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Wine, chocolate and sex in academia …

What happens when there are four in a relationship?

With only occasional weekends and holidays together, Nicole Durand and Andy Ravel are feeling the strain of their long-distance romance.

But when Andy is offered a job at MIT, Nicole faces an impossible decision. Should she go to America with the man she loves, or spend the next few years in celibate spinsterhood? Half-way through her degree course in Edinburgh, she has made friends and enjoys a small income tutoring French.

Andy also faces a dilemma. On his way home for Christmas, he has met vivacious ex-girlfriend, Margie Chapman. Margie works in New York and has a two-year-old son, Tommy. Though he loves Nicole, Andy has feelings for Margie too, which are not only reciprocated but complicated by a suspicion that Tommy might be his.

For Nicole, abandoning her course for a financially insecure life in the USA would be rash, the alternative equally so, when her sensuous nature might throw her into the arms of attractive medic, Mike Prentice.

Separated by three thousand miles of ocean, Nicole and Andy must each tread a path through this entanglement of love, friendship and career, without hurting the people they care about.

Andy

Margie draws the curtains in the living-room and switches on the two table lamps, bringing a warm glow to the room.

‘Pour the wine, would you,’ she instructs. ‘I’ll be back momentarily.’

She goes off and I hear her light tread on the stairs. I take off my jacket, fetch two large glasses from the pull-down cabinet, and empty the bottle of Pinot into them. Momentarily – I have discovered - is an American word meaning anything from immediately to half-an-hour later.

However, anticipation is everything. Since I have known her, Margie has already surprised me several times, and I wonder how many more times, and in how many more ways, she can take my breath away. I have to wait ten minutes for my answer. Sexy doesn’t begin to describe her.

Gone are the formal blouse, pencil skirt and jacket. She has changed into a white, sheer kimono, calf length, what I can only describe as half-way between a dress and a robe. Fastened loosely at the waist with a tie, it opens sufficiently at the front to afford me a slit view of her throat and cleavage. A naked knee and thigh poke out from the gap below the waistline.

‘Well, what do you think?’ With hand on hip, she strikes a pose which makes me hot all over. Several words spring to mind but none seems appropriate or adequate in the circumstances. I gulp down a generous helping of confusion and embarrassment.

‘I saw it in John Lewis’s and I couldn’t resist,’ Margie says. ‘Do you like it?’

‘What’s not to like?’ My tongue returns to its normal place in my mouth. ‘You look amazing.’

Margie smiles. ‘That’ll do for starters.’

‘And, for what it’s worth, I think your ex-husband must be a prize idiot.’

‘Even better, Ravel. I can’t quarrel with you there.’ She picks up a glass of wine and curls up on the sofa. ‘Now, sit beside me and tell me again what you think of my outfit.’

‘What I think is, you are trying to seduce me again.’

Margie drinks half of her wine then runs her tongue suggestively round her lips. She puts her glass down on the coffee table. ‘What was that poem again – not the Baudelaire, the other one? Caresses sweeter than wine. . . . Is that really in the Bible?’

‘Really.’ The tie of her kimono slips easily at my touch and the garment falls away. Underneath, she is wearing a white lace thong. I feast my eyes on the curve of her waist and hips, the perfect symmetry of her pelvis, the apex of her thighs. She is incredibly lovely.

‘I bought them especially for you,’ she whispers. ‘Only for you.’

Her arm encircles my neck and she pulls me towards her. The lamplight glistens on her smooth skin....

'My resolve is weakening. Something new is happening, something wonderful, frightening and inviting. I’m being trawled into a net of my own making, and from which there may be no escape . . .'

Nicole Durand takes a job as housekeeper-companion to Cathy, wife of wealthy Bordeaux winegrower, Yves Ravel, to earn money for university. She isn’t looking for romance, but when she meets the Ravels’ son, Andy, she is irresistibly attracted to him. Should she give in to her feelings, risking her future ambitions and his – or settle for friendship, and be the sister Andy never had? The past few years have not been easy for Nicole. She has struggled to come to terms with her father’s early death and with her mother Denise’s subsequent addictions, lies and bad choices in men. In spite of it all, she has come through lycée with top marks. She has had to grow up quickly. Now, as she grows closer to Cathy and her feelings for Andy intensify, Nicole becomes caught up in her employers’ problems as well as her own – by Yves’ obsession with the business, his threats to stop funding Andy’s education, the continual arguments and by the Ravel family tragedy. Moreover, she is distrustful of Denise's new partner, and afraid her younger siblings may suffer the way she did. With three years of study in a foreign country looming, these are all complications she doesn’t need.

The authors debut romance, a story of first love, set among the lush, green vineyards of the Garonne Valley.

Drew Greenfield grew up and completed his education in Scotland. He has worked in sales and marketing, and in the tourist industry, but his true passion is literature of all kinds, as both reader and writer. He is also fond of music and plays several instruments. Sweeter Than Wine, his debut romantic novel, was published in May 2018. Sweet Entanglement, the second book in the series will be released on 30th April 2021.
Drew now lives in the East of England. Drew Greenfield is a pen name for the writer Andrew G(reenfield) Lockhart.