“So, my friend prefers the giant dollar store white chocolate Easter rabbits to a Belgian chocolate egg, for example. It’s packed with stuff that’s borderline fit for human consumption, but she loves it anyway.”
Connor leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, and, sweet baby Jesus, his arms bulged. “That’s gross.”
Emerson took a sip of wine and noticed his had gone untouched. She admired his discipline. “But that’s only because you look like a guy who probably meal plans with sweet potatoes every Sunday and counts your macros. The rest of us humans like to combine the luxurious with the glutinous…the five stars with the…well, whatever the opposite of a fancy restaurant is.”
“Have you been checking me out, Emerson?”
Gah. She had. “It would be hard not to,” she replied truthfully.
Connor’s laughter was rich and deep. “Do you always speak this bluntly?”
Did she? Or was it just him making her ramble? She tried to remember the asshole on the airplane. The guy who had glared at her more than once. The guy who had accused her of being a lush over one teeny-tiny measure of wine. Perhaps he’d been having a bad day. Lord knew she’d had enough of them the last three months.
“You seem to bring out the worst in me,” she admitted honestly.
Connor unfolded his arms, and she couldn’t help but follow the movement. He placed his hand on her knee beneath the table and squeezed it gently before removing it. “Apparently, you do the same to me. So, what’s number one on your list?”
She could still feel the imprint of his warmth on her skin, making it hard to focus on the question. “I was once in a mall in Cleveland, and I had the most amazing food court General Tso’s Chicken. One day, I’m going back to see if it tastes as good as I remember it.”
Laughter burst from Connor. “You want to revisit a Chinese stall in a mall?”
“I do. Don’t tell me there’s no food you crave. Like, ever done a midnight run for a dirty burger?”
Connor appeared to think for a moment. “Swim meet I went to in Toronto once. Got me hooked on shawarma until I realized I’d put on four pounds over the course of the four-day event.”
This time it was her turn to laugh. Connor Finch looked as though he carried the same percent body fat as a coat hanger. She couldn’t imagine him splurging and was proven right when the dry chocolate brownie with melty ice cream came out and he lifted a hand to signal to the server that he wasn’t having any.
As dessert came to an end, the awarding of the medals began, starting with tequila. Two bronze medals, two silver medals, and one gold were handed out to enthusiastic recipients. The same happened for whiskey, only this time a double gold was issued, meaning every judge in the panel had awarded the whiskey a gold medal. Emerson made a note in her phone to contact the distillery and congratulate them.
Then it came to gin.
“Good luck,” Connor whispered in her ear, and for a moment she was struck with the question of how he knew this was the category she had entered. She racked her brain to recall if she’d told him.
But Dyer’s was reasonably well known in Denver, and if that was where Connor actually lived rather than just where he’d caught the plane, he might have heard of the family and put two and two together.
She ran her tongue nervously along her lower lip, wishing she’d checked that there were no bits in her teeth from dinner.
“And the bronze medals go to…”
Emerson paid attention, her heart raced, and her vision began to blur. When they didn’t call out Dyer’s name, she experienced a simultaneous rush of hope that they might get a silver medal and a downpour of reality that it was unlikely.
“And the silver medals go to…”
There was a hope the gin was good enough for silver. The bronze medals had been awarded in alphabetical order, and when Ginevere Distilleries won silver, disappointment began to take root.
The disappointment flourished and bloomed when the gold medals were announced. Only two of them, and neither were Dyer’s. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t even matter. But winning one would have pepped up the morale of everyone working their butts off to keep the distillery afloat. Now she had to go back to work and tell everyone they didn’t win a medal, and the thought was depressing.
The enjoyment she’d felt at the start of the night, from chatting with Connor, began to drain from her bones, leaving her tired and even more resentful that she’d have to make her way up to her room in the heels she’d borrowed from Olivia.
It was hard to admit that it was pure ego preventing her from looking in Connor’s direction. The last thing she needed was commiseration from a man she’d just met. Even though she’d bet he’d dish out nice sympathy. Perhaps he’d buy her a drink and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. They could sit close on those bar stools, arm grazing arm, a hand placed on a thigh. She’d give him an hour before she went back to her room to lick her wounds.
“And finally, we have a double gold medal in gin this year.”
Emerson grabbed her phone, ready to make a note of who won the prestigious award. The award that meant every judge, not just the majority, had rated the liquor as a gold medal standard. Perhaps they could learn something from the winner, from their distilling process.
“Dyer’s Medallion, from Dyer’s Gin Distillery in Denver.”
Emerson started to type it before she realized that it was her. It was them. It was Jake and his stupid process that took five times longer than it should and drove her to distraction every week. It was her father and his obsession of ensuring the business stayed in the family. It was Olivia. And her. And everyone else who kept the place running.
“Holy shit,” she muttered, then louder. “Holy shit.”
When she returned to her seat in what felt like milliseconds later with a statue in her hands and a certificate proving their double gold status, Emerson could barely hear the applause over the beating of her heart. Somehow, she’d successfully navigated the steps, made a speech that she prayed was coherent, and walked back to their table without tripping.
She needed to message her father and…the thought of her dad made her chest tighten. He’d missed the distillery’s greatest moment.
Emerson shook her head to clear her thoughts. Jake and Liv would help her celebrate. This was huge.
A waiter appeared almost as soon as she sat down, holding an ice bucket and a bottle of champagne.
“I figured this deserved something a little more special than house white,” Connor said with a grin.
“Thank you,” she said, placing the statue on the table in front of her. “That was really thoughtful of you.”
She double-checked the name on the statue.
Yup. Dyer’s Medallion was right there. Connor offered her a glass, and she reached for it, their fingers touching briefly. Her heart raced, and she couldn’t tell where adrenaline from the win and heat from his touch met. Instead, she took a sip. “Mmm,” she said, closing her eyes as the bubbles fluttered over her tongue, her full palette enjoying the experience. “As much as I love cheap food, you can’t beat quality over quantity sometimes.”
“I’m guessing it tastes better than the wine you had on the plane yesterday.”
Considering the brand name on the bottle and its probable cost, it was a given. She leaned closer to Connor. “That was incredibly judgy of you.”
Connor’s shoulder met hers. “You were in my seat,” he whispered, the warmth of his breath causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end.
She was certain he saw her slight shiver. “I thought we agreed it was ours.” Emerson tried not to focus on the way his leg brushed up against hers. The way the warmth of his skin seeped through the thin layers of clothing between them.
For a moment, she wondered if he might close the gap between their lips and kiss her because if he did, she—
“Congratulations,” said Mary-Anne, thrusting her hand towards Emerson.
E
merson jumped slightly, while Connor smirked. The presenter had temporarily left the stage. There was obviously a break in proceedings.
“Thank you,” Emerson blurted, unable to transition from the intimate moment with Connor smoothly. She turned to Mary-Anne and realized the whole table had been waiting to congratulate her. Then there were the people at neighboring tables. And she hadn’t even messaged her family.
One attractive, blue-eyed, black-haired man had taken her common sense away.
Shaking off the feelings Connor had stirred up inside her, she pulled her work face on and smiled and shook hands, fending off questions on availability of product, exclusive distribution deals, and interviews. This was so much Olivia’s bag, and she’d do a great job handling them. It made her miss her sister’s presence even more.
She found herself relieved to see Sven waiting to congratulate her because it was safe ground. Discussions about how the win might affect sales and tonnage of botanicals was so much more her jam.
By the time she was finished, and the next round of awards announced, she turned to take her chair and found the seat next to hers was empty.
It remained that way when she texted her family.
It remained that way when Dyer’s Medallion won Best in Class for unaged white spirits.
And it remained that way when Emerson left the ballroom with her trophies.
Connor Finch had disappeared as smoothly as he’d appeared.
The only downside to an otherwise perfect night.
Chapter Two
I thought we agreed it was ours.
Ours.
The word kept reverberating through Connor in Emerson’s husky voice as he placed his work bag on his office desk and packed it up for the evening. The last words Emerson had whispered to him before his father had messaged in a rage, ruining Connor’s evening.
His father had been following the event online and had seen Dyer’s Gin Distillery win.
While he would never admit it to the woman herself, Connor had been disappointed the previous day to scan the boarding area of his flight home and not see her. He’d held out hope she would board until the airplane was actually in the air. But even then, he’d thought about her. The way her smile reached her eyes, so genuinely happy. And the way she’d leaned toward him conspiratorially when they whispered to each other. It had been a bonus that she’d filled out that dress the way she had, leaving him wondering what she’d look like without it.
Yet, the only person she’d seemed even remotely comfortable with besides himself had been the guy she’d waved to on the stairs, Sven. They’d joked about increasing her botanicals orders for the next few weeks. Then she’d gone off talking about tonnage and capacities and the like. Her ability to do complex math in between sips of the champagne he’d bought her on a whim impressed him.
The way she’d spoken, suggesting of constrained production rates for what appeared to be a highly successful product, was a problem. A best-in-class medal winner needed unconstrained production rates to see just how far it could go, how much it could sell.
With investment, the company could do well.
With his investment and oversight, it could be a gold mine.
After Paul Dyer had shafted his father, his dad had persevered and worked multiple jobs until he’d saved enough to create a small liquor import and export business. It had taken over a decade of back-breaking work to build the success they now enjoyed. But it was a long stretch from the premium products his father aspired to. Without a distinctive family-owned brand, he had nothing to build on. There wasn’t a premium product in their lineup. They were good old cheap and cheerful liquor.
Connor locked his office door at seven p.m. exactly, as usual, and walked to the exit. He planned to walk to Charles’s apartment where he was meeting Charles, Ben, and Blake for poker…just what he needed to blow off some steam.
His father and Uncle Cameron were already at the elevator. He knew people viewed his position as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy at thirty-two as nepotism. Yes, Finch Liquor Distribution was his father’s company. But he’d worked hard to prove his worth. While his father dined out on the fact Connor, his heir apparent, had garnered the best grades possible at Harvard, in real life they hadn’t proved anything to his father beyond the fact that education was expensive. Every day since he’d joined, his father and uncle had attempted to extract the proverbial pound of flesh they felt he owed for the expense.
“You got a second, Dad?” he said, wanting to share his thoughts about acquisition.
“I’m heading over to Cameron’s for dinner, can we chat in the elevator?”
“Sure.” The doors closed once the three of them were inside. “I’ve been giving some thought to the next five years. We’re going to see continued growth in the small batch premium products. The artisanal flare that has revived products such as gin and vodka. Average alcohol consumption is decreasing, but the expectation is, especially in the twenty-one to twenty-nine segment, that if they aren’t drinking often, it had better be the best quality when they do. Nobody is going on social media celebrating drinking middle-of-the-road price points.”
“And?” Cameron said drolly.
Connor raised his eyebrow in impatience and looked at his father. “To keep pace with that change, I think we need to shift part of our portfolio from the B-class and mass market brands to capture this market. We need to innovate, find the best labels, and bring them in-house. We might even need to buy some of them, help invest in their businesses to increase volume without messing with what makes their spirits unique. It’s going to take quite a pivot, but I believe we can, and need to, do it.”
Cameron attempted to hide a smirk behind his hand. Fuck, the man wasn’t even subtle anymore. “I feel like this is a stretch, fueled by your own personal objectives for when you take over,” he said, his nasal tone highlighting his boredom. “Your father has successfully steered us for decades. I know you want to make your own mark, Connor, but this is not the time or way to do it.”
“And that’s why I’m bringing it to my father, not you, for consideration. This is a long-game play and won’t fuel any immediate success. But it’s a move to protect us in the long term. Look, I know how you feel about Dyer’s, and it doesn’t need to be them, although we’d be foolish to ignore them,” Connor said, trying to get them back on track. “But if we don’t tap into this market, we’re going to see a significant drop in our sales with nothing to plug the gap.”
“You don’t need to play catch up, Donovan,” Cameron advised. “It feels like a lot of outlay.”
“Says the guy with moth-balled purse strings. Dad, it won’t be. We have underperforming assets we can let go of. We research the leading up-and-coming brands and make a bet on those we believe can make it to the big leagues. We do our homework. Casamigos Tequila went from an idea George Clooney had to a billion-dollar sale in four years. It’s doable.”
“I’m not totally adverse to the idea,” his father said. “Come see me tomorrow, and we’ll discuss.”
“I’ll do that.” Connor made a mental note to ensure the meeting took place at a time Cameron was busy so he couldn’t invite himself.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, Connor stepped out before it headed down to the parking garage. He’d left his car at home and was grateful his father hadn’t asked what was in his bag. He probably would’ve lost his shit in the elevator to learn there was a bottle of Dyer’s Medallion gin in it.
A cool breeze blew on the walk to Charles’s apartment as he thought back to Saturday night. It had hit him, somewhere between saying goodbye to his father and drinking his mediocre room-service beer, that he envied Emerson—that she and her family had actually built something worthy of an award. It was the reason he’d bought a bottle to take to poker night so he could try it.
“Hello, loser,” Charles said, opening the apartment door and allowing a waft of something garlicky and delicious to filter into the hallway. Charle
s’s Asian fusion restaurant had opened the previous year with a financial helping hand from Connor, but as the smaller, silent, and culinarily incapable partner, he left the running to Charles. And the Brit hadn’t let him down. The restaurant opening had been met with rave reviews and a booking list that went out for months.
Connor raised an eyebrow. “Nice to see you, too. Ben and Blake here?” He’d gone to high school with the two of them, and they’d introduced him to Charles at one of their poker nights four years earlier.
“Already eating. Wild mushroom risotto, rocket salad, and I’ll even make you a poached egg on top to offset all the carbs and butter involved in making food that tastes like food instead of the shit that you eat.”
“Not going to argue,” Connor replied. “I’ll take the eggs. Make it two, thanks.” Connor headed into the open plan apartment and found his friends. “Ben, how’d the IPO go?”
Ben had just taken the company he’d built over the last six years from private to public. The green energy provider was now listed on the stock exchange.
Redheaded Ben looked up from his plate. “It did okay. Institutional investors were slow to respond, but the price jumped and helped postlaunch, so the valuation was obviously conservative.”
Connor grinned as he emptied his bag of the gin he’d brought. Ben was a pessimist, a glass-half-empty kind of guy currently sitting on a hundred-million-dollar payday.
He turned to Blake. “How’s the new apartment?” He loaded up his plate with salad and what he hoped was a reasonable portion of the buttery risotto.
Blake stood and rinsed his plate in the sink. “Talia went overboard with the fucking plants. They’re everywhere. Can’t even take a shit in peace without tendrils of this thing hanging from the ceiling tickling the back of your head. But otherwise, cohabiting is better than I hoped, to be honest. Can highly recommend.”
Love in Numbers: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Love Distilled Book 1) Page 3