Unforgettable

by Ann Christopher

  “Bye, Sean.”

  “It’s good advice,” Sean called after him.

  Daniel made a rude gesture over his shoulder as he started for the front door. Sean laughed and jogged down the path, disappearing into the darkness.

  Nigel emerged with a steaming cup of coffee as Daniel entered the building.

  “Where’s mine?”

  “Didn’t know how you took it,” Nigel said easily.

  “Black. Since birth.” Daniel briefly wondered if Nigel knew how Sean took his coffee, but decided such pettiness was beneath him. “Same as you.”

  “There’s plenty in the kitchen. Sean’s a good guy. Glad you brought him for a visit. He fits right in. He can stay in the carriage house as long as he wants.”

  Wow, Daniel thought sourly. There, in a few succinct sentences, was more praise for Sean, a near-stranger to Nigel, than Nigel had given Daniel in a lifetime. Still, Daniel managed a tight smile and decided that jealousy, like pettiness, was also beneath him.

  “Don’t scare Sean off. Make sure Isaiah keeps the craziness to a minimum.”

  “I’m not a magician,” Nigel said darkly. “Isaiah should be gone soon anyway. Speaking of leaving, you could have stuck around at the house.” He cleared his throat. “No one told you to find an apartment that quick. Your mother was sad.”

  “I appreciate that,” Daniel said, touched. “But I want to get settled into my own place.”

  Nigel clapped a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Good to have you here, son. Long time coming.”

  Daniel savored the moment, feeling unaccountably moved. See? If they were both willing to try, anything was possible. “Good to be here. So, listen, I smelled some mildew when I walked the vines a few minutes ago. I think we need to—”

  “There’s no mildew.”

  “It’s not bad yet, but we don’t want it to take hold—”

  “I’ve been at this since before you were born,” Nigel said flatly, slipping into full dictator mode. “I’d know if there was mildew. We keep an eye out for it.”

  “But—”

  “What you don’t want to do is show up here and trample on a bunch of toes your first day. You need to ease back, watch and learn.”

  Daniel tried to smile—they were working on a detente here, after all—but his face felt stiff. “I’m always learning. But I ran an award-winning vineyard in Napa and I thought you wanted my expertise when you invited me back and put me in charge.”

  “Well, if this is an example of your expertise, I’m a little worried,” Nigel said, chuckling.

  On any other day, this would have been the comment that caused Daniel’s head to blow off his shoulders, but because this was New Beginnings Day, he decided not to fight and die on this hill. When the light was better, he’d take a good look at the vines and get a more definitive idea of what was going on.

  Meanwhile...

  “Fine. I know we’re meeting with the staff at eight, but what time do I get to sit down with the CFO? And can I see the financials before that? You never e-mailed them to me and I don’t want to go in blind.”

  Nigel frowned as he sipped his coffee. “Not sure why you’re so determined to see the financials right off.”

  Daniel gaped at him. “Because I assume you’re going to want me to turn a profit. Hard to do that when I haven’t seen any numbers.”

  “We’re in the black, son.”

  “Last I heard, net profits were down three percent last year and on track to be down five percent this year. We need to figure out why.”

  “Who told you that?” Nigel asked sharply.

  “Mom.”

  Nigel’s nostrils flared. “Well, the financials are on my desk right now. I’m going to review them myself and get them to you next week. Maybe the week after.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to focus on getting to know our employees.”

  “Happy to do that, too. And speaking of our bottom line, I’m wondering a couple things.”

  “Like what?” Nigel asked with open suspicion.

  “Like whether we have some redundancies. I made a spreadsheet for you to take a look at. Other vineyards this size get away with about two-thirds of the employees we—”

  “I don’t need to see any damn spreadsheet to know we’re not firing anyone! These people have been with me for years!”

  “We’ll have to see,” Daniel said. “I think we need to keep all our options on the table.”

  “Options? What options?”

  The old man’s eyes now threatened to bulge out of their sockets. Daniel could just imagine his mother’s face if he were forced to go home and tell her he’d driven Nigel to a second heart attack within five minutes of coming to work for him.

  “We don’t need to get into it now—”

  “What options?”

  Daniel sighed. “I made a presentation to show you.”

  “A presentation?”

  “On my computer. For example, do we need to invest in new equipment? Should we get into blends?”

  “Blends!”

  “If we want to get into blends, would it make more sense to plant our own vines, or do we want to buy them from another outfit? They’re forecasting a bad winter, so should we—”

  “If you think you’re going to come in here and uproot everything I’ve built for decades, you’d damn well better think again, boy!” Nigel’s voice boomed against all the hard surfaces in the building. “I built Harper Rose from the ground up! I’m not just going to turn it over to you—”

  “You did turn it over to me,” Daniel said coldly, his grip on his temper slipping. “And I’m not saying we should do all or any of that. I’m saying we need to think strategically about the long term—”

  “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?”

  With that, Daniel lost it.

  “Well, what did you bring me here for if you don’t want any of my ideas? I could be back in Napa dealing with professionals who run their businesses like businesses instead of like their own personal hobbies!” Daniel roared.

  So much for New Beginnings Day.

  “I wanted you to come help me! To take some of this burden off my shoulders—”

  “You want someone to rubber stamp all your decisions,” Daniel insisted.

  “I do not—”

  “There’s not going to be much burden on your shoulders in five years, when your declining profits have turned into losses and you have to sell or declare bankruptcy,” Daniel said.

  “I want you out of here,” Nigel said with a voice like death.

  “Get real. I just got here.”

  “No son of mine is going to come in here and flip everything upside down! You’re letting me down! You think this is what I expect from you?”

  Daniel snorted. “Stop with the temper tantrum.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  But Daniel had had enough of this whole discussion. Weren’t they both on the same side here? Didn’t they both want to make the vineyard wildly successful?

  “Look, old man. You wanted me back. I’m back. You’re not going to put a muzzle on me and you’re not going to fire me. I gave up a six-figure job for you. So we need to make this work.”

  “This was a mistake,” Nigel said, his voice dripping with quiet venom. “I should have left you where you were.”

  Daniel flinched. “Maybe. But you’re stuck with me now.”

  A few seconds of mutual glaring ensued. Nigel blinked first, which Daniel considered a victory. So he wheeled around to head for his office before Nigel said something else and got in the last word.

  Fucking New Beginnings Day. Daniel snorted out a derisive laugh. What kind of fool believed in—

  Right on cue, his phone buzzed inside his pocket.

  Zoya.

  His muscles tensed with a sudden case of nerves as he checked the display with shaky hands:

  I don’t think lunch is a good idea. Thanks anyway.

  Wit
h a goddamn smiley face.

  Bitterness overtook Daniel, covering every square inch of him the way mildew would soon be covering these vines.

  So there it was. His entire day turned to shit.

  And the sun wasn’t even up yet.

  Zoya didn’t want to have a drink with, talk to, watch the game with, smile at or have lunch with Daniel. He supposed he’d made progress on the spending the night front, but his outlook with Zoya was as grim as it had ever been, and certainly as bad as it was with his father.

  The upshot with the two most difficult people in his life?

  Daniel could hope for fresh starts all he wanted to, but the bottom line would never change.

  Neither his father nor Zoya wanted a damn thing to do with him.

  Chapter 14

  Daniel was slumped in a chair by the fireplace when Zoya let herself in just after ten that night. The TV? Off. The fireplace? Dark. The only light came from a floor lamp next to him, which somehow cast his face in shadows, harsh lines and jagged angles. A bottle of red wine and a large and half-empty glass sat on the end table, within easy reach of his shirt-sleeved arm.

  The scene seemed to belong in some art museum:

  Study of a Man, His Wine and His Attitude.

  She froze on the threshold, hair on the back of her neck prickling, feeling as though she’d been dropped by the side of a road at the leading edge of hurricane.

  Uh-oh said the little voice in her head.

  Uh. Oh.

  “Hey.” Taking things nice and slow, she pulled the key out of the lock, put it back into the pocket of her robe, shut the door and warily took a couple steps inside. “How are you?”

  Those moody eyes watched her, tracking her movements the way a pissed-off lion in a cage eyeballs a mouse that has the temerity to wake him.

  After a long moment, he drained his glass, put it back down and smiled. The utter lack of warmth—or even humanity—in his face terrified her. “I’m great. Just enjoying a bottle of my father’s merlot.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No. But it’s not really a good night for me, so...”

  Zoya nodded and tried to pretend being kicked out after needing five minutes in the hallway to work up her courage to come in was no skin off her nose. She’d lived her entire day for this moment when she’d see him again, but evidently, he didn’t feel the same. Well, grow up, Zoya. They were consenting adults, right? Tonight, after what had probably been a long first day at his new job, he didn’t feel like consenting. It happened. No big deal. Not the end of the world.

  If only all her raging insecurities didn’t choose that moment to pop their little heads up like meerkats among the savannah grass.

  Was he sick of her already?

  Did he regret giving her the key?

  Were three nights in a row too much Zoya for him?

  “Oh,” she said brightly. “Okay.”

  She turned and walked back to the door, where a minor epiphany hit her. Maybe his bad mood was her fault for blowing off his lunch invite. An apology might make sense.

  “Listen.” She retraced her steps, coming closer this time. “If this is about lunch today, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just think it makes more sense if we stick to our arrangement.”

  Judging by the way his lips twisted, he saw the unintentional irony in her statement. A strict interpretation of their arrangement probably didn’t include tender moments like the one they’d shared last night, when she’d confessed a bit about her feelings, spending the entire night together or her showing up for a third night in a row.

  A strict interpretation of their arrangement definitely didn’t include the growing obsession she had for him (or was it merely a relapse into the old obsession, from which she’d detoxed?), which demanded that she think about him every waking moment (and many sleeping moments) of every day.

  More meerkats popped up.

  What was Daniel doing now?

  How was his first day of work going?

  How was his reunion with his family going?

  Would he ever stop hating her?

  Nor was their arrangement supposed to be about spending time together over lunch like friends. That way lay madness. It was hard enough maintaining emotional boundaries when she gave him carte blanche with her body. How the hell would she do it if they spent non-sex time together?

  No. Much as the idea of lunch appealed to her, she couldn’t do it.

  “Our arrangement?” he asked in a quiet voice like a ticking bomb.

  “We’re just about sex, right?”

  “Clearly.”

  “So...we’re cool?”

  “As cucumbers.”

  “Great,” she said without feeling the slightest bit of relief. “Well...bye.”

  He stared at her with those unyielding eyes, saying nothing.

  Once again, she headed for the door.

  Once again, her self-destructive heart screamed for her to find a way to stay.

  When she heard the clink of the bottle of wine against the glass and heard the generous slosh of liquid, she seized her chance.

  “Yeah, okay.” She marched back to him and put her hands on her hips. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Something clearly happened today.”

  He abruptly stood, much to her dismay, looming over her to breach her space and her equilibrium. She backed up a hasty step and watched while he drained this new glass of wine, muscles working in his throat as he swallowed.

  “Watch it.” His voice sounded silky as he put the glass down and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm. “You’re tiptoeing outside the lines of our agreement. One of us might get confused, right? We don’t have lunch, we don’t talk about our days and we sure as hell don’t get to the real reason why we’re so angry at each other, do we? Never that.”

  “Daniel…”

  “And it’s ironic that you’re asking about my feelings when we both know the only part of me you care about is my dick.”

  “Daniel.”

  “But since we’re playing this game—another game—with each other, I’ll play along. Just to satisfy your curiosity. I had the world’s worst first day at work today. Against my better judgment, I gave up a good job in Napa, a great salary, and came back here only to discover that, just as I suspected, my father has no intention of letting me contribute to Harper Rose in any meaningful way. Despite all his promises, he’s still a dictator. One heart attack doesn’t change a sixty-five-year-old personality. He’d rather run the business into the ground—and, trust me, it’s deep into the ground already—than have one ounce of faith or trust in me or my skills. I gave up a life to come back here for a pipe dream. To no one’s surprise but mine, my father still doesn’t want to be bothered with me any more than he’s wanted to be bothered with me my whole life. That’s it in a nutshell. You happy?”

  She hesitated, her head spinning.

  “No, I’m not happy. I’m sorry you’re going through that. You do a great job at everything you put your mind to. It’s your father’s loss.”

  Daniel’s expression twisted through disbelief and what looked like hurt before settling on anger as he reached for the bottle again. “Are you for real? You don’t want to be bothered with me any more than he does.”

  He started to pour, but sudden bitterness made her reckless enough to lash out and snatch the glass from him. He poured a few drops on the floor before catching himself, shrugging and drinking directly from the bottle.

  Rising worry made her shrill. “What are you doing to yourself, Daniel? Stop it!”

  “Nope. See, this is what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to stand here and act like you really care about me.”

  “I am allowed to express concern about your well-being.”

  “No,” he said coldly, eyes glittering. “You damn sure are not.”

  “Fine.” She reached a jerky hand into her pocket and pulled out the key. “This was always a bad idea anyway. Here’s your key. I won’t bother yo
u again.”

  He ignored the key. “We’re not doing that either. You’re not marching off like you’re the wounded party. You are not the wounded party here.”

  “I’m not standing here like some punching bag, Daniel. I’m not letting you vent all your anger at me.”

  “Why not?” he asked, his tone deathly calm. “You earned it.”

  Zoya stiffened.

  Uh-oh, said that voice in her head, screaming now.

  Uh-oh.

  They’d tiptoed outside their arrangement and were now brushing up against a place she didn’t want to go. Could never allow herself to go. Not if she wanted to stay sane.

  So she pivoted and started for the door, with real momentum this time.

  “I’m not going over this again with you.”

  Before she got three steps, he was right in front of her, blocking her way.

  “Again?” A wild light flashed in his eyes. “We never went over it at all, Kitten, did we?”

  The use of his nickname as a weapon unhinged something inside her. Actually unhooked it from its moorings and left her flying blind and panicked.

  She could tell herself to stay calm—to never let him pierce her armor—all she wanted. That didn’t mean she could protect herself when he hurled his steel-tipped spear at the center of her heart.

  “You said this wasn’t a good time for you,” she reminded him with more than a tinge of desperation in her tone. “You wanted me to leave. I’m trying to leave.”

  “Sorry. Now I want you to stick around so we can get past the mountain of bullshit in the middle of our relationship. I’m sick of it. What about you?”

  “I’m not rehashing the past,” she said, striving for cool indifference.

  “It’s not a rehash if you never explained it in the first place. Tell me why you did what you did. I want to know how my little kitten could be so cruel and stab me in the heart like she didn’t give a fuck.”

  “Don’t you judge me!” Zoya heard the dry sob in her voice and tried to lock it down. “I did what I thought was right for us at the time!”

  Daniel’s face contorted into such a snarl—oh, God, look at the cords working in his neck—that he had a tough time getting the words out. “For…us?”