Summer in Napa (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel)

by Marina Adair

  “These aren’t yours.” Not a single recipe had ever appeared on the restaurant menu. “And you have no legal rights to them.”

  “The judge ruled that any and all items ever served in Pairing belong to the restaurant. Read the ruling.” Jeffery smiled and Lexi’s heart stopped.

  She quickly ran through every dessert she had served at the restaurant, trying to remember a time when she had prepared any of these. She couldn’t. But she could sense that she was screwed. Jeffery never showed his cards unless he was certain he held the winning hand.

  Then she saw who was CCed at the top of the e-mail, recognized the name, and her heart literally stopped. Right there in her chest. As though waiting for her to catch up before it broke.

  “I don’t understand,” she muttered, looking at the Montgomery Distributions corporate logo written in big-business blue and back to Marc’s name screaming at her from the top line. She tried to take in what it all meant, convince herself that she hadn’t been played, that she hadn’t made a colossal mistake in judgment—again.

  She couldn’t. She couldn’t even bring herself to speak for fear that she was right.

  Mrs. Kincaid must have sensed the drama and decided to give up her window view for a front-row seat, because before Jeffery could explain, the bell chimed. But when Lexi looked up, it wasn’t just Mrs. Kincaid who had come in to witness the scene, but also Mrs. Moberly, Mrs. Rose, and Mrs. Craver.

  “Lexi.” Mrs. Kincaid greeted her with a hesitant smile and took a seat at the far corner table. “Jeffery, and other.”

  “Don’t mind us,” Mrs. Moberly said, taking a seat as well and making herself busy wiping down an already-clean table. “We’re just in need of an afternoon coffee and treat. But no hurry, dear; we’re in no rush.”

  Mrs. Rose glared at Jeffery and whispered, loud enough for most of Main Street to hear, “We’re here as long as you need us.” With a decisive nod she took her seat and patted her purse, which according to Mrs. Lambert at the Grapevine Prune and Clip was packing a whole lot more than lipstick and her extra set of teeth.

  But Lexi could survive three backseat bakers, the town’s busiest busybodies, and her ex and his new wife. It was when she saw Marc, standing frozen in the doorway looking back at her, that she knew.

  Her heart slowly gave one last beat for the man she had fallen in love with.

  And then it shattered.

  “The recipes are mine,” Lexi whispered, her voice so small and so full of hurt, Marc’s gut twisted painfully.

  Marc opened his mouth to say that he didn’t want them, that he’d never meant to hurt her, but nothing came out. The pain in his gut made it impossible to swallow, let alone speak.

  The last thing he wanted to do was have this conversation here, in her grandmother’s bakery, in front of her ex-husband, his new wife, and a handful of customers. But he had waited too long, and he was out of time—and excuses.

  “These recipes belong to my family,” she said, louder this time, holding out a piece of paper. “And no one is taking them from me.” She dropped the paper to her side. “You knew. This whole time you knew.”

  God, his heart was breaking.

  “Let me explain,” he said, moving toward her and coming to a dead stop after only one step. Because Lexi backed away and held out a shaky hand, begging him to keep his distance.

  “Please. Explain. Because I want to know how my family recipes, desserts that were never served at Pairing, ended up in some contract between you, my cheat of an ex, and some distribution company.”

  “Two years ago,” he said, closing the distance between them and aching to take her into his arms, “I came to visit and you made me a batch of your grandma’s éclairs.”

  She nodded, her eyes big and wet, looking up as if she was silently pleading for him to make this all go away. He wanted to. So badly, but he wasn’t sure how.

  “You joked that the ones in France were better,” she whispered.

  The joke had been one made out of desperation, a tactic he’d adopted early on when Jeff and Lexi started dating.

  They’d spent most of the evening crammed in a booth at the back of the restaurant, talking about high school, home, the progress he’d made on the hotel. The more they talked, the closer Lexi got, until she was so close that he couldn’t smell, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but her. A bottle and a half into the conversation, she’d rested her hand on his knee and leaned in and laughed at something he said—and Marc had lost it.

  After years of keeping his distance, playing by the rules, ignoring the insane chemistry between them, he went in for the kiss, promising himself that he just needed to taste her one time—when Jeffery had appeared from the back office. Marc whispered something stupid in her ear, made her laugh, goaded her into baking him some of her great-grandmother’s éclairs, and vowed never to go back for another visit. At least not one that included time with Lexi.

  “But you weren’t even a customer,” she said. “You were a guest.”

  “Of the restaurant,” Jeffery added, and Marc wanted to punch him. “You made them in my kitchen and served them to my guest. Just like the rest of the recipes on the list.”

  “The rest of the recipes I made as a favor, for you,” Lexi said to Jeff. “You said you had an important client to impress who had a sweet tooth. I assumed it was for an investor for opening Pairing West Coast. Then again, I assumed you weren’t sleeping with another woman at the time.”

  “Either way, they belong to Pairing.”

  “Shut up, Jeff,” Marc snapped.

  “What?” Jeff shrugged like a guy who didn’t have a fucking care in the world, like Lexi’s world wasn’t shattering while they stood there and watched, like he’d never even given a damn about his ex-wife.

  “When I teased you into making the éclairs…” Marc paused, seeing how everything would look to her, in this moment. Suddenly every wild, shitty, crazy thing he’d ever done came back with such force it smacked the wind out of him. He was going to lose her. And it was all his fault. “I am so sorry, Lexi.”

  She looked at him for a long, tense moment. Her face crumpled, and the first tear rolled down her cheek.

  “No, sugar, don’t cry.” He ran his thumb across her cheek. “I know I fucked up. I was going to tell you, but I got scared.” Another tear fell, then another. “I’ll fix this. You need to believe me.”

  Unable to hold back, he reached out and cupped her face between his hands. “Please, believe me.”

  “I’m trying, Marc,” she whispered. “But it’s really hard. I don’t know what’s real, and I’m scared that this whole thing was—”

  “Wait,” Jeff interrupted. “What do you mean, you’ll fix this? Do I need to remind you how much money we have riding on this? Monte, your brothers, hell, my restaurant.”

  Jeff paused, his eyes darting between Lexi and Marc, a grin sliding across his face so slowly Marc wanted to smack it off. It was an ah-yeah grin that he’d flashed Marc a hundred times, reserved for poker night and mornings after at the gym. “Jesus Christ, really?”

  Jeff was so obvious he might as well have given him a high five and scratched a notch in Marc’s belt that read, Alexis Moreau, Great Lay.

  Lexi snatched her hand back and wrapped it around her stomach. The look of utter humiliation on her face said she got the message loud and clear.

  “I know I told you to keep an eye on her, but damn, really?” Jeff shook his head, and Marc wondered what he’d ever seen in the guy. Under all of the shine and flash was a tool. A worthless piece of shit who didn’t see anything outside the realm of Jeff.

  “What part of shut the hell up did you miss?” Marc snapped, but when he turned back to Lexi, his anger fled and all he felt was this gut-wrenching knowledge that Gabe had been right. He’d played this one fast and reckless and he’d blown it. And in the process he’d lost Lexi.

  “You were keeping an eye on me?”

  “Lexi.” He took a step forward, but she backed
away again, shaking her head.

  “This whole thing was a big game to you guys. Just like back in high school when you set out to seduce a new conquest. The menu, my grandma’s books, the bistro, the dinner at your family’s house, all of it. Only this time you weren’t just out to get in my pants—” Her voice caught and her eyes went round with understanding. He knew where she was going, and she was so wrong. “That was fake too. All of it was fake.”

  She looked around the bakery, as if remembering that there was a roomful of people watching and chronicling the most humiliating moment of her life.

  “Lexi, that’s not true.” But she wasn’t listening.

  “You made me feel sexy and beautiful and like I was special.”

  “You are, God, baby, you are. To me, you always have been.”

  “You told me I could make the bistro a success. And I listened and like a stupid woman I believed you, Marc. I believed you so much that I stopped listening to the voice inside of me, warning me to take it slow. I believed you to the point that I don’t think I have any belief left to give.”

  She reached up and untied the top of her apron, the lavender one that he loved so much. Folding it in half, she laid it on the counter and gave him one last look. A look he would never forget. He knew that whatever Jeff had done to her was nothing compared to what he’d just accomplished. Marc had played and lost, and in the process he’d completely devastated her world.

  With a whispered good-bye, she walked out the door, the bells of the bakery giving a final jingle. Marc somehow made his way to the window and watched her disappear behind the alley. He rested his head against the glass when he was sure that she was gone, and that she wasn’t coming back.

  And that’s when he finally understood. Understood that old man Charles wouldn’t come to the Showdown, wouldn’t try to ruin the wine tasting, wouldn’t continue this sixty-year feud. Because losing the woman you love to another man could make you do stupid things. But losing the woman you love all on your own—there’s no coming back from that.

  A few seconds, a few minutes, hell, a lifetime could have passed. Marc stood there, looking out the window and replaying every decision he’d ever made with regard to Lexi. He was surprised when he turned around to find everyone still in the bakery staring at him, including his nonna, who must have come out at some point during the argument, because she was looking at him with shame.

  He didn’t blame her. He was ashamed. And angry. And he hurt so fucking bad he couldn’t breathe right.

  When ChiChi took a step forward, Marc said, “I gotta go,” and walked out the door, down the street past the Paws and Claws Day Spa, past Bottles and Bottles: Pharmacy and Wine, and kept going until he found himself walking through his family’s vineyard and somehow made it to Gabe’s front door.

  The door opened. Gabe took one look at Marc and took a step back, holding the door open wide. “Aw, man, come on in, you look like hell.”

  Marc didn’t move.

  “I blew it, Gabe.”

  “Can we fix it?”

  “I don’t think so.” He rested his forehead against the doorframe. “She likes my dog, doesn’t take my crap, and looks at me like I can be the kind of man Dad was. When she cooks…she wears this apron…” He paused and looked up at his brother and felt everything inside tighten. “And I love her so damn much that I have no idea how I’m supposed to wake up tomorrow and pretend like my life hasn’t just fucking ended.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Lexi’s phone rang again, and she let it go to voice mail—again. It was two in the morning. And probably Marc. And she just couldn’t bring herself to answer it.

  She didn’t know if he was calling to ask if she was still going to cater the Showdown tomorrow or if he was calling to apologize and beg for her back. Either way, she couldn’t stomach it. If it was the first, she’d cry because he wasn’t calling to apologize and beg for her back. If it was the latter, she was afraid she’d cry because she’d have to tell him where he could shove his apology. And she was tired of crying. She was also drunk.

  So when the phone stopped ringing, she waited for a long beat, then decided to pour herself another teacup of Pricilla’s Angelica and grabbed her needle and thread.

  Earlier that evening, she had used the seam ripper to take the Morning, Hot Stuff out of her apron, replacing it with Deflated Cream Puff before she finally settled on I Love You, Dumb-ass!

  She had just finished putting a black heart in place of the period at the bottom of the exclamation mark when the phone rang again.

  Knotting the thread, she set her craft aside and downed her teacup. It was ringing for the third time when she finally looked over at the stack of three-by-five cards resting on her pillows that Abby had given her. They were a series of prompts for her to refer to in case she gave in to the weakness and answered. Most of them were so profane she would be too embarrassed to even say them, which was another reason not to answer.

  By the time the call went to voice mail, she’d managed to refill and reempty her glass again. She’d also managed to spill half of said glass down her front.

  “Crap.” She hopped up and grabbed a pair of dirty jeans from the floor and scrubbed at the tank top until it had faint denim smudges on the chest.

  A soft tap sounded at the window.

  Lexi froze. Jeans in hand, breathing nonexistent, she listened. When holding her breath and standing still became not only impossible but dangerous, she tiptoed over to the window and braced herself.

  Was Marc down in the alley tossing pebbles at her window? Because if he was, she would tell him just how cheesy his Romeo and Juliet act was—and just where he could shove his apology.

  After a quick fluff to the hair, Lexi grabbed the curtain, yanked it back, and screamed.

  A face was staring at her through the glass. A face with frizzy hair and pissed-off eyes that was staring. Right. At. Her. It opened its mouth, only Lexi was too afraid to hear what it would say.

  One hand over her lips, the other slamming the curtain back in place, she backed up and stumbled onto the bed. The prompt cards scattered to the floor, but thankfully the Angelica was all right.

  “Will you open the window!” Abby’s voice hissed though the glass and fabric.

  Lexi did, and the sight made her want to cry all over again. It wasn’t Marc. He hadn’t crawled up her trellis, hadn’t come to say he was in love with her, and even worse, she didn’t know if he regretted hurting her. If he had even felt what she had. And if his chest ached to the point of suffocation.

  “It’s you,” Lexi sighed, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. “What are you doing?”

  Abby stared. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m breaking you out of this self-imposed hellhole.”

  “Oh.” For some reason that made sense. “Why didn’t you come through the door?”

  “Because it’s locked.”

  “I would have let you in. Plus, there’s a spare key. I hid it under the gnome.” Marc knew it was there. He had used it a few times to wake her up in the morning after his run.

  God, she missed him.

  “Great to know. Next time I have to knock for over an hour, I’ll remember that.”

  “How are you all the way up here?” Lexi leaned out the window, around Abby, and squinted at the bright-yellow ladder wedged up against the side of the building. Then she looked at the window across the alley and wondered if he was in there. She had pulled her blinds so he wouldn’t see her crying, but every few hours she checked for a sign of him. She never found one.

  Maybe he had fallen asleep on his desk, waiting for her to open her blinds. She nudged her tank top lower, happy that she had forgone a bra, leaned out the window farther, and asked, really loudly, “Where did you get the ladder?”

  Lexi looked at his window. No lights. No movement. Just depressing darkness.

  “I borrowed it from Jack,” Abby said, giving her a really weird look.

  “So it’s Jack now, huh
? What did that cost you?”

  “Three extra piano lessons, and—” Abby paused. “Why are you yelling? Are you drunk?”

  “No.” Lexi smiled. Then laughed. Then slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Abby leaned in and immediately jerked back, her nose wrinkling. Abby had a perfect nose, pert with a few freckles, and it even looked cute when crinkled up in disgust. “Did you fall in a vat?”

  “Nope.” Lexi sat back on the bed and snagged the bottle of Angelica off the nightstand, shoving it in Abby’s face and nearly knocking her friend off the ladder.

  “Give me that.” Abby snatched at the bottle, but Lexi held on.

  “He broke my heart, Abs,” Lexi whispered.

  Abby’s eyes went soft with understanding. “I know. He’s an idiot, and the only thing that saved him from having to place his own ‘Where’s My Dick’ ad is that he’s my brother, and I love him.”

  “Me too,” Lexi said, and the tears pooled up again.

  “I know you do. At the farmers’ market, I knew.” She took Lexi’s hand in her own tiny one and squeezed. “Would it help if I said that Marc knows he messed up and that he didn’t know Jeffery was after your recipes until it was too late and then he was stuck between disappointing you and my other brothers?”

  Lexi thought about it and shook her head. He had still kept secrets from her, and good intentions or not, secrets hurt. Sometimes they hurt worse than lies. And Lexi was tired of being hurt.

  “Would it help if I said I think he loves you back, but being that he’s a DeLuca with the Y chromosome, he couldn’t help but screw this up?”

  “That makes it worse.” Lexi took in a shuddery breath and tried not to cry. Imagining a life without him had been devastating. But what if Abby was telling the truth? What if he did love her? She would be walking away from her only chance of spaghetti-splattered-apron kind of love. “I don’t know what to do. This is different than Jeffery. I’m not embarrassed or angry. God, Abs, it hurts so bad.” She patted the spot above her heart that felt like it was missing, like it would never be whole again. “I can’t even breathe.”