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Yeah, well, same here, he thought. He’d thought he’d shock her right out the door with his hard-core honesty, by laying his every erotic midnight fantasy on the line, but all he’d done—apparently—was incite her sloe-eyed interest.
She couldn’t want to do all that with him.
His head spun with the improbability. And then he remembered the look on her face when she’d galloped up that hill. He recalled her passion in the tasting room and the cab sav headiness of her kiss.
Yeah, she could.
“Have you found those words yet?” he asked, needing to know for sure. To hear more than “okay” from her lips. He didn’t know whether it was dread or hope that thudded hard in his blood and his head and his ears, whether he wanted her to tell him to go to hell or to see her start unbuttoning the prissy pink shirt she wore.
“Sex,” he said, just to make sure she had the picture. “Once, not as any kind of a relationship.”
“I’m not looking for a relationship, Seth. I don’t have a great record with those. But I’ve never had a one-night stand or an affair or whatever this is we’re talking about. How do we, um, go about this?”
With creditable control Seth rocked back on his heels. “You sure you don’t want to think it over?”
“Good Lord, no! After all those things you said…” She huffed out a breath and straightened her backbone decisively. “I don’t want to think about it, Seth. I want to do it.”
She was killing him. Slowly. Inch by painful inch.
“The logistics are going to be awkward,” she continued in a rush, “since I can’t ask you over to my place and vice versa. Do we book a room somewhere?”
Hell, no. The tacky hotel room was Jason’s modus operandi. Get a woman, get a room. Seth’s jaw locked hard. He couldn’t do this, not this way. “We’re not getting a room.”
“Well, there is here,” she suggested after a moment’s hesitation. Her hands waved around to indicate the cottage. “It’s empty until Anna moves in. And sort of isolated.”
Which made it sound as if they’d be sneaking around behind her parents’ back like a pair of horny teenagers. Didn’t that just beat everything? She lived with her parents. He lived with his daughter. And this wasn’t going to happen.
He rubbed the back of his neck, tried to find the words, discovered that the one word he needed to say—no—kept sticking in his throat.
“How would Saturday night be?” she asked, hesitant, hopeful. “I’m babysitting Jack tomorrow night while Mom and Mercedes take Anna out to dinner. Maybe I could fix a pic—”
“I’ve got something on Saturday night.”
Her mouth formed a silent “oh.” Disappointment and something else flickered in her eyes, then she looked away. Moistened her lips. “Like…a date?”
“You think I’m dating someone? And spending every night thinking about sex with you?”
A flush pinkened her cheeks but she lifted her chin. “Of course not. That just slipped out. I suppose it’s something to do with work?”
Yeah, right, because that was the only social life he had. It irked him that she was right, irked him that she was watching him and waiting for an explanation. “It’s a dinner up near Oakville. Robert and Sophia Neumann asked—”
“You’re going to the Casinelli dinner? Wow. I am speechless!” But only for a second, because then she was shaking her head and saying in an awed tone, “I heard Sophia’s pouring her 2001 pinot noir and you can’t get a ticket for love or money. How did you come to get one?”
“They’re friends.”
“I adore their wines. Are you good friends? Old friends?”
Irritated with her enthusiasm, and more with the whole situation of wanting a woman and not being able to say right, let’s just do it, he leveled a piercing gaze at her shiny-eyed face. “What is it you want, Jillian? An introduction? A job reference?”
He might as well have slapped her, she recoiled so sharply. “Of course I don’t want anything like that.”
Cool tone, haughty expression, hurt eyes. And Seth realized what he’d accused her of and how that would sit. Jason had used her that way. He’d pursued her and married her for a shot at the Ashton name and money and connections with the wine industry.
And that’s exactly why Seth had never broadcast his close friendship with the couple behind the world-famous Casinelli label. Jason would have used that, too. Jillian wouldn’t—she had too much class, too much pride, too much self-respect.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was way out of line.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yeah, I do.” And he also needed to do something to repair the damage of his thoughtless words, to wipe away the cool detachment that he knew was her defense. To bring back the sass and the heat of the cab sav woman. He bent down and touched her shoulder. “Hey. I really am sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have pried. I just got carried away by the notion of the Casinelli dinner.” A wry smile quirked her lips. “I guess I poured the enthusiasm with a heavy hand.”
Don’t do it, Seth. You don’t want a date; you don’t even know if you want to risk the complications of uncomplicated sex with this woman. “You’d like to go?”
She went very still. “Don’t mess with me, Seth.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Sophia Neumann is a goddess. I worship the grapes she walks upon.”
“But?”
Slowly she shook her head. “But I feel as if I’ve finagled this invitation and that’s—”
“Do you want to go or not?” He looked into her face and saw the suppressed gleam of longing. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
She opened her mouth, probably to object, then closed it again. Smart girl. He’d made up his mind—she was going. And right now he had to be going. He’d stayed far longer than intended and Rachel would be testing Rosa’s considerable patience with her heavy-duty where’s Daddy nagging.
Later he would deal with Jillian’s okay, I want to do it bolt from the blue. Because for all his big talk about how many ways he wanted to make her come, the notion of booking a room for a sexual tryst didn’t sit right. She was his sister-in-law, his daughter’s Aunt Jellie, his seven-year fantasy, his—
“Wait.”
Scowling, Seth stopped in the doorway and turned back.
“What will I wear on Saturday night? I mean, what’s the dress code?”
“Black tie,” he said, amused by her very female reaction despite himself. “There’ll be plenty of serious money on show, so don’t be afraid to knock yourself out.”
Knock yourself out? Man, she knocked him out when she came down the winding staircase at The Vines, looking like his idea of a goddess in a dress that draped around her body and flowed with her long legs. It was red, as in the cherry-rich hue of a young cabernet. Red, as in the color of passion. Red, as in, the blood hurtling through his veins and the haze that clouded his vision.
When he whistled through his teeth, she stopped a couple of stairs from the bottom, her brows pinched together. “Is it too much? Too ‘look-at-me?’”
“Take off the wrap and turn around.”
After only a beat of hesitation she did. And, yeah, with the one shoulder strap and a low-cut back that bared about an acre of silky skin and with whatever the hell she’d done with her hair to draw attention to the elegant length of her neck—
How could she look so cool and classy and so damn hot at the same time?
“Well?” she asked, still frowning.
“Yeah, it’s ‘look-at-me,’” he said slowly. “But not too much.”
That seemed to please her, or at least to reassure her. She relaxed enough to almost smile—and to give him a covert once-over through her lashes—as she came down those last steps.
“Do I pass muster?” he asked.
A delicate flush climbed her cheeks. “I haven’t ever seen you in a tux. It’s…well, it’s a change from the jeans and toolbelt I last saw you wearing.”
At the cottage.
Reference to that place and time weighted the mood as he took the wrap from her hands and moved around her, draping it over her shoulders as he went.
“I like your hair.” Better, he liked the way it curled around her ears and exposed that sexy bite-me neck. He traced its silky length with the knuckles of one hand and leaned closer to breathe the warm scent of her skin. “And the way you smell.”
“I’m not wearing any perfume. I never do. It interferes with the tasting.”
“I know.” He stepped back. “Ready?”
A pulse fluttered at the base of her throat, but she lifted her chin and met his eyes. “Ready as I’m ever going to be.”
Yeah, but was he?
Seth rarely enjoyed this kind of function, no matter how lauded the chef or the wines. He’d accepted the invitation because it was a charity fundraiser and because Robert had caught him at a weak moment. He didn’t expect to enjoy himself, yet that’s exactly what he was doing.
How could he not get a kick out of watching Jillian?
Surrounded by winemakers and wine lovers and, yeah, the wine snobs these events attracted like ants to a picnic, she was in her element. Seth sat back and watched as the tension from their taxi drive up to Oakville unraveled in a shimmering ribbon of wine talk.
Sure, it helped knowing he was responsible for bringing her here and for the animated pleasure in her eyes and the glow of heat in her skin. Because while she seemed riveted to the conversation that flowed across the table and back, she was also very aware of Seth at her side. Without words, without more than a fleeting touch and a momentary sizzle of eye contact, he knew she was as finely attuned to his presence as he was to hers. And, in a warped kind of way, he was enjoying the torture of a body already turned on by anticipation.
She was, after all, going home with him.
A waiter appeared at her elbow to clear away the second course, disrupting her discussion with an intense-looking vintner on her right.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
Her response, a guttural mmmm of pleasure, played nasty games with his state of semi-arousal. “Only one bad moment so far.”
Seth lifted a brow.
“That French winemaker we met earlier? He works for my—” Her brows came together in a half frown. “For Spencer. For Ashton Estates.”
“And?”
“I had a moment, a tiny panic, thinking this is exactly the sort of function Spencer might be at.” She huffed out a soft sound of derision. “Ridiculous, since even if he were here, I wouldn’t need worry my cheeks about it.”
“He avoids you?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say ‘avoids.’ That would denote action when he just doesn’t notice we exist. Anyway—” she waved a dismissive hand and her tone turned upbeat “—I am enjoying myself, immensely, so let’s forget I mentioned it.”
Seth wouldn’t forget, not when the vulnerability behind her remark caught hard in his chest, but he could pretend. The last thing he wanted was for the mood to turn serious and intense. The second-last thing he wanted was the shadow of Spencer Ashton—the man she took such pains not to describe as “my father”—darkening her enjoyment.
“Forgotten,” he lied, and she rewarded him with a wide smile.
“Thank you for inviting me, Seth.”
“My pleasure.”
He met her eyes and didn’t bother hiding that pleasure was, indeed, front and center in his mind. Heat sparked in that knowledge and smoldered between them until a waiter risked third-degree burns by leaning in to pour the next wine. Jillian thanked him and the waiter departed, his job done.
Seth touched the back of her hand with his knuckles and inclined his head toward the newly poured wine, left to breathe as they awaited the next course of food. “Well, there it is. Your reason for coming tonight.”
“Not the only reason.” She moved her hand against his—just a brush of contact but it sizzled through his knuckles like hot solder. “Not the only reason, but a nice incentive.”
A smile whispered over her lips as she touched her wine glass, fingertips to stem in a delicate gliding contact. Probably innocent. Probably not meant to provoke, but that’s what it did. Already he was one sorry case of aroused red corpuscles, and with three courses still to go. He swallowed hard. Better than groaning out loud, he figured.
“I’m like a child at Christmas,” she said softly, “waiting to open my Santa present.”
Yeah, he agreed silently. Same. He inclined his head toward the wine. “What is so special about this Santa present?”
“Everything.”
“You want to expand on that?”
“Oh, I could expand on that for hours,” she said through a smile, “but I don’t want to put you to sleep.”
Not that that was a remote possibility, but Seth played along. “Give me the abridged version and I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay.” She tilted her head, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Everyone’s trying to make a pinot noir these days. It’s like the wine of the moment, the new chardonnay, but pinot’s an unforgiving little beggar. It’s not only a matter of vinifying the grapes—which Sophia does better than anyone on this side of the world—but in growing them right, since it’s a terroir wine.”
“Meaning?”
“It expresses the vineyard conditions more than other varieties. If you can find the right soil and microclimate, and you can plant your vines thick enough, and if you can get into that pocket of hell-dirt to tend and pick the grapes, then you stand a chance of making a pinot like this.”
She picked up her glass by the stem, tilted it so the color stood out in stark contrast to the white tablecloth. Like the cherry-red silk of her dress against porcelain pale skin.
“Look at that,” she said in raw reverence. “Beautiful.”
Yeah. Beautiful.
“This is the wine I want to make one day.” Gently she swirled her glass, and the set of her mouth turned rueful. “Well, not this wine, precisely, since Sophia has already made it. But my own thing of divine beauty.”
“Louret makes a decent pinot.”
“Eli does,” she corrected, “and he’d thank you not to refer to it as merely decent.”
So, she wanted to make her own wine, and not just any wine, but a great wine. From what sounded like the fussiest grapes. “Your own label?” he asked, “Or for Louret?”
