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“You were raised with two parents who loved you.” A vein in his neck started to throb. “You have a father who still loves you. You have no idea what my life has been like.”
“Thentellme!” She nearly shouted, desperate to keep him from pulling away from her and the life he’d been on the verge of embracing. “You don’t have to go through this alone, Adrian. You don’t have to let those events control you for the rest of your life. You showedmethat!”
He froze. “What do you mean?”
“The winery. The sale.” Her words came out in a rush as she tried to make him understand. “I focused so hard on Fox Vineyards that I lost myself. Fox became my identity and I couldn’t see anything else. But the more time I spent with you...the more I saw how much better Fox could be with your help...how much more I could be if I didn’t spend every waking moment focused on it...”
Her voice dropped, trembled, and she decided to take the leap.
“Adrian, I got the courage to not only become myself, but to risk falling in love with you.” She took a step forward. “It’s messy, and complicated, and I might get hurt, but loving you is worth all of that.”
Adrian didn’t move—didn’t even blink. It was as if he’d turned to stone.
“Say something,” she begged.
He looked back at her and something flashed deep in his eyes...something that gave her the tiniest bit of hope.
And then it was gone.
“What’s done is done.” He glanced down at his phone as the screen lit up. “She’s coming out of surgery. Thank you for the past few weeks, Miss Bradford. I look forward to seeing your work as director of Fox Vineyards.”
With that, he brushed past her and walked out of the chapel without a backward glance.
A cry burst from her chest, the sound amplified in the tiny chapel, and she collapsed into the pew, sobs racking her body as she bent over and wrapped her arms around herself.
He didn’t even realize that he’d done what his mother had done all those years ago. Turned away from someone who loved him because he couldn’t see past his own hurt. His rejection had taken the fragile pieces of her heart and ground them into dust.
Everleigh dropped her head forward and placed her forehead against the back of the pew, the coolness of the wood a welcome balm to her feverish skin. He had told her repeatedly that he had no interest in a long-term relationship, in anything beyond a few pleasurable encounters.Shewas the one who’d gone and turned it into something more, who’d started to believe that the warmth she’d glimpsed had been something deeper than desire.
How ironic that just when she’d found the courage to look beyond Fox Vineyards for happiness she was being handed the job of director—the closest she would get to her dream of leading her family’s business. Just in time to have a future with the man she’d fallen in love with yanked away.
She didn’t know how long she stayed in the chapel. But by the time she left the hospital stars were peeking out from the storm clouds that chased the sunset beyond the horizon.
Her last night in Spain.
Tomorrow she’d be going home to her dad, to her new job.
But tonight she would grieve. She would grieve for the life that could have been, the love that could have brought her a happiness she’d never thought possible.
And then she would do what Adrian couldn’t.
She would move on.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BAM! BAM! BAM!Adrian buried his face in his pillow. The pounding on his door continued, rousing him from the blessed blackness of sleep.
“Detener!”he commanded.
He opened his eyes and immediately shut them against the blinding pain of morning sunlight. The glass of brandy on top of the wine he’d drunk last night had been a grave mistake.
The intensity of the knocking grew.
“Dios mío, stop!”
“Only if you open up, big brother.”
Adrian cursed.What time was it?He groped for his phone and managed to peel his eyes open enough to see the time on the screen.
