by SJ McCoy
Grant smiled. “I know. We just have to figure out what great looks like and then make a plan to get there.”
Chapter Seven
When she got home, Chelsea let herself into the cottage and sank down on the sofa. She still wasn’t sure what to make of the day’s events—any of them. Her mind strayed back to this morning. She’d been so tense, so focused on going into battle with this consultant her dad was bringing in, and then Grant had walked through the door. She blew out a sigh and kicked her shoes off. Grant Dawson. At least she knew his last name now. Even in her shock and confusion, she’d been hit by just how attractive he was. No! She wasn’t going to allow herself to think of him as attractive. Never again. She needed to see him as something other than a guy she’d slept with—and wanted to sleep with again. She pressed her lips together. She did not want to sleep with him again! Maybe, if she’d bumped into him again, it might have been a possibility. Hell, who was she kidding. She’d been hoping that she’d bump into him again and that they might. But not now. Now she had to work with him for the next few months. You didn’t get involved with people you worked with. It just wasn’t worth it.
She took her jacket off and lay back against the cushions. No, she needed to stop thinking about him that way and start thinking about how to make the most of his presence. He really wasn’t the big bad wolf she’d been expecting. He understood what was going on with Zosca. He knew she was more interested in her people and her wines than her profits. He’d even said he got it. After her meeting with her dad this morning, Grant wasn’t going to ride roughshod over everything and implement his changes, he was only going to document what changes he thought would benefit the bottom line. She shrugged. She wasn’t in total denial about the bottom line. It could be better. Even running the business the way she was, she knew she wasn’t the most organized or efficient manager on earth. She knew that money could be saved just by doing things in a more organized fashion—if she could ever find the time and brain space. Now she wouldn’t need to. Grant could figure it all out. She smiled. She had faith that he would be very good at his job. He was just that kind of guy.
Her cell phone rang and brought her back to the moment. She picked it up and smiled when she saw Piper’s name on the display.
“Hey,” she answered.
“Hi, sweetie. I’ve been thinking about you all day. I hope it went better than you expected?”
“It certainly wasn’t what I expected. In some ways, it was better, in some ways worse.”
“Do you want to have dinner and tell me all about it? Say no, if you want. I understand if you just want to hole up after a bad day. I’m going to take myself to Molly’s for dinner. Cam’s prepping for a big meeting tomorrow.”
“I’d love to. I was only going to sit around here and mull it all over.”
“Oh, no, don’t do that. Meet me at Molly’s, and we can either talk about it or talk about something else completely to distract you.”
“Thanks, Piper. You’re the best. What time?”
“Does seven-thirty work for you?”
“Yep, that’ll be great. I’ll see you there.”
After they’d hung up, Chelsea took a shower then wandered into her closet. What mood was she in tonight? Who was she being? She touched the white frilly dress. No, there was no fairy godmother coming to rescue her. She settled on a pair of jeans and a cute shirt. She was just a girl, going to have dinner with a friend—a girl with some big issues ahead of her, but she was going to face them in a down-to-earth kind of way.
She found a space not far from Molly’s and parked the car. It was another beautiful evening, and she breathed in deeply as she walked down the street.
“Chelsea!”
She turned at the sound of her name being called. It was Mary Ellen, hurrying toward her. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind me joining you? I called Piper just after she’d spoken to you; she invited me along.”
“Of course, I don’t. I was going to call you when I got home.”
Mary Ellen nodded. “I figured you’d want to compare notes after today.”
Chelsea blew out a sigh. “Yeah. I need to. Come on, though, let’s go in and wait for Piper. I need to fill her in on what happened Saturday night before we get to today.”
Mary Ellen smirked. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to tell her.”
“Yeah. I didn’t say anything to her and Cameron yesterday—I wouldn’t normally brag to my brother and almost sister-in-law about spending the night with a guy, but the way things have turned out, I have to at least tell Piper.”
Mary Ellen held the door open, and they went inside. “What about Cam, though?” she asked. “Might it make things awkward if Grant’s going to be working with us?”
Chelsea shrugged. “Possibly, but I don’t hide anything from Cam, and I’m not about to start now. It’s not as though he never slept with a consultant or two before he met Piper, is it?”
“No. It isn’t. I love that the two of you are so close.”
“Me too,” said Chelsea with a smile. “Oh, look. Piper’s here already.”
They made their way to a corner table where Piper was sitting tapping away at her phone. She looked up and smiled, but answered a couple more texts before she spoke. “Hey, ladies. Sorry, that was Laura. She’s keeping an eye on the Summer Lake house for us.”
“How are they?” asked Chelsea. Laura was Piper’s best friend, and she was married to Chelsea’s older brother, Cole—or Smoke, as they called him.
Piper nodded. “They’re good. Laura’s going to London this weekend and Smoke’s flying the guys down to San Diego, so she wanted to let me know that another friend, Missy, will be checking on the house for me.”
“Aww, I love Missy; she’s awesome.” Chelsea turned to Mary Ellen. “We should go visit Summer Lake sometime. It’s a great little town and everyone there is so nice, you’d love it.”
Piper grinned. “It’s true, and it’s full of hot men!”
Chelsea laughed. “Do I need to cover my ears? You’re engaged to my big brother, remember?”
Piper laughed with her. “No, you’ve got no worries. Cameron’s my own hot man who I met in Summer Lake if you remember. I meant for Mary Ellen, maybe she could find herself one there, too.”
Mary Ellen shook her head. “No, thanks. I like my life here. I wouldn’t want to move to some little town in the hills, and besides, your fiancé would not be too happy if I left him to fend for himself.”
“That’s true,” said Piper. “I was surprised when you called me tonight. He’s so busy prepping for this big meeting, I assumed you would be, too.”
“Nope. I’ve done all the legwork, got him to the point where he’s on his own with it. It’s all down to him now. My work is done, and I deserve a Molly-made dinner as my reward.” She smiled as Molly came to their table.
“Good evening, ladies. What’s the special occasion? I don’t usually see any of you on a Monday night, let alone all of you together.”
“Hey, Moll.” Chelsea smiled at her friend. “It’s been quite a day, and I needed the girls to let me bend their ears about it.”
“Oh. Is everything okay? Do you need your Auntie Molly to sit in and lend a shoulder, too?”
Chelsea laughed. “No, it’s not that bad, just work stuff, but I won’t say no if you want to join us. We haven’t caught up in way too long.”
“You’re right; it’s been ages. I can’t really sit down to eat, but I’ll come over as much as I can, okay?” She handed them menus and smiled. “What can I get you to drink?”
Once she’d gone, Mary Ellen looked at Chelsea. “Are you going to tell Piper about the weekend? I want to talk about what happened today, but you,” she looked at Piper, “need to hear a few things first.”
Piper raised an eyebrow at her and Chelsea nodded. “Okay. I didn’t tell you on Sunday because I thought it was a one-and-done type thing, but now you need to know.”
“Kn
ow what?”
“That when Mary Ellen and I went out on Saturday night, I went home with a guy.”
Piper chuckled and shook her head. “Hey, I’m not going to judge. I think we’ve all done it in our time, haven’t we?” She looked at Mary Ellen who pursed her lips but didn’t answer.
“No, it’s not that I think you’re going to judge me. I’m not confessing or anything. It’s just that, yesterday morning, I said goodbye to the guy, thinking that was it and I’d never see him again, and then this morning I saw him again.”
Piper gave her a puzzled look.
“He’s the consultant!” blurted out Mary Ellen. “I couldn’t believe it. Cameron had someone in his office this morning, and I went to get them coffee. When I opened the office door, Grant was sitting there!” She laughed. “I dropped the coffee, I was so shocked!”
Chelsea laughed. “That makes me feel better. I just froze like a rabbit in the headlights. It was awful. There he was, standing there with my dad—and get this, my dad said he was going to put me under Grant! I almost laughed. Can you imagine Dad’s face if I’d told him I’d already been under Grant—and loved it.”
The other two turned to look at her. “You loved it?” asked Mary Ellen.
She nodded. Why had she told them that? “Yeah. It was good, but that’s not the point anymore, is it?”
Piper shook her head. “I guess not, but won’t it make it harder? You both made that connection the other night, but now you’re going to be on opposite sides of the fence at work.”
Chelsea laughed. “What, you think it’d be easier to deal with him if he’d been lousy in bed?”
Mary Ellen laughed. “I think that’d make it a lot easier.”
Piper wasn’t laughing. “Isn’t it going to make life difficult if you’re battling him at work and wishing you were in bed with him out of work?”
“No. I’m not going to allow myself to wish. It was good, but it’s not going to happen again. It can’t. Dad and I had a productive meeting this morning. So, now, instead of having free reign to change things, Grant’s only going to be observing and documenting changes that could be made. We’re going to reassess in a couple of months. He’ll show us what we could change; I’ll see if I can live with his recommendations.”
“And if you can’t?” asked Mary Ellen.
“Then we have two options. Either Dad will have to bring in someone else who will run Zosca the way he wants it run.”
The other two looked horrified.
She smiled. “It’s okay, I really don’t want that to happen, but it may have to if I can’t find a way to make the second option work.”
“What is the second option?” asked Piper.
Mary Ellen smiled. “You want to buy it yourself and run it your way, right?”
Chelsea nodded. “I do. I just have to figure out a way to fund it.”
They all sat there staring at each other for a moment. Chelsea was glad that the two of them knew how things were for her. Most people assumed that she could have whatever she wanted—that her parents would pay. That wasn’t the case. They’d made her—and her brothers—work hard to earn their way in life. She was under no illusions that her dad would just give her the winery. If she wanted it, she’d have to buy it. She just had to figure out how. She owned shares in Hamilton-Groves, and she could sell them. Smoke had done that a long time ago when he effectively left the family. She didn’t want to give up all her stake in the family business, but she might be able to figure something out.
“Are you ready to order, ladies? Or are you holding a seance?” Molly grinned around at them. “Is everything okay?”
Chelsea nodded. “Yeah, it will be.”
Molly leaned forward and poked her arm. “Are you going to tell me what’s the matter? Maybe I can help. I can be your friend.”
Chelsea laughed. The first time Molly had said those words to her was over twenty years ago—when they first met in grade school, and Chelsea was upset about a boy who was teasing her. “The short version is, my one-night stand from Saturday showed up this morning as the new consultant for Zosca.”
Molly’s eyes widened.
“And to make matters worse, I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’s going to make recommendations that I can’t live with, so I need to find a way to buy the business, so I can run it the way I want to.”
“Wow!” Molly smiled. “Can’t you use your charms to persuade him to make recommendations that’d work for you?”
Chelsea shook her head. “Nope. You know me better than that. What’s weird is that I feel like I know him better than that, too. He wouldn’t do it, he’s a man of integrity.”
Mary Ellen raised an eyebrow. “And you figured that out while he was screwing you silly?”
They all laughed.
“No. You can just tell. You know when a person is honorable or not, and Grant just is.”
Piper gave her a knowing smile. “It sounds to me that not sleeping with him again might prove harder than you think.”
Molly grinned at her. “You like him, don’t you?”
Chelsea nodded. “I do, but that’s irrelevant. I like him, but I love Zosca. I can’t let him get in the way.”
~ ~ ~
Grant sat in his room staring at his laptop. He was staring at the accounts for Zosca, but he wasn’t seeing them. Instead, he was seeing Chelsea. Chelsea in the red dress, looking like a hot party girl on Saturday night. Chelsea in the sharp suit, looking like a tough nut to crack in the boardroom this morning. He closed his eyes and blew out a sigh. Chelsea with her eyes closed as he took her against the wall in the hallway. Chelsea naked in his bed, staring up into his eyes as he positioned himself above her and … No! He had to stop this shit! She was no longer the girl he’d been with on Saturday night. She was now the client. Kind of. Mr. Hamilton was really the client, but Chelsea could benefit from this exercise, too.
Grant had spent the last couple of hours working on preliminary workups. Plural. Two workups. He shook his head. It hadn’t taken him long to do the first one—the one Mr. Hamilton wanted. There were so many costs that could easily be cut without affecting production. The company was overstaffed, the wines were underpriced. He shook his head again. It should be a simple, straightforward project. Anyone could come in and see ways to improve the bottom line easily. The second workup was a bit different. It was for Chelsea. He hadn’t been brought in to do that, but he couldn’t help it. He understood what she was trying to do. She wanted to pay people well and take care of her employees. She wanted to create great wines—even if that cost a little more than creating wines that were merely good. She was pricing lower than she should because she was distributing to smaller niche markets—markets where her wines could grow a name and a following. If she ended up running the business her way—and he believed she would—there were lots of ways she could operate more efficiently without sacrificing her values. He wanted to document those for her.
He got up and went to look out the window. It was another beautiful evening. Normally when he was working an assignment, it didn’t matter where he was or what it was like. He kept his head down. His surroundings had no impact because he didn’t notice them. It was different here, though, and he wasn’t sure if it was the place itself—he’d always loved Napa—or if Chelsea had something to do with his restlessness. She was out there somewhere. He wondered what she was doing, who she was with. His heart raced as a thought hit him. Maybe she had a boyfriend? No. He needed to get a grip. He knew she didn’t have a boyfriend—he’d eavesdropped on her conversation with Mary Ellen about breaking up with the guy!
He turned away from the window and went back to the desk, wondering what tomorrow would hold. For all the work he’d done with the books, he knew there’d be so much more for him to learn by being on site. It was always the way. Reading about the way a company operated only gave you a snapshot, being there in the trenches, experiencing the day-to-day operations was total
ly different. He always looked forward to that part. This time he was looking forward to it even more so—because it meant he’d be around Chelsea again.
Chapter Eight
The Zosca vineyard was smaller than most in the area, but it was one of the most beautiful. Grant parked his rental car in front of the offices and got out. He turned to look back at the valley. The vineyard stood on the upper slopes, and the view was magnificent. He stood there for a few moments—taking it all in. He’d traveled the world for his work, but as far as he was concerned, this was the most beautiful place on earth. He knew his affection for the place influenced that belief. He’d always hoped that one day he’d make it back here, back to the place he’d grown up and which held so many of his happiest childhood memories.
“Good morning.” He turned and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Chelsea standing at the bottom of the steps. She was so damned beautiful. Her long blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail, and she looked fresh and breezy in jeans and a white shirt. He smiled, knowing that he’d be adding this image of her to the growing gallery in his mind.
She gave him a puzzled look, and it was only then that he realized he was staring like an idiot and hadn’t yet spoken.
“Sorry. Good morning. I was just admiring the view.”
Her eyebrows knit together, and for a moment he wondered if she understood that he meant her and not the valley. If she did, she didn’t admit it. She nodded. “It sure is beautiful here. Not many people get to work with this kind of view.”
“They don’t.” Grant pulled himself together. He needed to stop watching the way her mouth moved as she spoke. He needed to get a grip and get started on what he was here to do.
She smiled. “Okay. Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Can we just get past this awkward beginning, forget that we already met, and go about this as if we’re strangers, meeting for the first time right now? You know your brief, and I know what you’re here to do, but other than that, we have no knowledge of each other whatsoever.”
