Summer in Napa (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel) (35 page)

Lexi snatched her hand back and wrapped it around her stomach. The look of utter humiliation on her face said she got the message loud and clear.

“I know I told you to keep an eye on her, but damn, really?” Jeff shook his head, and Marc wondered what he’d ever seen in the guy. Under all of the shine and flash was a tool. A worthless piece of shit who didn’t see anything outside the realm of Jeff.

“What part of
shut the hell up
did you miss?” Marc snapped, but when he turned back to Lexi, his anger fled and all he felt was this gut-wrenching knowledge that Gabe had been right. He’d played this one fast and reckless and he’d blown it. And in the process he’d lost Lexi.

“You were
keeping an eye
on me?”

“Lexi.” He took a step forward, but she backed away again, shaking her head.

“This whole thing was a big game to you guys. Just like back in high school when you set out to seduce a new conquest. The menu, my grandma’s books, the bistro, the dinner at your family’s house, all of it. Only this time you weren’t just out to get in my pants—” Her voice caught and her eyes went round with understanding. He knew where she was going, and she was so wrong. “That was fake too. All of it was fake.”

She looked around the bakery, as if remembering that there was a roomful of people watching and chronicling the most humiliating moment of her life.

“Lexi, that’s not true.” But she wasn’t listening.

“You made me feel sexy and beautiful and like I was special.”

“You are, God, baby, you are. To me, you always have been.”

“You told me I could make the bistro a success. And I listened and like a stupid woman I believed you, Marc. I
believed you so much that I stopped listening to the voice inside of me, warning me to take it slow. I believed you to the point that I don’t think I have any belief left to give.”

She reached up and untied the top of her apron, the lavender one that he loved so much. Folding it in half, she laid it on the counter and gave him one last look. A look he would never forget. He knew that whatever Jeff had done to her was nothing compared to what he’d just accomplished. Marc had played and lost, and in the process he’d completely devastated her world.

With a whispered good-bye, she walked out the door, the bells of the bakery giving a final jingle. Marc somehow made his way to the window and watched her disappear behind the alley. He rested his head against the glass when he was sure that she was gone, and that she wasn’t coming back.

And that’s when he finally understood. Understood that old man Charles wouldn’t come to the Showdown, wouldn’t try to ruin the wine tasting, wouldn’t continue this sixty-year feud. Because losing the woman you love to another man could make you do stupid things. But losing the woman you love all on your own—there’s no coming back from that.

A few seconds, a few minutes, hell, a lifetime could have passed. Marc stood there, looking out the window and replaying every decision he’d ever made with regard to Lexi. He was surprised when he turned around to find everyone still in the bakery staring at him, including his nonna, who must have come out at some point during the argument, because she was looking at him with shame.

He didn’t blame her. He was ashamed. And angry. And he hurt so fucking bad he couldn’t breathe right.

When ChiChi took a step forward, Marc said, “I gotta go,” and walked out the door, down the street past the Paws and Claws Day Spa, past Bottles and Bottles: Pharmacy and Wine, and kept going until he found himself walking through his family’s vineyard and somehow made it to Gabe’s front door.

The door opened. Gabe took one look at Marc and took a step back, holding the door open wide. “Aw, man, come on in, you look like hell.”

Marc didn’t move.

“I blew it, Gabe.”

“Can we fix it?”

“I don’t think so.” He rested his forehead against the doorframe. “She likes my dog, doesn’t take my crap, and looks at me like I can be the kind of man Dad was. When she cooks…she wears this apron…” He paused and looked up at his brother and felt everything inside tighten. “And I love her so damn much that I have no idea how I’m supposed to wake up tomorrow and pretend like my life hasn’t just fucking ended.”

L
exi’s phone rang again, and she let it go to voice mail—again. It was two in the morning. And probably Marc. And she just couldn’t bring herself to answer it.

She didn’t know if he was calling to ask if she was still going to cater the Showdown tomorrow or if he was calling to apologize and beg for her back. Either way, she couldn’t stomach it. If it was the first, she’d cry because he wasn’t calling to apologize and beg for her back. If it was the latter, she was afraid she’d cry because she’d have to tell him where he could shove his apology. And she was tired of crying. She was also drunk.

So when the phone stopped ringing, she waited for a long beat, then decided to pour herself another teacup of Pricilla’s Angelica and grabbed her needle and thread.

Earlier that evening, she had used the seam ripper to take the
Morning, Hot Stuff
out of her apron, replacing it with
Deflated Cream Puff
before she finally settled on
I Love You, Dumb-ass!

She had just finished putting a black heart in place of the period at the bottom of the exclamation mark when the phone rang again.

Knotting the thread, she set her craft aside and downed her teacup. It was ringing for the third time when she finally looked over at the stack of three-by-five cards resting on her pillows that Abby had given her. They were a series of prompts for her to refer to in case she gave in to the weakness and answered. Most of them were so profane she would be too embarrassed to even say them, which was another reason not to answer.

By the time the call went to voice mail, she’d managed to refill and reempty her glass again. She’d also managed to spill half of said glass down her front.

“Crap.” She hopped up and grabbed a pair of dirty jeans from the floor and scrubbed at the tank top until it had faint denim smudges on the chest.

A soft tap sounded at the window.

Lexi froze. Jeans in hand, breathing nonexistent, she listened. When holding her breath and standing still became not only impossible but dangerous, she tiptoed over to the window and braced herself.

Was Marc down in the alley tossing pebbles at her window? Because if he was, she would tell him just how cheesy his
Romeo and Juliet
act was—and just where he could shove his apology.

After a quick fluff to the hair, Lexi grabbed the curtain, yanked it back, and screamed.

A face was staring at her through the glass. A face with frizzy hair and pissed-off eyes that was staring. Right. At.
Her. It opened its mouth, only Lexi was too afraid to hear what it would say.

One hand over her lips, the other slamming the curtain back in place, she backed up and stumbled onto the bed. The prompt cards scattered to the floor, but thankfully the Angelica was all right.

“Will you open the window!” Abby’s voice hissed though the glass and fabric.

Lexi did, and the sight made her want to cry all over again. It wasn’t Marc. He hadn’t crawled up her trellis, hadn’t come to say he was in love with her, and even worse, she didn’t know if he regretted hurting her. If he had even felt what she had. And if his chest ached to the point of suffocation.

“It’s you,” Lexi sighed, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. “What are you doing?”

Abby stared. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m breaking you out of this self-imposed hellhole.”

“Oh.” For some reason that made sense. “Why didn’t you come through the door?”

“Because it’s locked.”

“I would have let you in. Plus, there’s a spare key. I hid it under the gnome.” Marc knew it was there. He had used it a few times to wake her up in the morning after his run.

God, she missed him.

“Great to know. Next time I have to knock for over an hour, I’ll remember that.”

“How are you all the way up here?” Lexi leaned out the window, around Abby, and squinted at the bright-yellow ladder wedged up against the side of the building. Then she looked at the window across the alley and wondered if he was in there. She had pulled her blinds so he wouldn’t
see her crying, but every few hours she checked for a sign of him. She never found one.

Maybe he had fallen asleep on his desk, waiting for her to open her blinds. She nudged her tank top lower, happy that she had forgone a bra, leaned out the window farther, and asked, really loudly, “Where did you get the ladder?”

Lexi looked at his window. No lights. No movement. Just depressing darkness.

“I borrowed it from Jack,” Abby said, giving her a really weird look.

“So it’s Jack now, huh? What did that cost you?”

“Three extra piano lessons, and—” Abby paused. “Why are you yelling? Are you drunk?”

“No.” Lexi smiled. Then laughed. Then slapped a hand over her mouth.

Abby leaned in and immediately jerked back, her nose wrinkling. Abby had a perfect nose, pert with a few freckles, and it even looked cute when crinkled up in disgust. “Did you fall in a vat?”

“Nope.” Lexi sat back on the bed and snagged the bottle of Angelica off the nightstand, shoving it in Abby’s face and nearly knocking her friend off the ladder.

“Give me that.” Abby snatched at the bottle, but Lexi held on.

“He broke my heart, Abs,” Lexi whispered.

Abby’s eyes went soft with understanding. “I know. He’s an idiot, and the only thing that saved him from having to place his own ‘Where’s My Dick’ ad is that he’s my brother, and I love him.”

“Me too,” Lexi said, and the tears pooled up again.

“I know you do. At the farmers’ market, I knew.” She took Lexi’s hand in her own tiny one and squeezed. “Would it help if I said that Marc knows he messed up and that he didn’t know Jeffery was after your recipes until it was too late and then he was stuck between disappointing you and my other brothers?”

Lexi thought about it and shook her head. He had still kept secrets from her, and good intentions or not, secrets hurt. Sometimes they hurt worse than lies. And Lexi was tired of being hurt.

“Would it help if I said I think he loves you back, but being that he’s a DeLuca with the Y chromosome, he couldn’t help but screw this up?”

“That makes it worse.” Lexi took in a shuddery breath and tried not to cry. Imagining a life without him had been devastating. But what if Abby was telling the truth? What if he did love her? She would be walking away from her only chance of spaghetti-splattered-apron kind of love. “I don’t know what to do. This is different than Jeffery. I’m not embarrassed or angry. God, Abs, it hurts so bad.” She patted the spot above her heart that felt like it was missing, like it would never be whole again. “I can’t even breathe.”

“Which is why you’re going to go grab a towel before we both wind up drunk and crying.”

“I don’t want to go—”

“Grab a towel.” Abby gave Lexi one last look and then started down the ladder.

Lexi wiped her face on the hem of her tank top and gave a little sniffle. When she could take in air without pain shooting through her chest, she leaned over the sill and looked down at Abby, who was on the alley floor. “Where are we going?”

“The lake.” Abby held up a familiar set of keys. “Now hurry up before Pricilla figures out that I stole her car.”

Lexi stumbled to the bathroom and, avoiding a peek in the mirror for fear that she would never leave the house again, brushed her teeth. She was about to leave when she stopped to smell her shirt.
Vat
was putting it mildly.

Grimacing, she shucked the tear-and-snot-stained tank and headed back to the bedroom, grabbing the towels.

“Why don’t you go out the front door?” Abby suggested when Lexi stuck her legs out the window and nearly tumbled down the ladder.

“This is more fun,” she hollered back, tossing the towels to the ground, hoping they landed on Abby’s head while silently counting each rung of the ladder as she descended.

“Um, Lex?”

“Don’t talk to me. I’m counting!”

“Yeah, well, you might want to count your way back up to your room and get some clothes on.”

Lexi got to the bottom rung, number fifteen to be exact, and hopped off. “No way. Last time we did this I played it half-assed and look where that got me. Married”—she counted off each infringement on her fingers—“divorced, in debt, jobless, and with a broken heart, courtesy of my fake boyfriend.”

The last infringement counted for five on its own, which brought her loser grand total to a whopping 90 percent.

Abby gave her a long look and cracked a smile. “Well, you don’t have to worry about half-assing it this time, because I can see your whole ass.”

M
arc stood at the back of the ballroom, watching people mingle and chat and fill out checks big enough to pay for a year of medical and educational needs for the entire town. From the way the mayor kept grinning and pumping the hands of the guests, Marc knew that even though the night was only half over, they had already reached their mark. Just like he knew that he should be out there welcoming his guests, drumming up support for next year’s event—doing his job.

But the only thing he could do was think about Lexi.

He knew she was there. Her first course had been served, and devoured, and now the waiters were bringing out the entrées. But Lexi hadn’t come out of the kitchen. And Marc, not wanting to make this night any harder on her, had kept his distance.

The summer his parents died, Abby had locked herself in her room for three months and posted a sign that read
Need Space
. Earlier that afternoon, Marc had seen Lexi in the
lobby of the hotel talking to Abby, and when he gave her a little wave, she gave him a look that pretty much read the same as Abby’s sign. The only difference was that by the time school rolled around, Abby had taken down her sign. He didn’t think he’d get that lucky with Lexi. Hers looked to be permanent—with regard to him.

“I just overheard the mayor talking to the press about how great tonight turned out,” Nate said, walking up beside him with Trey in tow. “Said it was the best Showdown St. Helena has hosted in recent years.”