Page 42 of My Grape Crush
If a window of opportunity arises, I’ll text him our location.
“I guess they’re not used to the high-rolling crowd,” I say after Elaine moves on.
“Amateur,” Sawyer mutters, flicking a crumb off the tablecloth. “Anyway…” His gaze settles on me. “Tell me about you. Is your relocation here permanent? You mentioned at the wine tasting that you might work part-time in Vancouver.”
Subtle as a sledgehammer, that Sawyer. And I was right. A woman always knows.
“I’m playing it by ear,” I say.
We cruised here in the luxury of his BMW 8 series, top down, warm wind gusting through my hair. His cologne smelled spicy and spendy, and the whip-stitched leather seats cradled me like a cocoon.An attractive, high-powered man whisking me to dinner?
Funny, how all that once mattered.
Tonight, it plain irritated me when Sawyer asked if I owned my condo. Qualifying me, the little snot! Did he think myhumble abode worth a measly eight hundred grand could ever measure up to his gated mansion next to Lululemon mastermind Chip Wilson, with the Pacific Ocean as his backyard? (Yes, he dropped all of those details.)
My neighbor is a sixty-year-old pensioner who loves opera at full blast and cooking everything with garlic.
“But will you be…”
A hush settles over the restaurant, halting Sawyer mid-sentence.Like every other set of eyes in here, we turn toward the shift in vibration.
Rhys.
Scanning the restaurant from the hostess stand. A guy who lights up the room merely by being in it.
I don’t miss the way his expression brightens when he finds my face in the crowd. He holds up a hand in a gesture ofhey there.I wave back with a genuine case of the flutters.
My rescuer, in all his dreamy glory.
Rhys cuts past the crowded tables,oblivious to, or pretending not to notice, the stares and whispers. Sawyer, mouth drawn into a thin, hard line, oozes annoyance. Rhys and his carefree ease only amplify that whatever makes him cool and hip somehow bypassed the rigid and world-weary Sawyer.
Tableside, Rhys knocks his elbow playfully against my shoulder. “Small world, huh? Nicole recommended this place for dinner. You mind if I join in?”
“Sure.” I throw a look at Sawyer.
He smiles, but it's tight. “Pull up a chair.”
Rhys asks the couple one table over whether he can swipe their extra seat. Much to the chagrin of her balding date, the woman, wearing a tie-dye muumuu, gushes, “Of course!”
She practically throws the chair and herself at Rhys, who is deeply sexy draped in a lilac t-shirt stamped with HANG LOOSE and his simple Seneca pendant. In comparison, the one-million-thread-count shirt and gold link Gucci necklace Sawyer wears screamtrying too hard!
Rhys settles beside me, glowing serenely for someone who just lied. Nicole pointedly told me to avoid the crowd here—nothing but wannabe tourists and Albertan cowboys throwing around their dirty oil sands money.
Eyes darting back and forth between us, Rhys asks innocently, “Am I interrupting anything?”
“No,” Sawyer answers, although his flat tone says otherwise. “But thrilled you can pick up the tab.”
Rhys laughs and helps himself to Sawyer’s glass of water. “Nice try, See Saw. This is a write-off for you, business and all.”
I feel the tension rise. Thatbusinesshad a bite to it. Will this turn into a full-blown pissing match? Then Rhys slides his arm around the back of my chair, cementing whatever power play is going down. He leans in, our faces almost touching. His warmth, all that vanilla-scented goodness, sends my brain spinning, heartbeat in my ears.
Whispering loud enough for Sawyer to hear, he says, “I told you he was chintzy.”
Before Rhys dropped in, Sawyer seemed intent on stretching out the evening. But he waves off Elaine’s inquiry about a second bottle of wine. Then he inhales his spiced duck breast and signals for the check the second I swallow my last bite of salmon.
“What’s the rush?” Rhys soaks up the last vestiges of balsamic and oil with a heel of crusty bread.
“I need to be fresh.” Sawyer signals Elaine again for the check. “Six a.m. leave.”
