A Taste of Merlot (16 page)

Jaz brightened. “Of course, he doesn't have to worry where you're concerned. He must've been relieved when he realized you had nothing to gain by being with him.”

If he was, he forgot to mention it.

An eager rap at the door diverted their attention.

“Speak of the devil,” said Jasmine, eyes twinkling.

Meri inhaled sharply. He couldn't be here yet! Not when her mind was whirling faster than a Vitamix, trying to process all she'd just learned, and her heart was about to jump out of her body.

Jasmine leapt up to open the door, and in walked Mark wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket and his adorable lopsided grin, looking exactly as he had last weekend—if not more masculine, surrounded by a roomful of baubles, knickknacks, and women. He didn't
look
like he'd seen any almost-X-rated movies of her lately.

Mark's eyes skimmed over the coffee table strewn with half-eaten food and empty wine bottles and came to rest on Meri, still coiled up tense as a rusty spring, incapable of moving.

A silence fell over the room.

“Glass of wine, something to eat?” Jasmine offered.

He raised a hand. “Ah, no, no thanks. Gotta confess, I'm feeling like I crashed the estrogen party,” he replied, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets with a sheepish grin. He fastened eyes full of heart-wrenching expectation on Meri, clearly wondering why she was still glued to the couch.

Why didn't she untuck her legs, rise, and go to him? God, she wanted to—at least, from the neck down she did. Her frigid body was drawn to his warmth like a flower to the sun. If he'd shown up only five minutes earlier, she'd have been off that couch before the second knock. But how could she, now? Despite appearances, he wasn't the same Mark she'd thought he was minutes ago. She couldn't just un-hear what these women had said. She studied him, trying to decide if she felt differently about him, now that she knew how much he'd withheld from her. Now that she knew he was a Harrington. Time stopped while their whole relationship flashed before her eyes. Did she want to be with a man she couldn't trust to share his true self?

But what choice did she have? If she acted like something was wrong, Jaz and Hannah would realize that they'd betrayed him. And that would undo any headway she'd made into their good graces. They'd think twice before sharing anything with her again. Besides, what else could she do? This wasn't the time or place to hash things out.

The uncomfortable silence grew until finally Meri stumbled to her feet, crossed the small room, and stepped into Mark's waiting arms. Immediately, his familiar heat seeped into her, comforting her, making a traitor of her body.

“Sure you don't want anything? A beer?” Jasmine's voice barely registered over the pounding of Meri's heart.

Mark pulled back from their embrace. “What do you want to do?” His eyes traveled hungrily up and down the length of her to return to her face, as attentive as if they were the only people in the room—the world. He lifted a lock of her hair in his old familiar way, his merest touch thawing her . . . leaving her powerless to do anything but lift one shoulder in a weak shrug.

His attention still riveted on Meri, he raised his voice for Jasmine. “It's been a long week. I'm beat.”

“If you guys want to get going, I get it,” replied Jasmine. Meri caught her winking at Hannah from the corner of her eye.

Mark squeezed Meri's hand in a signal. “Let's go back to my place,” he rasped. After another glance at the bottles on the coffee table, he added, “I better drive.”

M
ark held the car door for Meri before hurrying around to his side. As the crow flew, it wasn't far from Jasmine's place to Russian Hill, but there was always traffic on Friday nights. Following his week away, Mark had one thing on his mind: getting Meri home and into his bed. Normally that wouldn't be a problem. When it came to getting busy, Meri was always more than willing. In fact, he realized now, she was usually the instigator. But no sooner had he slid into his seat and started the engine than Meri put a halting hand on his sleeve.

Even in the dim, he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. He looked into her pale eyes and saw that they were full of anguish.

“Why didn't you tell me you were a Harrington?”

His breath stopped.
Aw, shit.
Not now. Not tonight. He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. It was the midst of the crazy retail holiday season. He'd been traveling all week, there was the continual head-butting with his aunt, and he was horny. He'd been so anxious to be back with Meri. Now this.

With a heavy sigh, he admitted, “It's true. My grandfather was Michael Harrington. My mother was Melanie Harrington. Gloria is my aunt.”

Meri huffed, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.

Damn Jaz and Hannah
. No, that wasn't fair. This was all his own fault. Might as well deal head-on. He shut off the car. “They tell you I was married before, too?”

She winced, and her visible pain stung him as bad as it did her.

“It only lasted six months. DeVon helped me get it annulled.”

“I'm such a—boob!” she burst out. “Sharing every detail of my life with you . . . and then you keep something like this from me!”

“I should have told you. I'm sorry.” He took a steadying breath. “I was so naive going into that marriage. When Brandi left me, I couldn't believe it. When she told me she was never in love with me in the first place—” His vocabulary to describe those feelings was totally inadequate.
How do you describe to a woman how a swift kick to the balls feels? “
I was gutted. Then you came along, and I couldn't let go of the idea that someone could ever want me for anything more than my name, my money. Plus, everyone was telling me to play my cards close to the vest. I never planned on falling in love with you. Never saw it coming.”

“What about later? You've had plenty of opportunities to come clean!”

He raised his hands and dropped them to his thighs with a slap. “Lots of reasons. My family's name and my failed marriage were tied together. I didn't know how to tell you about one without getting into the other. I wanted to stick with my original story, impress you with my business skills, not who my grandfather was. Once we got close, I just couldn't admit I'd been less than truthful with you from the beginning and risk your disapproval.”

His hands reached for hers, but she slipped through them. “Don't you think it's a little hypocritical, expecting me to use Papa's name on my work when all this time you've been pretending to be merely a Harrington's employee and not—what are you, exactly? A shareholder?”

He nodded once. “I hold a minority of shares. The majority belongs to Gloria. It really was up to her whether or not to buy your line, not me. I need to make that clear.”

On the second try, he managed to capture her hands. “What could I say, after I found out how much you hate nepotism? I wanted to
earn
your respect and admiration. I didn't want it because I'm a Harrington. You're lucky, Meri. You have the Purchase Prize as proof of your talent. So far, every good thing that's happened to me business-wise has only been because I'm Gloria's nephew.

“I'll say it again: I'm sorry. I was wrong not to tell you I was more than just a buyer after we started going out. But it wasn't like I've been pretending to be well-off all this time, when I was actually penniless. That would've been unforgiveable. I've been doing the exact opposite. Most women would be glad to find out their boyfriend had more money than they first thought.”

“So I'm supposed to believe that one woman's betrayal devastated you enough to turn you into a liar to every future woman you met?”

Mark released her hands to rub his damp palms along the tops of his thighs and gaze out the side window. He felt off-balance, like a ground tremor before a quake. He scraped a hand through his hair. Man, this was not what he'd bargained for tonight.

“Do you remember me telling you that my parents were divorced?”

She glanced up.

“One night, I overheard them fighting.” And suddenly he was four years old again, wearing his footed Batman PJs, knees to chin on the top stair step while downstairs, the grown-ups—the smart ones, the ones he depended on to take care of him—argued. “My dad was yelling at my mom . . . accusing her of ‘sleeping around.' He told her he wanted something called a ‘ternity test.' ”

“I didn't know what those words meant, but I got the gist of it when Mom got hysterical, swore up and down I was his, and said she'd take any tests he wanted. But then he said it didn't matter anyway, their marriage was over. That it had ended the day I was born.”

He gulped and tasted salt water.

“I tried to make it up to her, to pull my weight after he left. Taught myself to cook. Had a meal on the table every night when she got home from work. But no matter how many healthy dinners I made her, I couldn't save her from cancer.

“Sometimes I think I should've broken free, gone into a completely different field instead of taking the crumbs Gloria threw me out of obligation after Mom died. But I was cut from the same cloth as my grandfather. Mom always said so. I loved retail. So here I am. Learning everything I can, hoping someday I can take over, do things the way my grandfather would've done them—that is, if Gloria and her CFO don't bung it up too bad in the meantime.

“Now you know everything. This is me.”

She had to understand, she just had to. He couldn't live in a world without her.

After a moment, she planted a warm, steadying palm against his cheek, then slid her arms around his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder.

Thank god, thank god
. He clung to her like an anchor. Somewhere down the road, Meri had become his axis. Everything spun around her. Now that he'd confessed he'd only gotten this far on family favors, his drive to succeed had multiplied. But with her by his side, he could do anything. He'd prove it.

 

Once the shock of girls' night wore off, Meri had reason to take heart. Mark had assured her that she knew everything there was to know about him, and she believed him. As for Jaz and Hannah, there'd been a genuine breakthrough there, too. The women never had to know they'd been the ones to fill her in on Mark's past.

Not only that, she'd once more dodged a bullet—her raunchy movie was still hidden. She could breathe—until the next time Mark was with Rainn. Yet not too deeply. It was always there, tormenting her whenever she thought of it, day or night.

Meri finally invited Mark up to the house to meet Papa over Christmas. It was overdue.

“Are you sure it's safe? After all those stories of St. Pierre murder and mayhem you've told me?” he teased.

Then, only a week before the holiday, Papa called to say he couldn't make it home from France. Something about his third cousin's husband, Bernard, in Lyon. Bernard was ill. It might be the last time Papa would ever see him.

“But Papa, this is the first year we've all been out of school. Next year, Char will probably be married. We were going have a real family holiday.”

A live tree, a Douglas fir from Washington state, had been delivered and was waiting to be trimmed. They'd given Jeanne the week off, which she'd declared she was using to visit her daughter in Portland. Savvy had already begun digging recipes out of Maman's old cookbooks.

“
Chérie,
I am very sorry. But wait. I will send the Gulfstream to take you and your sisters to the house in Nevis.”

Meri sighed, sinking to the kitchen chair. She pressed the phone to her ear with one palm and dropped her chin into the other. She didn't
want
to take a private jet to the sprawling stucco villa hugging the cliff, high above the Caribbean. She wanted to wake up Christmas morning at home, in Napa. To presents under the tree and stockings hung from the mantel. To gorge with her family on turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, not mahi with yogurt and cumin rice, tasty as that dish might be.

She and Mark ended up having a lovely, private celebration, the night before she left for the islands. That chilly evening, he came to the house and they snuggled together with their wineglasses on a couch before the main fireplace.

“I wish we were spending Christmas together. But Char and Savvy have already taken Papa up on his offer to fly us to Nevis. They want me to go too, while we're all still single. You're sure you don't mind?”

He brushed a stray wisp of hair from her face. “Much as I'll miss you, this actually works out well. From now 'til after Valentine's Day is when things get really insane. I'll be getting up early and going to bed late, trying to keep my finger on sales across three time zones. If you're off having fun with your sisters, I won't feel I'm neglecting you.”

With that settled, she handed him a wrapped box.

“Hermès,” he exclaimed, before he'd even finished peeling the layers of tissue paper back from the navy-blue cashmere throw with the big white H logo.

“To keep you warm while I'm away,” she murmured.

He ran his palm over its nap.

“Isn't it soft?” she asked.

“Not as soft as you.” He cupped her cheek, then huddled her into his embrace. “This is going on my bed. Thank you.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and pressed it into her hand. “Your turn.”

What kind of gift fit in an envelope? Concert tickets, maybe? That would be fun. A gift certificate?

She took it and a weighty object shifted from one end to the other. Her eyes flew to his. She had a feeling.

“Open it.”

There was something about that size. That shape. She slid her thumb under the flap to break the seal, and drew out the handmade-paper card. When she opened it, a golden rectangle, the dimensions of a bite-size piece of chocolate, fell into her lap. She gasped, her suspicion confirmed. On one side of the bar was embossed the profile of the Roman goddess Fortuna. On the other were the words S
UISSE
O
NE
T
ROY
O
UNCE .
9999 F
INE
G
OLD
.

Her smile faded into a look as serious as death. “Omigod, Mark.” That shiny gold bar must have cost him a week's salary.

“Read the card.”

The words were in his handwriting.

“You can use it to make anything you want.” Her hands flew to her face, sending the card fluttering to her lap.

Mark chuckled. “Why are you crying?” he asked, gently prying her hands away to uncover her expression.

“Because I'm so happy!” she sputtered.

That only made him laugh harder, and he surrounded her, heaving shoulders and all, in the shelter of his arms.

 

On the first day back to work after the holiday, Meri drove down to her atelier in high spirits. She was meeting Mark for lunch, and she'd chosen a white sweater to set off her newly acquired Caribbean tan.

HONNNNKKK!!!!!
Near the intersection of 29 and 37, a car swerved around hers.
HONK HONK HONK!!!!!!
Then another. Suddenly she realized she had taken her foot off the accelerator. The car was drifting. Frightened, she steered to the side of the road.

Her hands fisted the wheel in a death grip, heart racing like an overheated engine. She glanced into the rearview mirror to pinpoint the exact location of the Harrington's billboard, the front of which had been altered yet again.

She pulled back into traffic and kept driving until she came to the next exit, looping around to backtrack. When she reached the billboard again, she pulled over well in front of it this time to study the image in all its terrible glory.

Day of the Dead was the obvious theme, a disturbing juxtaposition of celebration and death. It was a cultural tradition that Meri, with her French heritage, had never fully appreciated. Beneath blazing blue skies, people dressed as skeletons paraded next to vibrantly attired women laden with platters of fruit and flowers. Front and center posed Rainn Gonzales in an off-the shoulder blouse, hand to her ample breast to finger the pendant lying just above her cleavage.

From behind her, his eyes lowered to peer down into that fleshy crevasse, his fingertips indenting her upper arms the way they'd touched Meri's so many times, was a man who looked exactly like Mark. Same height, same softly waving, layered haircut . . . same tilt of the head Meri had grown to love
.

Splashed across it all in a lively, Latin-flavored font was the caption, N
EW
F
ROM
H
ARRINGTON'S
: T
HE
D
ÍA
DE LOS
M
UERTOS
C
OLLECTION
.

Another vehicle beeped out a warning as it flew by at seventy miles per hour, rocking her car, but she barely blinked. In shock, she glared at the picture while her artist's imagination conjured up a mental image of Mark guiding that hideous necklace 'round Rainn's neck with lavish care, his nostrils taking in the spicy perfume that she'd favored even back in their school days.