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It always brought me a sense of calm that got me through the rest of the day.
At the end of the day, I returned to the main winery and headed to Crow’s office. My heart was beating so hard in my chest that I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. The nerves were getting to me, making my spine tighten against the muscles that flanked my back. This uneasiness was new to me. Even when he’d hated me, I never felt this way.
But this was something I’d never done before.
I stepped inside his office and saw him standing behind his desk.
“Hey, how’d it go?” Crow powered down his laptop before he shut the lid.
“Got it all right here.” I placed the reports on his desk so he could look at them tomorrow.
“Great.” He placed the stack inside his desk.
“We’re making good time. Should be able to fill the order. Cane had to move some stuff around at the second location, but we made it work.”
“Excellent.” He walked around the desk and placed his phone in his pocket. He wore dark jeans and an olive green V-neck. There was a prominent vein in his neck and along his forearms. He wore a shiny watch on his left wrist. He was a simple man who cared about the bare minimum. He only wore suits for meetings and wore jeans and boots the rest of the time. “You’re doing great work, Griffin. Adelina has been happy that Cane is home early every night. Same thing goes for Pearl. Maybe we’ll retire a little sooner than planned…”
The compliment didn’t mean anything to me, at least, not in that moment.
Crow noticed the tension in the silence. His eyes scanned back and forth as he looked into my face, trying to gauge my emotions based on my coldness. His hands slid into his pockets, and he stopped before me in front of the leather chairs that faced his desk. “Everything alright, Griffin?”
I wasn’t nervous because of his response. I was nervous for a million other reasons. I’d never been good with feeling emotions, let alone expressing them. The only person I could talk to was Vanessa, and that was because she understood me so well. I was a man of silence, and that had always been fine for her. She seemed to know what I wanted to say without hearing me say it. “I don’t know how to do this, so…” I dug into my pocket and pulled out the small box I’d kept stashed there since this morning.
The second Crow saw it, he took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. “I knew this was coming.” He returned his hand to his pocket then lifted his gaze to look at me, this time his expression softer than before. “But I’m still not ready for it.”
I extended the box so he could take it.
He eyed it for a moment before he took it. He opened the lid and stared at the three-carat diamond that immediately caught the light coming through the window. The main stone was in the center, beautiful and big, and smaller diamonds wrapped around the band halfway. I bought the highest clarity diamonds because I wanted it to sparkle constantly as she moved her hands, whether she was painting or working in her gallery. Crow took a deep breath before he let out a long whistle. “Jesus, Griffin.” He took the ring out of the box and examined it closer. “This is one hell of a ring.”
Anytime she wore it, I wanted every man who looked at her to know she was claimed—and not by an ordinary man. I wanted that fifty-thousand-dollar ring to ward off any asshole who thought he might have shot with her. “It’s bug repellent.”
Crow chuckled lightly before he put the ring back in the box. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
He closed the box and handed it back to me. “She’ll love it.”
“Yeah…” I cleared my throat as I shoved the box back into my pocket. “Mr. Barsetti, may I have your blessing to marry your daughter?” I’d never been the kind of man to ask permission for anything, and the only reason why I did it now was because it was important to him. But when I saw his eyes soften even more and a new wave of emotion enter his expression, I didn’t mind asking the question. I saw the love for his daughter in the difference that came over his composure, the way his daughter changed him from being a strong and hard man to being a father who loved his children more than anything in the world. She was his weakness, but he wasn’t ashamed of that vulnerability at all.
He didn’t say anything, not because his answer would be no, but because words left him in that moment. He ran his hand through his hair and blinked his eyes quickly, combating the tears that flooded his gaze. He took another deep breath like he didn’t know what else to do. “I’m sorry…”
