The Bachelor's Baby Surprise. Teri Wilson

of France where it came from—the Médoc region on the Left Bank. She told them to expect a deep red liquid, with fruit scents and notes of cassis, black cherry and licorice.

      Ryan had always been partial to white wine, but he had a feeling that was about to change.

      Finished with her brief monologue, Evangeline set the bottle back down, picked up the port tongs and held them over the open flame until the ring burned bright red. Ryan was suddenly consciously aware of his own heartbeat and a heady combination of awe and dread pumping through his veins, as if he were on the verge of being branded.

      What was happening to him? Did Zander feel it, too—this strange, sublime effect she had?

      He couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t willing to take his eyes off her long enough to venture a glance in his cousin’s direction. But he doubted it, because what he was experiencing felt an awful lot like desire.

      He swallowed.

      Maybe Zander was right. Maybe they’d be better off going with someone else, because having Evangeline around on a daily basis was sure to be complicated.

      But that was absurd, wasn’t it? He was a grown man. He could resist temptation.

      Light glinted against the wine bottle in the center of the table, flashing a glimpse of the dark liquid it contained. Shimmering garnet red. Then Evangeline removed the tongs from the flame and slipped the ring over the bottle’s narrow neck.

      She pressed the ring in place and then loosened the tongs, rotating the ring slightly and pressing again. Satisfied, she removed the tongs altogether, placed them in a shallow pan of water and then dipped the shaving brush into the ice bucket. The bottle made a cracking sound, like ice under pressure, as Evangeline ran the brush over the spot where she’d heated the glass.

      Instinct told Ryan what was coming next, but he was still thoroughly impressed when she wrapped a cloth napkin around her hand to take hold of the top of the bottle and it snapped off cleanly in her grasp.

      “Voilà,” she said quietly. Her bottom lip slipped between her teeth as her gaze collided with his.

      Temptation.

      Most definitely.

      “Impressive.” Zander arched a brow. “What exactly did we just witness?”

      “It’s called tonging,” she explained as she held the little pot of red wax over the blowtorch’s flame. “Traditionally, this method is reserved for opening vintage port. Aged properly, port sits for twenty, sometimes fifty years. The cork can disintegrate and crumble if you open it with a corkscrew.”

      She tipped the copper pot in a swirling motion until the wax ran smooth. “No one wants bits of cork in a wine they’ve waited half a century to drink. Tonging allows you to bypass the cork altogether.”

      Zander nodded. “Clever.”

      Evangeline dipped the severed top in the melted liquid and then did the same to the sharp edge of the bottle’s remaining portion after she poured the wine into the decanter.

      Crimson wax dripped down the bottle, and Ryan was struck by the fact that she’d managed to create a dramatic table decoration in addition to putting on a show.

      She poured three glasses from the decanter and handed two of them to Zander and Ryan. “This is Bordeaux, not port, obviously. The method can be used to open any kind of bottle. It’s rather fun, don’t you think?”

      Ryan sipped his wine. It was good, but try as he might, he couldn’t taste cassis, black cherry and licorice. Instead, his senses swirled with the memory of their night together. He tasted Evangeline’s lips, chilled from the winter air, rich with longing. He tasted her porcelain skin, sweet like vanilla.

      He tasted trouble.

      So very much trouble.

      Zander stared into his glass. “I think—”

      For the second time in the span of a half hour, Ryan cut him off. He was sure to hear about it later, but by then it would be too late. “Evangeline Holly, you’re hired.”