by Lucy King
But not Seb.
And it shouldn’t have mattered. In fact, she should have been pleased that Zel wasn’t around to invite him because that would have been beyond awkward. But somehow it did matter, and his absence bothered her.
What was he doing today? she couldn’t help wondering. The idea of him hosting a dinner for eight was unimaginable, and he didn’t exactly have a whole slew of friends, so was he going to be on his own? It seemed the most likely scenario, and that made her heart wrench because no one should be alone on Thanksgiving. But she could hardly invite him over, and anyway even if she had, she had no doubt he’d have said no because from what she’d gathered he rarely went out.
Nevertheless, she had the horribly disturbing feeling that she wanted him to be here and that was just absurd. She and Seb didn’t have a relationship like Dawn and Finn or Zel and Ty. She didn’t know what they had. All she knew was that she couldn’t stop thinking about him and she wished he was here, which meant she was very possibly en route to heartbreak.
So it was probably a good thing she wasn’t seeing him this weekend, she thought, frowning at the wineglass she was holding up to the light, then wiping it with a cloth and setting it on the table. On Saturday night she was going out with her course colleagues. They were celebrating Christmas early with drinks that started at six, and the plan was to finish late. It had been with regret that she’d told Seb she wouldn’t be able to hook up with him this weekend, and many times she’d thought about cancelling, but now she was thinking that perhaps it was a blessing. Her and Seb’s arrangement, by its very nature, had become pretty intense so some space, some perspective, would be good. She’d use the ten days she had before she saw him again to remind herself what they were about and to prove to herself that she could survive perfectly well without seeing him. And then, she was sure, everything would go back to normal.
*
By eight pm on Thanksgiving evening Seb was ready to climb the walls of his apartment. As the staff had had the day off, he’d had the whole house to himself. All day. With no plans. So he’d prowled a bit, then worked a bit. Prowled a bit more and worked a bit more. In between he’d thrown together a ham and cheese omelette. Now he was sitting restlessly in front of the TV, mindlessly channel hopping and driving himself even more demented.
What the bloody hell was wrong with him? He’d never been bothered by his own company before – on the contrary, he was usually perfectly fine with it – so what was it about today that had him wanting to crawl out of his skin? So it was Thanksgiving, a day of celebration and friendship. Who cared? He certainly didn’t. He never had before.
But why couldn’t he stop thinking about what Mercy was doing? Why did he keep wondering whether she was having fun with her friends and without him? Of course she was having fun, he thought darkly, stabbing at the remote control and wishing for the hundredth time the weather wasn’t quite so awful because then at least he could have spent the day hammering the hell out of something. She was fun. That was why she had friends while he didn’t. One of the reasons, at least. She didn’t close herself off from the world. She had a social life that she embraced.
And she’d have more friends after her bloody Christmas party on Saturday night. Her classmates couldn’t fail to warm to her, and he didn’t have any problem with that at all, although, Christmas? Really? What was up with that? It wouldn’t even be December.
Tossing aside the re mote control with a sigh of frustration Seb jumped to his feet, stalked into his study and flung himself into the chair at his desk. Just because this would be the first weekend for months that he and Mercy hadn’t spent together, it was no big deal. He’d survive. It wasn’t as if he needed to see her. He didn’t need anything. The thought of gatecrashing the party hadn’t crossed his mind once. He had way more control than that. And as for popping in to the wine awards dinner to say congratulations, well, as that would smack of weakness it was obviously totally out of the question too.
Really, there was no problem, he told himself as he fired up his computer in the bordering-on-desperate hope he’d be able to focus. He could wait ten days before he saw her again. Of course he could.
*
Wednesday night, the night of the wine awards presentation dinner, was going to be a good night for Hernandez wines and Mercy, who’d left her coat in the cloakroom and was heading towards the Palm Court where champagne and canapés were being served, was fully intending to enjoy herself.
In an hour or so the five hundred guests would be sitting down in the Grand Ballroom of this stunning Art Deco hotel to a sumptuous four-course dinner. During coffee, she’d be going up on stage to accept the framed certificate that announced their win in the best white for under twenty-five dollars category, and after that, hopefully, she’d be fielding requests for information, samples and tastings, which would lead to a dramatic upsurge in sales.
In the meantime, though, she had a team to celebrate with, news to catch up on and wine to pour.
Scanning the crowd, Mercy spotted the stand that bore the Hernandez Estate livery in front of which stood Maria, their Sales and Marketing Director, and Antonio, their Production Manager, and made her way over.
“Hello,” she said in Spanish, smiling widely as she kissed them each in turn on both cheeks. “It’s so good to see you. How was the trip?”
“Surprisingly fine,” said Maria with a grin of relief which was entirely justified since back home there’d been talk of a national airline strike for weeks now and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before it went ahead.
“And how are things going?”
“Very well,” said Maria. “How about you?”
“All good.”
“Your course?”
“Loving it.”
“And New York?”
“Ditto.”
“Have some of our fine award-winning wine,” said Antonio, deadpan, filling a glass and holding it out to her.
“It would be my pleasure,” said Mercy, taking it with mock solemnity and raising it. “Congratulations, everyone. To a great team effort.”
They clinked glasses, and Mercy took a sip, closing her eyes as the wine slipped down.
“Oh, that is good,” she said, relishing the cool, fruity crispness and marveling at the fact that when she’d planted the Torrontés vines she’d never dreamed the resulting wine would win an award. Her parents had been against it. They’d expressed their concerns that the variety wouldn’t do as well on their soil as it did where it was more traditionally grown, but she’d had a feeling, so she’d gone ahead anyway – and happily proved them wrong.
“Your parents said to tell you they send their love.”
At Maria’s words Mercy came to, lowered her glass and opened her eyes. “Yes, they rang earlier,” she said, thinking of the call in which they’d told her how proud of her they were, which had been as unexpected as it was lovely. “It sounds as though things are busy.”
Maria nodded. “Everyone’s flat out.”
“With the launch of the new rosé?” Mercy asked, putting down her glass.
“Yes. Mainly. It’ll be ready for release around June,” said Antonio.
“Screw top or cork?”
“Cork,” said Antonio.
“Label?”
Maria nodded. “A brief went out last week.”
“Price?”
“Being worked on.” Maria grinned. “We are surviving without you, Mercy. You’re not completely indispensable.”
Mercy gave her a rueful smile and let out a tiny sigh. “I know that. And I’m sure you’re all doing great. It’s just that sometimes I really miss it.”
“And we miss you,” said Maria, squeezing her arm. “Sure you don’t want to come back?”
“Quite sure. At least not yet.”
“Not even for Christmas?”
Ah, Christmas. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Perhaps deliberately. It wasn’t a subject she wanted to bring up with Seb. She wasn’
t sure why. “I don’t know,” she said vaguely. “We’ll see. I-”
But whatever she was going to say next vanished from her head because she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, and then her breath was sticking in her lungs and her heart was galloping because weaving his way through the crowds, head and shoulders above everyone else, totally unexpected and wholly out of context, was Seb.
*
What he was doing here, among all these people, all this noise, while making his way over to Mercy, Seb had no idea. The last time he’d acted on impulse had been when he’d gone to see Zel in that clinic, and look how well that had turned out. All he knew now was that he’d left work half an hour ago and had been on his way back to the house when suddenly he’d given his driver instructions to divert to here instead.
The only explanation he had for it was…well, he didn’t have an explanation and that was as bewildering as hell. Nothing about any of this made any sense and his only consolation was that Mercy looked as stunned at his presence as he was, which was sort of pleasing in its symmetry, he supposed.
Coming to a stop a couple of feet in front of her, Seb shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers to stop himself from reaching for her because presumably that would not go down well given the context of the evening, and forced a smile to his face.
“Hello, Mercy,” he said, clearing his throat because for some reason his voice sounded odd.
“Seb,” she said and edged away from the people he assumed were colleagues. “What are you doing here?”
A very good question. “I was passing,” he said. “Thought I’d drop in. Say hi. And congratulations.”
“Right,” she said with a nod. “I see.” But it was clear she didn’t, and he couldn’t really blame her. “Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
There was a beat of strangely awkward silence. “So are you staying for the dinner?” she asked, not looking entirely happy about the thought of it.
Which was fine with him. An evening of excruciating small talk while trying to pretend he didn’t want to pull her to the floor and ravish her was not his idea of pleasant. “No,” he said. “Like I said I was just passing. I have plans for later.”
“Oh?”
Seb ignored the question in her voice because how could he expand on non-existent plans? “You look lovely,” he said instead, raking his gaze over her and feeling a sort of hunger sweep through him.
“Thank you,” she said, sounding a bit breathless.
“How was Saturday?”
Mercy blinked, as if coming to. “Saturday?”
“Your night out.”
“Oh, right. That. It was fun. There were ten of us in the end. We went for drinks, then dinner, then dancing.”
“Late night?”
She nodded. “Very. I went home at about four.”
At which time he’d still been tossing and turning and wondering what she was doing. “Alone?”
Mercy stared at him for a second as his idiotic question sank in. “No, Seb,” she said a touch tartly. “I picked up three guys at the last nightclub we went to and took them back to my place. Of course I went home alone.”
He frowned and whipped his hands out of his pockets to shove them through his hair. “I deserved that,” he said gruffly. “I’m sorry.”
Sighing a little, Mercy leaned in closer, turning her back on her colleagues, and lowered her voice. “What’s this all about, Seb?”
Bloody good question. “I missed you.”
Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “You missed me?”
Damn. He hadn’t meant it like that. “I mean, I missed the sex,” he amended because, of course, that was what had been driving him mad – sexual frustration. Obvious, now he thought about it.
“So you’re here for what? A mid-week booty call?” she said, her tone even chillier than it had been a second ago.
“No,” he said swiftly. “That’s not it at all.” Although if she dragged him behind the stand and decided to have her way with him, he’d probably not put up much resistance.
“Then what?”
How could he explain it? He didn’t even understand it himself. But he had to say something. And something that wouldn’t make him look like a completely smitten fool, which he very definitely wasn’t. “I came to tell you that I’ve made a recommendation for you to be added to the Foundation’s list of preferred suppliers,” he said, as inspiration suddenly struck. “For this wine.” He nodded over her shoulder, the sweep of his gaze encompassing the stand. “Possibly others. I thought you’d like to know sooner rather than later.” As, no doubt, would the people at the Foundation who were in charge of that sort of thing, which would mean a delicate phone call in the morning.
Mercy stared at him. “Really?” she said, sounding a bit shell-shocked.
“Really.”
She flashed him a sudden smile and for a moment he felt blinded. “Well, that’s great.”
“I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I’m thrilled.” Then her smile faltered and she frowned. “But isn’t there a, ah, conflict of interest?”
He had no idea. There’d better not be. “I don’t believe so. I simply made the recommendation. Whether or not you’re actually added to the list depends on what they think of the wines.”
“Then thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
And that had to be that as conversation went, thought Seb, taking a step back and feeling like he could breathe again. His mouth was writing checks that were tricky to cash and he had to get out of here before it did it again.
“Right,” he said with a brusque nod and a tight smile. “Well. That’s all I came to say. I’d better be off. I’ll see you on Saturday. Noon. My place.”
And with that, he shoved his hands back into his pockets, spun on his heel and stalked off.
Chapter Eight
‡
The Sunday morning after the presentation dinner Mercy was lying in Seb’s bed while he slumbered on beside her, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep even though it was four am and he’d done a very thorough job of wearing her out.
Something was up, was the thought rolling around her head as if on a continuous loop. Something was very definitely up. She’d arrived here on the dot of noon yesterday, ready to tell Seb all about the call she’d had with the man from the Foundation and to share her excitement that they were prepared to take on three of her wines, but before she’d managed to get a word out he’d hauled her into his arms, kissed her until her head had swum and she’d been putty in his hands and, as usual, that had been that. They’d wound up in bed and here they’d remained.
But no amount of sex – however distracting – could hide the fact that Seb seemed to be on edge. He hadn’t smiled once since she’d been here. He’d barely said a word. He’d been darkly intense, all smoldering and glowering. And while it had given the sex a sort of dangerous quality that had been so spine-tinglingly delicious she couldn’t really complain, she couldn’t work out the reason for it. Had she done something? Had he? Did it have anything to do with Wednesday night, which had been, well, weird?
She oughtn’t to want to know and she oughtn’t to care but she did because the breathing space and the perspective she’d thought she’d get by not seeing Seb last weekend hadn’t materialized. Instead she’d missed him. A lot. And had thought about him even more than she usually did, which meant that far from disengaging herself as she’d hoped, she was possibly getting even more entangled, and that was another thing that was keeping her awake because short of ending their affair which did not appeal in the slightest, she didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
Agh. This was all driving her nuts. Seb. Her. The way her responses to her checklist seemed to be shifting… Her head was throbbing and her body was restless. Sleep obviously wasn’t going to happen. Peace of mind clearly wasn’t an option. She was going to have to go for a walk.
*
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Seb woke up with a start and a hard-on, and unfortunately, he discovered when he reached for Mercy and found he was grabbing at air, nowhere to put it.
He jackknifed up and looked round, an odd stab of panic shooting through him. Where was she? Had she gone home? It wouldn’t have surprised him if she had. He hadn’t exactly been charm personified this weekend, although that was hardly the shock of the century.
He couldn’t understand himself lately. He was permanently on edge. Permanently bewildered. And he didn’t like it any more than he liked his behavior on Wednesday night.
Turning up at that reception had been an epic mistake, he reflected grimly as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. He’d been a complete and utter idiot to have gone. Heaven only knew what Mercy had thought of his appearance, although there was no way in hell he was going to ask. She might tell him, and then he’d have to try and explain the inexplicable which would make him sound like even more of a fool.
But perhaps he ought to give himself a break, he thought, relaxing somewhat when he noticed Mercy’s watch still lying on the bedside table and realized she must be around somewhere. Perhaps he ought to just write it off and forget about it and stop beating himself up so badly. So he’d experienced a moment of weakness, a tiny lapse of control. It wasn’t as if it was going to happen again.
And it wasn’t Mercy’s fault, even though she’d borne the brunt of his filthy mood this weekend. He really ought to go and find her and apologize. Perhaps he’d entice her back to bed and set about making it up to her. And if he could manage to lose himself in her, if he could somehow stop the sickening feeling he had that everything around him was about unravel, then so much the better.
