“Sounds like a good one to me.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I was just looking for the sales numbers for the two thousand fifteen Zinfandel.”
“Oh, they’re right here,” she said, pulling the file from a stack on her desk and handing it to him.
Dash half turned as if to leave, then paused. “If it’s not too personal, may I ask: What kept you up so late last night? The restaurant?”
“That was part of it. But when I got home, I had to finish a label design for one of my classes.”
“What kind of label design?”
“For you, actually.” She blushed. “I mean, for your Zinfandel. I chose to redesign it for a class project.”
He raised one eyebrow. “What’s wrong with my Zinfandel label?”
“Everything,” Rosalyn blurted out.
He looked surprised.
“Oh, I can’t believe I said that out loud. I’m still half asleep. I’m so sorry.”
“You do a lot of apologizing around me. How about we stop that?”
“Of course. Sorry.”
He smiled, and little crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. He carried himself so easily, she noted, was so at home in his skin, as if he were the king of the world. She supposed he was, at least the king of his small domain here in Napa.
“What I meant to say,” Rosalyn continued, “is that I thought it should be more eye-catching, to differentiate it from all the other bottles on the store shelves. According to the sales figures in that file, your wines sell best in the upscale wine shops whose clients are less concerned with price, and where the shop owners are probably recommending your wines. And that’s great, of course, but in the larger outlets your bottles need a distinctive label to catch people’s attention. Your average buyer judges a bottle based, at least in part, on its label.”
He tilted his head. “And you have a better label design?”
She blushed again. “I do. I mean, it’s just an idea. It’s silly, really. I’m a marketing-and-design major, so I’m supposed to think about these things.”
“May I see it?”
“Oh, I don’t know.... It’s just a rough idea....”
“Are you going to deny me a peek at my own Zinfandel label, Rosalyn?”
“I... Of course not.” As she pulled it up on the office computer, he came around to her side of the desk, put one hand flat on the desk blotter and the other on the back of her chair, and leaned in to study the screen.
She caught a whiff of soap and something masculine, a subtle blend of sandalwood and moss she would later learn was the signature scent of a cologne imported from Paris.
“You did this?” he asked, staring at her label.
She nodded, trying to ignore his closeness, and the fact that her heart was pounding. For the redesigned label, Rosalyn had blatantly ripped off a Mucha painting of a woman and depicted her with a basket of grapes, in the Art Nouveau style. It was derivative, but she liked the result: romantic and evocative, a nod to the past while still contemporary.
“This is good,” he said. “Really good.”
“It’s just—”
“I like it. No need to be modest, Rosalyn. I really should be paying you.”
“Speaking of which, thank you for that huge tip last night. I don’t know what to say—it was completely unnecessary.”
He shrugged. “What’s money good for, if not to give it away?”
I wouldn’t know,Rosalyn thought.
“You keep at it, Rosie girl. Get some sleep, and maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
