It Was Only a Kiss. Joss Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ help the smile that drifted across her face. It was wonderfully good to have an open, relaxed relationship with her brother again, after years of him operating on the periphery of her life. ‘He’s so damn happy with Clem, and I know that they have something special. The last of my brothers—all of whom sowed enough wild oats to cover Africa—has settled down.’

      ‘And you’re wafting in the wind?’ Ally placed her hands on the windowsill behind her. ‘And that bothers you because it’s something your brothers have got right and you haven’t. Love is not a contest, Jess. Do you know what your problem is?’ Ally continued.

      ‘No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,’ Jess grumbled. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what she had to say...Ally seldom pulled her punches.

      ‘You raised the topic,’ Ally pointed out. ‘Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear or the truth?’

      ‘That’s a rhetorical question, right?’ Jess took a deep breath. ‘Okay, I’ll take a brave-girl pill...hit me.’

      ‘One sentence: you’re so damned scared of being vulnerable that you try to control everything in a relationship.’

      Hearing her earlier thought about control so eloquently explained floored Jess. Did her best friend know her or what?

      ‘Being single suits you and not being in love suits you even better.’

      ‘Can I change my mind and ask you to tell me what I want to hear?’ Jess protested. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear any more about her romantic failings.

      ‘To you, being in love means losing control—and to a control freak that is the scariest thing in the world.’

      ‘I am not a control freak!’ Jess retorted, heat in her voice.

      Ally’s mouth dropped open. ‘You big, fat liar! You are all about control. That’s why you choose men you can control.’

      ‘You are so full of it.’ Jess sulked.

      ‘You know I’m right,’ Ally retorted.

      This was the problem with good friends. They knew you better than you knew yourself, Jess grumbled silently. Deciding that Ally was looking far too smug, she decided to change the subject, vowing to give their conversation some more thought later.

      Maybe.

      If she felt like digging into her own psyche with a hand drill.

      Right now they needed to work. She nodded to the iPad and listened and made notes as Ally updated her on the projects she wasn’t personally involved with. Jess gave her input and instructions and ran through some office-related queries.

      They were concentrating on interpreting some tricky data from a survey when Jess’s PA put through a call from Joel Andersen, a much larger competitor whose company owned branches throughout Africa.

      He was also one of the few people in the industry she liked and trusted.

      Ally started to rise, but Jess shook her head and hit the speaker button. She would tell Ally about the call anyway, so she’d save herself the hassle. She and Joel traded greetings and Jess waited for him to get to the point. Joel, not one to beat around the bush, jumped right in.

      ‘I was wondering...what did you think about Luke Savage’s e-mail? I presume you’re going to his briefing session for the new marketing strategy he wants to implement for his winery? I thought that if we catch the same flight to Cape Town we could share a car to St Sylve.’

      Jess’s heart did a quickstep as she tried to keep up with Joel. She sent a glance at her monitor; she most definitely had not received an e-mail from Luke Savage...

      Not knowing what to think, she decided that the only thing she could do was to pump Joel for information. ‘So, what do you think?’

      ‘About St Sylve? He needs it... I heard that he commissioned market research with Lew Jones and is open to something new and hip. But with two hundred years of Savage wine-making history and tradition, that could backfire.’

      She didn’t think so... She hadn’t eight years ago and she didn’t now. It was about time he looked at updating his marketing, Jess grumbled silently. Over the years she’d kept an eye on the vineyard and was saddened by its obviously diminishing market share. The advertising was dry, the labels boring and its promotion stuffy.

      And, since she was the only one who’d ever hear it, she sent Luke Savage a silent I-told-you-so.

      Jess widened her eyes at Ally, who was frowning in confusion. ‘My PA is just updating my iPad...what time was the briefing again?’ she lied.

      ‘Ten-thirty on Friday morning at the estate,’ Joel replied.

      Bless his heart—he didn’t suspect a thing.

      ‘So, shall I have my PA look at flights?’

      ‘Uh...let me come back to you on that. I’ve been out for a day or two and haven’t quite caught up. I have clients in Cape Town to see, so I might fly in earlier,’ Jess fudged, and grimaced at Ally, who was now leaning forward, looking concerned.

      ‘Well, let me know,’ Joel told her before disconnecting.

      Jess scrunched up her face. Damn Luke Savage and his injured pride. Her instinctive reaction was that the St Sylve campaign was hers—it had been hers eight years ago and it was still hers. There was no way she would allow another company to muck it up a second time...

      Jess stood and placed her hands on her hips. ‘What do you know about St Sylve wines?’

      Ally’s brown furrowed in thought. ‘The vineyard has produced some award-winning wines, but it hasn’t translated that into sales.’

      It had taken a bit longer than Jess had thought, but her predictions about St Sylve had come true...and she felt sad. This was one of the few occasions when she would have been happy to be wrong...wished she was wrong. St Sylve was a Franschoek institution—one of the very few vineyards owned by the same family of French settlers who’d made their home in the valley in the early nineteenth century. She’d loved the three months she’d spent at the vineyard—had been entranced by the buildings, so typical of the architecture of the Cape Colony in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with its whitewashed outer walls decorated with ornate gables and thatched roofs.

      Apart from the main residence and guest house, the property still had its original cellar, a slave bell, stables and service buildings.

      It also had Luke Savage, current owner, who’d fired her and kicked her off his property after kissing her senseless.

      Jess quickly recounted her history with Luke to Ally, who was equally entertained and horrified. ‘He fired you?’

      ‘I deserved it. At twenty-two I thought I was God’s gift to the world,’ Jess replied.

      Learning that she wasn’t had been painful, but necessary. While she hadn’t been wrong about the marketing of St Sylve—as she’d suspected, the campaign had been a dismal failure—she’d been arrogant, impulsive and rude, approaching him the way she had.

      Jess paced СКАЧАТЬ