So Far Into You (14 page)

‘Come to see what the new boss has to say, hey, Rem?' Dave Hackett slotted himself beside her shoulder and they joined the bottleneck at the base of the stairs.

‘Thought I'd better, Dave,' she said.

The Hackett property was a few kilometres further along Red Gum Valley Road. Dave and Nance had sold grapes to Max Montgomery for years.

‘Heard this Lasrey guy's a tough operator.' Dave placed his foot on the bottom step and moved up. ‘Dunno why he had to come sniffing around here anyway.'

‘He smelled blood in the water, I'd say Dave.'

‘Yeah. Maybe. That's why the big keep getting bigger. Way of the world these days.'

Once he'd crossed the threshold, Dave headed straight for a trestle table laden with white coffee cups and saucers, two big freshly brewed glass coffee jugs, and a stack of sugar in those dainty packets blokes like Dave opened by ripping in half.

Remy ignored the coffee and the trays of mini-muffins. Her stomach was twitchy enough.

It was almost impossible not to surreptitiously hunt the restaurant for Seth, but she didn't want to risk eye contact. She had no idea what reception she'd get. So here she was—hiding in a group of blokes gathered around the morning tea, trying to work out the safest place to sit.

Carefully, she raised her chin.
There.
That row of vacant seats behind Matt and Melissa Gilmore. Matt was built like a bus and his wife was even wider. Together, they presented a united front the size of the People's Republic of China. Aiming for that spot, Remy crossed the polished concrete floor, tucked herself behind the Gilmores, and sank into her chair.

Only then did she push her sunglasses to the top of her cap, and dare to look around.

At the front of the restaurant near the cashier's counter, two tables had been laid end to end with four chairs behind them, only one of which was currently filled. The person seated wasn't in a Lasrey uniform, and he wasn't Seth. Remy let out a slow breath.

Leaning to her right, she peered around Melissa Gilmore's neck and saw the back of Rina Stein. The woman was in deep conversation with a man near the dessert counter.

Rina's dark hair was shorter than when Remy had last seen it, cut in layers that shaped her neck. She wore the Lasrey khaki pants and a short-sleeved shirt. Her elbows and hips were every bit as pointy as Remy remembered.

It was the man Rina was talking to who gave Remy her first real shock of the morning. She hadn't recognised Montgomery's winemaker, Lewis Carney, in his Lasrey uniform. Lewis
never
wore uniform. She didn't think Montgomery Wines had ever even
had
a uniform. Certainly Max never wore one.

Matt Gilmore bent his head to the right to listen to his wife. Remy leaned with him, pretending to knock a stone out of her shoe. That was when the peal of metal on glass quietened the room like a headmaster's visit to a classroom of kids.

Remy slumped low in her chair.

‘Can I start by thanking you all for coming? I'm Seth Lasrey. I've met some of you already, and it's great to see so many of Montgomery's grapegrowers here. I know it's a busy time of year for you and I appreciate your interest.'

At the sound of Seth's voice, Remy's heart moved from jog to sprint, and when Melissa Gilmore tilted her head sharply to the left, Remy was sure Melissa was about to alert the crowd to an animal stampede or an earthquake, so loud was the thumping in her chest.

Melissa beckoned down the aisle and whispered: ‘We saved you a seat.'

‘Yes. Please, sit down,' Seth broke his speech to encourage a tall man now crab-walking down the Gilmore's aisle. ‘Make yourself comfortable. There looks like some room in the middle there.'

Melissa shuffled her bulk into the vacant seat on her right, Matt moved too, and through the gap presented by Matt's now-vacant chair, Remy got a perfect view of Seth at the front of the room, as relaxed in the spotlight as any career politician.

His gaze connected with hers and her heart did a lava lamp somersault through her stomach. Why her heart bothered with the calisthenics Remy didn't know, because Seth continued his speech without a hitch.

He didn't even have the decency to blink.

***

The second Remy stepped from her truck, tugging that cap like she'd pull it all the way over her nose if she could, Seth knew she was there. Remy Hanley might try to hide under a new name or a baggy cotton shirt or those sunglasses that hid half her face, but nothing short of a wheelchair could disguise the way she moved.

Watching her walk across the driveway, rubbing shoulders with a big guy with a beard when she got to the steps; laughing with him like they were old friends, she still moved like a goddamned angel.
Goddammit.

He knew from what Max had said that she hadn't let herself go, but that didn't stop him wishing his first sighting of her in five years didn't kick him quite so squarely in the balls.

There wasn't a silver earring in the world that he could see against a woman's neck without Remy crashing through his thoughts like a fireball.

Silver suited her. There was a time he would have bought her all the silver or gold in the world.

More fool him.

Standing a few steps back from the window on the first floor of the winery building, Seth watched until the angle became too great and he lost her.

‘They've all got their cup of tea,' Rina's voice dragged his attention from the window. ‘Some are on their second muffin. I'd say it's as good a time as any to get the show on the road.'

Funny how the mood of a grower meeting could turn based on a free scone. Give a bunch of grapegrowers morning tea and they were happy enough. Skimp on the muffins and you had a mutiny on your hands.

Seth was about to follow Rina into the restaurant when his phone rang. Glancing at the screen, he told her: ‘It's Bainbridge.'

‘Again?' Rina made a face. ‘That guy is
such
an old woman.'

Seth accepted the call and waved Rina on, holding up two fingers.
Two minutes.
He'd had a gutful of Dan Bainbridge and his whining: a raindrop fell on the guy's head and he called for Noah and the fucking Ark.

By the time Seth dealt with Dan and entered the restaurant, there were only a couple stragglers hovering around the coffee pot. Most seats were filled.

Conversation dipped then buzzed anew as the growers worked out who he was. Remy, at least for the moment, must have found herself some dark corner. He couldn't see her anywhere.

Rina, who'd been in conversation with Lewis Carney, caught his eye. ‘All okay?'

Seth spoke out the side of his mouth, still scanning the room for Remy. ‘Yeah. Bainbridge can't organise getting his own arse out of bed in the morning.'

‘That's why you've got me,' Rina said and she laughed. Carney did too, even though it was obvious the winemaker wasn't sure what they were laughing about.

Seth cut him some slack. He needed him. One thing that helped smooth any acquisition was keeping a key player from the old firm onside. With Sue and Max gone, the Montgomery's winemaker was last man standing.

Seth picked up a glass tumbler and tapped it with a restaurant spoon. Rina and Lewis pulled out the chairs behind the trestle table at the front of the room, but Seth ignored the seats. He couldn't remember the last CEO he'd seen give a welcome-to-the-new-order speech while sitting behind a trestle table covered in white tablecloth.

The room hushed.

A beanpole of a latecomer was trying to find a seat. Seth waited for the guy to come through. A lady shuffled sideways to make room. The bloke beside her moved too, and in the beat of shuffling chairs, while the beanpole apologised for stepping on toes, Seth came face to face with a pair of grey eyes staring out beneath a navy blue cap.

In a sea of faces that were a mix of expectant or heard-it-all-before resigned, Remy's stunned-rabbit expression was worth every cent of the $3.12 million it cost him to buy Montgomery Wines.

He was glad he'd given this exact speech so many times. Easy now to switch to autopilot while his brain registered all the little details: the hair escaping her cap was blonder than his memory, probably due to summer sun. Her throat was bare and her skin flushed, but was it with sunburn or a guilty conscience?

He tugged his hungry gaze away and kept talking, and after he wound up the spiel he asked for questions.

‘What are my grapes worth?' That was first cab off the rank. It always was.

‘I understand that's the question everyone wants me to answer, but it's simply too soon to talk about individual price per tonne. What I can say is that all of you will have a place for your fruit this vintage. Max was very strong on that point.'

‘Who'll be making the wines?' A bloke in the second row wanted to know.

Seth opened his arm to indicate Rina and Lewis. ‘I'm really pleased that Lewis Carney has chosen to stay on with us through the merger. Help us learn the ropes.'

Lewis smiled. Like Max, he wasn't a great fan of all the attention.

Seth continued: ‘You will also get to know Rina Stein in time. Rina is our senior winemaker for Lasrey Estate. She oversees our entire winemaking technical operations. She's also part of our senior management committee, and, with my mother, brother and myself, a company director.'

That was Rina's cue to smile at the room, but Rina—who loved the spotlight—looked like someone had squirted too much lemon in her tea. It puzzled him, until he realised where she was staring.

Rina had just found Remy.

Perhaps he should have warned her? But if he'd disclosed that his plan to purchase Montgomery Wines came with that sort of string attached, the board would never have backed his bid.

Seth returned his attention to the room, and couldn't stop his gaze revisiting Remy. He could see the crescent bones of her collarbone outlined through her shirt. Remembered how they'd looked under that pink dress in the park when the wind and rain had lashed them in that storm—

The same guy who asked the question about contracts had his hand in the air again. Seth nodded at him, grateful for the distraction, but annoyed that he needed one. ‘Yeah, mate?'

‘My bank manager is breathing down my neck. I gotta be able to tell him something. When will we have some idea of what price you're offering?'

Offering.
Seth admired the man's optimism.
You think of it as a negotiation if it helps, mate.
‘Over the next week, Rina and I will personally visit your vineyards. We'll talk with you about our expectations for the fruit and we should have a better idea then, about price.' He spread his hands wide, palms up. ‘Give us a chance, mate. We've only been here five minutes.'

It got him a laugh. Part of him wondered if Remy had chuckled with the others. He refused to look.

‘Any more questions?'

There were none and he turned to Lewis and Rina and asked if they had anything further to add. They didn't.

‘I'd like to thank you again for coming this morning. We've put a schedule of our grower visits up on that whiteboard over there, so check it on your way out. Rina is doing the vineyard visits for the growers with surnames alphabetically from A to M and that means the Ns to Zs are stuck with me.'

Some of the growers got to their feet. The older ones had stiffened after half an hour sitting in the restaurant chairs. They had to spend a few seconds stretching before they moved. In ones and twos, people wandered toward the whiteboard, checking the lists. Some nodded. Some shook their heads.

‘If that time or day doesn't suit, give us a call and we will do our best to reschedule.' Seth's gaze scuttled toward the centre rear of the room, where Remy had yet to move, then back to the whiteboard. He watched as a grower stole a last handful of mini-muffins. ‘Jeez … Rina, I can still see a few plates of morning tea that hasn't been eaten. I hope our chef's scones were up to scratch?'

That got him a rumble of laughter, too. It always did.

He checked the centre of the room again because he couldn't help it.
Nope.
No laugh from Remy.

***

Feet, get up and move,
Remy ordered.

She had no good reason to stay seated. More than half the people had already checked for their appointment time and gone. If she stayed any longer she'd be last to leave.

She'd felt Seth's gaze touch her during his speech. Felt it sweep past her like a winter breeze. She hadn't wanted to look at him. Couldn't bear the thought of being caught staring because there were so many emotions in her head she was a whirlpool. He would see that confusion, and he'd know.

The last time she'd seen Seth Lasrey, she'd been ready to sink to her knees on the carpet with him, lie on his office floor and stare at him in wonder until she worked out whether his eyes were charcoal or black; and whether if he kissed her and smiled, she'd taste that smile on her lips.

He'd been smiling two minutes ago—cracking jokes about the bloody morning tea—then his winter gaze whistled across her skin again and she knew those smiles weren't meant for her.

To think, she'd once accused him of not smiling enough.

If you don't get up now, feet …

Carefully, she braced her flat shoes on the polished concrete floor and rocked forward. The restaurant chairs were solid timber, and the seats now vacated by the Gilmore family gave her something to anchor against and pull herself up. But the aisle of chairs didn't last forever. She had five football-field metres to traverse to reach the whiteboard, and nothing to hold her straight except her pride.

It felt so darn open out there.

‘Remy Hanley? It is you. I thought so. I didn't see you on my list?'

Hell and Tommy.
Remy's eyelids fluttered closed before they sprang open. ‘Small world, Rina, isn't it? And you're a director now? Congratulations. It's Remy Roberts these days. How are you?' Remy turned to greet Lasrey's winemaker as the growers at the whiteboard glanced their way. Remy could see them thinking:
Hanley? Remy Hanley? Dumb Sandgropers. Can't even get our names right.