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He stuck his head around the door, and she looked up. “Come on in.”
He took a seat opposite her. “So, it looks like you’re on your way.”
She nodded and gave him a smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah. It’s great.”
“I’ll put together all the recommendations I came up with for you.”
“Thanks.”
It seemed she didn’t even want to talk to him. He had to wonder what had changed. What had taken place in that conversation with her dad?
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” He got to his feet.
“Grant?”
He turned around when he reached the door.
“What are you doing after work?”
He shrugged. He’d been assuming that they’d leave together, have dinner somewhere, spend the night together again, but it seemed he’d had that all wrong. He’d gotten way too far ahead of himself.
“Do you want to have dinner?”
He smiled. “I’d love to.”
She smiled back, this time it did look genuine. “I would, too.”
“Okay, then. It’s a date.” He left her office and made his way back to his. No, he corrected himself. It was just the office he’d been using while he was here. He wouldn’t see it again after Friday. He needed to get a grip. Just because he wasn’t going to be staying on at Zosca, didn’t mean they weren’t going to be seeing each other anymore. She’d made that clear by asking him about dinner—he hoped. Maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe whatever had changed her mind about him staying here had changed her mind about him completely. Maybe the dinner was going to be a goodbye.
He sighed and sat down at his desk. He didn’t want a goodbye. He’d had one goodbye from Chelsea, and he’d hated it. Even after knowing her for only one night, when she’d told him goodbye that morning … He shook his head. If he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind then, what would it be like now? He couldn’t imagine. He didn’t want to know. He spent the rest of the day trying to focus on pulling all his reports together, tweaking everything so it would be Chelsea-friendly. He knew her well enough to know that she’d accept the tough calls more readily if he could phrase them in ways that appealed to her. She didn’t care that a new bottling machine would increase productivity by seventeen percent or what the return on investment would be. He smiled to himself as he changed the wording. He knew she would care that Paco would have to spend less time maintaining the old machine and, therefore, would have more time to help out in the offices—where she’d been encouraging him to pursue his aspirations to one day become an accountant.
He was grateful when six o’clock rolled around. He’d resisted the temptation to go and find her all day. He didn’t have anything useful he needed to talk to her about. There was only the personal, and that had to wait until now. He couldn’t wait any longer, so he got up and wandered down the corridor. Her office door stood open, and he could see her sitting there, staring out the window. She looked sad and lost. He hated to see her like that. “Knock, knock.”
She spun around looking guilty.
“Bad time?” he asked. “Should I come back?”
“No, not at all. Come on in. Sorry, you caught me daydreaming.”
He smiled. “I’ll bet. You’re going to do great things with this little winery of yours.”
She nodded but didn’t smile. He got the impression she hadn’t been daydreaming about Zosca at all.
“I came to see what time you want to leave, and where you’d like to go for dinner.”
She smiled. “I’d like to go soon. I’m all done for the day.”
“In that case, I’m ready whenever you are. Where do you want to eat?”
“Do you want to come to the cottage? I don’t feel like going out tonight, and I can rustle us up something to eat.”
“That sounds great, or I can stop on the way over and pick something up, so you don’t have to cook.”
“That’d be even better.” She lowered her gaze and then looked up at him. “Do you want to stop by the hotel, too? You could pick up a change of clothes for tomorrow.”
He smiled as relief rushed through him. So, it wasn’t goodbye. “Yeah. I’ll do that. I didn’t want to presume.”
“Even though you’re not going to be here anymore, I’d still like us to …”
