I shut off the water, stepping out of the shower and put on my pajamas. I walk over to the front of the mirror and debate skipping skincare tonight, when I see my Philosykos on the shelf. I pick it up and spray a little on my neck, on the spot below my ear where he looked.
This is a bad idea. Going out on that porch and finding Alex is a bad idea. Everything about this is a bad idea. But my father just told me I can't be trusted to make my own decisions, and I am buzzing with champagne and adrenaline and the memory of what it felt like to kiss Alex Midnight in a dark kitchen, and I want to feel that again.
Maybe it's rebellion against my father, choosing the one manhe explicitly wants to stay away from me. Or maybe it's the celebration of the best night of my career, and I want to celebrate it properly. Or maybe I just want him, simply and badly, and I'm tired of pretending I don't.
I walk out my door and across the path to his porch. He's exactly where I left him, feet propped up on the railing, a glass of wine in his hand.
The porch light throws a warm circle around his chair and the rest of the vineyard is dark behind him, just the shapes of the vines and the faint outline of the hills against a sky that's deepening from purple to black.
He looks up when he hears my footsteps on the gravel and his eyebrows rise, just slightly, but he doesn't say anything. He just watches me come toward him, and there's something in his expression that makes my pulse kick up.
"Hey," he says. "I wasn't expecting to see you again tonight."
"Yeah, well." I make a vague gesture that I intend to be casual and nonchalant and that is, in reality, just me waving my hand at nothing like a person who has lost control of her motor functions. He grins and holds out his wine glass.
I take it and sip. It's good. Really good. One of Margot's, I think, a Pinot with bright fruit and the perfect amount of acidity to keep it from being lazy. I lean against the railing facing him, take another sip, and let the warmth of it settle into the places the shower didn't reach.
"Hell of a night," he says, watching me.
"Wewere incredible," I say. "I couldn't have done it without you."
He grins. "You easily could have. It just would've been slightly less fun."
I laugh at that. The champagne is still buzzing through me, the wine helping it along, and I'm standing on a porch in Napa Valley with a man who just helped me pull off the best night of my career, and my father is probably lying awake in hishotel room furious that I hung up on him, and I feel, for the first time in as long as I can remember, completely and entirely like myself. Just Isabelle, barefoot on a porch, drinking wine she didn't pour, proud of something she built with her own hands.
I hand him back the glass and cross my arms against the railing. "You know that guy my father brought tonight? Olivier?"
Alex rolls his eyes. "You mean Cal Hockley?"
I stare at him for a second, then the laugh bursts out of me. "Titanic. He looksexactlylike Billy Zane inTitanic. The hair, the watch, the snobby fucking attitude."
"My thoughts exactly," Alex chuckles. "All night I kept waiting for him to throw a table and chase someone down a flooding corridor."
"Well, he tried to hit on me after you left, so you're not far off."
Alex's feet come off the railing and hit the porch floor with a thud. "He did what?"
"Relax, fish guy." I wave a hand. "I handled it. I told him I wasn't interested and that he should direct his attention elsewhere. And I actually managed to do it smoothly. You know that rare moment where you actually say something exactly how you want instead of thinking of the perfect response later? "
Alex's shoulders shake with laughter. "Oh, it's the best when that happens. I wish I'd seen it. I think I would have enjoyed the show."
I nod, lifting my chin. "You would have been quite impressed with me."
He smiles, slow and warm. "I amalreadyimpressed with you."
I feel heat creep up my neck at that, but also something supremely pleased, a little glow beneath my ribs that I try very hard to smother and fail at entirely. He really is relentlesslyforward. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Though the blushing is probably answering that question for me.
And then, because apparently champagne turns me into someone who can't stop talking, I keep talking.
"The thing with Olivier, my dad literally brought him here as a setup. A matchmaking play. Without asking me or even mentioning it beforehand. Just, here's a man I've selected for you, Isabelle." I take another sip of wine. "And then when I called him afterwards to tell him to back off, Papa decided it was the perfect time to suggest changes to my food. And when I told him to stop inserting himself into every aspect of my life, he said I can't be trusted to make my own decisions. Which was a lovely end to the evening."
Alex is quiet for a second, his expression shifting into something harder. "He said that to you? Tonight?"
"He says a lot of things. He's been saying some version of that my entire life." I look down at the wine in my hands. "I just don't usually hang up on him for it."
"Good for you. You absolutely should hang up on that kind of bullshit." There's an edge in his voice that catches me off guard.
Alex is the most even-keeled person I've ever met. He makes everyone comfortable, always has the right joke or the disarming comment, never seems ruffled by anything. I find it infuriating on a regular basis and I'm also deeply jealous of whatever gene he has that allows him to move through the world like that.