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Her eyes widened. He may as well have offered her the world. He wanted to do just that.
“Anything?”
“If it’s on the menu, we’ll open it.”
“Boo.”
“Boo?”
“Boo. Hiss. I know there’s better stuffoffthe menu. Secret bottles in the cellar.” She nodded to the wall of glass behind him—the window on the world of wine.
He felt the beginnings of a smile. “And how would you know that?”
She leaned over the bar, her breasts settling like lush pillows on the cherrywood.
Madre di Dio.
“The list you gave me doesn’t tally, my friend. There are strange things afoot in there.” She looked around as though she didn’t want anyone to hear her. “Bumps in the night. Clanging chains. Very suspect.”
Mirroring her, he did the fake shifty thing. “So, I keep a couple of special bottles there. It’s no big deal. I can stop anytime.”
She grinned and he felt an odd lurch in his chest.
“I’ve been meaning to build a cellar at home but I haven’t gotten around to it. Which means, I need to cellar my own stuff here.”
“What’s so special about these bottles, then? Are they worth a lot of money?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led the way to the Cavern, the name he had christened the cellar in honor of the Beatles’s first big club venue back in Liverpool. Better than calling it Bob, he supposed. With a name like that, the space should have been dank and dreary but that was so not the case.
Encased in glass, it displayed his stock to perfection and made a stunning counterpoint to all the dark wood in the bar. The temperature controls were state of the art and the walls were pocked with bottles that formed a pleasing, logical grid. In here, he could see everything happening out in the bar and further into the street.
Gently, he removed one of the bottles: a Chateau Pavie Bordeaux from 2000. One hundred points—the maximum—fromWine Spectator.Unlike the others, it was sheened with years of dust though the streaks told him it had been drawn out of the nest lately.
“My father knew a lot about wine and he gave me this when I got my offer from the University of Chicago.”
A wash of guilt softened her face. “Oh, I’m sorry. You can probably tell I looked at it. I was nosing around last week.”
“It’s fine. I was supposed to open it when I graduated.”
“You have. You’ve done all this.” She waved her hands around the cellar.
“This isn’t really what he had in mind.” He looked around the wine racks he had built from scratch. “I’d always liked building things so engineering was a logical choice for me.
He would have preferred doctor or lawyer, but he was willing to compromise there.” About the only thing the old man would compromise on. Opening the bar would have pleased Vivi, but not his father.
“Frankie said you got a full ride. That you’re some sort of genius.”
From anyone else, it might have sounded snarky but Jules’s voice held an unwelcome reverence. He preferred her bite. Sliding the bottle back into its slot, he raised his eyes to hers.
“You know me pretty well. Do you think I’m a genius?”
“Let me see.” She held up a hand and touched the tips of her fingers in a count. “You date zombified bimbos, you drive that bike far too fast, and you have an unhealthy appreciation for Jason Statham.” Her devastating grin fell away. “And I happen to think you’re a whole lot smarter than you let on.”
“That makes two of us.”
Her pupils flared in acknowledgment. As far as he was concerned, she was on the money. Smart as he was, he didn’t want a challenge when it came to his sex life. He preferred the simplicity of turning off his overactive brain and sliding inside a woman who had no expectations. Hooking up with someone he might actually be interested in on an intellectual or emotional level would be skating a little too close to the drop.
