Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance (13 page)

On reflection, and very aware that Nick was waiting for her to make a choice, Zoe reasoned that, since these were all wines, then they must all be at worst drinkable – a place like this was hardly going to stock inferior wine. Therefore, it mattered very little what she actually ordered, it was all wine, it was all of a good enough quality – she could just pick one at random. Besides, she knew how this worked, she had been to restaurants in New York with Vanessa and with the more ambitious of the men she had dated since leaving home – you made your selection and, regardless of what you picked, the wine waiter said ‘excellent choice’, because customer service was more important and he cared about his tip.

The wine waiter approached, looking down his nose like a cartoon stereotype. “’Ave you made your selection?” His accent was stronger than that of the bellboy, and less sensual. He definitely had a sneer.

“A bottle of this please,” said Zoe, pointing – she was not yet prepared to negotiate the minefield of actually saying the name.

The waiter looked at the list, then back to Zoe, and shook his head somberly. “Non, Mademoiselle. Non.”

“No?”

“
Non
.”

Apparently the system in France worked slightly differently to the one in the good old US of A. In France the wine waiters were there to prevent you from making a terrible, life-shattering choice and to shame you for even considering it.

“Okkkay,” said Zoe, starting to look at the list once more, wondering how many random selections she could make before finding one the waiter liked (and wondering why him liking it was any sort of a big deal!).

“Non.” The waiter snatched the wine list from her hands as if her touching it affronted his finely honed sensibilities. “You are – ‘ow do you say? – ‘orribly ignorant.” He passed the wine list to Nick. “Please, Monsieur.” His voice had taken on a plaintive tone, desperate for Nick to end the torture that Zoe’s poor selection had inflicted upon his unprepared body.

Nick selected a wine and the waiter’s lip twitched in moderated approval. “Satisfactory choice, Monsieur.”

Apparently Nick had room for improvement as well, but he would do.

“What a jackass!” hissed Zoe, as soon as the man was out of earshot.

“They take wine very seriously here,” said Nick.

“Doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it.”

“This is the world you have to fit into.” He spread his hands before him with a shrug.

Zoe nodded in glum acknowledgement. “I think I’ve got to tell you something, and I hope you won’t think any less of me for it.”

“Go ahead.”

Zoe took a deep breath. “I don’t know the first thing about wine. I think it all tastes the same, pretty disgusting, and, frankly, as long as it gets you drunk, who the hell cares?”

There was a crash and a thud from behind Zoe. She turned to see their waiter, passed out on the floor, clutching his heart, the shattered remains of a ‘satisfactory’ bottle of wine around him.

“Some people care,” said Nick. “When you’re around Monsieur Jourdan, you might want to keep those opinions to yourself.”

* * *

W
hile
, privately, Zoe remained sure that her own opinion on the relative importance of wine – that it did not remotely matter - was correct, it was obviously important for the sake of this important mission that she not only keep such opinions to herself, but also that she cultivate some better understanding of the stuff. To that end, they were to spend the remainder of Zoe’s period of training at a vineyard in the South, and they set out early the next morning in a car that Nick kept at his family’s Parisian house (
of course
the Rothbergers had a Parisian house).

“For the record,” said Zoe, staring at the car, “this impresses me more than the hotel, the wine, the whole rest of it. If you’d wanted to sell me on the sophisticated lifestyle, you definitely should have started with the car.”

Nick smiled and shook his head. “Chicks dig the car.” He patted it lovingly.

It was a great a car.

Not one of the modern hyper-cars, all horsepower and flared wheel arches, not even a modern a super-car, but a Ferrari Daytona from the days when the South of France was the playground for stars who were not just rich and popular, but also cool. There was nothing, nor could there ever be anything, that was even half as cool, as driving in a Ferrari Daytona with the top down through the South of France on a sunny day, especially if you were as handsome as Nick Rothberger and had a beautiful girl on your arm (Zoe wondered if she would do). It didn’t matter if you had money, connections or a rambling chateau, you had the car, you had the girl (sort of) – that was enough. You can’t put a price on cool.

There were quicker ways to get from Paris to wine country, but there could not be any better ones. Cars had never really interested Zoe before – she was aware of them as a practicality and her Dad had taught her basic automotive engineering, enough to change a flat tire, she was aware that some looked better than others but had never really considered that a measure of their worth. But if you have never cruised through the French countryside in a Ferrari Daytona, then you don’t know what real driving is. You also don’t know what real envy is.

To her surprise, Zoe found that she quite enjoyed being envied by everyone else on the road, perhaps because that envy came with surprisingly little malice. If you drove past people in a Porsche or even in an Aston Martin, then they would hate you for having that car while they toddled along in a Hyundai. But in a Ferrari Daytona, the people might have envied you, but they couldn’t hate you, because you brightened their day just by driving past. You couldn’t look at a Ferrari Daytona without smiling.

It was not just the car that made the long drive more pleasant; there was also the countryside to consider. Zoe always saw herself as a country girl, and even when the country was in a different country, she felt an affinity to the great outdoors, be it the American South or a South African safari or the South of France. (That was a lot of ‘South’s. She briefly considered if it was just being “South” that she liked.)

It was hard to say what was so perfect about the countryside here. It gave off an odd sense of confidence in its own beauty – it had been here a long time and would be here for centuries to come. There was something established about it – France was an old nation and wine-making was an old profession, these hills that fueled that industry existed while governments and nations rose and fell about them. They charmed all who came here with their quiet ease and beckoned you into their peaceful center.

The other thing that made the journey so enjoyable was the company. Last night had proved that throwing Zoe into the deep end in the business of food and wine (in a country which took that business as seriously as open heart surgery) had been an error. You could not sink or swim in the tricky world of French gastronomy - you could only sink. Some sort of preparation was necessary and Nick was ready to own up to this as being his own mistake. He had decided to remedy this with a car game.

“I could taste wines as we drive?” suggested Zoe.

“That seems unfair to me,” Nick replied. “Plus, it’s a very long journey and you’d have the most almighty hangover tomorrow morning.”

“Then what?”

“I have prepared a series of fiendish questions on French food and wine. If you get one right then you get to choose what music we listen to.”

“And if I get them wrong?”

“Then we listen to French radio.” Nick spoke the words darkly and turned on the radio. An atonal warbling emerged, backed by an accordion.

“What the hell is that?” Zoe gaped.

“Here they call it music,” said Nick. “They may rule the cultural roost when it comes to food and wine, but in the area of popular music, France is a country in the Dark Ages. Celine Dion is considered the height of sophistication. Now come on and answer a question – this is as hard on me as it is on you.”

There are few negative reinforcements that are as guaranteed to produce good behavior as French radio. If the Allied and Axis nations had been put in a room with French radio and told that they could come out when they had come to an agreement, then it would have shortened the Second World War by five years.

Zoe found herself grasping bits of forgotten information from the back of her mind and adding new information to its stock – she was learning. She was an excellent learner. She was also having fun. It seemed to her that there had been a definite change in Nick’s teaching technique since their visit to her parents.

She was not sure of why – he had very obviously forgotten that late night conversation which had seemed to bring them closer – but she was glad of it. Nick no longer seemed a distant, aloof figure to her, it no longer felt that he was looking down on her as he taught her stuff. She did not feel ignorant and bumbling around him anymore, simply ill-informed and slightly awkward – which was the same thing only said more nicely.

In late afternoon the Daytona rolled onto the white gravel drive of a pleasant villa that overlooked acres after acre of vines, spilling away into the distance across the hillsides with a stunning view of the ocean further in the background.

“This is where we’re staying?”

“You like it?” He sounded genuinely eager to please her.

“It’s incredible.”

They got out and looked at the view. Zoe realized suddenly that her hand was in Nick’s. She could not say if she had taken his or he hers but now she let it remain. It felt right.

* * *

T
hey had
a rustic dinner together out on the veranda, overlooking the silent vines and beneath a clear sky of sharp, bright stars. The menu here was definitely more to Zoe’s taste than that at the hotel. Not that there had been anything wrong with the hotel food, but here the menu told you what it was without any messing around with floral language.

The food was simple home cooking, although that came with the caveat that it was
French
simple home cooking, which meant that it was fancier than most restaurant food in the US. The wine was of course from the vineyard itself – a rare occasion when ordering the ‘house’ wine is considered
de rigeur
– so to speak. There was no need for lengthy menus designed to trap neophytes here, they simply brought you the wine that best complimented your chosen meal.

“Try it,” urged Nick, as the thick red liquid spilled into Zoe’s glass.

She sipped. “Oh!”

“Is it all right?” Nick looked worried.

“It’s
good
.” Zoe sounded astonished and realized that this was probably the wrong reaction, and perhaps a little insulting. It wasn’t that she was surprised that it tasted good –people clearly found wine nice.
She
just never had. What surprised her was that she could
tell
that it was good; she would have picked this wine out as being better than others that she had, in the past, drunk. For the first time in her life she had tasted a wine and been able to recognize it as more than just another wine. It was the first step on the road to connoisseurship, and an absolute revelation to someone who had, up to this point, thought that the idea of there being good and bad wines was just nonsense, and it was all about how little money you spent to get you drunk the fastest.

When they said goodnight later, before retiring to their rooms, there seemed to Zoe to be a moment between them – a frisson of something. It was that sensation familiar to all those who find themselves in the first throes of attraction, the unwillingness to part. In itself it was little; a lingering at the doors to their rooms as they eked out the final seconds of each other’s company, a slight tug at the heart as they parted, as if some elastic bond between them was being stretched beyond its comfortable limit.

Alone in her room, Zoe got ready for bed, undressed and slipped beneath the covers, the window open to allow in the fresh country air and the soft sounds of a still night. She lay awake staring at the ceiling for a while, not thinking about Nick as much as trying to think about anything else.

* * *

T
he following day
returned to business: a guided tour of the vineyard, taking in every aspect of the wine production process. Zoe made notes as she went, determined that she would not let slip any of this most necessary information. Over lunch, Nick shot more questions at her, this time using the positive reinforcement of a bunch of sweet grapes, allowing her one when she got the questions right.

“Are you sneaking looks at your notebook?”

“No.”

“Yes you are! You cheat!”

Nick tried to take the book from her and, as he did so, Zoe managed to snatch the grapes from him. They laughed and the whole point of the exercise somehow faded to obscurity.

The following day was wine-tasting; the culmination of the Zoe’s training, and the hardest part to master. Much of the rest of their visit here would focus on this arcane art. While the other guests and visitors treated the whole thing as a tremendous lark – swallowing when they supposed to spit and asking ‘hilariously’ if they were tasting beer – Zoe and Nick took it almost as seriously as the French. It wasn’t easy - Zoe had never had any need for a ‘palate’ that could readily tell the difference between one wine and another - but gradually, with the help of Nick and one of the vineyard assistants, delighted to finally have a guest who cared about this stuff, she grew more adept.

“One day,” the assistant said (it was astonishing how everyone here spoke such great English), “if you apply yourself, you will be a true connoisseur.”

“Any chance that day will be next week?” asked Zoe, hopefully.

The man shook his head. “It will take many years. But do not give up. You have natural talent.”

Zoe was surprised to learn that she had natural talent for wine-tasting but it was nice to hear, even if she would need a great deal more than that to get through meeting Jacques Jourdan.

“I just don’t see how we’re going to fool him,” she said later, bitterly shaking her head. “Wine is this man’s life. He thinks I know my stuff. He’s going to know I’m faking it.”

“Don’t worry,” Nick reassured her. “We’ll make it work.” He said it to reassure her, but he wasn’t very certain. But a mere two weeks ago his reaction would have been so different. His whole attitude toward Zoe had changed. “How about we have a glass of wine?”

“Work never ends,” sighed Zoe.

“I meant just to drink,” smiled Nick. “You’ve tasted enough for one day – all theory, no practice never helped anyone. And do you know what, the single most important thing that you can know about wine is? That it’s quite enjoyable to drink.”

“I’d heard that,” said Zoe.

“Well let’s try putting it into practice. Why don’t you order?”

“Couldn’t resist it, could you?” Zoe grinned, recognizing the little test.

“Well, if there’s an opportunity. But that’s it!” Nick promised. “No more questions, no more tests, no more theory. From here on in, tonight is about fun and the simple pleasure of sharing a bottle of wine with a friend.”

Zoe looked up to meet his eyes. “Are we friends?” It sounded like a horribly pathetic thing to say.

“Of course we are,” said Nick. His breathing seemed to have quickened. “You’re… Well, you’re just…” He looked away, apparently unable to adequately finish the sentiment. “I’m glad we’re friends. Now let’s get drinking.”

Sharing a bottle of wine with a friend is indeed one of the great pleasures in life. Sharing two bottles is good too but, it can lead to revelations in a way that one bottle never can. Revelations like, ‘
friends
’ might not have been entirely the right word.

When taken on top of the day’s tasting (and the wine that was of course served with lunch), sharing two bottles of very good wine is more than enough to make a couple quite merry.

“I think…” Nick began. “What was I saying?”

“I think we might have had enough.”

“That’s what I was going to say,” said Nick. He looked at the label on the now empty bottle. “You’d think we’d be sick of wine by now, but I’m really not.”

“I think if we have any more,” slurred Zoe, “then sick is exactly what I will be.”

Nick stood up unsteadily and offered a hand out to Zoe. “May I escort you to your room?”

Zoe took his hand, almost pulling him off-balance as she stood. “Thank you. That would be wonderful.”

They tottered up the stairs, weaving from bannister to bannister as they went.

“Which way is your room?”

“I think it’s that way.” Zoe pointed.

“This way?”

“No, wait that a way.”

“Okay,” said Nick, trying to find his sea-legs on the landing. “Let’s make base camp here at the top of the stairs and we can push on for your room in the morning.”

“No! We should push on now, before the weather changes.”

Against the odds, they made it to the door of Zoe’s room. Given their state of drunkenness, a poignant moment of fleeting connection seemed unlikely but they did look into each other’s bleary eyes for longer than was necessary.

“Today was fun,” said Nick.

“Yeah,” Zoe agreed. She suddenly felt very sober, even though she knew she wasn’t.

There was a long moment of silence, though their eyes never parted.

“Well…” Nick spoke again. “I should be looking for my room. It’s around here somewhere.”

“Sure.” Zoe turned to her door, fumbling the key from her pocket and trying to fit it to the lock. “That’s weird. I know it went in earlier.”

“Let me try.” Nick leant over Zoe, one hand against the door to try the key himself. “There we go.” He turned the key, and the door – against which both were leaning – unlocked and opened, sending them both tumbling to the floor, one on top of the other.

They laughed and laughed and laughed until, exhausted and out of breath, the laughter seemed to dry up. Zoe looked down at Nick’s face, suddenly very aware of his body beneath hers, and kissed him.

Nick was not slow to respond, eagerly kissing her back.

Zoe was not altogether sure what was going on in her head right at that moment.

Very little of what was going on was conscious; there was a lot of alcohol and a lot of long pent-up desire finally finding an outlet, neither of which made for clear thinking or good decisions. And she was fine with that. If she stopped to think this through then no doubt she could come up with about a hundred objections to it, a hundred reasons why this was a bad idea, but sometimes you had to go with your instincts and with what felt right. And boy did kissing Nick feel right.

She reached between their bodies, her hands making for Nick’s belt, lifting up slightly so she could undo it.

Gently Nick pulled back from kissing her. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, not wanting her to do something in the heat of drink that she would regret in the morning.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” replied Zoe. And, as if to prove the point, she sat up astride Nick and pulled off her blouse.

Nick looked at her body with wonder and hot desire, then his gaze flicked behind her for a moment. “Maybe we should close the door first.”

Zoe started around just in time to see a couple walk past the still open door to their room – trying and failing not to look at the half-dressed pair on the floor. It was the sort of thing that in normal circumstances would have sent Zoe dying of mortification, but instead she just giggled uncontrollably, rolling off Nick to lie on the floor. Nick swiftly got to his feet to close the door and lock it.

“Now, where were we?”

Zoe held up a hand which Nick took, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. They kissed again. Suddenly and without warning Nick swept Zoe off her feet and up into his arms.

“I’m not too heavy for you?” Zoe whispered as their faces drew close once more.

“You don’t weigh a thing.”

He laid her down on the bed and slid up her body, kissing as he went, finally arriving at her face. Zoe tugged at his clothes and was thrilled to feel his hands, on her drawing her skirt down her legs.

It was going to be a very good night.

* * *

W
hen she woke
the next morning, Zoe was facing the open window of her room. They had not had time to close the curtains last night, there had only been time for each other. The bright morning light spilled into the room, accompanied by the rich, fresh country air, delicately scented by the vines that grew outside by the acre.

Zoe realized that she had no hangover. Was that even possible, given the amount that she had had to drink? Maybe good wine didn’t give you a hangover? Or maybe she was still drunk from the night before? Or maybe she had happened upon the only truly effective hangover cure: happiness. That was all she could feel right now. It seemed to wash over her like the cool summer breeze that slipped through the open window. She turned over to find Nick lying beside her, his eyes open, watching her.