Page 5 of Love on the Vine
Dad slapped his hand against the table, smiling like he’d just made the discovery of the century. “Wait a minute, that’s a brilliant idea! If you’ll be in France this summer, Olivia could work for you for a few weeks. Help you with your inventory and your contracts. She was just saying that she wanted to learn more about wine. Weren’t you, Liv?”
I thought back to our conversation earlier and I wished I’d never said anything about the port. My mouth dropped open to protest, but no words came out.
“That way, Liv, you’ll get these food ideas out your system, and you’ll have more professional experience for your resume. International experience for those firms in DC.” Dad speared a piece of meat triumphantly.
“It’s a small operation and the work isn’t that exciting,” Jake hedged, his unease written all over his face, but my dad was relentless, and I wanted to crawl under the table in embarrassment.
“Even better! Hands-on experience.” To my utter humiliation, Dad kept pushing against each of Jake’s objections. Kirsten shot me a commiserating glance. “I’d prefer her to be somewhere safe instead of jumping from hostel to hostel. What do you say?”
“How embarrassing,” mumbled Brooke with an evil grin.
Jake’s eyes met mine again and then to my everlasting astonishment said, “Sure. Why not?”
Chapter 2
JAKE
Sure. Why not?
The words had left my mouth before I could stop myself. It was almost as if someone else had said them. All I knew was that Ben wasn’t going to let up, and his daughter—Christ, how was that even possible?—looked like she wanted to disappear under the table. And so I’d caved just to make it all stop.
Even now, sitting on the icy lawn furniture in Ben’s backyard listening to him drone on about the Super Bowl, I was left contemplating how I’d agreed to something so preposterous that the entire table had stared at me in slack-jawed disbelief. And more importantly, how the hell I was going to get myself out of it.
I blamed the food.
Since I’d come back to Grand Rapids to deal with my father’s funeral and the inheritance that I wanted nothing to do with, I’d been numb—like I was somehow separate from my body, watching myself go through the motions of packing up the house, signing papers, shipping dozens of boxes that I couldn’t be bothered to go through off to my place in France. Then, weirdly, the numbness had traveled to my taste buds.
At first it felt like a thick layer of cotton covering my palate—annoying but not panic-inducing. When I couldn’t taste my coffee this morning, however, a surge of anxiety overwhelmed me. If this continued, I’d be in a shitload of trouble; I did after all make a living from my ability to taste.
I hadn’t eaten anything all day and was fully prepared to nod politely through tonight’s dinner, pretending to enjoy the food. But when I took my first bite of that gravlax and felt a tingling brightness on my tongue, the tension I’d been holding inside me slipped away.
With each course, more of my taste returned—enough for me to admire how each plate played off the last like instruments in a perfectly orchestrated symphony. The depth of flavor of that Wellington—earthy, umami, with a firm, almost meaty texture from walnuts, wrapped in buttery pastry—knocked my fucking socks off; even thinking about it now made my mouth water.
Maybe I’d just been so grateful that I’d decided to rescue the person responsible for the return of my prodigal taste buds from absolute embarrassment. Like I was some goddamn knight in shining armor.
I wasn’t. Far from it. The idea was laughable.
Besides being damn inconvenient, hosting Olivia for the summer posed another very serious problem: I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her since she opened the front door. And the food had nothing to do with it.
“You gotta help me out with Olivia, man.” Ben’s comment shook me from my thoughts.
“Oh, yeah? In what way?” I coughed, took a swig of beer. If he only knew what I’d been imagining doing to his daughter in the kitchen, maybe he wouldn’t have been so eager to have me watch over her this summer.
“She’s going to law school next year—University of Chicago. She convinced me to let her take this year off to work, whichI wasn’t too pleased about. She’s got this idea that she’d like to cook professionally.” He shook his head and popped the cap off another beer. “I mean, the kid’s brilliant. She shouldn’t be wasting herself slaving in a kitchen for no money.”
“Food is hard work. But if someone has the passion for it, it’s tough to convince them otherwise. I don’t know how I can help.” I didn’t like where this conversation was heading.
“Just make sure she understands how hard it is.”
“Look, I’m not making any promises that I can convince her to abandon her interest in food. I don’t know why you would want her to.” I sat back and crossed my arms, annoyed that I was even having this conversation. “She’s talented.”
Talented and beautiful. Not only was she naturally alluring with her deep blue eyes and dark brown hair, but she also had a timeless quality about her. Like some classic film star. Even in that ridiculous reindeer sweater that hugged her curves and revealed tantalizing glimpses of creamy soft skin, she had a subtle elegance and complexity that her cousin—who’d kept rubbing her foot on my leg all through dinner—lacked.
Even so, I didn’t go for girls her age. Not even when I was her age.
How old was she anyway? I was four years younger than Ben, so twenty-two or twenty-three at most. At thirty-seven, I wasn’t exactly middle-aged. But damn, now I not only felt like I’d aged twenty years, I also felt like a complete lecher.
Ben slapped me on the back again. And then, proving he had his head too far up his ass to see the problem with his daughter staying with a single man over the summer, said, “Thanks, man. I’ll sleep easier knowing someone’s looking out for Olivia.”
