Natalie
What to pick, what to pick, what to pick.
There’s a delicious-looking cab, but it’s not on sale. The featured rosé is garbage, I’ve had it before. White wine is not what I’m in the mood for.Ah, to hell with it.I’m finally divorced. Top shelf wine is the least I could give myself!
I run my hand over the bottles, relishing the fact I’ll finally be able to celebrate, even if it’s just me in my fabulous suite.
Blake locked it in for a steal, especially in Soho, but, too bad for him! I won it in a legal court of law, and I’m keeping it.
Not to sound full of myself, but Icouldpay for it all on my own. I’m one of the hardest working head editors you’ll ever meet. Half of these people take the title and let the peons do the rest, but oh no, not me. Just ask the interns. I run laps around them.
I’ve still got my eyes and hands on everything that’s published inChicmagazine and that’s not changing any time soon. I stop back at my favorite cab and wonder how many bottles I need. Two? Six?Fifty?
It’s been a long climb to get where I am in the company, but nothing compared to the last year of excruciating separation from my asshole, finally, ex-husband. Shit, maybe I should look at champagne!
How many months has it been since I’ve let loose? Blake Western (the aforementioned shithead of an ex-husband) runs a garbage tabloid. Lucky me, right? Staying out of them has been a real trick.
Mostly I’ve been living like a goddamn nun. Go to work, come back from work. I’ve been taking desperate little sips of leftover white wine late at night from the fridge just to pretend I’m having fun. It’s a disaster, I know.
But, no longer! This little boutique wine vendor holds everything I need to make this evening one to remember. Or to forget, if I try hard enough.
A man enters my aisle. My, my, this little shop reallydoeshave everything a girl could ask for. I catch a glimpse of gorgeous blue eyes before I turn away.
No use staring, I’m sure the bottle will be more than enough to handle tonight. I smile to myself as I finally decide on the fifty-five-dollar cab.
I’m smiling, of course, because I’m imagining smashing it over Blake Western’s thick skull like he’s a ship going on his maiden voyage.Bon Voyage, you fucker! Smash!Though it’d be a shame to waste good wine.
Satisfied, I fill my arms with four bottles and swivel around, still angrily thinking of Blake’s snide face during our last meeting at court. Unbeknownst to me, the strap of my purse catches the edge of the shelving, and before I know it, the entire shelf is toppling down around me.
Bottles smash to the floor and I shriek in fear, clinging to the ones in my arms as blends, and Savion Blanc run like a holy river through the aisle.Fuck.
Before I can think of how-in-the-hell I’m going to solve this one, someone comes rushing around the corner. For a second, I’m terrified it’s one of Blake’s cronies hoping to catch me at my worst. Instead, it’s the shop manager, a burly guy with an old world-looking mustache, looking mad as hell.
When I was nineteen, I spent a summer in Spain and witnessed the run of the bulls. I never thought I’d see it again, yet the gleam in the shop manager’s eye as he bounded toward me brought me right back to that time.
“What do you think you’re doing!” He roars, wading through the broken glass and lost inventory.
“I’m so, so sorry!” I plead, “It was an accident. Please I’ll help clean or —”
“’Clean’!?” He blurts incredulously, his eyeballs bulging, “there is no cleaning this! This is a fucking disaster!”
“Now, hold on.” Bristle-stash and I both swivel around. It’s my blue-eyed friend from before. Now that I have free reign to stare, I’m hitting myself for not looking earlier. He’s terribly smooth-looking for someone covered in a shelf’s worth of wine.
Oh, God, I did that, didn’t I? And on such a nice, and definitely expensive suit. Little dots of red wine fleck his sandy blonde hair and there’s something astonishingly familiar about him.
“The lady said it was an accident, my man.” He smiles as he looks at the shop owner. The owner looks puzzled, like he might recognize him, too, but isn’t sure. It’s enough to lower his decimal level a few notches.
“Accident or no accident, who is going to pay for this mess!”
“I will,” I’m bobbing my head between the two like a ping-pong ball.Did he just say he’ll pay for this?“I’ll have to pay for it, won’t I?” he grins as he shrugs. “I own the building.”
Holy shit. Holy shit, it’s Roger Zane! The well-knownplayer,Roger Zane, who owns this building, including this wine boutique that I half destroyed. Way to go, Natalie.
“Don’t worry, my friend, I’ll send a crew to help clean this up. Thank you for keeping a sharp eye out on my investment, but I assure you,” he turns to me now, his blue eyes taking a presumptuous scan of my body, “this kind of thing happens all the time.”
The shop manager’s mustache twitches, but he calms down.I guess that settles that.
“I’ll just uh… go and grab a mop,” the shop owner mumbles. “Thank you, Mr. Zane.”