Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,44

ever be.

“What happened with Luna’s mom?” I asked Zeke.

It was five after midnight, five minutes since he’d arrived, and another bottle of red was already dangling from his fingers. This one was a Pinot—we’d branched out. He’d informed me that the best Pinot in the world came from a small region of New Zealand called Central Otago.

My first sip was not something that made me argue with that statement.

We’d sat in silence for a few beats, as was the norm. Silence, apart from the buzzing of the electricity between us, grew louder and louder with every night that didn’t end in the angry sex he’d promised.

He said he was going to wait until I was ready like he was some gallant gentleman, not a biker who used ‘fuck’ as a comma.

As of yet, we’d not offered personal information about each other these past nights. We hadn’t offered much information at all, apart from Zeke talking about each bottle of wine he’d brought. Speaking of it with intelligence. Reverence. My midnight sommelier.

It was surprising and endearing how much more there was to this man than met the eye. It was terrifying that I didn’t just find him attractive but intriguing as well. That I was spending too much time fantasizing about him. I felt guilty I wasn’t fantasizing about David coming back from the dead like I should’ve been.

But not guilty enough to tell Zeke to leave. To hide out in my house at midnight, pretending to sleep instead of sitting there with music humming out of my Bluetooth speaker, wine glasses ready.

“She died,” Zeke replied to my question. It was in the same cold, raspy voice he’d used since I met him. No emotion, no hint of whether he was tortured by the death of the mother of his child.

I made a note to try and mimic that. To try to find a way to tell strangers my husband was dead and do it without a tremor in my voice and a glassiness to my gaze.

As it was, if strangers did ask about my husband, I lied. Who were they to know the truth? Strangers didn’t deserve it. Plus, it was a nice game to play.

“Died?” I repeated. I should’ve known that. Should’ve read it from the sadness in Luna’s eyes. I liked her too much to think about that. I imagined maybe a mom that was less than perfect—we all were, perfect mothers were unicorns—maybe in rehab, or in Mexico with a younger lover she’d decided to take off with.

He nodded once, sipping the last of his wine then leaning forward to pour more. He was wearing a crisp white t-shirt this evening. I’d never seen him wear the same thing twice, but everything was a variation on the same uniform. Dark jeans, motorcycle boots, fitted, expensive shirt that molded over the man’s impressive muscles.

He wore rings on almost every finger, the kind of biker rings one might expect from a man like this, but not cheap. If there was anything I knew, it was how to spot signs of wealth. He rode an expensive Harley, drove a top of the line truck, and his daughter drove an expensive yet reliable SUV.

And every night for the past week and a half, he’d brought bottles of wine that were usually worth over one hundred dollars.

I didn’t know what he did for money. Didn’t know what he did in the daylight. Wasn’t that something I should’ve asked the man with all the tattoos and air of menace as he sat across from me getting me reasonably drunk and promising angry sex?

But I was asking about the mother of his child. Because some carnal, ugly part of me wanted to know about her. Wanted her to be off in Vegas, drinking and gambling away her life so I could be better than her. Not dead. There was no competing with the dead.

“How did she die?” I asked.

“She was killed when Luna was kidnapped.”

There it was. Something beyond the flat, controlled tone. A fury that would never falter. Never waver.

“Luna was kidnapped.” All I was doing was repeating his words because they didn’t seem real. Because they sent a chill right to the core of me. They were every single parent’s worst fear. And it made sense. That slice of darkness that would peek out of her wonderfully blue eyes. Those moments when I’d catch something on her beautiful face that didn’t belong there. Something ugly and cold and haunting.

“Before we came here,