Page 48 of Love Among Vines

“It seems he was overserved before arriving,” she explained.

“Okay, well, thank you for letting me know.”

“There’s one other thing. It was a case of the sparkling.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Fuck. He only had two cases allotted for the party. Now fifty percent of it was gone. And he didn’t even know if it was any good.

A hand landed on his arm, and he almost jerked away. Jade looked at him with concern in her eyes.

“Is everyone okay? Glass cleaned up?” he asked.

“Yes, everything’s fine. For what it’s worth, it smelled great.”

He let out a humorless laugh. “I’ll stop in when I get back to town.”

“All right, boss. Sorry again.”

“It’s fine.” He hung up the phone and wiped a hand over his face. This was what he got for taking his hands off the wheel.

“Is everything okay?”

He moved through the aisles to the register. “It’s fine. We just lost an entire case of sparkling wine.”

Jade pulled her wallet out as the cashier scanned her items. “Sparkling? I don’t remember seeing that on your tasting menu.”

“It’s new. It was my grandmother’s dream. She died before she could start a test batch.”

She squeezed his arm. “That sucks.”

“It was also my plan to reinvigorate the business. Sparkling is a different beast, and not many of the wineries in this area offer it. And now half the test batch is gone.”

She paid and seemed to consider the news in silence. As they hit the sidewalk, she piped up.

“You know, this might actually be a good thing.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How?”

“Scarcity, Mr. Finance. On the occasions that I produced just one painting, the value sometimes tripled. By destroying half your product, you’ve significantly increased the value of the remaining half.”

“That’s assuming it’s any good.”

She glared at him. “Don’t be modest. Every wine I’ve tried is incredible. It brought back my muse tingle.”

“That’s because we use tried-and-true methods. Barring a bad harvest, it guarantees good results. But sparkling is an entirely new territory. There’s no precedent for me to follow. It’s a brand-new technique. It’s been an expensive endeavor, and I’m not sure that it’s going to pay off.”

And if it failed, disaster would follow. He would have to cut hours, raise prices, and do a hundred other things that would impact the livelihoods of people he cared about. There was no one to blame but himself.

They piled the supplies into the truck and buckled their seatbelts.

“I would be more than happy to be your impartial sparkling guinea pig. So you don’t have to risk your friends or employees lying to you.”

“Thank you. I might take you up on it. Want to hit a drive-thru? I have to get back.”

He had to make sure the glass was cleaned up properly. The last thing he needed was a shard stuck in a customer’s foot. Tomorrow would be a long day. And he still needed to budget time to start Project Jade. They had a lot of work to do in two weeks.

“Sure. There’s a great taco place four blocks that way.” She pointed north, and he inched into the road.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Rett asked.

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