The Summer of Sunshine and Margot(94)

“I appreciate the information.”

They looked at each other. She once again thought about closing and locking the door, but while the next step was really clear, the step after that wasn’t. She’d promised herself not to be that girl anymore. She’d promised herself she was growing and changing. Giving in would mean she’d been lying this whole time. Worse, it would mean she wasn’t capable of changing.

“I’m going to go study,” she said. “There is the slightest of chances I’m beginning to master algebra and I don’t want to take that for granted.”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

She offered him a quick smile, then made her escape before she could say or do something that would be amazing in the moment, but disastrous in the long term.

  Alec perused the shelves of the upscale wine shop. While he had plenty of wine at home, Margot was cooking coq au vin for dinner and he wanted to get something...unexpected to pair with the meal. He generally favored California and Washington wines, but perhaps a French-inspired dish deserved a French wine. Maybe a nice red Bordeaux.

As he studied the tasting notes from the staff, he thought about how much he was enjoying Margot’s company. Being with her was easy—something he wouldn’t have thought was possible. In the past, relationships had always been difficult and awkward. Once the sex was over, there wasn’t all that much to talk about. At the end of the evening, he’d always been eager to be alone. But with Margot it was different. He found himself missing her when she wasn’t there. In the morning, he wanted to stand and talk with her while she got ready for work. He looked forward to spending time with her, regardless of how much of the day they’d already spent together.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured with a smile as he made his wine selection.

The Bordeaux, an old vine wine made in the traditional style that had brought fame to the region, should go nicely with her dinner.

He was nearly at his car when he heard someone calling his name. He turned and saw the manager of the store hurrying after him.

“Mr. Mcnicol, Mr. Mcnicol, wait! Please wait!”

Alec stopped and stared at the man, wondering what on earth he was so frantic about.

“Good afternoon, Nathan. How can I help you?”

The man pointed at the bottle in Alec’s hand. “Mr. Mcnicol, you forgot to pay for the wine. If you could take care of that before you leave, please?”

Alec stared at him, disbelief blending with humiliation. He mentally retraced his steps and realized that he had been so caught up in his musings about Margot that he had simply walked out of the store without paying.

“I apologize,” he said swiftly, turning around and walking back the way he’d come. “I wasn’t thinking. I never intended—”

Nathan fell into step beside him. “Of course not. I understand completely. It happens. You’re a brilliant man with so much on his mind. You’re also an excellent customer. I never thought it was anything but momentary forgetfulness.”

He entered the store and walked to the cashier. No one said anything, but he felt all eyes on him. He’d nearly stolen a bottle of wine. It was unimaginable.

He made the payment and drove home, all the while trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Yes, he’d been thinking about Margot, but he thought about her all the time and nothing untoward happened. Why had today been different?

He walked into the house and put the wine away in the rack in the kitchen. His mother breezed in.

“There you are, darling. I wanted to ask you—” She frowned. “What on earth happened? You look like you’ve seen the wandering spirit of the Indian god Kali. Or maybe I mean Vishnu. I get them confused.”

“What? They’re completely different gods.”

She smiled. “Oh, I know. I’m just messing with you. So what went wrong?”

He told her about the incident with the wine. “I don’t know how it happened.”

His mother laughed. “You were distracted. It’s just one of those things, Alec, at least for those of us not so rigid as to always be in control. Once, when I was in Italy, I accidentally walked out of the Prada store with a ten-thousand-Euro handbag. No one thought that was funny, let me tell you. I just hadn’t been thinking.”

“But that sort of thing happens to you all the time. It doesn’t happen to me.”

Or it hadn’t, he realized. Until recently. There had been the priceless, fragile document that had been damaged because he hadn’t thought to move it before making love with Margot. Today, he’d nearly shoplifted. What was next?

Although the question was rhetorical, as he asked it of himself, he felt a cold knot form in his stomach.

“You’ll be fine,” his mother told him. “Just relax and accept that you, too, are human.”

He nodded and excused himself, all the while feeling the chill spread. Although he would never admit it to anyone, he knew his greatest fear was that one day he would turn into his mother—that he would not care about doing the right thing or convention or rules or other people. He’d always prided himself on being in control. If he lost that...

He hadn’t, he told himself. It was a momentary lapse, nothing more. He would be more vigilant. He would stay in control. He would not, under any circumstances, do anything remotely Bianca-like, no matter what.