The Winemaker

by Charmaine Pauls

  “Here. I signed it. Emmie gave it to me this morning to read. I agree with the terms. That is, if you still want to employ me. I suppose it depends on how I smell, today,” she said cheekily, cocking an eyebrow.

  To his credit, Etán didn’t lose his cool. “Zenna, I’m sorry about what happened last night. I got carried away. I know you are making fun of me, but I am influenced rather strongly by my senses. If I promise you it won’t happen again, will you forgive me? I promised to help you, and I don’t plan on doing that by using you while you’re on the rebound.”

  If his words of the night before had hurt her, these cut even deeper. Was that all he could say? That he would have used her? That she was on the rebound? She battled to hide her disappointment.

  “You should have just said I was irresistible and you’ll control yourself better in future. You really don’t have any tact, do you? You know how to kick a girl who’s down. Thanks for reminding me kissing me had nothing to do with me, but everything with how I smelled. That it wouldn’t have been more than using a girl on the rebound.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, sounding frustrated.

  Zenna lifted her chin. “That’s how it came out. It’s all right. I can take an honest insult. I didn’t want to kiss you either. I don’t do my bosses. So, there. We’re square.”

  Etán sighed heavily. “I’m not going to talk about this anymore, because no matter what I say, I get myself deeper into trouble. Let me make it up to you. Let me take you out to dinner tonight. We’ll go to town.” He motioned to the contract. “We’ll celebrate your new job. I promise, strictly hands-off.” He lifted his hands.

  Zenna should have been relieved, but instead, she felt another pang of disappointment eating at her. “That’s kind, but not necessary, thank you.”

  “Come on, Zenna. We got off on the wrong foot. I’m trying to be friends. Just dinner.”

  She looked at her hands.

  “Teresa is off tonight.”

  She looked up quickly.

  “That’s not why I’m inviting you,” he said hastily. He actually looked sorry and desperate.

  Despite herself, she smiled. “All right, I get it. There’s no one to cook for us tonight. Killing two birds with one stone, again?”

  “Something like that, but I honestly want to make up for my ... inappropriate ... behavior.”

  She thought for a while. She didn’t really want Etán to get under her skin. It was better to do away with all the kissing stuff.

  “All right. I kissed you in a shady bar. You kissed me in the cellar. We’re even.” She wasn’t the one who had pulled back both times. Anyway, she didn’t want to harp on the subject. “Let’s forget about it.”

  “Good.” He held his hand out for the contract. “I’ll sign this and get a copy to you before tonight.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him the papers and got to her feet.

  A whiff of vinegar reached his nostrils. It was almost too faint to be noted, but it was there. He looked at her in surprise, but didn’t dare to say anything as she left his office and walked back to her desk with a stiff back.

  She wasn’t surprised when Cristian instead of Etán came to fetch her from the office for a tasting in the late afternoon. Cristian gave some lame excuse as to why Etán wasn’t available, but Zenna knew better. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to get her mind stuck on his kiss, his mouth, or any other part of his body for that matter.

  She did her best to search for the delicate notes of white blossoms, honeydew melon, and pear that Cristian pointed out in the first Chardonnay he made her try. Her nose tried to sniff out the tropical fruit, banana, vanilla, and green apple in the second Chardonnay. Her palate tried to dissect the bouquet of citrus fruit, the crispy tang, and the sparkly acidity Cristian said was in the third. What she really craved, was a ruby-red Cabernet blend.

  That evening, the restaurant Etán had chosen was small, brightly lit, and lacked any kind of warmth. Zenna draped her jacket over the chair back and glanced around curiously. Chrome and glass tables separated white Art Deco chairs, and only a few red square paintings, unevenly spread, broke the clinical whiteness of the walls. Zenna frowned. Etán had gone out of his way to avoid any romantic elements.

  A sour looking waiter pulled out the ugly chair for her and placed a linen napkin on her lap once she was seated. She took the menu the waiter offered. She thanked him and smiled, but he didn’t return the gesture. Instead he nodded stiffly. Only when he was out of earshot, did she turn to Etán.

  “He looks like he’s got a stick up his backside. What kind of restaurant is this?”

  Etán was looking at his menu. “Oh, I thought you would like it.”

  She followed his example. Then her eyes widened and narrowed. “Etán, there are calorie counts written in brackets after each dish. Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”

  He looked confused. “It’s part of a new chain of restaurants, an Eat for Life concept. Is there a problem? I thought you’d be thrilled.”

  Zenna felt blood rushing to her face. It was a mixture of anger and humiliation. “This is a ludicrous insult. First, you say I’m overweight, and now, you bring me to a diet restaurant?”

  Etán put down his menu. “Wait. When did I ever say you were overweight?”

  “The night Marcos dumped me. When you told me my black and sexy wasn’t going to do it for you.”

  “We were talking about you and Marcos,” he said, exasperated. “Your body is perfect. All I said was a sexy outfit might delay a man from leaving you for a night, but, if he really wanted to go, he would leave you anyway. I also said it depended on the man. Obviously Marcos is an idiot.”

  Zenna looked at him with big, tearful eyes. “First you told me I’m not sexy in black. Then you tell me the only reason a man would kiss me is because my hair smelled good. Now you tell me I need to lose weight.” She threw the menu and the napkin on the table and pushed her chair back. “Find someone thin, slim, and trim to take to dinner. Maybe you can go to a steakhouse, then.”

  Etán watched, bewildered, as she got up and stormed from the restaurant, leaving him in dazed confusion. By the time he had recovered enough to follow, she was gone. He cursed, walked up and down the street, around the block, and back to where the car was parked in the parking lot in front of the entrance, but there was no trace of Zenna.

  Panic rose at the thought of her wandering the streets alone, followed by anger for her irresponsibility. Calming himself with the thought that Zenna was a big girl and knew how to make her way home, he dialed her mobile number. Of course it was switched off. He dialed the house, and asked Teresa to call him the minute Zenna got home.

  Giving the brightly lit, low-calorie restaurant another puzzled look, he got into his car and drove home.

  Judging by the time of Teresa’s return call, Zenna had made it home by taxi twenty minutes before he arrived. Etán pulled up the driveway and got out by the front door, giving the keys to Roman to park the car. Usually he parked his own car, but he was anxious to see for himself Zenna was all right. He needed to talk to her, to explain the misunderstandings, the silly things she had somehow gotten into her head. He sure as hell didn’t want her to think he was battering her self-esteem. On the contrary ... if he wasn’t careful, he was going to get them both burned.

  He shook his head at the way she had taken his choice of restaurant as an insult. Sanita refused to eat anywhere else. The only women he knew were always on a diet. He hated taking a woman out to dinner to watch her scratch through a few lettuce leaves. At least at Eat, any woman who was conscious of her diet could enjoy a decent meal. He grinned. No doubt Zenna wasn’t exactly like the kind of women he knew.

  As he stepped into the kitchen, the grin disappeared from his face as quickly as it had formed. Zenna and Luca sat by the central kitchen counter, fast food wrappers and paper bags scattered around them. They were laughing. They were having fun, and they were eating. Judging by the look of it, a lot.
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br />   Luca looked up when he noticed Etán’s presence. “Hey, Bro.” He lowered an extra large, half-eaten cheeseburger onto his plate, and wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “I got some takeouts when Teresa told me you gave her the night off. Lucky I got plenty, ‘cause Zenna is eating me out of the house.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Move over, Sugar. Make space for Etán. There’s plenty more, Bro.”

  Etán noticed Zenna avoided looking at him. She licked some tomato sauce from the corner of her mouth and buried her face behind her burger.

  “Thanks, I’ve eaten,” he lied effortlessly, stiffly. “Good night. Have fun.” He turned and left them to their decadently fattening dinner.

  He should have known. Yet with a woman like Zenna, a man could never know. He undressed, took a shower, and fell into bed. It was late when he heard Zenna open and close her bedroom door.

  The subject of the disastrous dinner had to come up sooner or later the following day, Zenna knew, but she avoided Etán all the same. She furiously studied a list of the estate’s red and white wine blends in her private lounge when he was in the office and then in the office when he was in the house, skipping lunch all together until they were finally unavoidably facing each other at the dinner table. She had really counted on Luca’s presence, but he had gone into town to meet up with a couple of the guys as he had put it.

  A fire burned at the far end of the dining room. Teresa’s food was a bit on the bland side for Zenna’s taste, but she was hungry so she ate the pumpkin soup gratefully. She felt her frozen body slowly warm from inside as well as outside. She sipped her wine and waited until Teresa had served the main course of thick steaks with baked potatoes and a mushroom sauce, before she fixed her gaze on Etán. She wanted to enjoy her food, so she wanted to get the uncomfortable subject out of the way.

  She cleared her throat. “About last night...”

  Etán put down the fork he had picked up. “Yes. About last night. I’m glad you’re bringing it up. Do I get to explain without spoiling our meal?”

  She crossed her hands on her lap. “Well, what is there to explain? You obviously think I should be on a diet.”

  He laughed. The sound was so strange and unexpected it caught Zenna off guard.

  He chuckled. “Nothing can be further from the truth. I do not have a problem with your weight. At all. It’s just ... call it a lack of knowledge when it comes to women. All the women I’ve ever dated would either pick at their salads whenever I took them to a decent restaurant or never stop complaining about how fattening the food on the menu was. I’ve even tried French restaurants with minuscule portions, but then the butter content was too high. Excuse my ignorance, but I just assumed you would be the same. Believe me, there’s nothing I enjoy more than sharing a meal with a woman who likes to eat. It’s been a while since I’ve met one.”

  “Well,” Zenna said sternly, “you’ve just met one. I enjoy my food, and I do take it as an insult to be taken to some scrawny place where bird seed is the main course.”

  Etán grinned. “It wasn’t bird seed, it was roasted pumpkin and sesame seed with tofu, Japanese seaweed, and poached eggs.”

  Zenna pulled a face. “That’s disgusting. It should be illegal to serve that in any restaurant.”

  He leaned forward. “Let me make it up to you properly. Let me take you to a decent restaurant where you can eat calories to your heart’s content.”

  Zenna looked from her steak to Etán. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t take care about what I eat. I simply don’t believe in starving myself.”

  “Good, and I agree. Why should you starve? It’s a deal then. We’ll give it another go on another night this week.”

  Zenna cut into her steak. “Teresa is going to be mighty pleased. She’ll be off for the second time this week.” She still battled to become used to anyone else but herself preparing her meals. “Don’t you ever cook for yourself?”

  Etán looked up from his plate, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “Why would I?”

  “Well, for starters, you have an exceptional sense of taste. I would have thought, besides making a little bit of wine on the side, maybe you could have been a rather good cook.”

  He smiled. “I could, but I don’t like cooking. I’m passionate about the process of creating wine, but it’s more than the end product.” He motioned around the room. “I love our land. I love the vines. I don’t think I could ever do anything else. How about you? Are you a good cook?”

  Zenna took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully. “I think I am, but my style may be a bit too hot for you,” she teased.

  “Too hot? Sounds interesting. Tell me more.”

  “Judging by the food I’ve eaten so far in your country, your culinary taste is rather bland. I like it way more exciting.”

  Etán frowned. “Bland?”

  Zenna shrugged. “Yes. For example, you take this piece of meat and throw it onto a grill, add some salt, and that’s it.”

  “So? What’s wrong with that? It’s a good cut.”

  “Nothing. Natural is good. It’s sirloin, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would,” she thought for a second, “roll it in crushed peppercorns, cook it in butter, garlic, and wine, set it alight with brandy, and add a dash of cream to the sauce before serving. Doesn’t that sound a lot more tantalizing?”

  “You are going to make me regret Teresa’s cooking skills.”

  She looked at him from under her eyelashes. “I tasted a Petit Verdot with Cristian today that will do the trick. Intense. Plum. Should compliment the meat and the brandy nicely.”

  He gasped, but his eerie green eyes shone with laughter. “You would use a hundred-thousand Pesos bottle of wine to cook a steak?” he exclaimed in mock disbelief.

  “For a man of exceptional taste and smell, you are rather uncompromising when it comes to marrying your wine with food.”

  She looked up from eating. When she saw the look in his eyes, she nearly dropped her knife. It was the look he had given her in the cellar when he demanded she drink for him.

  Eager to change the direction of her thoughts, she spoke quickly. “My favorite still remains a good, spicy, hot dish. There’s nothing better.”

  Then she almost bit her tongue. That came out all wrong. She hoped he didn’t think she was giving him hidden messages.

  If he thought along those lines, he didn’t show it. “Fair enough. I get your point. I can take you to a restaurant where they’ll set your meat on fire. We have that in my country, too. You still haven’t told me what is so ‘hot’ about the way you cook that you cannot find here.”

  She took a sip of her wine. “I love curry. Hot, spicy, curry. I add it to almost everything I cook. I don’t see that here.”

  “Fair enough, again. There are some places where you can eat a good curry, but those are gringo restaurants. Not part of our culture.”

  “That’s what I mean. One day I’ll cook you a curry, if I can find the spices, and you’ll tell me honestly if a bland pork chop tastes better.”

  “Wait. Now my mouth is literally watering. I’ll keep you to your promise.”

  She lifted her glass. “Deal.”

  He returned the gesture. “To eating well.”

  They carried on eating in silence for a while. When Zenna looked up, Etán was watching her. “What?” She took another bite of potato.

  “I’m just thinking that I never would have taken you for someone who can cook.” He turned serious. “You’re a woman of many ... secrets, aren’t you?” His look was penetrating.

  “I don’t know whatever you could mean.”

  “Do you tell lies to keep your secrets, Zenna?”

  Zenna pushed a piece of potato around on her plate, and tried to answer casually. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?” She gave Etán a piercing look in turn. “That doesn’t mean we have to lie.”

  “We do,” he agreed, “all have our secrets. You won’t lie to me, will you?” />
  She frowned. Where did that come from? “Not even a white lie?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  Zenna put down her fork and pulled at the neckline of her polo-neck sweater, suddenly feeling too warm. “What is it that you want to know, Etán?”

  “Why would you have been interested in a guy like Marcos?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s none of your business.”

  Etán pushed back his plate. “All right.”

  Zenna put down her knife. “Look, I don’t want to talk about him, not just yet, because it still hurts.”

  “I understand.” His look turned to the dark gaze Zenna was becoming to know. “I just meant to say he seemed a real ass.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” She busied her hands by folding her napkin.

  He searched her face. “I insulted you?”

  “No,” she sighed. “I’m almost thirty, single, stuck in a strange country, and having to appear in court for possession of a stolen vehicle, God knows when. I’m still paying for a car I don’t have anymore. My fiancé left me for his three-sizes-thinner agent, and I haven’t had the guts to even call my mother and explain to her I’ve messed up again. So excuse me for my reluctance to discuss my current dilemma, and if it appears to you I’m harboring secrets.”

  Etán looked at her for a long moment. “My intention wasn’t by any means to dull your mood by forcing you to talk about your difficult circumstances.” He didn’t know how to explain his intense intuition telling him Zenna was in some kind of danger, and he couldn’t protect her if she wasn’t honest with him. He couldn’t face her hiding the truth from him. He couldn’t face failing again. Neither could he explain the strange effect she had on him. His only way of protecting her, her feelings, and God knows, his own, was to fight whatever it was she did to him.

  Etán opened his mouth, but Zenna got to her feet. “I’m going to bed. Please, excuse me. We have a long day ahead, tomorrow.”

  He almost followed her down the hallway. Almost. Instead, he forced himself to stay in his study with a café cortado and a cognac, mulling over the latest sales statistics.