Too Close to the Sun (23 page)

In earlier days Will had been invited to join
such intimate entertainments. Not tonight.

He watched the three depart, with no halt in
their chatter, while blood pounded in his ears.
That Napa deal
better happen. And fast.

*

Around ten thirty in the evening, with Cassis
nearing the conclusion of its second seating, Max poked Victoria in
the thigh to get her attention.

"Do you 'member if we opened the other
saubignon blanc?" Then he laughed. "Did I say saubignon or
sauvignon?" It was hard to make the
v
sound, he realized, it
was like his tongue was tied in knots.

Victoria said something, but even though he
concentrated on her mouth, he couldn't make out what it was. Her
words seemed to come from very far away, even though she was
sitting right next to him in the booth.

He leaned closer. "Huh?"

"I don't think so!"

"Don't yell!" He frowned and leaned back.
"Maybe we should open it now."

"After all that cabernet?" She shook her
head. Back and forth. Back and forth. Max got dizzy watching
her.

"But I want them to see my bottle." It was
his new bottle, the good French bottle. It was his idea to put the
sauvignon blanc in that bottle and he wanted them to see it. Just
then, Valvo walked past. "Carlos!" Max motioned him closer. "We'd
like to open the other"—he slowed down to ease into it—"sauvignon
blanc."

"Certainly." He walked away.

Max turned again to Victoria. "Did he look
unhappy to you? He looked unhappy to me." But now she was talking
to Rory. Max sighed and settled back against the booth's soft
cushions.

It was going well, he decided, very well. For
sure Old Carlos would put Suncrest on his wine list, but that would
be only the beginning. Max should go to Sacramento next and get
Suncrest served at the Governor's Mansion. Hell, he should go to
Washington and get it served at the White House!

Max was considering who his date would be
should he dine with the president when Valvo returned with fresh
glasses and the newest Suncrest Sauvignon Blanc. Max swelled with
pride as he gazed at that heavy French bottle. He pointed to it and
then to himself. "That was my idea, Carlos. Pretty slick, huh?"

The guy's brows arched. "Excuse me?"

"To use that bottle."

"I imagine it was." That was it. No praise,
no nothing. Max might have been a tad disgruntled if he hadn't been
in such a good mood. Valvo poured the wine for everyone, including
himself, and they all tasted. Then Valvo set down his glass and
hoisted the bottle again, eyeing it through those little wire
glasses of his.

"This doesn't have quite the character of the
prior year's vintage," he said.

"Sure it does," Max told him. "And when we
took it out of those old bottles and put it in these new ones, it
got even more character."

"So it's true?" Stella's voice rang out
across the table, loud and clear. "Suncrest
did
rebottle?"

Valvo frowned. He leaned down, much closer
than Max wanted. "You decanted this vintage?"

"Well . . ." Max set down his wineglass. He
was getting befuddled and didn't like Valvo looming over him like
it was the Spanish Inquisition. "I mean, we had to, to get it in
the new bottles."

Valvo stared at him for a second, then walked
away. Max watched him go.

Somewhere amid the cobwebs a light flashed on
and off.
You shouldn't have told him that
, it said. But then
again, he wasn't sure. Who knew and who didn't? It was so hard to
keep it all straight.

Maybe it was time to take a leak, before they
got in the limo to go home. Max rose from the booth, easier said
than done, then made his way to the rear of the restaurant.
And—just his luck!—he spied Barbie in the dark little hallway that
led to the restrooms and the phones.

"Hello!" He held out his hand to her. "My
name is Maximilian Winsted." He had to pause after that, just to
catch his breath. Then he leaned confidentially close, closer even
than the friar had leaned into him. "I've been watching you all
evening."

She laughed, though he noticed she put her
hand on his chest. Was she pushing him away? Or was she teasing
him? Little vixen!

He laughed. "I find you extremely
attractive."

Her eyes got wide. Man, they were really
blue. And they got that scared look he kind of enjoyed, fluttering
all around like she didn't know what to do next. "David?" she
called. Was she talking to him or to somebody behind him in the
restaurant?

"No, it's Max," he told her. "My name is
Max."

She shook her head. Man, was she built! And
she was wearing this tight pink top with a V-neck and he could look
down and just see the whole spread. Man, oh man …

It was dark in that hallway. It'd been quite
some time since he'd copped a good feel. And Miss Barbie here was
giving him quite the come-on, what with the hand on his chest.
Maybe he should return the favor. Man, was she cute. Very cute.

Max didn't really think about it, he just
reached out and touched her. The next thing he knew he was on the
floor, staring not at Barbie's boobs but at dust just inches away
from his nose. Or was the scream the next thing he knew? He wasn't
sure. Somebody had decked him. Was it Barbie?

He tried to lever himself higher—it was damn
hard to do with his head swimming—but he managed to get halfway up.
Barbie was standing next to McDougall. In fact McDougall was
holding on to her. She was sobbing—now
that
was an
overreaction—and McDougall was stroking her hair. They seemed to
know each other really well. Really well. David and Barbie. David
and . . . Did he just call her Barbara? The same name as his
wife?

Uh-oh.

On a Friday evening, as another Napa Valley
summer weekend officially kicked off, Gabby stood in her living
room, wrapped in Will's arms. It was exactly where she wanted to be
and what she'd been waiting for all week. Were it not for the words
coming out of his mouth, she would have been blissfully happy.

"Our weekend will officially begin as soon as
I'm done with this call," he told her. He pulled back a bit,
glanced at his watch. "In fact, I've got to go do it right
now."

"I can't believe you've got to do a business
call at seven o'clock on Friday night."

"It's not my choice, believe me." His right
hand reached out to smooth back her hair. "But I'm close to
finalizing a deal. The call has to happen tonight." Then he stopped
abruptly, as if he'd planned to tell her more but then thought
better of it. "I'm sorry but what can I say? I've told you before I
don't have—"

"I know, I know." This time she pulled away,
entirely out of his embrace. "A nine-to-five job."

She lifted a pillow from the shabby brown
couch, plumped it, then tossed it back into position.
You're
sounding like a whiner
, she told herself.
Lay off him. Can't
you see he's exhausted?

In the weak sunlight filtering through the
windows, softened by the fog that perched on the mountain like a
wool cap, Will truly did look spent. Pale, haggard, as droopy as
the collar on his usually crisp dress shirt.

And he had to drive seventy miles to get
up here
, she reminded herself.
Through Friday-night commuter
traffic.

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I'm a
little stressed, too." She walked closer to him, tried to sound as
apologetic as she felt. "Work was crazy and I got home late and
dinner's not ready yet anyway. You want a glass of wine?"

"You know what? I'd prefer water. And
aspirin."

"Oh, no—on top of everything else you've got
a headache?"

He massaged the nape of his neck. "I'm afraid
so. It started when I was stopped dead on 29 for half an hour."

"I'll go get you something." Once in the
blue-tiled bathroom, she regarded her disappointed face in the old
medicine-cabinet mirror, then threw back her head and closed her
eyes.
This is really shaping up nicely.
My day sucked, it
looks like his day sucked, and we can't even talk about it because
work is off-limits.

He had to stay mum about his deals, and no
way could she spill anything about the chaos at Suncrest, all of
which was generated by Max. Thanks to him, they had a bunch of dead
vines from weed killer, a shot reputation at one of San Francisco's
best restaurants, and a vintage of sauvignon blanc she was none too
proud of.

She reopened her eyes and shook her head.
Actually, she had every right to be stressed herself. Will wasn't
the only one with a high-pressure job, though at the moment he was
sort of acting like it.

She found him in the living room tossing his
cell phone back in his briefcase. He straightened to face her. "I
forgot I don't get coverage here. Do you mind if I use your land
line?"

"Not at all. Maybe you should use the
extension in the bedroom since I'll probably be noisy in the
kitchen." She watched him shake three aspirin onto his palm.
"Should you be taking that many?"

He didn't say anything, just popped the pills
down his throat, set down the glass, and bent to pick up his
briefcase. "I'll use my calling card," he said, before he
disappeared up the stairs to the bedroom.

The house fell silent. She sighed as she
turned again toward the kitchen, where a ton of pasta-making
awaited her. But no handsome sous-chef to entertain her while she
worked.

*

He closed the door behind him and took a deep
breath.
Chill. You'll make the call, you'll move the deal
forward. Then you can relax and concentrate on her.

That was the best he could hope for, he knew.
There was still a lot to accomplish on the telecom deal. It was
highly unlikely he'd be able to relax. And even if he did, it
wouldn't last long, because the Napa situation still hung over him
like a storm cloud.

He lay his briefcase on her floral bedspread.
The damn thing was, he couldn't
make
the Suncrest
acquisition happen. He could bet on it, he could believe in it, but
he had to wait for the situation to play itself out. That was the
risk he had taken, the gamble he had made.

And on top of that, he'd promised Gabby to
try not to change Suncrest if the deal did go through. How stupid
was that? That was a promise he could never keep. Not in a million
years could he get his partners to agree to a deal that let
Suncrest keep operating as a breakeven family heirloom. As
Faskewicz had reminded him not long ago, GPG wasn't into funding
nonprofits.

Will sucked down another deep breath, let it
out slowly. Enough of all that. Time to focus.

From his briefcase he pulled out the tools of
his trade. Palm. Blackberry. Laptop. Spiral notebook. Pen. A glance
at the bedside clock informed him he was to place the call in
precisely two minutes. The future of his telecom deal and a hundred
million dollars rode on the conversation he was about to have.

Not to mention that Will Henley Jr. could use
a splashy professional success right about now.

He tossed some of the bed pillows onto the
floor and used others to prop his back against the pine headboard,
then pulled her phone onto his lap from its home on the bedside
table. It was a pink princess phone, amazingly enough, which he had
thought charming the first time he saw it but which didn't get
quite that reaction from him now. On
this
he was supposed to
conduct a serious negotiation? It made him feel like Gidget.

He put the call through. It was a complicated
business, what with him in California, Ted and Sally in New York,
and Marco in Shanghai. Through the floor below him he heard strains
of stereo music, fairly muted, and the clattering of pots and
pans.

Should I have warned Gabby how long this
might take?
Probably, but there was no time for that now. He
kicked off the proceedings. "Everybody has a copy of the proposed
term sheet?" Grunts all around. "All right, let's start with the
post-money cap table . . ."

Time passed. "I recognize your issue, Marco."
Will jotted notes at lightning speed. "But the liquidation
preference is completely standard in this type of transaction."

The door opened slowly. Gabby poked her head
into the bedroom, gave a tentative smile. "Dinner's ready," she
whispered. He couldn't even nod, given that he was cradling the
Gidget phone between his left ear and his shoulder. Briefly he
raised his pen from his note-taking and made an
I heard you
wave. She backed away, closed the door. He glanced at his watch.
Eight o'clock already?

He returned his attention to the call. Marco
was making outrageous demands, but then again that was his
preferred negotiating strategy: start with an insane position to
define the terms of the debate and then feign intransigence as
everybody else scrambled to save the deal by accommodating him.
Will had tried that himself a few times and learned its
effectiveness. But it was not entertaining to be on the receiving
end.

Time passed. "Sorry, Marco, but the transfer
restrictions are necessary. We're putting in over a hundred million
dollars and we want to make sure our interests are completely
aligned."

Again the door opened. Again it was Gabby.
This time Will looked up to see that there was no smile and no
whisper. "The food is done," she said. "It's getting cold."

He couldn't mouth the words that leaped to
his mind.
I'm trying to do a major transaction here, Gabby. For
Christ's sake, don't bother me about dinner!
But none of that
could he say. All he could do in the throes of negotiation was lift
his shoulders in a
There's nothing I can do about it now
gesture, which he did. He noted, as she left, that she looked none
too happy.