Intoxicating Read online

  In a clever twist, the researchers repeated the experiment a third time, informing the participants that they were drinking the name brand even though they were not. This time their brains lit up in the “reward” region, the same as they had previously done with the brand whose flavor they had enjoyed more.

  Kiara’s scientific mind found the results of this experiment both fascinating and frustrating. It meant that for most people, brand loyalty trumped quality. Given human psychology, how did an upstart winery compete against the big labels? It was a question that had plagued her for years, but now that she was in charge of Bella Notte it had become the paramount question.

  She needed something—someone—to help her bridge the gap between the myth of a name brand’s superiority and the science of truly good wine. She had to believe that some level of objectivity could be found and exploited.

  But how?

  Test this guy. See if he truly is discerning enough to differentiate between taste and brand.

  All right, so it was a bit underhanded. She’d admit it. But if she was going to let this guy into her lab, take him on as an assistant, she needed some assurance he was the real deal.

  Or was she simply kidding herself? Was she just trying to find an excuse to keep the super-hot guy around?

  Kiara’s cheeks flushed. No, no, that wasn’t what she was doing. She wasn’t the kind of person who allowed something like sexual attraction get in the way of her goals. She wanted him because he had exhibited a rare talent for detecting the subtle smells and flavors of wine.

  She was focused. Resolute. Her goal was single-minded and lofty. Consistently produce the best dessert wine in California, and if Wyatt Jordan could help her do that, well then, she would use him.

  Yeah? So why are you standing out here in the corridor?

  She shook her head and took the steps down to the wine cellar. The cool, earthy smell enveloped her. She loved it down here in this old-fashioned cellar with stone walls and a floor of ram-packed earth. When she was a child, this had been her favorite place to play. She’d learned to read down here at age four, spelling out the letters on the wine labels. In the cellar, she felt especially linked to her family, to the past, to the entire history of winemaking. It was an ancient, provocative lure.

  Rows and rows of wine racks provided an intriguing honeycomb of product. Most of it, of course, was Bella Notte harvest, but they did keep competitors’ wines on hand as well. Kiara visited that section of the cellar and stood studying the options—Mondavi, Gallo, DeSalme.

  Hmm. DeSalme made a red dessert muscat in the vein of—but certainly not in the league of—Decadent Midnight. She’d use it for the comparison.

  She took a bottle of the DeSalme wine, along with a bottle of Decadent Midnight, went up the back stairs and into the family kitchen. Once there, she poured the DeSalme wine into a glass pitcher, filled the empty bottle of DeSalme muscat with Decadent Midnight and then transferred the DeSalme wine from the glass pitcher into the Bella Notte bottle. She replaced the corks in each bottle and then hurried back to the lab. If the man waiting in her lab could tell the difference between the DeSalme muscat and Decadent Midnight, then he truly was the person she’d been searching for.

  If not, she would dispatch him to the vineyards with the other interns, never to darken the door of her lab again.

  THE INSTANT KIARA returned into the lab carrying the bottle of DeSalme wine fear seized Wyatt.

  Uh-oh. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  Busted.

  The determined expression on her face made his heart cringe. What to say? His tongue curled around a lie.

  How had Kiara figured out who he was? Had he somehow tipped his hand? Had he inadvertently revealed too much knowledge of wine? Eric and Scott would razz the hell out of him for getting bounced from Bella Notte this quickly. And he would deserve it. God, he hated being a bumbler in his brothers’ eyes.

  Bluff. Just bluff your way through this. Bluff and deny, deny, deny.

  Her gaze met his and the strangest sensation swept over him. As if he were being led to his doom and he couldn’t wait to get there.

  Wyatt’s pulse rate quickened. What was up? What game was she playing? Why not just confront him? He moistened his lips.

  C’mon, think of a line. Something brilliant to deflect her anger, but hell if he didn’t come up empty, his eyes too full of Kiara to process anything else. Anything beyond the sight of her oval face and abundance of corkscrew auburn curls escaping madly from her loose ponytail.

  He started working on an excuse in his head, planning how he’d charm and disarm her when she confronted him as a spy. He would cock his head, let his famous grin slowly steal across his face and peer deep into her eyes as if she were the only woman on the face of the earth. The technique never failed to buckle the knees of women both young and old.

  “Hand me those two glasses.” She nodded at two wineglasses perched on a shelf to his right.

  Was he being led into a trap? Congenially, he reached for the glasses, and then set them down on the lab table in front of her.

  Kiara pulled the corkscrew from her pocket, uncorked both bottles of wine. One DeSalme’s. The other Decadent Midnight.

  Corks popped, smooth and cool, and the air carried a musty, yeasty smell of fermented grapes. She tipped two ounces of DeSalme into one glass, two ounces of Decadent Midnight in the other.

  “Another taste test,” she told him. “Comparison.”

  He caressed her gaze. More from instinct than ploy. What was going on here? If she knew he was a fraud, why not just toss him out on his ass? Why the games? And why did he feel like a skiff adrift in an ocean squall?

  “Sure,” he said, nice and easy. Gave her that awshucks shrug he’d perfected. Cool as ice on a summer’s day.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she snapped. She had a great voice, even when she was angry—especially when she was angry—all deep and husky.

  Wyatt blinked, widened his grin, making sure his dimples were showing. What was wrong? Maybe it was the glasses. Girls don’t make passes at guys who wear glasses? Even girls who also wore glasses. Was that it? He thought about whipping them off, then reconsidered.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “Are you impaired?”

  Feeling rattled, he stood up, stepped toward her. His smile faltered, but he caught it like a teetering grocery-store display and pasted it back in place. There. Unfazed.

  “Taste.” She commanded, pushing the glass with the DeSalme wine in it toward him.

  Tension pulled taut in his gut. This was wacky, weird, wonky. He picked up the glass, his nose twitching at the melancholy smell.

  “Bouquet,” she commanded.

  Okay, if that’s the way it was going to be, he could handle a little rough and tumble. He nailed her with his eyes and they stepped into a silent, motionless waltz.

  “Supple,” Wyatt said.

  “What else?” Her pupils narrowed.

  “Complex.”

  “And?” she nudged.

  He half expected her to poke him with one of those long slender fingers. Good God, she’s magnificent.

  Wyatt’s blood bloomed, fumed, and he had no idea why. She was not his usual type. Everything about her seemed foreign and strange and at the same time uniquely familiar. He yearned for her in a way he’d never yearned for another. Confused, he pushed his hair from his eyes and concentrated on his surroundings.

  They were all alone in the womb of her laboratory. White lab jackets hung on wall pegs. The faint arcing and sparking smell of ozone curled in his nostrils. Beakers and test tubes, Bunson burners and pH-test kits, centrifuges and scales, rubber hoses and pipettes, tongs and stoppers and test-tube holders and evaporating dishes. Tall metal stools were pulled up to the stainless-steel lab table. But, while it was well stocked, most of the equipment looked outdated—probably purchased years ago—nothing like the high-tech corporate lab at DeSalme. This was a mom-and-pop operation all the
way. It should be easy enough for DeSalme to crush Bella Notte

  Guilt gnawed at the back of his brain and he felt a sudden urge to be on the side of David instead of Goliath.

  “Well?” She was a pushy one.

  “Surprising,” Wyatt said, but he was not speaking of the wine.

  “What else?”

  “Mind-bending.”

  “Impertinent,” she said.

  “The wine?”

  “You.”

  “But I intrigue you.”

  “Not you,” she said. “Your tongue.”

  “Now who’s being impertinent?”

  Her cheeks reddened with effrontery. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Finally. He’d rattled her.

  She fumbled his gaze, turned to put on a lab jacket. Professor Vineyard Commando. He readied his grin, dialed it to stun.

  Kiara turned back, held up a palm, a firm stop sign between them. “Look, clearly that I’m-so-handsome-that-it-hurts thing usually works well for you, but if you want this job, knock it off.”

  He tipped the glass to his lips let the liquid slip over his tongue.

  Pow!

  There it was again. That same sweet kick of pure pleasure that had stormed his senses back in the tasting room.

  Wyatt glanced from his glass to the bottle she’d poured from. Yep. The DeSalme label. He lowered his lashes, studied Kiara for a long, hard moment. What was she trying to pull? This wasn’t DeSalme’s muscat. Something was up and he wasn’t walking into her trap. He was going to make her call him out.

  “Well?”

  “I thought you wanted a comparison,” he hedged.

  She pursed her lips, but said nothing. She did have an exceptionally gorgeous mouth. Full and lush. Like plump ripe grapes. “I do.”

  “I’ll need a palate cleanser before I try the other wine.”

  She opened one of the table drawers, reached in and pulled out a packet of plain unsalted crackers. With one eyebrow arched upward in a skeptical expression, she passed him the crackers.

  He took a bite. The soft crunch was the only sound in the room except for the ticking of the wall clock. The bland cracker soaked up the fruity taste of wine.

  Kiara presented him the second glass of wine decanted from the Decadent Midnight bottle.

  He swirled the liquid in the glass, inhaled.

  “Bouquet?” she asked.

  How was he going to play this? Straight up? Or coy? “Secretive,” he said, going for coy and pulling out the double entendres.

  Her eyes widened. “What else?”

  His stare locked in on hers again. “Deceptively simple.”

  She squirmed. Surely she had to know she was busted. “And?”

  “You really want to do this?” he asked, leaning across the table.

  She tightened her jaw. The pulse at the hollow of her throat fluttered. He stared at the provocative stirring.

  Her hand moved to cover the telltale spot. “Do what, Mr. Jordan?”

  “Tango.”

  She drew in an audible breath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Just tell me one thing. Why are you playing with me?”

  A flash of emotion crossed her face and in that split second she looked achingly vulnerable, and that made him feel soft in the general vicinity of his heart. “You know?”

  “That you switched the bottles? Of course I know. What I can’t figure out is why.” Except he did know why. She knew he was a DeSalme and she wanted to make him admit it. Well, he wasn’t going to admit anything. She was going to have to accuse him.

  Suddenly, startlingly, she grinned. A grin that made him feel like her hero.

  Why was she grinning? It was a bit disorienting after all that hostility.

  “Well, what do you know,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “A guy who speaks the truth.”

  Wyatt exhaled and it was only then he realized he’d been holding his breath, waiting for her to accuse him of being a DeSalme.

  While he was relieved she hadn’t unmasked him as DeSalme’s mole, part of him felt disappointed. Not with her. But with himself for remaining silent.

  “The truth?” he asked.

  “You’re a supertaster.”

  “A what?”

  “You have the inherent ability to identify all the different notes in a wine. That’s why I was testing you. A lot of people can talk a good game, but when you present them with the more expensive label, they invariably perceive it as the superior wine, no matter what’s in the bottle. But you didn’t fall for it.”

  “Seriously? Most people can’t tell the difference?”

  She told him about the experiment she’d performed as a research assistant in graduate school, something about competing cola brands, MRIs and the power of advertising. He understood that. He’d spent some time in the marketing department at DeSalme before deciding it wasn’t for him.

  “You didn’t let the pricey DeSalme label fool you,” she said. “I saw it on your face when you were drinking Decadent Midnight with Grandmamma’s lava cake. It’s a treasured talent, but I had to be sure you weren’t just bluffing.”

  No kidding? Yes, he’d always had a knack for picking out the right wine with the right meal—sometimes friends would call him up while they were on dates and ask his advice on what wine to order—but he attributed the skill to his family’s profession.

  “What was the expression on my face?”

  “And your comments on the note card,” she went on. “You described the wine like you were reviewing Beethoven live at Carnegie Hall.”

  “What was the look on my face?” he persisted.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “If it doesn’t matter, why don’t you just tell me?”

  “You have a hard time letting things go, don’t you?”

  “Not at all. I’m famous for letting things go. Girlfriends. Bad habits. Housekeepers. I have a hell of a time keeping housekeepers.”

  “You can afford a housekeeper?”

  Most thirty-something guys working as interns couldn’t afford housekeepers. He had to be careful. Quick, stun her with your wit. “No, that’s why I can’t keep them.”

  “Point taken.”

  Okay. He’d sidestepped that one. “So what was the face?”

  Kiara sighed. “You lied about being good at letting things go.”

  “So sue me,” he said. “I lied. What face?”

  “Orgasmic,” she said bluntly. “You had an orgasmic expression on your face. Happy now?”

  Orgasmic? Had she actually said that? Damn. His cheeks burned. Thank God he had a heavy five-o’clock shadow or she would see that she’d caused him to blush. When was the last time he’d blushed? When had he ever blushed? Wyatt didn’t have a bashful bone in his body. He did not blush. And yet, here he was, blushing.

  “And that told you what?”

  “You’re very sensual.”

  “Well, all you had to do was ask. I could have told you that.” His mother called it self-indulgent, but what was so wrong with sleeping on satin sheets? And what did she know? After she left the guy she’d left his father for, she hooked up with some Norwegian crab fisherman named Lars Bakke off the coast of Bear Butt, Alaska, or some such place, and started carving figurines out of animal bone.

  “Do you know how long I’ve been searching for someone with your innate talent?”

  “A long time?” he guessed.

  “Years.”

  “Looks like today is your lucky day,” he drawled.

  Her smile disappeared and her lips pressed into a stern line. She glared. Funny, she looked adorable when she glared. And she glared a lot, so that meant she was pretty damned cute.

  “Sorry,” he apologized.

  “If I accept you as an intern, you’re going to be working here in the lab with me, Mr. Jordan. The rest of the interns will be out in the vineyards.”

  Well, now, that was a happy turn of events. He couldn’t have pl
anned this any better. She was inviting him right into the heart of her winery, into the nerve center, the inner sanctum. Privy to Bella Notte’s best-kept secrets. He could do some serious damage here.

  Maybe.

  “Wyatt,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Call me Wyatt.”

  “I’m a hard task master, Mr. Jordan. Winemaking is my passion, my life, my reason for being on this earth. I take it very seriously. I’m excited to have found someone with your wine-tasting talents, but if you can’t do as I ask, when I ask you to do it, without any questions, then you’re out on your keister. Got it?”

  “Keister?” He tried not to laugh. Failed. “Sounds like something a vaudevillian would say.”

  She sank her hands on her hips. “It’s a word. Look it up.”

  He resisted the urge to salute and say, “Aye, aye, Captain.” Instead he toned down his smile. “You’re the boss.”

  “You seem old for an intern.”

  “What can I say?” Wyatt spread his arms. “I’m a late bloomer. Misspent youth and all that.”

  “Trust-fund baby, huh?”

  He startled. He thought he disguised himself pretty well, but she’d seen right through him. She had his number.

  “Nah,” he lied, surprised to find how uncomfortable lying to her made him feel. “Just a slacker.”

  Her frown deepened. “May I assume you’ve put those slacker tendencies behind you?”

  To demonstrate his commitment, Wyatt started rolling up his sleeve. “I’m ready to work.”

  “You’re a jokester.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Mr. Jordan, you will do everything I ask of you, no questions asked.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was a statement,” she said. “Not a question.”

  “Gotcha.” Fiery. He liked that about her. In fact, he liked everything about her and it occurred to him that could be a serious problem.

  “What did you study in college?” she asked.