“Good reason to get drunk tonight,” Chris said.
Emma found a place under an umbrella and Nicole kicked off her sandals and sat on the edge of the pool next to Pierre.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have something like this back home?” Rob said.
“Little cold in San Francisco,” Gio pointed out.
“This would cost a fortune in California.”
Emma and Nicole exchanged glances but stayed silent.
“Are you guys close to the vineyards in Temecula?” Gio asked.
“I’m not,” Nicole immediately responded. “Emma is.”
“Hard not to be out there,” she said, purposely vague. Although technically she still lived in a condo. “Do you guys get out to Napa much?”
“I don’t,” Chris said.
“What about you?” she asked Gio.
“Not as much as I should. When I was studying for my sommelier certificate, I did.”
Chris patted him on the back. “Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting that you’re our resident expert.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Gio’s eyes caught Emma’s. “I think Emma might give me a run for my money.”
All eyes moved to her.
She shook her head. “Not sure why you say that.”
“Because you taste the subtle differences and can narrow down the price point on the bottle.”
“I’m sure everyone here can do that.” Her eyes skimmed over the others in the group.
“Not me. I mean, this isn’t cheap, but it could be twenty euros or a hundred,” Chris said.
“If it was a hundred, it wouldn’t be the complimentary bottle in our room,” Pierre corrected.
Emma pointed her glass at Pierre. “See . . . it’s all about deduction. Besides, every place we’ve been so far has started out with the cheapest wine first and then moved to the more expensive.” She paused. “Which isn’t what I would do. I’d start with the most expensive when your palate hasn’t been saturated. But then white and rosé really do need to be tested before the reds.”
She looked around. Everyone was watching her.
“Like I said, a run for my money,” Gio said.
Nicole scrambled to her feet. “I have the perfect idea.” She slipped on her sandals.
“What?”
She pointed to the villa. “I’m going to go find a bottle of everything they sell here, bag ’em up, and you two are going to have a taste-off.”
“Nicole!” Emma scolded.
“Oh, this will be fun,” Rob replied.
“C’mon. I wouldn’t want to embarrass her,” Gio said.
Emma’s head snapped up. “Excuse me?”
“Ohhh . . .” Chris nudged Gio. “That look could kill ya.”
Gio’s eyes challenged her. “It’s okay. You don’t have to—”
Without looking Nicole’s way, Emma said, “Put the wine on our room. And if Giovanni here wins, we pay for the wine. If he doesn’t, he pays.”
Gio gave a single nod. “I can do that. What are the rules?”
“Type of grapes, notes, age of the bottle, and price point,” Emma said. “The one who tastes the most, gets the age of the wine and price point closest to the nearest dollar, wins that round.”
“Why do I get the feeling that I’m being hustled?” Gio asked.
“This wasn’t my idea.” But she was going to win.
CHAPTER NINE
He’d yet to see Emma look this alive. Her green eyes sparkled when she was up to something, he decided. Like when she conned him into being celibate. It had been less than twenty-four hours and he quite literally thought about sex now as much as he did when he was eighteen.
All thanks to her.
Yet sitting across the table from him with her shoulders back, her chin high, she was confident she was going to win.
Word had gotten out that there was a competition going down by the pool.
Before Nicole could come back with the wine, staff from the villa arrived with wineglasses, a spittoon, and pads of paper.
On their heels, two of the Golden Girls showed up, as well as Kimmy and Weston.
Gio stopped the staff before they walked away and spoke to them in Italian. “Can you bring out glasses for everyone and an appetizer assortment?”
“Charge it to your room?”
“Sì.”
“Are you cheating?” Emma asked.
“No,” the waiter answered for him. “He asked for more glasses and a bit of food.”
Gio snickered. “Unless you want to drink all the wine. Then that’s an entirely different contest.”
“Not all of it,” she told him.
“While we’re on the subject. How many glasses of wine have you had already?”
“One.”
“We’re even, then.”
She rolled her eyes. “You weigh more than me and you’re a man.”
Glad you noticed.
“Okay, the first two pours I drink it all.”
“And from then?”
Gio looked up at the rapt attention of their audience.
“Ladies’ choice.”
She smiled, licked her lips. “I like to swallow.”
Ahh, fuck!
“Girrrl!” Chris cried out.
Every drop of blood in Gio’s body shot south. All while the crowd surrounding them erupted in laughter.
Emma kept her composure.
Beth Dutton would be proud.
“Your pours have to be bigger than mine,” she told him.
He reached across the table, palm out.
The second their hands touched, all the southern heat lit on fire.
He was in big trouble.
They’d barely let go of each other’s hands when Nicole returned. Jean and Barbara were at her side. Between the three of them they held seven bottles of wine.
Each was wrapped in paper so no one could see the labels.
Nicole instructed her helpers to set the covered bottles on the table to the side. “Have you figured out the rules?”
Gio and Emma exchanged glances. “I believe we have,” Gio said.
“Okay, then.” Nicole picked up the first bottle and uncorked it.
She poured into Emma’s glass first and did an identical pour into Gio’s.
“Ehh!” Emma scoffed at the small amount in his glass.
Gio made a waving motion with his hand that had Nicole giving him a bit more wine.
He looked Emma in the eye as they both reached for a glass.
He tilted his and measured the lighter rim around the darkest color of the wine. Young, he decided.
He swirled the contents in the glass before bringing it to his nose. Oak, but not overpowering. Roses. Funny, he hadn’t noticed roses next to the vines. Floral. He couldn’t tell what else was in there, but he knew it was floral. He expected a richer grape but thought for sure this was a pinot noir . . . He wrote everything down on the paper, gave it a price, and guessed a year. When he was done, he folded the paper in half and handed it to Nicole.
Emma did the same and they both sat back.
“How long have you been drinking wine?” Gio asked her.
“Eighth grade,” she answered.
“Late bloomer,” he boasted, but in reality, his mother had watered down the wine in a tiny glass for him as a child, and only on a holiday. Back when he was a kid, he didn’t like it.