Chapter 9
“Excuse me? I was not trying to hide it,” Natalie answered, though deep down, she knew that at least a part of her had been trying to hide it.
Not from him, necessarily, but from Langhorne.
“Ha,” he said. “Sure, which is why you practically cattle-prodded us onto the bus? So we could all tramp about in the other rows, unaware of the purple discoloration?”
Natalie pressed her teeth together and took a deep breath. As annoying as it was, the guy wasn’t an idiot.
“Look, there’s a big difference between hiding something and not wanting to be embarrassed in front of my whole department,” she said begrudgingly. “And I never got to thank you for what you did on the bus.”
It pained her to say, and while she had been grateful for his concern about a possible storm at the time, seeing him now—decked out in protective gear—she realized he must’ve done it to help convince the group to cut the tour short.
“Surprised you noticed,” he said. “You were so busy making eyes at your boyfriend.”
“Wow, not my boyfriend,” she interrupted. But as she held up her hand to silence him she caught sight of the time on her watch and realized Neil would be here in a few minutes.
“Okay, sure,” he said, clearly not believing her.
“Listen, Mister…” She nearly called him something profane but managed to trail off instead.
“Ian,” he replied.
“Mr. Ian?”
“No, not Mister.”
“Right, sorry,” she said, regretting that she hadn’t asked someone who he was on the tour. “Listen, Ian. I have to go in a minute, and you can’t be out here—even with your hazmat suit. So, will you please leave?”
Ian looked from her to the vine he was holding and back again before letting it go. Then, when he refocused on her, he saw her properly for the first time. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked, gesturing to her with a gloved hand.
A shiver ran over her skin as he scrutinized her bare arms.
She hadn’t grabbed a coat in her mad dash out the door. Under her sweater, she was wearing a silk camisole top, and she didn’t want to add bulk to her date outfit. Not to mention, it was probably only about fifty degrees outside.
So, yes, she was absolutely freezing, but she had been so angry about his presence—and then about everything he was saying, doing, and implying—that she hadn’t noticed.
“I’m fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly becoming very aware of her bare skin and the low neckline of the camisole.
“Aren’t you going to answer my question? ”
“Yes, of course. I’ll go. Apologies for the intrusion.” He walked to the end of the row with her before removing his shoe covers and gloves. “So, you didn’t get around to talking about if the cross-pollination of Nine had a detectable effect on the wine—or if the mutations were only aesthetic?”
“Correct,” she said. “I didn’t.”
Even though she had sprinted out of the house, walking back with him felt like it was taking an eternity. They had barely made it to the driveway when she heard the sound of a car approaching.
Dang it, she thought; this was not what she had planned. She had yet to finish her makeup, was not wearing an appropriate shirt, and was shivering from the cold.
Neil’s car slowly pulled up to the front door, and she quickened her pace to meet him as he climbed out of the driver’s side door.
“Your not-boyfriend looks perplexed,” Ian said. “Or does he always look like that?”
She glared at him, noticing a mischievous smirk on the man’s face.
“Hey there!” she exclaimed as she drew closer to Neil. “Let me just grab my jacket.”
“Oh, okay,” Neil said. “Hi, Ian. How are you?”
Praying that Ian would be gone by the time she returned, Natalie rummaged through the coat stand, hoping to find something serviceable to save her from wasting even more time running upstairs.
A bright red, finely knitted cardigan with gold buttons down the front caught her eye. It wasn’t hers, but it did match the lipstick she had rolling around in the bottom of her purse.
Pulling it over her head, she realized it was slightly tight on her, but it didn’t look bad. The lipstick tied it together. It was absolutely not what she had been going for, but it would have to do.
Miraculously, Ian was gone as she stepped back outside. Natalie sighed with relief as Neil jumped to attention when he saw her. She noticed he was holding something.
It was flowers.
A small bunch of white flowers in an impractically small vase.
Was she supposed to hold it in the car to dinner?
Or put them in the house now, disappearing again?
This was why she hated dating—a simple, nice, and normal gesture of bringing a date flowers scrambled her brain.
Looking at his face, her heart leaped at the set of his jaw, which was so sharp and strong compared to the soft smile he wore.
Maybe it wasn’t the flowers scrambling her brain but the guy holding them.
“For you,” he said. “I didn’t want to risk a bouquet with the long drive sans water, so…”
Natalie realized she was silently staring and snapped out of it at his words. “That is so sweet. Thank you. I didn’t expect… Let me just…”
Awkwardly, she ducked back into the house, popping the tiny vase on the side table, and scolded herself for overthinking it all. Returning outside once again, Neil held her door open.
“Great,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
Are we running late? She hoped she hadn’t screwed everything up by confronting Ian.
Why was he so invested in the marks on the leaves?
It wasn’t good, that was for sure, but why did he care so much?
She had not been able to find anything that looked similar in her research over the past two days, which was also not a good sign.
All she could hope for was that Mrs. Langhorne hadn’t mentioned it to her husband.
It wasn’t like he would do or say anything about it if he did find out.
Still, the man barely respected anyone in the department, and having an unknown infection in your vines when you’re a viticulture researcher was like having your car break down as a mechanic.
“Nat?” Neil asked.
Oh, God, she’d missed something.
“Sorry, I was distracted,” she said, shooting him a friendly smile.
Luckily, he smiled back. “I just wanted to make sure seafood was fine; I realized I should’ve asked before booking the reservation, but I thought I saw you eating shrimp at that Fourth of July party last year?”
“Oh, right,” she said, completely unable to recall. “Probably, I do like shrimp. No problems with seafood here.”
“Good, because this place does the best shellfish marinara ever.”
He launched into a rundown on the restaurant, and she did her absolute best to listen.
She did a good job despite her mind wandering back to Mr. Infuriating Ian.
Mentally, she scolded herself; she needed to stop doing that.
Name-calling was hardly a mature way of dealing with whatever was going on with him—even if it was accurate name-calling.
Pulling up to the restaurant, she saw a valet and panicked—she was wearing a cardigan, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t he have told her it was a fancy enough place to have valets?
“You look wonderful,” he said reassuringly as they pulled up to the stand. “What?” Neil laughed. “You got jumpy when you saw the place—you look great. Anyway, isn’t that a Balmain? You’ll probably be better dressed than half the people here.”
“Uh, I’m not sure,” she said, startled as someone opened her door for her. “Oh, thank you.”
As she exited the car, her mind was reeling. It was a cardigan. What could make a cardigan all right in what looked like an extremely fancy restaurant? She pulled out her phone and searched for the name he’d said. Scrolling through the first page of results made her stomach flip.
John H Cristopher—whose cardigan was she wearing?
Eight hundred dollars.
Six hundred dollars.
Nine hundred dollars.
Her stomach lurched—two thousand dollars?
Tonight, her glass would contain water, and she would have to find the only item on the menu without sauce.