He walked in the back door and made his way to Margot’s office. The door was closed, but he knew she was in there.
He knocked softly.
“Margot,” he said. “It’s me.”
She opened the door, and the sad, broken look on her face tore at his heart. He stepped inside, kicked the door closed, and pulled her into his arms.
She let out a sob and dropped her head onto his shoulder.
“I knew I wouldn’t be able to pull this off, I knew it,” she said. “Oh, Luke . . . I can’t believe . . . Why didn’t I see . . .”
She was crying so hard, he could barely understand her. All he could do was hold her, stroke her hair, and let her cry.
After a few minutes, she took a long breath, and her sobs slowed down. He let go of her for a second to grab a few tissues from the box on her desk and hand them to her, but he put his arms back around her as she wiped her eyes.
“It really wasn’t that bad,” he said. “Only a handful of people really paid him any attention, and we got him out of the way pretty fast.”
Her eyes welled up again and she shook her head.
“This was exactly why Uncle Stan never wanted to have parties here. He didn’t want us to become one of those wineries where people would go just to get drunk and make scenes. That’s not who Noble is. I’m sure Elliot will remind me of that any second now. And plus, it doesn’t matter how many people saw it—and I think most of the party did—people took videos of it, they’ve already put them online. They were kind enough to tag us as they stood there at our party, drinking our wine. Everyone is going to think . . . And with that reporter right there.”
She sat down on the edge of her desk. She looked so heartbroken. God, he hated seeing her like this. He took her hand.
“But everything else went so well,” he said. “I don’t think one guy getting drunk is going to be the thing everyone is going to remember from this party.”
She shook her head.
“So many things went wrong. That was just the cherry on top.” She put her head on his chest. “Was it obvious how upset I was?”
He wrapped his arms around her.
“I don’t think anyone else could tell. I don’t think even I would have been able to tell, except I was looking at you right when it happened. But I swear, this isn’t as bad as you think—it barely made a blip in the party. And it wasn’t your fault, there was nothing you could have done.”
She shook her head.
“Everything that goes wrong here is my fault, it’s the nature of the job. But this was very definitely my fault. I noticed that he was drinking too much. I should have cut him off way before we got to that point. But I didn’t. And we see what happened.”
He wanted to argue with her, try to convince her she was wrong on this, that she shouldn’t be so upset, but he knew that wasn’t what she needed from him. So he just held her.
After a few moments, she stood up.
“I should . . .” She let out a breath. “I should go back out there. There’s so much left to do. I just had to . . . not be on for a few minutes, that’s all.” She smiled at him, and her eyes welled up again. “But thank you, for coming to find me. It really helped, to have you here.”
He squeezed her hand.
“What else do you need? What can I do?”
There was a knock at the door.
“Margot?” It was Elliot.
She dropped Luke’s hand and closed her eyes for a second.
“Yeah,” she said when she opened them. “I’m in here.”
Twenty-One
MARGOT TOOK A DEEP breath and stood up to face her brother.
“Do you want me to stay?” Luke asked in a low voice.
“No. Thanks.” She was too close to the edge to look at Luke right now. It would just make her want to lean on him, want to cry again, when she had to be strong for this conversation with Elliot. She’d known it was coming, she just hadn’t realized he’d come find her this soon.
“Okay.” He took a step away from her as Elliot walked into her office. “Um, I’ll go help Taylor.”
Elliot laughed.
“You don’t have to do that, Luke—did you forget you don’t work for us anymore? We’re so grateful for your help, especially with our friend Porter, aren’t we, Margot? But you should take off, we can handle this from here.” Margot tried not to wince at the mention of the drunk guy, but she could tell Luke noticed her reaction. She had no real choice but to agree with Elliot here, even though she wanted Luke to stay.