Drunk on Love(47)

Well, not always. It hadn’t been, last week in her office.

“Hi, Margot,” he said. He looked over and saw Elliot deep in conversation with Pete. “Hi, Elliot.” Elliot waved at him and went back to listening to Pete talk about soil.

“Enjoying the fair?” Margot asked him.

He grinned at her.

“Oh yeah, having a blast,” he said.

“Don’t say it like that,” his mom said. “You know you’re enjoying yourself.”

“I am—somewhat—enjoying myself,” he said to Margot. “But please, don’t let that get out. I have a rep to worry about, here.”

Margot laughed, and his mom just shook her head at him and smiled.

“Your secret is safe with me,” she said.

“Pete, good talking to you,” Elliot said. He nodded at Luke’s mom. “Nice to meet you.” He looked at Margot. “There’s some equipment that I want to check out in the warehouse.”

Margot nodded.

“I’ll meet you over there.”

Then Elliot turned and raced away. Luke’s mom turned to Margot.

“I’ve met your brother at least three times,” she said, a smile on her face.

Margot nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds like my brother.” She smiled at the three of them. “Good to see you all. Luke, see you at the winery.”

She followed Elliot, and Luke let his eyes linger on her, just for a second, before he turned back to his mom. Wait, would she have noticed that, and wonder why he was staring at Margot like that, when he was supposed to be dating Avery?

He looked down at his mom, but luckily, she wasn’t paying attention to him.

“Oh, Pete, look—just the kind of thing I’ve been wanting for the kitchen!” she said, pointing to a clock.

What was Margot doing here? He hadn’t seen her car in the lot—not that he’d been looking for it, so it could very well be here. Had she and Elliot come together? Were they here on some winery business? Maybe, and almost certainly, and why was he wasting time thinking about this?

He knew the answer to that.



* * *





AS SOON AS MARGOT had seen Pete, and Pete had introduced her and Elliot to Lauren, she’d known that Luke was with them. Why, she had no idea, probably just because it felt inevitable, probably because her worst nightmare was for Elliot to find out about her and Luke.

She’d never met Luke’s mom before, but she knew Lauren had always made a point to send people from her inn over to Noble, and Margot always returned the favor. There weren’t that many Black-owned businesses in Napa Valley—they had to look out for one another. But it felt surreal, to stand there and smile and chat with Lauren, all the while waiting for Luke to walk up to them. Lauren had even said something about how she was so grateful to Avery, for getting Luke to move back to Napa. She’d had a little smile on her face when she’d said it. Did she think—or hope—that Avery and Luke were going to get back together?

Margot tried to push away all thoughts of Luke, but that was impossible. He’d looked particularly attractive today, with his worn jeans, an old Stanford T-shirt that was just a bit snug on him, and that part-embarrassed, part-defiant, part-pleased, wholly adorable look on his face when his mom teased him. Damn. This wasn’t good at all.

She shook her head. Whatever. She’d dealt with her attraction to Luke Williams for this long; she could keep dealing with it until he inevitably moved on from Noble and out of Napa Valley. From what he’d said that first night at the Barrel, he wasn’t planning to be in Napa all that long anyway, and she wasn’t going to fool herself that he’d changed those plans because of her. She knew that Luke was attracted to her, but she didn’t think that attraction actually meant anything to him. Men always found her too intimidating as it was; she was sure it didn’t help that she was Luke’s actual boss.

She found Elliot gazing at some equipment, a weird expression on his face.

“I got it,” he said.

“Great,” Margot said without any real idea of what he was talking about.

Forty-five minutes later, she knew all too well. A bunch of equipment from a winery that had gone out of business the month before, all of which had to be packed just so in Elliot’s truck so nothing would break on the drive back to the winery, along with a pile of scrap wood and various other prizes.

“How are we going to get all of this—plus ourselves—in your truck?” she asked her brother.

Elliot shrugged in that way that had always infuriated her.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said.

They spent the next twenty minutes trying, and failing, to figure it out. They tried to do it one way, failed, unloaded everything, and tried and failed again.

Margot stood there, her hands filthy, her hair pulled on top of her head, sweat running down her face, and stared at the pile of stuff Elliot had bought.

“Why do we have to take all of this today?” she asked. “Why can’t we get most of it and then come back for the rest tomorrow?”

Elliot didn’t even look at her.

“We have to get it all by the end of the day,” he said. “And there isn’t time to do two trips from here to the winery and back before everything is closed up.”