Page 31 of Drunk on Love

“My mom’s partner. Pete Smythe. Give him a call—tell him I sent you.”

“Will do,” she said. “Thanks, Luke.”

Taylor took a sip of wine and turned to Luke.

“So you’ve never said what made you leave one of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley—if not the world—and move to Napa to work in a tasting room,” she said to him.

Margot wanted to know the answer to this question, too. She knew that he used to work in tech, obviously, from the hoodie he’d been wearing that night at the bar, but because she’d so stupidly closed off all conversation about work, she had no idea why he’d left. She knew he’d grown up here in Napa, but that was about all. At the bar he hadn’t talked in much detail about why he’d come back here—he hadn’t seemed to want to, and it wasn’t like she was going to press a stranger at a bar to talk about something they didn’t want to talk about. But now, she was so curious about him. She wondered if he would blow off Taylor’s question; she wouldn’t blame him if he did.

But he took a sip of wine and considered it.

“Mostly I was tired of being one of the only Black people in the whole place. And I was really tired of all the bullshit,” he said.

Margot and Taylor both burst out laughing. Luke looked on with a surprised grin on his face.

Margot lifted her glass to him.

“Well, congratulations,” she said. “I think—I hope—we have a lot less bullshit here. And I’m sure we have a much higher percentage of Black people here.”

Their eyes met again as he touched his glass to hers, and a shiver went down her spine. The way he looked at her, all warm and intent like that... she could really fucking get used to that.Damn it.

“Thank you.” His voice was low. He could have said that in a joking way, to make this whole conversation feel less serious, less real, but he didn’t. He seemed pleased that she’d congratulated him. “And I know you do. You might even come out on top on sheer numbers.”

They both laughed.

Why were they standing so close? When he’d come over here, Luke had been on the far side of Taylor, she was sure of it. But now he was right next to her, so close they were almost touching. She hadn’t even noticed him move. Or had she?

She made herself walk away to get some food. For the rest of the night, as she circulated and sipped wine and chatted and took photos, she forced herself not to turn in Luke’s direction. She’d already looked at him too much while she was talking to him and Taylor—she’d probably spent too long with them as it was. She had to keep it strictly professional between the two of them. Especially around Elliot.

At the end of the night, she made a little speech to the wholegroup about how much she and Elliot appreciated all of them, after which everyone applauded, and then Elliot said, “Yeah, what Margot said,” which made everyone laugh as the party broke up.

The prearranged cars showed up to shuttle everyone home, grouped by the city they lived in. Taylor and Finn were both in St. Helena, Daisy and Marisol were down in Vallejo, and... oh no. She should have thought of this.

“Margot, you and Luke are both in Napa,” Taylor said.Damn damn damn.She should have said she was staying at the winery to do more work and would get a ride home later, but it was too late now. If she tried to make up an excuse not to share a ride with Luke back down to Napa, it would too obviously look like she was avoiding him, especially since she’d had no time to plan this.

“Great,” she said. She glanced over at Luke and tried to make the look on her face asbenevolent bossas she could manage. “Let me just make sure everyone else gets off okay and then we can go.”

He nodded as she turned away, wishing she could go hide in the basement.Gets off? Really, Margot? Did you really need to imply that you get all of your employees off?If her cheeks were red, she hoped everyone blamed all the wine, even though she’d been careful to drink no more than a sip or two from each glass. She couldn’t be the drunk boss, or even the tipsy boss. She was already the boss who’d accidentally fucked one of her employees—she couldn’t take it further than that.

She made sure everyone was in their cars, texted Elliot that she was leaving—he’d already disappeared back into the barn; see, he had the right idea—and then gave Luke a bright smile.

“Ready?”

Luke opened the back door of the car as an answer, and shegot inside. He walked around the car and got in the other door, and the driver looked back at Margot.

“Going to the same place?”

“No!” she blurted out. She took a deep breath. “Um, I mean, I’m on Washington Street, and— Luke?”

She could see Luke’s grin in the dark, but he didn’t let the amusement show in his voice when he gave the driver his address. The car pulled out onto the road, and they drove in silence for a few minutes.

“I could easily have been insulted by that ‘NO,’ ” Luke murmured.

Margot couldn’t help but smile, but she didn’t let herself look at him.

“But you weren’t,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t.”

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