Chapter Seventeen
Before they landed, Hawk showed her a couple of hand signals she could use if she needed him to intervene. She really wasn’t sure why he bothered until they walked into the event.
Hawk helped her with her jacket, gave it to the attendant collecting them, and then stopped at the perimeter of the room.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m not a guest,” he reminded her.
“But you’re—”
“Going to be close by at all times, but not someone you need to introduce or explain why I’m here.”
It never occurred to her that Hawk wouldn’t be directly at her side the whole night.
Though she realized that she and her family had security several times over the past year, and none acted like they were a guest.
“Oh.”
“I’ll let the event security know who I am.”
She looked around the room. “They have security here?”
Hawk smiled and dipped his head closer to hers.
“Over there,” he said, looking across the room at a woman wearing a suit and standing with her hands behind her back.
“There,” he said again. This time, it was a man, looking much the same, who stood by a back exit.
“And the two we walked past at the door.”
Alex looked over her shoulder, even though she couldn’t see the two Hawk spoke of. “Oh.”
He chuckled and stood tall. “Situational awareness, Alexandrea.”
She shrugged. “That’s why I have you, Mr. Bronson.”
Hawk nudged her shoulder with his. “Have fun.”
Waiters walked the room with trays of wine. Mainly reds, but a few whites were mixed in.
Alex skipped those and approached a tasting area and lifted a glass with a splash already poured.
A woman stood to her right and started a conversation right away. “This one is lovely. A perfect start to the evening.”
Alex brought the wine to her nose.
She smelled berries.
“Have you been to this event before?” Alex asked.
“We never miss it.”
Alex sipped the wine, and her taste buds sang. She and her family made a habit out of pulling wine from her father’s cellar without looking at what the bottle cost. As Nick had said, “ The old man collected but didn’t drink it. Now he’s dead and can’t. ”
Now it was part of every family gathering.
Alex was certain the people at this event would be shocked to know that she’d paired a thousand-dollar bottle of wine with Triscuits. And poured out a wine just as expensive because she didn’t like the taste.
“Is this your first time?” the woman asked.
“It is. I’m Alex.”
The woman smiled. “I’m Kim. My husband is around here somewhere.”
Kim walked with Alex to a couple more tastings before Alex moved back to the first one and asked for a full glass.
“Tell me, Kim. How does this work?”
Alex listened while Kim explained the process of the auction.
When Alex looked up, she’d find Hawk on the fringe of the room, his body angled toward her, his eyes either on her or on those by her side.
Alex found a pamphlet with the wine that was being put up. The estimated value and starting bids were written down. All the details of the wine, which Alex really didn’t know much about, age, grape, region ... and the points that apparently made up the price.
The very expensive price.
There had been a dozen or so bottles, or wineries, that stuck out as favorites that she’d sampled from her father’s cellar. Wineries with bottles on auction now.
Alex excused herself from Kim’s side and made her way to the auction table, gave them her information, and took a number so she could bid.
When she turned back to the room, a man slid in beside her.
“Good evening,” he said.
Somewhere around forty, balding slightly, but that didn’t take away from his kind eyes and easy smile.
“Good evening,” she replied.
“I couldn’t let the most beautiful woman in the room walk by without taking a chance and saying hello.”
“You flatter me.”
“As often as you’ll let me,” he said. “My name is Lawrence.”
Alex shifted her glass of wine to the one holding her clutch. Then extended her hand. “Alex.”
He took her hand and squeezed her palm in a way that said he wanted more than her name.
“I would have remembered if you’d been here before.”
“It’s my first time.”
Alex glanced up and noticed that Hawk had moved a little closer, his eyes honed in.
Lawrence lowered his voice. “Are you the type to drink the free wine and watch or lift your number and make everyone else cry for their loss?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she told him. “What about you?”
“A little of both.” He raised an eyebrow.
Movement caught Alex’s eye.
Hawk had shifted positions again.
Did he think she was in danger?
Lawrence asked what wine she was drinking. When she told him, he shook his head and took the glass from her hand.
“Trust me, if you like that, you’ll love this.”
He gently took her elbow and guided her to the far end of the tasting stations after setting her glass on a passing waiter’s tray.
Normally, Alex wouldn’t let a stranger tell her what she’d like and not like. But this was an event designed to have you try new things, and Lawrence appeared to know what he was doing.
And he was openly flirting with her.
The man wasn’t overly handsome, but not unattractive either. They stood eye to eye, which was shallow of her to consider, but Alex liked what she liked.
Although Hawk was still three inches taller than she was in heels.
Lawrence reached around a guest and snatched a tasting pour for her to sample.
He watched as she brought the glass to her nose and then her lips.
Oh, yes. Richer, fuller body.
Alex smiled.
“See?” Lawrence asked, proud of himself.
“You were right.”
He took the glass from her a second time and asked the server to fill it up, then took a glass for himself.
When they turned away from the people at the stations, Lawrence placed a hand on her back to guide her.
She felt herself stiffen on autopilot.
Flirting was one thing . . .
Alex shifted away from his hand.
If he noticed, he didn’t flinch. He simply let it drop.
Hawk, on the other hand, scowled from across the room.
Alex caught his eye briefly. He looked like he wanted to pounce.
She shook her head, and he took a step back.
Was he protecting her, or jealous?
Alex didn’t have an opportunity to figure out which before an announcement was made that dinner was about to be served.
“Would it be too bold of me to ask to join you?”
She smiled. “I don’t see why not.”
Although it might be a hazard to his health, from the look Hawk was throwing their way.
They took a seat at a table close to the auctioneer’s podium.
The table slowly filled with people, and the conversation flowed.
A local couple who owned a winery in the area kept them entertained with stories of auctions of the past. Another couple, younger, were from South Carolina and were in the early stages of buying a winery on the East Coast.
It was refreshing to hear about someone else’s business that wasn’t remotely like hers.
When they asked about what Alex did, she told them that her business was the kind that made her want to drink the wine and left it at that.
Several times during the meal Alex found herself searching out Hawk.
While she cut into the steak that made her mouth water, she wondered what, if anything, he had eaten since they arrived.
Lawrence pulled her attention away from her thoughts of Hawk’s stomach to ask how long she was staying in Napa.
She started to answer when someone stood up at the podium and caught the attention of the room.
“Welcome to the Eleventh Annual Hawthorn Dinner and Wine Auction. I see plenty of familiar faces and some new ones here tonight. Those of you who are joining us for the first time ... you’re right, we have purposely let the wine flow in hopes of loosening your wallets.”
The woman leaned over and whispered in Alex’s ear. “He says the same thing every year.”
“However, we do promise that whatever you bid on tonight will be worth it.”
The waiters moved around the room, removing plates and setting new, uncorked bottles of wine on the tables.
For the next ten minutes, the auctioneer gave a brief synopsis of some of the wine that was being auctioned.
Alex flipped through the pamphlet and smiled.
Oh, how her life had changed.
A year ago, she sat in her condo, drinking wine that never exceeded fifty bucks a bottle, and those were a splurge and certainly not the norm. Now she was here. Auction number in hand.
The room quieted as the first wine was brought up to the front, talked about, and the opening bid was set.
Alex watched the first round to see who was playing.
The second bout was much the same, a little livelier, and therefore ended at a higher price than the first.
The third was a label Alex had circled. A wine she and Nick had cooed over just weeks after her father’s funeral.
The thought made her feel like an ass, but the feeling didn’t last long.
The opening bid for the lot she wanted was three thousand dollars for six bottles.
Alex was the second bidder to raise her paddle.
The increments went up by a hundred, and a rapid fire of people shot the bid over five thousand in just minutes.
“Five thousand two hundred?” the auctioneer said to Alex.
Only when the auctioneer focused on Alex and one other bidder did she turn to see who was just as anxious to have the wine as she was.
The other person leaned forward, and Alex caught her breath.
Melissa.
“Five thousand two hundred?” the auctioneer asked again.
Alex nodded.
“Do we have five thousand three hundred?”
Melissa stared directly at Alex and raised her paddle.
What the hell was she doing there?
They went back and forth until the wine hit six grand.
Alex hesitated and eventually shook her head, letting the wine go to Melissa.
Melissa lifted her chin as if saying I win , then turned her attention back to those at her table.
Hawk moved along the side wall of the venue and caught Alex’s eye.
Melissa? he mouthed her name.
Alex offered a short nod and then turned around.