Intoxicating by Lori Wilde Page B

infinity.
    She’d never experienced anything quite like this before. Because her family depended on her, because she was so absorbed in the science of winemaking, she’d always avoided serious romantic entanglements.
    But this feeling, which clearly promised to turn her world upside-down, not only scared her, it excited her. What was wrong with her? She should just fire him again and be done with it.
    Wyatt opened the wine, set the corkscrew on the shelf. “Do you have a glass?”
    â€œJust drink from the bottle,” she said. “It’s not good wine. You won’t want more than a swallow.”
    His dark-eyed gaze landed on hers and he took a sip, studying her down the long, smooth length of the bottle. He held the wine in his mouth for a long moment before he swallowed it down.
    â€œYou’re right,” he said, “it’s very faint, but the undertones are dark, heavy.”
    â€œIt could just be a case of earthy terroir,” she said.
    â€œIt’s Brett,” he confirmed, “but then some people might be willing to accept a dark taste in exchange for an organic wine.”
    The complexity of his palate stunned her. “You can tell it’s organic?”
    â€œIt goes with the territory. Brett is not dangerous yeast and it’s quite common in organic vineyards. It simply becomes a matter of taste.”
    â€œBeing a die-hard romantic, my great-grandfather believed in organic cultivation, but he had a difficult time keeping his wine tasty because of all the bacteria and bugs in organic wine. Later, Grandfather tried to keep up the family tradition, but as Bella Notte struggled to make a superior wine, he reluctantly turned to using scientific methods of grape cultivation. It saved our winery.”
    â€œBut now,” Wyatt said, “the cultural climate is changing, organic products are big again and there’s a backlash against science interfering with nature.”
    â€œYes. I want to supply my customer base with the products they want without eschewing science. It’s a delicate balance. One I’ve yet to strike.”
    He leaned closer. “In school, you learned a reductionist approach.”
    â€œHow do you know that?” She marveled at his understanding. He knew far more about wine than he’d initially let on.
    â€œBecause it’s the nature of science. To reduce things down to their individual components and focus on each element separately, but there are limits to reductionism. This day and age it’s smart to have a holistic approach to winemaking. But you’re conflicted about that too. On the one hand, there’s your logical, scientific mind that likes putting things into boxes. But on the other hand, there’s your innate knowing—the instinctual part of you that you fight to deny that knows the truth. Face it, Kiara, there are some things in life that just can’t be quantified or qualified.”
    â€œThat paradox again,” she muttered, surprised at how well he seemed to know her. Was she that easy to read? Or was he simply that intuitive?
    â€œYou have a hard time admitting that science cannot control everything, that some things are just…magic,” he said, his voice husky and she knew he was no longer talking about wine.
    â€œI don’t believe in magic.”
    â€œBut you want to.”
    Yes, yes, she wanted to believe. She wanted to let herself go, get swept away, be imaginative and spontaneous and romantic like the rest of her family. She wanted to succumb to the madness.
    This rampaging urge to kiss Wyatt—oh, who was she kidding—to have sex with him, spoke to her as nothing ever had. Her hormones had never ruled her. In all honesty, that’s why she’d fired him, because he unraveled her in nine-hundred startling ways.
    As if arranged, they moved toward each other. Inperfect unison, his hands moved to remove her glasses while she reached to pluck the