Chapter 7

Saturday, June 14

 

The article under the splashy, front-page photograph read:

Ryder McBride: Drunk on Chardonnay?

The break-out star of First Responder apparently has a taste for the good stuff . . . the very good stuff.

Last night he was photographed swapping saliva with winery heiress Chardonnay St. Pierre at one of her father’s fabulous Friday night fetes.

This, despite the fact that McBride’s dinner companion was flame-haired costar Miranda Hempt.

Only last week, Ryder was spotted with “Tipsy” Rodriguez at a Los Angeles party.

The break-out star is playing the field in more ways than one. On top of his scalding hot social life, Ryder is set to begin filming Triple Play this month. The story is based on the Los Angeles Angels, but will be shot in Ryder’s hometown of Napa city. His role requires the already buff six-foot-four actor to change up his workouts in order to channel a professional baseball pitcher.

Char, as the middle St. Pierre daughter is known, is the blond celebutante who’s been seen hopscotching between an assortment of causes, from animal shelters to food banks, during her summers off from the University of Connecticut.

Ms. St. Pierre—and her sisters, who are also named after noble grapes—normally shun the limelight. On those rare occasions when they’re spotted out, their beauty and style inspire envy in women and admiration in men.

As children, their father sent them away following the untimely death of their mother, Academy Award–winning actress Lily d’Amboise, purportedly on the advice of well-meaning friends. But wine country residents have been quietly watching them for years, like all fine wines, just waiting for them to mature.

Their buzz has been slowly fermenting until this spring, when an invitation to rub shoulders with the St. Pierres at one of their father’s spring galas has become the social coup of the season.

Watch out, Napa! It’s gonna be a long, hot summer!

“ ‘CELEBUTANTE?’ ” exclaimed Char when Savvy showed her the photograph on her tablet the next day during breakfast.

It hadn’t been the way it looked in print. She stared some more at the screen. It had really only been a two-second meeting of lips. Hadn’t it? Yet in the photo, the way he had her bent backward, with his head to the side, his arm snaked around her waist, the long lashes of his closed eyelids splayed across his high cheekbones, it looked as though Ryder McBride had swept her off her feet.

“Ooooooh! Can you believe the nerve of that man?” Char cried.

“Hey, it was the reporter who called you a celebutante, not Ryder. Actually, you guys look really good together—that is, speaking strictly from an aesthetic standpoint,” said Meri coolly, examining the photo with her artist’s eye, tilting her head this way then that.

“Do you want me to file suit?” teased Savvy, snatching a gold pen from a drawer that glided quietly on its track.

Char sniffed.

“No lawsuits! That’s the last thing this family needs: more negative publicity.”

With a Mona Lisa smile, Savvy sat back in her seat, arms folded.

“And no, we do not look good together,” she informed Meri.

Although that wasn’t altogether true. Actually, they did look nice together. In fact, their bodies seemed to fit together perfectly. The longer she studied the photo, the more her stomach fluttered. But she’d never admit it aloud.

Char tossed the iPad back at Meri, who caught it just in time and continued with her critique.

“It’s a little photoshopped,” said Meri. “Obviously, whoever took it couldn’t use a flash or he would’ve been noticed, so he doctored the exposure.”

“I just can’t believe he did that,” Char muttered as she paced across the cavernous kitchen designed to resemble an updated chateau. “Went to such great lengths to pass himself off as sincere, when he’s clearly just another scammer manipulating me for a photo op.”

“Now, how do you know that? Maybe he’s both,” said Meri.

“A sincere scammer? That’s an oxymoron,” said Savvy.

“He’s a moron, all right. I wonder if any one of those facts and figures he threw out at dinner were true, or just made up.”

She’d know soon enough, when Commissioner Jones got back to her.

“I don’t see you fighting it,” shot back Meri, still studying the picture.

Ouch.

Then Savvy chimed in. “Actually, I don’t think many people at the party even noticed much. Most of them had already left at that point, and Papa’s back was turned. And those who did see it must have assumed it was no big deal because I didn’t hear anyone remark on it.”

Neither had Char. But then, Char had been in a complete daze, barely able to stumble upstairs to her suite, when the good-night kiss—or whatever it was intended to be—was through.

Before yesterday, if anyone had told Chardonnay St. Pierre that she would have permitted a virtual stranger to kiss her like that in public—or in private, for that matter—without slapping him all the way to Sacramento . . . well, it was inconceivable.

But for some unfathomable reason, she had allowed it. Had melted right into his arms.

It hadn’t been just the kiss itself. It’d been the passionate, yet controlled way Ryder had delivered it that had blown her away.

From the very outset, she’d found him way more intriguing than she’d cared to admit. He’d surprised her with his depth and intellect at the table. Sexy, charismatic guys like Ryder McBride weren’t supposed to have brains or care about social causes.

Later, as he’d taken those long, slow strides toward her before saying good night, he’d paralyzed her with a hypnotic stare from deep, liquid eyes. She’d been jelly by the time she heard the skin-on-skin clap of his warm, firm hand on hers, coupling it in a warm, perfect fit.

The decisiveness in his muscular arm as he’d drawn her into him, as if she already belonged to him . . . had always belonged to him . . . won over her body to the complete exclusion of her mind.

Her mind. Something in the back of it, like a separate witness to what was happening, had been aghast at the sheer nerve of him! Yet, it was as if they’d floated onto another plane together, apart from the rest of the universe.

Even now, she still wasn’t sure how long she’d been in his arms; time had been suspended when her body was pressed against his.

“Let me see that again.” Char reached for the reader with an inexplicable urge to study the picture’s every nuance. It was a visual record of last night. She was mortified to realize that the photo would live forever online, perversely enabling her to obsess over it as often as she wanted.

All she’d had to go on before was how the kiss had felt. Now that she had the picture, she studied it from an onlooker’s perspective.

From the moment Ryder had asserted himself, she’d succumbed to his charm. His mouth had taken complete possession of hers; there was no other way to describe it. His lips had brushed hers, warm, soft, and barely parted, but after the initial contact, had prodded, coaxing hers open. When she did, he’d nudged in farther with his chin, eager for her as a hungry but gentle bear. Nudging her wider with a shallow sweep of his tongue, which tasted like the strawberry cheesecake they’d just consumed. Opening, closing, seducing. She’d given herself up to the strength of his arms holding her captive . . . limply followed his every lead.

Like some lame-brained actress in a bad movie, she now realized. How could she be so gullible?

And then, when she would’ve done anything to make him go on, he’d pulled back, leaving her utterly breathless.

But before he let her go, they’d locked eyes again, until she became aware of his breath on her damp lips and glanced down at the wet gleam on his own mouth. He’d flicked just the tip of his tongue across his lower lip then, as if to taste the residue of her. From within the warmth of his chest, his heart—or was it hers?—pounded.

Char had been analyzing it all night, the memory twirling about in her head as her body twisted the sheets.

By dawn, she’d figured out the real reason she’d let him get away with it.

It was the suspicion that Ryder had been as shocked by his own action as she’d been by her reaction. That it hadn’t been planned; he hadn’t merely been taking advantage of circumstances.

Hours of tossing and turning deluded her into believing that maybe—just maybe—the good-looking, intelligent-despite-being-an-actor Ryder McBride might truly have kissed her not because she was a social climber’s wet dream, but out of genuine desire.

But now, in the light of morning—and the reader—she saw his behavior for what it obviously was: a setup. A publicity ploy, designed to get him juicy press.

“I’m going for a run,” Char announced, slamming the kitchen door behind her.

But not before she called Bill Diamond again. That building was perfectly situated for her plans. And no mere actor was going to snatch it away from her, no matter how good a kisser he was.