Chapter 9 #3
I laugh at that. The champagne is still buzzing through me, the wine helping it along, and I'm standing on a porch in Napa Valley with a man who just helped me pull off the best night of my career, and my father is probably lying awake in his hotel room furious that I hung up on him, and I feel, for the first time in as long as I can remember, completely and entirely like myself.
Just Isabelle, barefoot on a porch, drinking wine she didn't pour, proud of something she built with her own hands.
I hand him back the glass and cross my arms against the railing. "You know that guy my father brought tonight? Olivier?"
Alex rolls his eyes. "You mean Cal Hockley?"
I stare at him for a second, then the laugh bursts out of me. "Titanic. He looks exactly like Billy Zane in Titanic. The hair, the watch, the snobby fucking attitude."
"My thoughts exactly," Alex chuckles. "All night I kept waiting for him to throw a table and chase someone down a flooding corridor."
"Well, he tried to hit on me after you left, so you're not far off."
Alex's feet come off the railing and hit the porch floor with a thud. "He did what?"
"Relax, fish guy." I wave a hand. "I handled it.
I told him I wasn't interested and that he should direct his attention elsewhere.
And I actually managed to do it smoothly.
You know that rare moment where you actually say something exactly how you want instead of thinking of the perfect response later? "
Alex's shoulders shake with laughter. "Oh, it's the best when that happens. I wish I'd seen it. I think I would have enjoyed the show."
I nod, lifting my chin. "You would have been quite impressed with me."
He smiles, slow and warm. "I am already impressed with you."
I feel heat creep up my neck at that, but also something supremely pleased, a little glow beneath my ribs that I try very hard to smother and fail at entirely. He really is relentlessly forward. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Though the blushing is probably answering that question for me.
And then, because apparently champagne turns me into someone who can't stop talking, I keep talking.
"The thing with Olivier, my dad literally brought him here as a setup.
A matchmaking play. Without asking me or even mentioning it beforehand.
Just, here's a man I've selected for you, Isabelle.
" I take another sip of wine. "And then when I called him afterwards to tell him to back off, Papa decided it was the perfect time to suggest changes to my food.
And when I told him to stop inserting himself into every aspect of my life, he said I can't be trusted to make my own decisions. Which was a lovely end to the evening."
Alex is quiet for a second, his expression shifting into something harder. "He said that to you? Tonight?"
"He says a lot of things. He's been saying some version of that my entire life." I look down at the wine in my hands. "I just don't usually hang up on him for it."
"Good for you. You absolutely should hang up on that kind of bullshit." There's an edge in his voice that catches me off guard.
Alex is the most even-keeled person I've ever met.
He makes everyone comfortable, always has the right joke or the disarming comment, never seems ruffled by anything.
I find it infuriating on a regular basis and I'm also deeply jealous of whatever gene he has that allows him to move through the world like that.
I didn't think he was capable of getting genuinely angry. And the fact that he seems angry right now, on my behalf, because someone was cruel to me, spreads warmth through my chest.
"Yeah, well. It felt good to do it." A laugh escapes me. "Is that terrible? That telling my father off felt almost as good as the service tonight?"
"Not even a little."
I nod, turning the glass in my hands. "It's the thing that drives me insane about him.
He can be so wonderful so much of the time.
He's given me the world, he's doted on me since I was a child.
But it's like he thinks the moment he loosens his grip I'll fall apart.
I won't pick the right person, I won't be able to run a pop-up, I won't be able to handle his restaurant. "
The vineyard is dark and still around us.
Crickets. The rustle of the vines in a breeze I can feel on my bare arms. Alex is watching me with his head tilted slightly, not trying to fill the silence, and I'm grateful for that because I don't need him to fix this.
I just needed to say it to someone who wouldn't tell me to be grateful for everything my father has done for me.
"But anyway. I didn't come down here just to vent about my father and his terrible taste in men."
"No?" Alex says.
"No." I set the glass on the railing beside me. "I have a proposition."
He tilts his head, and the corner of his mouth lifts. "I'm listening."
"Tonight was the best night of my career.
And I want to celebrate it. Properly." I look at him directly, forcing myself to hold his gaze.
"And I think we both know there's been a thing between us since that night in the kitchen.
Since before that night, probably. And my father just told me I can't make my own decisions, so I'm feeling particularly motivated to make one right now. "
The smile that spreads across his face is slow and just a little bit dangerous. "A proposition."
"Yes, but don't let it go to your head."
"Too late."
I fight the urge to smile back. "But I want to be clear about where I'm at with all of this.
I'm serious about New York. I'm serious about taking over my father's restaurant.
That's been the plan since I was sixteen and I'm not looking for anything that gets in the way of it.
" I tuck a strand of still-damp hair behind my ear.
"I think we'd be better as two people who can enjoy each other and have a really good night without it turning into a whole… thing."
I say this with conviction.
And yet somewhere in the back of my head, a very small, very loud voice stamps her foot on my shoulder and announces that I am an enormous liar and that this is absolutely going to become a whole thing and that I have, in fact, developed a massive, idiotic, completely inconvenient crush on Alex Midnight.
She is practically jumping up and down. She is holding a sign that says YOU ARE SO FULL OF SHIT.
I take a large gulp of wine to drown her out.
"Just tonight," Alex says, his voice steady. "A celebration."
"Exactly."
"No complications."
"None."
"Okay." He stands, and I have to tilt my head back to look at him because he is very tall and very close and the porch light is catching the line of his jaw and the planes of his face and the voice in my head is now screaming at full volume. "Just tonight. Very casual. I'm on board."
"Good."
"One question though." He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, brushing the spot on my neck where I sprayed the Philosykos, and my entire body lights up from that single point of contact like a circuit closing. "Does this start now, or are we still negotiating?"
"I don't know," I say. "Are you going to keep talking, or are you going to kiss me?"
He laughs, low and warm, and his hands find my waist and pull me against him, and then his mouth is on mine and it's better than the kitchen, better than I remember, better than a celebration has any right to be.
I pull back just enough to speak, my lips still brushing his. "Inside," I say.
"Yes chef," he says, and he's smiling when he says it, and I'm smiling when I kiss him again, and we stumble through his door still laughing, and the voice on my shoulder is absolutely losing her mind but I am not listening to her.
Not tonight. Tonight is just a celebration.
Tonight doesn't count. Tonight is two people who have chemistry enjoying each other and nothing more.
The voice doesn't believe me. I don't entirely believe me either. But his hands are in my hair and his mouth is on my neck and I decide that's a problem for tomorrow.