Page 15 of Love on the Vine
He leaned back against the countertop, his beautiful arms on display. His warm hazel eyes met mine. “You have a good nose.”
My hand came up to touch my nose as if it were some foreign appendage. I’d never given it much thought; it was neither too big nor too small. It was just there. “Um, thanks. Yours isn’t bad either.”
It was a nice nose—slim, elegant, slightly long. I’d studied him enough in profile to write a thesis about it.
His mouth turned up in that reluctant smile again. “No, that’s not what I meant. When you have a good nose, it means you have a heightened sense of smell and taste. It’s essential for someone who works in food or wine. It’s like having perfect pitch or a good ear.”
“Oh.” That made sense: I’d always been bothered by strong, unpleasant odors and very sensitive to smells in general. “Maybe that’s why I like to cook?”
“Probably.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck, as if massaging away some invisible tension. “Ben called last night. I came to find you, but you were already asleep. He said he’d write.”
My eyes widened with the realization that I’d passed out last night half naked and tangled in my bathrobe. Jesus, what had he seen?
“Okay, thanks. I already wrote to him.” My voice came out in a higher pitch than usual.
An awkward silence stretched between us, and he pushed away from the counter like he was getting ready to leave. I wanted to keep talking to him, though, so I desperately searched for something to say. “So, nice car out there. Is that another one of your passions?”
“Yeah, I found it in Bordeaux last year. It’s a ’69 Aston Martin DB6 Volante.” He rubbed at the oil stains on his old jeans. “Iwork on it when I need to blow off steam. It calms me down. Like coffee, for you.”
“Stressful morning?”
“Yep, there’s been a lot of those lately.”
Before I could ask him a follow-up question, he scooped up Jin’s tea and said, “I’ve probably let this steep too long. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
I started to gather my things and follow him, but he stopped me. “Jin and I are going to be in meetings all day. There’s not a whole lot for you to do. Why don’t you go discover the village or hang out at the pool?”
“Sure, I’ll keep myself busy. Don’t worry about it.” So much for my plans to prove that I wouldn’t be completely useless while I was here.
When he reached the doorway, he hesitated and turned back. “Tonight, I can give you a lesson in wine tasting, if you’d like.” He seemed to have surprised himself with the offer.
“That would be wonderful,” I said, grinning like a dog who’d just been thrown a bone. So much for appearing cool and sophisticated. I clearly couldn’t pull it off right now.
But in that moment, I didn’t care. It looked like all was not lost after all.
Chapter 6
JAKE
When our last conference call of the day ended, Jin snapped his laptop shut and groaned like he’d just run a marathon. He hated Zoom calls almost as much as I did. No wonder business was suffering.
“God, I’m exhausted,” he said through a yawn. “Can we call it a day now?”
“You can, sure.” I glanced at the clock. Fuck. Why had I promised Olivia a wine tasting tonight? Hadn’t I decided it was best to keep my distance while she was here? The problem was, whenever I spent time with her, my best intentions seemed to go flying out the window.
Now that I was faced with the prospect of more time alone with her, I was in no hurry to call it a day. “I’ll just take a look at these figures first.”
As if that would change anything. No amount of shuffling around numbers would change the fact that we now had major competition in the Asian market from supergroups that were buying up smaller distributors like ours. And the competition had taken on a more personal character this past year when my former friend and business partner, Thomas Brinkley, had become a consultant for our chief rival, the Sungate Group.
Just thinking of that traitorous asshole was enough to set my teeth grinding. It was one of the reasons I was up at 5:00 a.m. this morning, trying to blow off steam by changing the carburetor on my car. That and having woken up hard as a fucking rock from an erotic dream about my friend’s daughter.
I’d made the mistake of going to check on Olivia when Ben had called last night and found her in bed with her robe bunched up around her thighs and her hair spread out on her pillow. I’d gone to bed with the image in my head and hadn’t been able to shake it since.
“You’re obsessed,” Jin said as if reading my thoughts.
“What?” I asked.
“With work. Now more than ever.” He stood and stretched dramatically, arms akimbo. “When you gonna live a little, Jake? Always so serious these days. No time for the ladies anymore.”
