyes, Riley seemed like a woman who ate challenges before breakfast. She didn’t pull away, but he saw the pulse kick up just below her sharp jawline.

“I felt that the aloneness wasn’t by choice,” she whispered.

He heard his heart thump, the blood rush to the count of five seconds, then ten. He heard her quiet breath in. Out. Again.

“Coffee. Thanks.”

*

Riley had plentyto work with. Zhang was as organized as she would have pegged him to be. She, too, was organized and had notes and facts, and, by the time she’d finished her fourth cup of coffee for the day, she’d scrolled through some of the photos and drone footage he’d sent her.

What was still a mystery was Zhang and the brand he wanted to create.

“Surely, your tech company has a brand,” she pressed, looking at him over her computer screen, where he worked on a project of his own. Yes, as expected, he’d sent her information and then gotten busy—very busy—on something else.

“Zhang?”

He looked up, and Riley felt like he pulled all the air out of the space between them.

“I can put this all together at home,” she said, “and send you different drafts, but I thought if I came here, we could talk and I could understand more about your feelings about the winery. Why you started one in the first place. What your hopes and dreams are for it. Why you chose this site and what you think is so special about it.”

He didn’t blink.

Nor did his expression change.

But she couldfeelhis brain working from across the massive tasting room bar.

It was as daunting as it was exciting.

“You wish to leave?”

No!

The hard no of her response startled her. It should also concern her if she had an ounce of self-preservation, which apparently, she did not.

“I want to understand,” she said softly.

“Me?”

The walls went up higher than they had before.

Oh, for a chisel and a sledgehammer. She’d bet a lot of women over the years had gazed longingly at him over a conference room table or a restaurant table, seeking to understand what made him tick and to put a dent in his shiny armor.

She was not going to get in that line.

No point.

“The wine,” she said quietly when her heart finally descended out of her throat enough so that she felt she could speak without squeaking. He should be fined for the reactions he caused to her body. Not. Fair. And she had to get a grip. Now rather than later.

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