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Her knowing smile tells me she has no intention of making a mistake.
“Check and checkmate,” she says.
I throw my hands up. She won’t really have me in check for three more moves, but we both know where this is headed. I can’t win, so I lay down my king. “You got me. You’re not only good at your job, you’re also good at chess.”
Her head jerks up as though I’ve startled her.
“You okay?” I ask.
She gawks at me with wide eyes. “What makes you think I’m good at my job?”
“Instinct. And you just gave me better advice than I’ve ever gotten in a week.” I start setting up the pieces again. “One win apiece. Looks like we need a tie breaker.”
When I look up, I find her regarding me warily, like maybe she doesn’t know whether to believe me. It gives me the sense that people don’t compliment her often enough. Even if I’m only here a couple weeks, I plan to change that.
Finally, she nods slowly and leans back in her chair. She picks up her wineglass. “Not tonight. I’m wiped out from my day.”
I remember how dazed she looked when I ran into her earlier, and I feel like an asshole for not asking her about it.
“Anything particularly tiring about today, or is it always a lot, being a fixer?”
She huffs a laugh. “The fixer thing was kind of a joke since I do PR, but today, something came along that might actually need fixing.”
I wait to see if she feels like elaborating. It’s none of my business, but I find myself wanting to know more about her, whether it’s her job or something else. “You want to talk about it?”
Her jaw goes slack, and she blinks as though the concept is foreign. “Wow, um, I’m not sure. I normally just work stuff out on my own.”
I take a sip from the glass of wine and shrug. “No pressure. It was an offer.”
Nodding slowly, she considers it. I wait, taking her cues on whether she wants to talk. She stares off and says nothing.
“I like this wine.” When I lift the glass, the overhead light cuts through the pale yellow of the chardonnay like the sun. “I don’t know a lot about wine, the making of it, anyway,” I admit. Might as well be honest.
She snaps back to focus and looks at the wine. A couple strands of hair sweep across her forehead, and she tucks them behind her ear. “That’s easily remedied here. Do you drink a lot of wine?”
“Only when I have to.”
Her eyes go wide. I really need to work on not blurting out my thoughts. It’s going to get me in serious hot water. “Well, you made an unfortunate choice of where to hang out for two weeks.”
“Sorry. Does that offend you as a winemaker?” I’m out of my depth when I leave the world of astrophysics and business, and I know better than to sling bullshit and try to make someone believe I know what I don’t.
She shakes her head slowly, a corner of her mouth tipping up. “No, because I didn’t build Buttercup. I don’t consider myself a winemaker. That’s Archer’s purview, at least it is now. I just do the publicity.”
I pick up one of the pawns from the board, feeling its cool weight in my hand, and harken back to the couple hours of conversation with Archer over dinner. I feel my forehead crease with the disconnect.
“He told me about your dad’s diagnosis. I’m sorry.”
It feels like the right thing to say under the circumstances, so I’m not expecting PJ to react as though I’ve brought her a bunny and tucked it against her chest. She…sucks in a jagged breath that sounds both surprised and maybe a little bit horrified.
“Oh. Um, thanks.” Her eyes have turned large and round, making her look a bit like a frightened deer. Her face turns a light shade of pink, and she pushes back from the table. Moving over to the sink, she turns on the faucet and splashes water onto her face before reaching for a paper towel.
And now I feel awful because it seems like I’ve upset her. “I didn’t mean to open up something?—”
She cuts me off. “No, you didn’t. It’s just…I guess I’m naïve if I think information stays within my family. Makes me think the guy who called earlier might have real intel. Maybe it wasn’t just a fishing expedition.”
She doesn’t elaborate, but I start to get the picture. I also sense that she’ll tell me more when she’s ready.
I inhale a long breath and let it out slowly. “Ah, well, I’m not sure about other people, but I’m very discreet when it comes to things my friends tell me.” I want her to trust me, though it shouldn’t matter. Especially now that Archer has warned me away from her—twice. And yet, I do want her to trust me.
