lust, not love. In the end, it was about flesh and comfort and nothing more.
When we finished for the last time he lay next to me, leaning on his elbow, trailing a finger from my forehead down my nose, my lips, my neck, between my breasts, then lower, hovering just before he brushed my sweet spot. Like he was dividing me in half. I shivered. He stopped. “What?”
“Nothing. That was wonderful,” I said. “It always is with you.”
“Stay tonight and it will be wonderful again.”
“I wish I could, but I need to sleep at home. My grandfather.”
“You need to sleep at home because of your grandfather?” He looked incredulous. “Can’t he take care of himself?”
I pulled him down and kissed him. “Of course he can. But he’s eighty-two and he just got here yesterday. I feel like I should be with him.”
“You mean you’d rather be with him than me—”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“Come on.” All of a sudden he sounded all-business. “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”
He got up and put on his clothes. I picked up my things where he’d flung them and retrieved my cane.
“Give me a few minutes to pull myself together.”
“Of course,” he said. “Come outside on the terrace when you’re ready. I’m going to start the grill.”
We ate in his splendid dining room at a table that seated twenty-four. He moved two silver candelabras so they were at one end of the table and we sat across from each other. His dining room chairs reminded me of thrones. The paintings on the walls seemed to recede and the moss green curtains were drawn across the windows so the room was dark except for the flickering candles, which danced in an occasional current of air. We sat in a golden pool of light and talked quietly.
“I’ll get another bottle of wine,” he said.
“I’ve got to drive,” I said. “That’s enough for me.”
“Your grandfather will be fine. Stay the night.”
He opened the second bottle and I let him fill my glass. “If you’re not careful we’ll drink your entire cave.”
“I rather doubt it.”
“Buying that much, are you?”
He grinned. “And enjoying it. I’ve started buying futures, too. From Shane.”
“When did Shane get into futures?”
“It’s been a while. He told me he’d spent the last few years cultivating relationships with
Wine futures—like futures for any other product traded on the market—lock in a price of a vintage while it’s still in the barrels. The purchaser bets the wine will be worth more down the road, after it’s aged and bottled. If things go the other way, at least with wine there’s always Plan B—drinking it. But while futures, especially Bordeaux futures, had been around for a while, it was an unregulated practice. Gambling with no one to police what went on.
“Futures are risky,” I said. “You can lose a bundle.”
“I like taking risks. And I can afford to lose.” He looked me in the eyes and I was glad I never had to stare him down across a conference room table. In business, I bet he’d been merciless when he wanted something. He, too, had pockets that went all the way to China. He could match any price to get what he wanted.
“You sure Shane knows what he’s doing?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said. “He’s got great contacts. He introduced me to a wine buyer he’s been working with. I’m thinking of hiring her.”
I moved my wineglass to the side and leaned across the table. “You’re going to hire Nicole Martin?”
“You know her? Yes, I think so. Why?”
“Do you know who she is?”
“You seem to think I don’t.”
“Quinn’s ex-wife.”
He spun a teaspoon on the table and watched the silver flash in the candlelight. “Does that disqualify her for some reason? I heard she was the best.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, “but I don’t trust her.”
“So far I have no reason not to,” he said. “But I’ll keep that in mind.”
I stood up. “I should go. Thank you for dinner.”
He reached out and caught my hand. “Please don’t.”
“Mick—” But he was already pulling me into his arms, whispering that I needed to stay and that he wanted me again.
The Greek poet Aeschylus once said that wine is the mirror of the heart. With all the wine we’d drunk surely I should have been able to see into Mick’s heart. But tonight I saw only shadows. Still I let him lead me back to his bedroom and the tangled sheets we’d left before dinner.
The last coherent thought I had before our lovemaking obliterated all other thoughts from my mind was that we were both doing this for the wrong reasons. When I looked into the mirror of my own heart I saw that in the not-too-distant future I would pay a price for my recklessness.
As for Mick, he wouldn’t find what he was looking for in me. He was a gambler and a risk-taker. The more audacious, the better. Now he was into the occasionally gray area of buying wine futures from Shane, not caring if he got burned. And Shane had introduced him to the ruthless Nicole Martin, a woman who was apparently as addictive as heroin.
No good would come of his relationship with her. I was sure of it.
Chapter 12
I got up at two and dressed in a shaft of moonlight shining in through the bedroom window. Mick didn’t stir. Mosby’s Highway was deserted and the drive home uneventful. Good thing, since I didn’t want to bet on passing a breathalyzer test.
I climbed the spiral staircase in the dark so the hall light wouldn’t disturb Pépé. But when I got to the second floor, his bedroom door stood open and the bed hadn’t been slept in. My octogenarian grandfather was still out carousing on the town. I took two ibuprophen to ward off the effects of the alcohol in the morning and fell asleep in my clothes.
When I woke, Pépé’s door was closed. What time had he come in? I scrawled a note and left it by the coffeepot, asking him to call me when he got up. On my way out the door to the villa, Kit called my cell. The display showed her office number in Leesburg.
“Someone’s at work early,” I said.
“Up getting the worm,” she said. “I’ve got business in Middleburg later. What if I make it around lunchtime and we grab a bite somewhere? I’ve got something to tell you.”
Had she already decided about the Moscow job?
“Good news or bad?” I said.
“Neither.”
“How can it be neither? What is it?”
“You’ll just have to wait until lunch.”
“You’re no fun. Meet me at the Red Fox. Noon. I’ll make reservations.”
“I’m loads of fun. See you at noon,” she said and hung up.
Shane Cunningham’s Porsche was parked next to Quinn’s car when I pulled into the vineyard parking lot. The villa was still locked which meant they were together in the barrel room. I walked through the courtyard. The early morning breeze was cool and the overcast sky obscured the Blue Ridge.
