Blame It on the Champagne (13 page)

Saskia stared out past Rick and fixed her gaze on the gentle
waving of branches to and fro in the light breeze, which was a perfect match to
the tornado spinning inside her head.

It felt as though she had been strapped onto a horse on a
childhood nightmare of a merry-go-round, which had started whirling faster and
faster until all she could do was hang on for dear life, knowing that if she
even tried to get off she would be seriously hurt.

Only to be slammed to a crushing stop into a large solid object
called real life.

He was leaving. Just like her father had left her.

She had always known that this was a temporary arrangement. One
week. Seven days out of her life.

It was just so hard to say goodbye.

‘Then you have to go back to your parents and show them that
you are the better man.' She smiled into his face and blinked away her tears.
Her body yearned to lean closer so that her head could rest against that broad
shoulder, but she fought the delicious sensation.

She had to.

He was so close she could drown in the heady mix of his scent
and the warmth of a body that wanted to be with her as much as she needed him to
stay with her.

It was almost a physical pain when his hands started to slowly
move down her coat until they rested on her hips. Slowly, slowly, she looked up
into the most amazing grey eyes she had ever seen.

And in that moment she could see there was something more.
Something she had never seen before. Something different. His unsmiling eyes
scanned her face for a few minutes, as though searching for an answer to some
question he had not the words to ask.

Uncertainty. Concern. Doubt? That was certainly new.

His right hand came up and gently lifted a loose coil of her
hair back behind her ear, in a gesture so tender and loving that she closed her
eyes in the pleasure of it.

He slid his fingers through her hair until he found the base of
her neck. Drawing her closer, he lowered his forehead onto hers so that each hot
breath fanned her face with its intensity.

‘Come with me.' The sides of his mouth twisted for a second,
but this time there was no quick laughter. ‘We could be back in London in a
week. Come on, gorgeous. Take a risk on me and come to California. You won't
regret it. After all, you have nothing to lose.'

ELEVEN

Must-Do list

• Who am I kidding? This trip to France has opened my
  eyes to just how much I love having someone to talk to—about everything,
  not just the girl things.
  
• Need to take some big decisions about how I want to
  move forward in my life—difficult decisions. Scary decisions. Has to be
  done and I know who I want to help me make them—Rick.
  

Saskia
lifted her
head and looked into those amazing blue-grey eyes which
were gazing at her so lovingly that she almost, almost gave in to the
temptation.

Inhaling a breath of cool air, she lifted one hand and stroked
his cheek, feeling the stubble of his soft beard under her fingertips and
watched his chest lift as he responded to her touch.

He meant it. He wanted her to come with him. He wanted her to
leave London and come with him and meet his family and...she felt totally
overwhelmed and terrified.

Suddenly her world felt totally out of control. She was
whirling and whirling. Her heart was thumping so hard she was surprised that
Rick couldn't hear it.

‘Nothing to lose?' she repeated, and her shoulders slumped.
‘Oh, Rick. Why did you have to say that? Why?'

‘Because it is the truth. What is it? What's the problem? Is it
me? Or California? Talk to me. Tell me what is going on inside that lovely head
of yours. Help me understand.'

‘It's all too much. Too soon. I only met you a few days ago and
now you want me to go to California with you? No. I need to slow down and...and
I need to breathe. Breathing would be good.'

She closed her eyes and tried to fight back an overwhelming
sense of panic.

Her head was spinning and a strange dizzy sensation swept over
her. Cold, hot. Then cold again.

‘Here. Come on. Sit down and exhale nice and slow. That's it.
Deep breaths, exhale slowly.'

Rick half carried her over to an old wooden bench and she
collapsed down on the hard rungs and felt the coat wrapped tighter across her
shoulders by Rick's strong arms as he sat down beside her and hugged her
tight.

‘It's okay,' he murmured. ‘It's fine. Everything is fine.'

‘Fine?' she gasped in between gulping down air. ‘How can it be
fine? I haven't had a panic attack like this in years. Years! And it happens
now. At the very time I am starting to see some success in my crazy life. I am
such a mess.'

‘Hey, girls tell me that I am too much for them all the time. I
understand completely. ‘

She lifted her head and blinked at him, and Rick had the cheek
to grin and wink at her. But when she took another breath, the dizziness cleared
a little and then a little more until she could sit back against the hard bench
and look up at the sky without feeling nauseous.

‘You must think that I am a complete idiot,' she whispered, not
daring to look at Rick, who was still sitting next to her so quietly with his
arm around her waist. ‘First you offer to invest in my business and then...then
you ask me to fly off to California with you. I should be pinning a medal to
your chest and adding you to my Christmas card list. And how do I respond? By
almost throwing up on you. I am so sorry.'

‘Don't be.' He smiled and hugged her closer. ‘I get it. These
past few days have been quite a rush. I'm used to it. You're not. That's all.'
His voice warmed and he shuffled around so that he could tip up her chin and
gaze into her face. ‘You did warn me about your fear of heights and this is
quite a jump.'

‘How do you know that? What if I let you down and let myself
down at the same time? I don't want to disappoint you, and especially in
California in front of your family and the wine trade. All I have going for me
is my family name and some experience in running Elwood House. The last thing
you need is to be ridiculed for investing in an unknown.'

‘Not going to happen. And how do I know that I have hooked up
with a star? I can see it in your face. Your voice. The way you meshed with
Nicole and Jean Baptiste at their wedding and right here, tonight, in the love
you have for this community. I watched you. You can speak the dialect and they
are not fools. They know that you are the real deal, just as I do.'

Rick smiled. ‘You. Are not capable of letting anyone down. I
have been around long enough in sports to trust my gut instinct and I have never
been wrong. Nope. No trying to wriggle out of it now. We are in this crazy
project together.'

Someone inside the
auberge
started
playing the piano and the sound of the music drifted out of the porch and into
the garden, but Saskia barely heard the music. She was way too busy trying to
remember to breathe while she processed what Rick was saying.

Which was even more difficult when he stretched out his long
legs in front of him, apparently oblivious to the cold and the way the fine
cloth of his suit trousers strained under the pressure of the muscled thighs
below.

One side of his face was lit by the warm golden light streaming
out from the windows behind their heads, bringing the hard planes of those high
cheekbones into sharp focus. His powerful jaw and strong shoulders screamed out
authority and presence. He was a man who knew what he wanted and was not
prepared to take no for an answer.

‘What do you say, Saskia?' he said, his clear grey eyes locked
onto her face, his voice low and intense, anxious. ‘Are you willing to give us a
chance?'

‘Are you only talking about RB Wines or Elwood House?' she
asked, her voice almost a whisper.

His response was to slide his long, strong fingers between hers
and lock them there. Tight. The smiling crinkly grey eyes locked onto her and a
wide open mouth grin of delight and happiness cracked his face. ‘See. I knew
that you would work it out. No, I'm not. But hey, doesn't that sound good?' He
lifted one hand and wrote the words in the air. ‘Burgess and Elwood. Wine
Merchants to the stars. It's a winner. And Saskia and Rick isn't a bad
combination either. Kinda like that. California and then London won't know what
hit it.'

Saskia inhaled a deep breath, trying to process the words,
while his body was only inches away from her own, leaning towards her, begging
her to hold him, kiss him and caress him.

She swallowed hard and tried to form a sensible answer. ‘I
thought you couldn't wait to leave the city and head back to Chamonix and your
chalet?'

‘Angie has an excellent project team in London who are
desperate to show me what they can do without my constant interference. My
parents need me more right now.'

Saskia let out a long slow breath as his fingertips smoothed
her hair back down over her forehead and into the back of her skull. Making
speech impossible.

Then his voice softened to warm chocolate sauce capable of
melting the coldest heart. ‘I wouldn't want to start that journey with anyone
else but the girl I am with right now.'

London. The wine store. Elwood House. And a chance for
love.

This amazing man was offering her the chance to create
something wonderful and make all of those fantastical plans she had dreamed up
with Aunt Margot a reality. This man who she had only met a few days ago, yet
she felt that she had known him all of her life.

He was holding her dream out to her, and all she had to do was
say yes and it would be hers.

‘Think of me as your personal guide to having some fun. You
need to get out of the house and I'd like to introduce you to winemakers all
around the world. Say yes. Say that you will trust me and come with me.'

Trust him? Trust him with her life, her future. Her love?

‘Get out of the house?' She smiled and blinked a couple of
times to help clear her head. ‘I don't know about that part so much. I shall
still need to invest a lot of time in Elwood House if I want to see it fly. Even
if you do have your London office there.'

‘Elwood House? Oh gorgeous, think bigger for a moment. My
family company have a wine empire to run, and believe me, they could use your
skills. You could work for the family, be part of the family. It could be
great!'

What? Hold up!
‘What are you
talking about? I have been working for years to develop the skills to run my own
private venue. That's what I want. That's what I have always wanted.'

The sound of laughter broke through her thoughts and Saskia
pointed to the red geraniums still flowering in the window boxes behind her.

‘I spent years learning the trade in a place just like this
with my grandparents before I went to live with Aunt Margot. I can cook, clean,
work behind the bar, manage, do everything. But don't you see? It has to be my
own place. My mother thought that she could rely on my dad to take care of her
and her family. He was a charmer and a chancer and I don't blame her a bit for
falling fast and marrying him. But it was a disaster, Rick. We were left with
nothing when he left. Nothing.'

She sucked in a breath, hoping that he would fill the empty
silence, but he just sat there, looking at her as she dug an even deeper trench
to separate them.

‘I need Elwood House. It's my rock. The one place that I can
call my own. I cannot walk away from it. Not even for a few weeks. That's why I
agreed to think about buying from a London shop. So that I could be close to
home. I cannot risk letting it go. Not on...'

As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. The
man who had been holding her so lovingly, unwilling to let her move out of his
touch, stepped back. Moved away. Not physically, but emotionally.

The precious moment was gone. Trampled to fragments.

His face contorted with discomfort, pain, and closed down
before her eyes. The warmth was gone, and she cursed herself for being so
clumsy. She had lost him.

‘Not on someone like me. Right. I've got the message.'

His back straightened and he drew back, physically holding her
away from him. Her hands slid down his arms, desperate to hold onto the
intensity of their connection, and her words babbled out in confusion and
fear.

‘Let's not talk about it now. You have such a lot to celebrate
over the next few days when your family are all together for once in California.
We can start work when you are back in London.'

He turned away from her now, and sat back against the bench,
one hand still firmly clasped around hers.

‘I am not your dad, Saskia. I have never taken a risk with
anyone else's money or time. Promises. Remember?'

Rick ran his fingers back through his thick dark hair from his
forehead to neck. ‘No. I am not going to stop jumping off mountains or pushing
myself to the limits in everything that I do. I thought that you understood
that.'

The bitterness in his voice was such a contrast to the loving
man she had just been holding, Saskia took a breath before answering. ‘It's what
makes you who you are. I do understand that. Very clearly. It just takes some
getting used to.'

‘Well, that is not going to change. No way.'

He paused and licked his lips and the world seemed to still.
‘Tom died of a brain haemorrhage. What I didn't tell you was that he collapsed
in an airport after a twelve-hour flight after six days of back to back meetings
and presentations at a trade fair. I saw his diary. He would have been lucky to
snatch a few hours sleep a night.'

He dropped his head back. ‘Tom was a workaholic. Thirty-six
years old and single. He collapsed running to collect his bag from the luggage
carousel so that he could catch a connecting flight home in time for a morning
meeting. Isn't that the most ridiculous thing that you have ever heard? I miss
him every day and think about him every day and I'm not ashamed of saying that
out loud.'

Before Saskia could swallow down her tears in a burning throat
and form her reply, Rick slid his fingers from hers and got to his feet. He spun
around to face her, blocking everything else out of her sight.

‘Is that how you want me to live, Saskia? Is that the kind of
man you want to be with? To work with? Because, if it is, then you are
absolutely right. I am not the man for you. But I do know one thing.'

He stepped forward and took both of her hands and drew her to
her feet in one smooth movement so that they were standing chest to chest, thigh
to thigh, with only the cold night air separating them.

‘I know that you are an amazing woman with so much compassion
and intelligence and passion in your heart that I cannot get enough of you. We
are two of a kind, Saskia Elwood, and I want you in my life—but you have to make
that decision. You know who I am. You know where to find me.'

And, with that, he released her hands, tilted his head and
kissed her lips with a touch that was so light and so warm and so heartfelt that
she staggered under the weight of it. So that when he stepped back she had to
lean against the bench for support.

‘Goodnight. And thanks for a great day.'

‘No problem. Goodnight, Rick...' she whispered as he turned and
strode away.
Or was that goodbye?