Watching me for a moment in disappointment, as though he wanted me to latch on to his thumb longer, he sticks it into his mouth and sucks the rest with one pull. Then he whispers at me, “This one’s sweeter than the rest.”

“I . . . yes.”

There’s a silence after this is done. He’s looking at me with a bit of amusement and a strange yearning I’ve never seen in his eyes and I’m flustered to death.

My voice is thick when I can finally manage to speak. “What those men said . . . about your father.”

“They were business associates of my mother’s. They know my father.” His lips curl sardonically, and his eyes shutter until there’s no more of the fleeting tenderness I just saw. “Don’t worry. I don’t associate with friends of his.”

He brings out his phone. Changing topics.

“Remember this picture?” he asks and turns the screen to me.

I’m both ashamed and excited at the discovery as I peer closer to see. “You still have it.”

With the click of a button, he’s showing me a picture of me on his yacht, The Toy. I was staring out at the water the first time I was there, thinking of . . . well, how endless the water looked. And wondering why I was so distraught over watching some floozies feed him grapes and hearing about all the fun he’d had at an after-party I was never invited to.

There it is—that picture of me, my profile pensive as I stare out at the lake. “You were supposed to erase it!” I accuse.

“I erased the one I showed you. I took two.”

“Two, not four?”

His smile appears, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His eyes, instead, look endlessly deep and thoughtful. Then he clicks and there’s another one of me. I’m sitting on a street bench with a magazine on my lap. The magazine. In which I published the article about him. I’m staring down at it with a look of such loss—as if I lost my whole world that day and all I had left was that single magazine with his picture on it.

I don’t understand where he got it but I’m surprised, embarrassed, and in my heart, so very sad that that picture—that moment—exists at all. “Where did you get it?”

“Online.” His eyes darken a little as he looks at me, a muscle tightly flexing in the back of his square jaw.

“Do you keep photos of all the people you employ on your phone?”

“I don’t employ you yet, remember?” He goes back to the yacht picture. “Nor was I employing you when you were here.” He looks at me.

“Saint,” I say, breathless at his proximity and getting scared by what it’s doing to me. “You never will. I could never look at you as my boss.”

“I wanted to show you this one,” he says, then plays with his phone before turning it back to me again. I see an email from a zoo, and he opens the attachment to show me. I see a huge elephant with its trunk up in the air, almost as if saluting the camera.

“That’s your elephant,” he tells me, watching me closely.

“Rosie,” I say, and when I look at him, I can’t believe the kinds of kisses I want to put on his face and body, on his lips and on his lovely and hard-to-read green eyes.

He lifts his wineglass, cocking his eyebrow, and drinks, then he hands it over since I don’t have one to toast with. I take his wineglass, and—holding his gaze—I set my lips where he drank, finishing it.

The smile he’d been wearing is completely gone when he noticed what I did.

“To Rosie,” I say, lowering the glass.

His phone sits idle in his hand, while the wineglass sits empty in mine.

And Saint sits next to me. He’s staring at me with such intensity, it almost feels like he doesn’t know if he wants to kiss me, spank me, or fuck the hell out of me.

Yes, please.

Handsome and dark-haired, Saint is among the youngest of everyone at the tasting. We both are, but he looks distracting as a comet.

He sits here, overwhelmingly sexual and physical, casual but strong and sophisticated in the clothes he wears, compared to the older men in their suits walking by. I’m conscious of his body heat under the blanket and how, combined with mine, the air is hot enough.

I’m so aware of the hardness of his thigh against mine, of the crackling air and the magnetic pull between us.

Does he feel it too? Does he hate me, but want me still?

Could I compartmentalize like that? Be physical with him while I love him so completely?

I’m not sure I could.

So I sit here stiffly and look at him quietly, looking away when it’s too much to bear, and then back to find him still watching me.

Maybe he doesn’t want me the way I want him anymore. But even when he wanted me, he had the patience of a saint. And I’m afraid he’s going to wear me down until I agree to everything and anything that he wants. Even employment.

“So when is this event at M4 that you’re purchasing all this wine for?” I ask, searching for safer ground.

“Six weeks from now.”

I nod and smile a little, then tap at his glass I just drained. “This one,” I confirm. “I’m obsessed with this one.”

“Okay,” he concurs with a curve of his lips as he calls a waiter and asks for a similar one. “Try this one now, Rachel.”

He puts it in my hand, but I push it back into his, delighting that I have an excuse to touch the tips of my fingers to the backs of his.

“No.” I shake my head and push the glass deeper into his hand, prolonging, stealing the touch of his hand. “I don’t want another. I want this one.” I lift the empty glass, and he laughs and asks for a refill.

I ask him, as we sip, “Why hire me? I’m still battling with myself to write every day.”

He shrugs and looks at me devilishly. “All right,” he concedes. “Then I need a wine taster.”

“So determined, are you, to get me under your command?” I tease.

He looks at me. He looks at me so deeply, I haven’t felt this seen in a while.

“You have no idea.”

JUST A LITTLE DIZZY

It’s dark outside when we head back into the event room and toward the hotel lobby.

“It’s a good night as always for you, Saint!” he’s told by one of the businessmen as we head out.

He doesn’t answer. Vaguely, I notice the speculative stares coming our way. The men are checking me out, but the women have eyes only for the green-eyed god beside me. They look ready to charge him and get on with the baby making.