A Spring Affair (5 page)

Xavier sat in his office staring at his computer screen. Specifically he was staring at the little green dot next to Maya's name indicating she was online. He was tempted to click on her name and bring up the messenger screen and chat with her.

He hadn't seen her in over a week. Business had been unusually busy for both of them, but more so for Maya and the winery, considering it was off season for tourists.

Simply put, Xavier missed Maya. He couldn't stop thinking about their dinner at the café and that steamy kissed they'd shared after dessert. Soon after the kiss, Maya said she should head home. Xavier walked her to her car a few blocks down.

He smiled at how she'd turned to him and said, "I had a great time tonight, again. Your café is amazing and the meal you prepared was out of this world. Next time I'll have to cook for you."

He'd shoved his hands in his pockets and studied her for a moment before saying, "So, I've earned a 'next time'?"

She'd taken a step toward him and closed the distance between them. "You have most definitely earned a third date."

He took his hands out of his pockets and rested them on her waist.

"Fourth," he challenged.

She shook her head and palmed his face between her hands before whispering, "Whatever..."

Then she surprised him by planting another heated kiss on his lips. He gripped her waist a little tighter then, not wanting to make a scene in public, released her.

"Call me when you get home?" he asked.

Maya smiled, nodded then got in her car.

He was brought back to the present by the sound on his computer alerting him that he'd received a message.

[Maya T.: Working hard?]

He smiled remembering how he'd sent her the same message the last time they spoke online. His hands hovered over the keyboard, prepared to type a response, when he heard a loud commotion outside his door. He heard Lena's voice growing louder and more agitated. He stood to go and see what was going on, and before he could make it around his desk, his door flew open.

"I tried to stop her!" Lena said, angrily.

Xavier tried to keep his emotions in check, but now understood Lena's temperament.

He blew out a breath then said, "What are you doing here Darby?"

"I came to see you baby," she cooed, pushing her way past Lena.

She hurried toward him and tried to wrap her arms around his neck, but he caught her by her wrists and gently pushed her away from him.

As usual, Darby was dressed to perfection in some designer outfit. Now he couldn't believe he'd wasted so much of his time on this woman who was really concerned about nothing more than her appearance and herself. He was in the process of getting Wined & Dined off the ground when they met. With the memories of his parents working side by side to open their bistro and Darby's presence, it felt like they were recreating his parents' love story. He now realized Darby had used that to her advantage to weasel her way into his life.

When he found out that Darby had been unfaithful, she tried to spin the whole situation and make it look as though he were the one who'd done something wrong. But all he'd ever done was indulge Darby in anything she'd ever wanted. She'd come from a privileged family and was used to getting whatever she wanted.

She was a spoiled brat.

And when she realized she couldn't have her cake and eat it to, where Xavier was concerned, she ran to her daddy. The man had used his connections to try and pay to have health inspectors find issues with his café that would force him to have to shut down. He'd immediately informed his uncle, who had his own legal connections and he made a few calls. Sure enough, they found out that the inspector was shady and he got fired immediately.

After that Wined & Dined was fine and Darby slinked off. This was the first time he'd seen her since they'd broken up.

Xavier released her wrists and took a step back, to put even more distance between them.

Darby yanked her glasses off of her face and glared at him. "Xavier, this is no way to treat your fiancée! Six...seven months is entirely too long to be separated over a tiff."

One of his eyebrows rose in disbelief. The woman was really off her rocker. He looked over Darby's shoulder at Lena.

"Give us a minute?"

"What?!" Lena shouted. "Xay–"

"Lena, give us a minute," he repeated.

"Xavier," his sister said through clenched teeth. She looked as if she were ready to beat Darby's behind.

"It's okay, Lena," he said.

Finally Lena sighed and took hold of the doorknob to close the door.

He turned his attention back to Darby.

"A tiff," he said. "You consider
you
cheating on me a tiff?"

He shook his head and sat down at his desk.

"It was a misunderstanding," Darby cried.

Xavier could do nothing but laugh in her face. "What exactly did I misunderstand about my sister coming over to my place to find you screwing some guy?" he nearly shouted.

Acting as if she were offended, Darby said, "She had no right to just barge–"

"Oh she had every right! She is my sister, and she had a key."

Xavier had asked Lena to swing by his place to pick something up and bring it to him on her way to her classes. What exactly, he didn't remember anymore. What he did remember was how Lena had nearly killed Darby when she walked in on them. After she'd calmed down enough to drive, she rushed over to Wined & Dined to let Xavier know what happened. She'd felt more remorse than Darby seemed to feel at the time, mostly because she'd been the one to introduce the two of them.

"Xavier–" Darby started, but he cut her off again.

"And please,
please
tell me what I misunderstood about you running to your daddy to have him do everything in his power to sabotage my café."

"Okay," Darby said, "You're right, what I did was wrong. But I'm sorry. I want us to try again."

He sat there, staring at her for a moment before he began to bellow with laughter.

"What is so damn funny?" Darby huffed.

"Are you high?" he asked, still laughing.

"
Excuse me?
What kind of ridiculous question is that? Of course I'm not high."

"Then I must be high," he instantly sobered, stood and planted both palms on his desk. "
One
of us must be, if you can actually form your mouth to say such an outrageous thing as you want us to try again."

"Xavier," Darby nearly begged. "I told you I'm sorry, I've finally come to my senses."

"I think you've completely
lost
your senses," he mumbled, then sighed, "it doesn't matter anyway. I'm seeing someone now."

Darby reared her head back as if she'd been slapped. "You're
cheating
on me?"

"
What
?!" Xavier howled. Yeah, the woman was bat shit crazy.

"I can't believe all of this time, I've been waiting around for you and you're up here throwing everything we've worked so hard for away. Who is she? Who is the bitch?"

"That is none of your business," Xavier said as he picked up his phone. "Logan," he said into his phone that would call out into the kitchen, "Can you come into my office please?"

It was more than obvious Darby wasn't leaving of her on free will.

"Darby, I don't know what is going on with you, but you need to seek professional help. Seriously."

She opened her mouth to speak at the same time the door swung open and Logan walked in. Logan was the sous chef, but he occasionally moonlit as a bouncer.

"Yeah, boss?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest, causing his biceps to tighten and stretch his black t-shirt. No one would suspect the 6'5, dark chocolate, all muscled bouncer could cook up a beef bourguignon like nobody's business. But he also had no problem tossing unruly partiers out of a club.

"Can you please escort Miss Davenport out?"

Darby looked over her shoulder and gaped at the giant of a man.

"You're kicking me out?" she proclaimed.

"I'd appreciate it if you left with a bit of decorum I know you were raised with and not cause a scene."

Darby slung her large handbag over her shoulders, spun on her heels and headed out the door. Before she disappeared down the hall, she turned, glared at Xavier and said, "This isn't over."

"For all of our sakes, I really hope it is."

After Darby finally left, Xavier sank back down into his chair and laid his head on his desk. He heard footsteps approach and knew without looking up that it was his sister.

"Xay?"

"Not now, Lena," his said, his voice muffled from his head still being down on the desk.

After he heard the door quietly close, he let out another sigh, as the workings of an out of this world migraine began to form behind his eyes. He pulled one of the drawers open and rummaged around looking for some pain medicine to alleviate his headache.

He looked up when he heard his computer alert him to a message.

[Maya T.: You there???]

Maya!

With all of the Darby drama, he'd completely forgotten that Maya had instant messaged him...he looked at the clock...he couldn't believe that only ten minutes had passed. Darby seemed to suck so much life out of a person that time seemed to just drag on.

He sat up and began to finally respond.

[Sorry. Meant to respond as soon as I got your first message, but something came up.]

[Maya T.: Everything okay?]

[Not really, I just went from having a pretty good day to the day from hell.]

[Maya T.: Oh no! What happened?]

Xavier smiled at her concern. That was another difference between Maya and Darby. Darby didn't seem to have time to listen to anyone else's problems. Xavier stopped his train of thought. He refused to compare Maya to Darby. There was no contest anyway, so it was a waste of time.

[What happened was the ex from hell stopped by.]

[Maya T.: Darby?!]

[The one and only.]

There was silence for awhile, before she finally responded.

[Maya T.: I'm sorry she ruined your day. Do you want to talk about it?]

[Maybe later. Right now, I think I just need to get out of here for awhile.]

[Maya T.: Okay. Well, call me if you need anything.]

[I definitely will.]

He logged off and shut his computer down. Then he got up and headed to the kitchen. Lena was loading a tray to deliver to some customers.

"I'm heading out for the rest of the day. Can you guys handle the café?"

"Of course," Lena said quickly. "But where are you going?"

"I need a change of scenery."

Lena smiled, knowing exactly where he was heading. "Do I need to cover for you for the rest of the weekend?"

He mussed her hair then kissed her forehead.

"I'll let you know."

Maya had just seen the last customer out of the winery, and locked the door when his car pulled up. She made it over to him just as he was getting out of his car.

"Xavier?" she asked, confused. "What are you doing here?"

She could almost see the stress radiating off of his body. He gave her a strained smile as he said, "You said to call if I needed anything. This is me calling."

"Come on," Maya said, taking his hand and leading him over to the area of picnic tables. "Let's sit down and talk."

Once they were sitting down, she waited for Xavier to speak.

He laughed and shook his head. "I was such a fool with that woman."

Maya felt her heart breaking for him. She reached out and took his hands in hers. "You were in love," she said, sympathetically.

"Do you know why she showed up today?"

Maya shook her head and waited for him to tell her.

"She had the nerve to come into my office and demand that we get back together. As if the fact that she cheated on me then tried to have my café ruined were irrelevant.

"She did
what
to your café?" Maya blurted out.

Xavier went on to tell her all about the 'real' Darby, from how his sister had caught her in the act to her getting her father to try and destroy Xavier's business.

"I can't believe she did all that," Maya said when he was finished.

"And the worst part of it all is that I
know
she has something else up her sleeve. I can feel it. I just don't know what."

"How did you end up here?" Maya asked.

For the first time since he'd arrived, he truly smiled. "After that darkness, I needed something that brought light into my life." He looked around, realizing that it was getting dark. "Although I do apologize for not calling first."

Maya waved him off. "It's totally fine. I was just going to head home and figure out what to have for dinner." She hesitated for just a brief moment before she asked, "Would you like to join me?"

Xavier's smile widened even further. "That sounds great."

Maya stood and pulled her keys out of her bag. "You can follow me to my place."

A few minutes later she was in her car, glancing in her rear view mirror every few minutes to make sure Xavier was still behind her. At the same time she was trying to remember if her place was in good enough shape for guests. She wasn't a messy person, but some mornings when she was in a rush she wouldn't put away every thing and she would sometimes forget to make her bed.

Her bed.

Why was that the main thing she couldn't stop thinking about?

She blew out a breath.

Calm down
, she told herself.
It's just a little dinner.

She thought about the kiss after their last dinner together. And then she made a mental note to put fresh linen on the bed...just in case.

Xavier pulled up next to Maya's car in a small driveway of a nice looking two story house. The yard was tiny, but it was lush and green, and there were several different bright colored flowers.

"This is me," she said, as he followed her up the walkway to the front door.

"Very nice."

"Thank you," Maya replied. He could hear the smile of pride in her voice. "I got lucky finding this place."

She unlocked the door and hit a switch, illuminating the living room area with light.

"I'm going to run and put this stuff away," Maya let him know. "Feel free to look around and make yourself at home. I have some wine in the fridge. I'm sure you could use a drink after the day you've had."

She didn't have to tell him twice. He nodded and made his way over to the kitchen.

The house was a decent size, although it seemed to be quite a bit of space for a single woman. Of course the same argument could be made for him and his house, which was easily twice the size of Maya's modest home. So he definitely wasn't one to judge. Some people just liked having a lot of space. Of course when he'd purchased his home, he'd had visions of marriage and children dancing in his head. After Darby had been caught cheating, he and Lena and gone through the house and gotten rid of everything. He loved the house too much to sell it, but everything inside had to go. Including his bed. There was no way he was sleeping in that ever again.

Xavier sighed, and put Darby out of his mind. She'd ruined his day enough already.

He opened the fridge and of course he found a bottle of Russell Oaks, but not much food. He pulled it out, and easily found two wine glasses in her see through cabinets.

By the time Maya returned to the kitchen, he was pouring them both a glass.

"Here you go," he said, handing her the glass.

"Thank you."

Xavier noticed that she'd changed out of her work clothes into a sexy hip hugging pair of jeans and oversized sweater. She was barefoot and her toes were painted in a sexy red polish.

When his gaze finally landed back on her face, he said, "Thank
you
. I just showed up at your job, kind of a mess and you were...wonderful."

Maya's smile always had a way of warming his heart.

"It was nothing Xavier," she said quietly, looking down into her wine glass.

He took her chin between his thumb and knuckle and lifted her face.

"You say that quite a bit," he observed. "But the things you do that are 'nothing' are
everything
. You are one of the most thoughtful, caring and beautiful women I've ever met."

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. He felt her body melt against his, as her free hand slid around his neck. He deepened the kiss for just a moment before pulling away. He smiled at her as he said, "I believe you promised me a meal."

She let out a sexy chuckle that had him wanting to taste her instead. "I did, didn't I?" She began looking through her cabinets and pantry. After an unsuccessful search, she glanced at him sheepishly. "I'm sorry I don't have much food."

He grinned at her as he teased, "I thought you said you could cook."

She rolled her eyes. "I
can
cook. I just
don't
cook, often. Usually by the time I get home, I'm so exhausted I don't feel like cooking. Plus, I don't have company very often."

"Maya, it's fine. You've been working all day, and you certainly weren't expecting me. You don't have to go out of your way to cook me anything. We can order out."

She opened a drawer next to them and pulled out a stack of take out menus. "Since you are the guest of honor tonight, you pick. And..." she said, picking up the nearly empty bottle of chardonnay, "...it looks like we're going to need another bottle. I'll be back."

She gave him another quick kiss, before heading off and a moment later, he heard her running upstairs.

Xavier spent a few minutes thumbing through the menu flyers before settling on Chinese. He went to the foot of the stairs and called out.

"Maya?"

"Up here," she shouted back. "Come on up."

As he climbed the stairs he asked, "Is Chinese okay with you?"

"Perfect. Can you order me some sweet and sour chicken with white rice. And extra egg rolls."

"Sure," he said, looking around when he made it upstairs. "Where are you?"

She stuck her head out of one of the rooms with a mysterious smile, "Over here. Come on in. I want to show you something."

As he walked toward her, another bedroom caught his eye. Clearly it was her master bedroom. From what he could see, it was nice looking. The thought briefly crossed his mind to whether or not he would get to fully see it sometime tonight.

He stopped short when he entered the room Maya called him to.

"Whoa," he said, in complete amazement.

She'd converted one of her spare bedrooms into her own little wine cellar. The walls were covered with bottles of wine filled on shelves much like the ones at the shop of the winery or his café.

"My father installed these for me," Maya explained.

"He did an excellent job," Xavier said, as he walked around checking out the bottles. Naturally, there were a lot of bottles from Russell Oaks, but she also had a plethora of other wines from around the globe. He pulled out a bottle and read the label then turned back to her. "You were understating yourself when you said you knew 'a little' about wine. You could open a small store."

He pulled out another bottle of wine and dusted off the label. After reading it, he looked up at her with wide eyes. Holding up the bottle, he asked, "You have a Chateaux DuBois '98?"

Maya nodded. "Yes, I'm ashamed to say it took nearly one whole paycheck to pay for just that bottle. But when I found it, I knew I had to have it. There are only–"

"Three bottles of this year ever made."

"Right," Maya said, smiling at the way he'd finished her sentence.

He gave her a knowing smile as he said, "I have one of the other two. I've been searching for the third." He shook his head, looking reverently at the bottle. "How did you get such a large collection?"

"Oh, you know, just using every extra penny of every pay check," she said, smiling. "I know it seems a bit excessive."

"Baby, if you think this is excessive, you're gonna faint when you see my collection," he said, with a wink.

He loved the way her eyes lit up as she said, "I'm absolutely looking forward to it."