Too Close to the Sun (24 page)

Finally, the call was done. "Okay, then,
we're agreed." He capped his pen. "Ted will redraft the term sheet
and send it out by e-mail. Marco and his counsel will review it
Monday his time, and we'll talk again Sunday night at seven Pacific
time. I'll set up the call." Within seconds, everybody hung up.
Will rose from the bed to stretch his legs, relieved that the
pressure was slightly off, at least until Sunday. He glanced at the
clock. 9:18.

Uh-oh. That'd taken two hours.

Gabby would not be pleased. After all, she
didn't understand what he did well enough to know that's how long
these calls could take.

Nor had he warned her.

He exited the bedroom and stood at the head
of the staircase. He didn't hear her, but music was on, a
soothing-voiced female vocalist warbling something jazzy. The aroma
was terrific—garlic and olive oil and pancetta, was it?—and he
realized he was terrifically hungry. But his feet were slow to
descend the stairs.

He found Gabby in the kitchen, sitting at the
small table. In front of her was an open bag of pretzels, an
impressive array of crumbs, and an empty, obviously used wineglass.
She looked up at him. "You're done?"

He recognized the tone of voice. It was the
You bastard, how inconsiderate are you?
tone he'd heard from
girlfriends past.

Great. Just what he and his stress level
needed.

"The call went fine," he told her, aware of a
hardness in his voice. "The deal's not done but we're closer," he
added, hoping to drive home the point that the call indeed had been
important, been worth his time and hers.

She nodded. "After two hours, I would imagine
you would be closer."

He couldn't help it; the comment annoyed him.
"It wasn't my choice it took that long." He watched her, noted no
apology in her hazel eyes. "You had a snack?"

"I was hungry." She cocked her head at the
stove. "Help yourself to the pasta. You'll probably have to nuke
it."

He moved toward the cabinet where he knew the
plates were stored. "Can I get you some?"

"No thanks."

"Maybe we should just toss it and do
takeout."

She was on her feet and in front of him in a
flash. "We are not tossing that pasta. I made those noodles
myself."

He was taken aback. "Okay, then. We'll nuke
it."

"You're damn right you'll nuke it." Her hands
were on her hips now, her skin starting to flush. "Work was hell
today, but somehow I managed to get back here to roll out fresh
pasta dough. I know what a hard week you had. I was trying to do
something special for you. But apparently you're so self-absorbed
you don't appreciate that." She marched to the other side of the
kitchen and crossed her arms over her chest. "Go hungry for all I
care."

"Whoa!" He threw up his hands in a
Stop
right there!
position. "You call
me
self-absorbed? I'm
trying to negotiate a multimillion-dollar transaction and all
you're worried about is your pasta? I didn't ask you to hand-make
something for me. I'd've been happy with takeout. You could've
bought something at Dean and DeLuca. But maybe you didn't want to
run into your old boyfriend again?"

Her eyes widened. "What the hell are you
talking about?"

"Vittorio Mantucci." He felt his control
start to slip. It felt good, actually. He didn't do it often
enough. "Out to do a Napa Valley acquisition." It had shocked him
to find that out. GPG had damn good young associates to do research
and he made damn good use of them. He edged closer to her, and she
backed away a step. For a moment, a moment only, he felt bad for
giving her a second's physical fear. Then anger and frustration
pushed the reluctance away and he kept right on going. "What did
you do, tell your old flame now was a good time to buy in? Thought
maybe it'd be a good idea to give GPG some competition?"

"I did no such thing!" She spun away from
him, picked up her napkin from beside her empty bowl then threw it
down again. "Even though you should have competition from somebody
like Vittorio, who understands what the wine business is all about.
Or should be about."

"Do you have any idea how much I have riding
on everything that's going on right now?" By now his control was
going, going, gone. "My entire career is on the line. No deals, no
job. But all you care about is your precious pasta. Or preserving
the character of Suncrest, which is on the skids for reasons that
have nothing to do with me. Jesus!"

She spun toward him, stance aggressive. "Do
not presume to tell me what I should and should not care about.
Though clearly I made a huge mistake taking my valuable time trying
to do something nice for you."

"Damn it, Gabby!" His voice shook the
rafters. The intensity of it shocked even him. "I have helped you
in so many ways! I go with you to the hospital when your father has
a heart attack, I help you rebottle the goddamn sauvignon blanc, I
even make promises to you that I had no business making about how I
might structure Suncrest if I ever acquire it!" His finger pointed
in her direction, only inches from her face, while his voice
lowered to a menacing growl. "You extracted that promise in bed,
Gabby. That was low. No, that was lower than low. You know what
that was?" He paused, considered stopping, but didn't. "That was
blackmail."

Her face twisted.
Shit, she's gonna
cry
. Well, if she did that would be blackmail, too—a woman
using tears as a weapon when logic and argument failed.

But she didn't, and as he watched her jaw set
and her eyes narrow, he wasn't sure if he was relieved or not. "All
you care about is business." Her voice took on a threatening tone,
too, as ugly as his own. "Doing deals, making money. The things
that should matter to you don't. I guess my first impression of you
was right after all."

"Fine." He looked around her kitchen, at its
white tiles with their cheery roosters, at the run-down linoleum
floor, at the ceramic plates set on stands she'd probably brought
home from Tuscany.

He wanted out. He wanted away. Away from her.
Away from Napa Valley. Away from all the things that weren't going
his way and never might. "You know what, Gabby? I'm not the cause
of your problems. But right now you are the cause of mine. I'm out
of here." He pounded upstairs to collect his briefcase and
everything else that was his from her bedroom, leaving in total
disarray the bed where they'd shared so much joy.

He didn't give a damn.

*

Max sat in his father's old office, at his
father's old desk, having a phone conversation his father wouldn't
have had in a million years. It was pitch dark outside, but only
one light was on, the green-shaded accountant's lamp on the desk. A
half-empty bottle of pinot noir—not a Suncrest varietal—loomed over
a crystal wineglass. Max was so riled he was smoking a cigarette in
plain sight.

"We may very well press charges against you."
David McDougall's voice was loud enough that Max could hold the
phone a foot away from his ear and still hear him. "And seek
damages. You traumatized my wife. She can't sleep. She's afraid to
go out alone."

Max stared across the office at the
dark-colored tartan sofas against the cherrywood-paneled walls. As
though it were yesterday and not a year and a half before, he
remembered sitting on one of those sofas while his mother paced a
hole in the Oriental carpet.

The girl's father is threatening to go to the
police, Max! Do you understand how serious this is? What did you do
to her?

He took another drag from his cigarette and
blew the smoke out of his mouth in little puffs. He hadn't done a
damn thing to that girl that she hadn't wanted done. And though the
details of the soiree at Cassis were a trifle hazy in Max's memory,
he was convinced the same was true for Mrs. McDougall, regardless
what she was telling her hubby now.

As his mother had done when she'd banished
him to France to let the dust settle, Max would keep an eye on the
bigger picture. He could not risk McDougall pressing charges,
criminal or civil. Or, Christ, both.

He closed his eyes, imagining all the ways
his life would go to hell. Everybody in the valley would think he
was an idiot, or worse. His mother would be on the next plane home
to grab Suncrest back out of his hands. And that stupid girl from
two years ago might get wind of the whole thing and decide to get
on the Press Charges Against Max Winsted bandwagon. In short, he'd
be royally screwed.

He stubbed out his cigarette and took a deep
breath. "David, as I said before, I am tremendously sorry for what
I did and how much I upset your wife. If there was any way I could
make it up to her, and to you, I swear I would." He paused, both
trying to gauge if he was getting through and gearing up for the
words he found so very difficult to say. "Please, I'm asking you
not to press charges. I had too much wine, I behaved like an ass, I
made a stupid mistake. But I'm already paying for it."

McDougall sounded truculent. "How do you
figure?"

"Well, of course there's no way Cassis will
carry Suncrest wines now."

"You got that right."

"And I embarrassed myself not only at your
restaurant but in front of my friends. My reputation's taken a
serious hit."

"If I had anything to say about it, that
wouldn't have been the only hit you'd taken."

Max had to stop himself from chuckling.
McDougall was fifty if he was a day, but he was threatening to
punch out a guy half his age? No wonder the guy was so pissed: he
could probably tell that his wife wanted to sample some younger
flesh.

But something in that comment gave Max the
sense that McDougall might be softening. He shifted the phone to
his other ear and prepared to deliver what he considered the most
potent weapon in his arsenal. "David, I'm asking you to cut me a
break. I've just taken over the helm here at Suncrest, I'm
following in my dad's footsteps, and I've got to tell you, it's not
easy. You got kids, right?"

"Well, from a prior marriage, yes."

"Then you know what I'm talking about.
They've got to make their way in the world in the shadow of a very
successful parent. I'm here to tell you, it's not easy." He let
that sink in. Then, "I'm asking you not to press charges, David.
Please. I'm begging you. Believe me, I've learned my lesson. I'll
never do anything like this again."

Silence. Max waited, barely breathing. His
father's brass clock ticked away the seconds of his life while his
fate balanced in David McDougall's hands.

Then, "I'll tell you what," McDougall said.
"I'll talk about it with Barbara."

Max nearly yelped. He felt as if a life
preserver just got tossed in his direction.

"It's up to her to make the decision,"
McDougall went on, "but I will tell her what you told me."

"Thank you, David. I can't tell you how much
I appreciate this."

"Get your act together, Winsted."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." But McDougall
missed the final sir by hanging up.

"Yes!" Max let out a breath. He'd been that
close—
that close!
—to disaster. He paced a bit to let off
some steam. Man, he'd dodged a bullet. He sloshed some more pinot
noir into his wineglass and threw it back, then poured water into
the glass and drank that, too. The French said you didn't get drunk
if you downed as much water as you did wine. Max believed them.

He was about to shut the office down for the
night—it was already after nine—when the phone rang again. He
considered letting the call go to voice mail but then picked up,
figuring the Had-His-Act-Together Max Winsted would always take a
business call, regardless of the lateness of the hour.

"Hey, glad I caught you, Max. Burning the
night oil, huh? Joseph Wagner here."

The
Wine World
writer. Max cringed.
Had he heard about the Cassis thing? Max took a deep breath and
tried to sound cheery. "How you doin', Joe? Played another round at
Cypress Point?"

"I wish. I need friends like you to pull that
off. Listen, I got a question for you."

Max steeled himself. "Shoot."

"There's this story I'm hearing and it sounds
kinda nuts to me, but I have to follow it up. There's a rumor going
around that you guys rebottled this year's sauvignon blanc. Is that
true?"

Max laughed, a forced, unpleasant sound.
Shit!
It wasn't what he expected but it was just as bad. He
had a vague notion that the topic had come up at Cassis, too, but
he was far from clear on the details. Nor could he ask anybody
without raising a boatload of questions. "Wow!" he said, trying to
buy time. "What a wild story! Where'd you hear that?"

"Oh, here and there." Wagner wouldn't spill
that, no surprise. "But it's hard to believe because people are
saying there was no problem with the wine, it was just that you
guys wanted to switch bottles."

Apparently Joseph Wagner didn't think that
was such a hot idea. Gabby DeLuca's voice echoed in Max's head.
If it gets out that we rebottled, everyone will assume there's
something wrong with the wine. And why wouldn't they? No winery
would decant unless it had to!

Max's mind worked fast, as it had a tendency
to do when he was in trouble. Some people might say that was
because it'd had a lot of practice. "So have you tasted our new
sauvignon blanc?"

Wagner let rip a huge sigh, something Max was
not happy to hear. "I did. And I thought it was pretty good but not
really up to Suncrest standards. It seemed a little past its peak
to me. I'm going to have trouble scoring it very high. Sorry, Max,
but that's where I am right now."

That's the thanks I get for showing you
the high life in Pebble Beach?
Max stood in the half-dark in
his father's office—pissed off, frustrated, and vaguely recalling
that Cassis's sommelier hadn't been too keen on this vintage,
either.