I tilt my head as I start combing through the bubble-wrapped items, peeling back the tape and unwrapping enough bubble wrap to identify what’s inside.
“That was my grandmother’s favorite music box,” Oliver says over my shoulder. “She got it on her first trip to Italy. And that one”—he points to a long, skinny thing wrapped in bubble wrap—"that one’s my father’s favorite Maurice Bellitano.”
“Will he notice it’s missing?”
“Eventually.” He grins broader. “Like he’ll notice this too.”
He reaches past me to grab a wine-bottle-shaped bubble-wrapped object.
I choke on my own tongue when he unrolls it and shows me the label.
“Is that real?” I whisper.
“High probability.”
“What does that mean,high probability?”
“If this is what I think it is, this came from my grandfather’s cellar, like most of what we had before my father’s misguided foray into showing up your father’s wine cellar.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“One way to find out.”
“Find an expert?”
“Drink it.”
Spoken like a true billionaire.
He giggles again. “How do you think it’ll pair with hot dogs?”
Spoken like a true billionaire having a mental breakdown.
As if that’ll stop me from smiling back at him. “Only one way to find out.”
I don’t drink much that costs more than twelve bucks a bottle these days, but I’ve had good wine.
Goodwine.
This bottle?
If it’s truly a 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, my father would absolutely die at the idea of us drinking it with campfire hot dogs. His father probably would too.
“What else did you take?” I ask him.
“Sentimental things and a few things that can be used as blackmail in the event they try anything to get me to come back.”
“Oliver Cumberland, you aredevious.”
He grins at me. “Bad to the bone, baby.”
I can’t explain why that makes me desperately need to kiss him, but it does.
Oliver isnotbad.
He’s utterly perfect.
And I have at least one or two more days before I need to think about reality again.
