A Taste of Merlot (8 page)

Panting, Mark unzipped his jeans, kicked them off, and reached under her yet again to lift her, straddling his waist, and sat them both down on the sole chair in the atelier—her swivel stool. Shoving off with his heels, he wheeled them the short distance to the wall, braced himself, and brought her down to the hilt of his erection.

She called out at the shock of it. And then he began to move, making her crazy with wanting the friction of movement and the fullness of completion, all at the same time. But Mark was in charge, controlling their rhythm until finally, he drove her home hard with a lusty yell. His explosion deep within suffused her whole being with triumph.

When the pounding of their hearts began to normalize, she nodded down at him, cupping his cheeks in her hands, and when their eyes met again, she knew that nothing would ever be the same. Theirs was a rare and special partnership. Meri might be in the superior position, but Mark Newman, his hands still digging into her hips, had the power to rock her world. He'd just proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

M
ark looked up in awe at the angel still straddling him, tickling the waves at the nape of his neck with skilled fingers. How could he have guessed that one of the most stressful days of his life would turn into one the best nights
ever?

Meri was the first woman he'd been with since the annulment. Before Brandi, he'd had his share of women. Not as many as some guys, but he couldn't complain. Yet never had he been with someone who made him feel the way Meri did. Despite his vow to give up women until he got the business back on track, and
never
to mess with women who might only want him for his money, Meri had had him hooked when he'd believed she was a mere, struggling artist. Before he'd known she was
Merlot.
The revelation that this multitalented goddess sitting astride him had no ulterior motives—didn't need his inheritance, never would—was a miracle.

The languid look she returned matched the way he felt inside: warm and whole. Perched on that creaky swivel stool in that seedy warehouse, with Meri on his lap, he felt oddly
at home.

Reality seeped in. Had he actually just banged one of the heiresses to the St. Pierre winery—on her workbench? It suddenly seemed so wrong, on so many levels. Or at least inadequate. Not because she was Merlot. Because she was
Meri
.

A discomfited laugh escaped from him as he stroked the long length of her outer thighs. “Wowza. Man. Meri, I'm sorry. I hope you know I didn't plan that for tonight. So soon. Even though—it's weird—I feel like I've known you for ages.”

“I'm not sorry.” Her lips curved into a not-so-angelic smile.

“Ahem. Yeah. Well, if I
had
planned it, it wouldn't have been here. It would've been somewhere much more comfortable. For you, that is.”

She kissed his nose, rose from him, and inched down her skirt. And looked so damn sexy doing it, he wanted to take her again, right there, already making a mockery of his well-meaning conscience. She must've read his thoughts because she directed a knowing little laugh toward him before turning to gather up her things.

He stood too, and started putting himself back together.

“Let me take you somewhere decent, Merlot. A nice hotel. Back to my place. Anywhere. Anywhere you want.”

She was pulling her top over her head. When her face reappeared, her smile had gone. “What did you call me?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

Mark cursed himself. He'd slipped. Who could blame him? She was so easy to be with, so unpretentious. So
not
a wine princess. Arms outspread, he stepped toward her gingerly, as if approaching a wild animal.

“It's okay. I know.”

Her eyes were brimful of suspicion. When he reached her, he cupped her slender shoulders. Whereas before she'd been oh-so-supple, now she'd grown stiffer than a double shot of whisky. “I know you were trying to hide it from me for some reason, but it's all good. Believe me.”

Pulling away, she all but dashed over to her massive bag left slouched on the floor, where she'd tossed it earlier, found some elastic thing in it, and flipped her long hair up into a messy knot.

“Meri?”

“Meri, c'mon. What's wrong? Why the secrets?” He crossed the short distance between the studio walls to reach for her again, but she flinched away. “Your famous name is a good thing. It's a huge advantage! We've got big plans for you. When Gloria found out who you were, she couldn't sign those orders fast enough.”

Meri spun around. Long gone was the look of satisfied contentment. Her green eyes glittered with distrust. “Really. And what if I hadn't been Merlot St. Pierre? Would she have signed the orders then?”

Jeezus
. His arms fell to his sides and he huffed in exasperation. He didn't want to lie to her. But she wasn't dumb.

“That's what I thought. My work wasn't good enough until your boss found out what my father's name was. Which, by the way, has nothing—
nothing
—to do with my designs.”

“Hey, I wanted your work from the moment I saw it. Before I even knew whether it was created by a man or a woman!”

“But you're just a . . .”

Ouch.
“Just a buyer?”

She broke eye contact, obviously embarrassed to admit he'd been right.

“So what you're saying is, you trust my boss's judgment, but not mine? You're as bad as Gloria!”

“Then you admit it! She wasn't interested in me until she knew.”

Frustration washed over him. How had everything gone so haywire so quick?

He tried again. “Meri. Be reasonable. The fact that your family's so well-known opens up all sorts of possibilities. You're already a brand. That's what every newcomer, in every field, is knocking herself out to establish, and you already have it!”

She stepped into the realm of his personal space again and cocked her head, her face mere inches from his. “But what if I don't want to be part of the ‘St. Pierre brand'?” she asked, wrapping it in little air quotes.

Is she crazy?
“What's wrong with the St. Pierre brand? Your father didn't become one of Napa's foremost winemakers on an inferior product. St. Pierre makes first-class wine—everybody knows that. And Harrington's is all about first-class fine jewelry. Don't you get it? That you're a St. Pierre is far from a negative. Hell! We couldn't have
dreamed up
anything better than this.”

She walked over to stare out the black window. “It's not as if mine is the most wholesome image in the world. I know what they say about us in the valley. They're still talking about how
Maman
”
—
the delicious French accent with which she said the word sent a thrill down his spine, in spite of himself—“left Papa for another winemaker—with whom, by the way, Papa was generously sharing his blending expertise—and got herself killed down in Argentina. And Papa's always in the headlines for something. Getting arrested for a gun crime, hitting on women half his age. I have a couple of able-bodied male cousins who are too lazy to work. Patrick always has his nose buried in white powder, and Paul uses older women for fun and profit. And are you following the
Chronicle
story on my Uncle Phil? Seems the IRS is wondering why he bought a house he never visits in the Caymans. How do you know how I feel? You've never had to live down that kind of family!”

She ripped out her ponytail so hard Mark winced imagining the hairs she'd sacrificed, and tossed it up again as messily as before.

“Your dad was arrested for a gun crime?” That was pretty bad-ass.

“He shot at an eagle robbing his koi pond.”

Mark bit back a smile. He took her upper arms and spun her back around to face him. “It doesn't matter. All publicity is good publicity.”
Some would say, the more scandalous the better
. “Didn't they teach you that in school?”

Her brows furrowed with hurt. They probably would have, if she hadn't dropped out before they got to the unit on promotion.

“Whether Papa's brand is good or bad is beside the point,” she lashed out. “I want to create my
own
brand. Not rest on
his
laurels. Or anyone else's, for that matter.”

He let her spin away to reach into her bag again, pulling out the purchase orders he'd made such a big deal over at dinner.

“Anyway, it's not just about Papa.” A sob caught in her throat as she turned the legal-sized papers horizontally between both hands—

“Don't do that.” He could print more, but he'd have to get Gloria to sign them again, and she'd want an explanation, and it would be just another snafu.

—and ripped them to shreds, letting the pieces flutter to the squeaky, uneven floorboards.

She hoisted her bag to her shoulder, unlocked the door, and held it open.

“I want you to leave now.”

The words hit him like a bat to the solar plexus. His best night ever was morphing into a nightmare.

“Meri. Listen to reason. This is what you want. What we
both
want. We can make it work—together. Let me help you.”

She tilted her head, propped her free hand on her hip, and fixed her gaze on him. “How would
you
like it if your father had named you after a freaking grape?”

It might've been funny if it weren't so tragic. But Mark had long ago learned that life was far from fair. “I'd be happy to have a father who acknowledged my existence.”

He stood his ground in a last-ditch hope for the woman to come to her senses, but she was having none of it. A chilly draft seeped in from the ghostly hallway and blew through him, taking with it the last vestige of the high that had filled him only minutes earlier.

His brows and his hands went up in resignation. “If that's what you want.”

Mark Newman wasn't used to not knowing what to do. He'd graduated near the top of his class at Berkeley. At work, he was paid to be logical. There, it was all about the bottom line. Either it was red or it was black. They either made sales projections, or they didn't. There was no in between.

Yet he had a creative side, too. He loved to cook, and he was passionate about design. The best part of the luxury goods business was the opportunity to use both sides of his brain.

But right now he had no idea how he was supposed to react to this volatile chameleon standing before him. She was beautiful, sexy, talented—and Napa Valley royalty. A few minutes ago, she'd been enthusiastically straddling his lap, and now she was throwing his ass out.

He wound through the dusky hallways of the co-op—turning back repeatedly to see if she followed—all the way to the exit. Outside, he hesitated. What was he supposed to do, abandon her here in this gloomy, deserted place?
Uh, no.
Wasn't going to happen. He thrust his hands into his pockets and paced in the shadow of an eave, within sight of the door.

Minutes later, Meri locked up, glanced nervously over her shoulder, and strutted down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from where Mark lurked. To avoid startling her, he waited until her slender, high-heeled silhouette had traveled some distance before stepping out.

“Meri.”

She jumped. “What are you still doing here?” she spat out angrily. “I asked you to leave.”

“I'm not leaving you in an empty warehouse at night. I'll go just as soon as I've seen you to your car.”

Exasperated, she turned and marched off.

When Mark saw the blink of remotely activated headlights on the late-model Mercedes, he was taken aback, until he realized that what was more odd was that she'd been driving a pickup yesterday, not that she drove a luxury car today.

“What happened to your truck?”

“It belongs to the winery.” Her voice dripped with resentment at being caught in another deception. She shot him a pained glance as she yanked open the driver's side.

“Dammit, Meri. Stop. Let's talk. Not about business. About us.”

Her hand stilled on her door handle momentarily, and then she angled her lithe body to slide in, disappearing from view.

Before she could lock him out, Mark yanked open the passenger side and bent to peer in at her.

“If you drive away now, we'll both be sorry.” He wouldn't get in her car against her will. But he still wasn't ready to let her end things like this.

Instead of reaching for the ignition button, she slumped back in her seat.

“Can I get in?”

She hesitated, then gave the briefest of nods.

He climbed in beside her. For a moment they sat motionless, staring through the windshield at the multicolored neon glow of shop signs punctuating the night sky of the quiet town.

When he spoke again, his voice was a few decibels lower, and he'd managed to force calm into it despite his near panic over almost losing her.

“Did you think I could just walk away? Tonight was about more than the orders. At least, for me it was.” He looked her way, his agitation rearing up again. “I was sold on your talent from the first time I saw your work, back in early June. I spent all summer—
all summer, Meri
—searching high and low for you, making phone calls, trolling the Internet, never dreaming that when I finally found you, you were going to look like—like this.” He strained to see her expression in the dimness, desperate for a crumb of understanding. “Once we started talking, it kept getting better and better. Jeezus, you're massively talented.. . . You're smart. . . .”

She was practically perfect. There wasn't a damn thing wrong with her. . . .

Get a grip, Mark.
He took a steadying breath. Nothing wrong, except a stubborn streak fifty miles long. The distance from San Francisco to Napa, his town to hers.

He strained in the darkness to study her profile. His voice had gotten loud again, he realized with dismay. He should just shut up now.

“I'm sorry. I can't figure you out, but I won't grill you anymore. Promise.” He offered her his hand, and she let out an ironic laugh at the absurdity of shaking hands after what they'd done in her studio.

“We'll stick to safe topics for the rest of the night, deal? The weather. The 'Niners. Whatever. You pick.”

She eyed him doubtfully.

“I swear. No more questioning your decisions.” He hoped he could stick to his word. He
had
to.

She conceded with a tiny hint of a smile. “Tonight was about more than the orders for me, too.”