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I stepped outside through the back door of the office, the one that opened right onto the vineyard. Despite the sun shining brightly, there was a bite to the early May air, and I was glad I’d thrown on my hoodie.
“Amara!” Liam Danvers said as I strode toward the four men gathered atop the hill, two side-by-sides waiting on standby to take us into the vineyard.
“Liam,” I said warmly when I reached him, extending my hand in greeting. He wrapped it in his inked one, the lines of the rose on the back stark in the afternoon sun. “It’s good to see you.”
“You as well.”
I turned my attention to the older man next to him. “Victor.”
Vic’s response was a grunt, which was honestly as good as a warm hug from the man. Vic had been working for my family for what seemed like a hundred years. According to Dad, he’d started here in the seventies when he was fresh out of high school, doing odd jobs both inside and outside. Eventually, Papou promoted him to head grower, and Vic became a permanent fixture at Chateau Delatou. Now in his seventies, his years spent outside in the elements were evident in his physical appearance. His grey-blond hair was long and scraggly, perpetually tied back with a thin strap of worn leather. The skin of his face was deeply tanned and creased, his forearms brown and dusted with white hair.
Despite his gruff manner, he was one of few people who treated me with the respect owed to my position. The only person he seemed to show any sort of positive emotion for was Liam, which was all I could’ve asked for as we underwent a sort of changing of the guard. The two were thick as thieves, and I’d often look out the windows of my office to see them surveying the vineyard, talking animatedly as they planned the future of the winery.
“You ready?” Liam asked.
Before I could offer a response, the door to the offices opened, and I shielded my eyes against the sun, squinting to make out the figure approaching us.
“Hey, Liam!” Calvin said brightly as he approached, then shot a quick glance in my direction. “Princess.”
“Ryder,” I ground out. “What are you doing here?”
“Coming along for the ride.”
“But you weren’t invited.”
“Actually—” Liam opened his mouth, but Calvin cut him off.
“Actually, I ran into Liam earlier this week, and he was kind enough to invite me. It’s been a while since I’ve been out on the grounds, so I figured now was a good time to reacquaint myself with what we’ve got going on.”
“Great!” I said with forced cheer, then spun away from the men and slid onto the bench seat of the side-by-side. Desperately, I wished Vic was joining us, giving me another buffer against Calvin, but he rarely went deep into the vineyard anymore. He said it was because his old joints couldn’t handle the ride. Secretly, I thought it was because he didn’t want to step on Liam’s toes.
Liam got behind the wheel, and I was about to tell him to leave Calvin behind when the man in question approached, blotting out the sun.
“Move over,” he said, glaring down at me.
“No. Ride in the back.”
“The back wouldn’t fit a small child,” he said. “I’m six-three. I’m not folding myself up back there.”
I looked to Liam for help, but all my grower did was shrug and mouth, “I’m sorry.”
I truly despised Calvin Ryder, and I happily plotted all the ways in which I could murder him and bury his body out here where no one would find him as I scooted over and let him drop down beside me.
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to react when the length of his thick and solid thigh pressed against mine.
How was it possible that I hated him so wholly, yet my body craved him in a bone-deep way?
The contradictions had me in a constant state of distress where he was concerned, and the heat of his body seeping into mine certainly didn’t help matters.
And when Liam took a bump a little too fast and we rose in the air and dropped back down, instead of grabbing the oh shit handle like a normal human, Calvin’s broad palm came down on my bare thigh. Did I imagine the small squeeze he gave my leg, or was this yet another one of his moves in the game we’d been playing?
Whatever it was had my heart beating so loud, I was sure he could hear it, and I willed my breathing to slow.
I’d been looking forward to this meeting for a few reasons. First and foremost, I loved being out on the vineyard, especially this time of year when the weather was still mild enough that I didn’t sweat through my silk blouse. The vines were just beginning to sprout leaves and little baby fruits. Everything smelled crisp and inviting, and it calmed me in a way few other things ever had. With the fresh air blowing in my face and little to no conversation from Liam, I could simply…be.
Leave it to Calvin to ruin the whole thing. The two developers already hated me, and both considered my presence for these outings an unnecessary nuisance. The last thing I needed was Calvin egging them on, encouraging their negative impressions of me.
Those guys were what Dad would call “good ole boys,” meaning they were stuck in their ways. There wasn’t anything I could do to make them like me, outside of miraculously becoming a man. Unfortunately, properly planting wine grapes required planning, and none of us had exactly been in existence when great-grandpa Delatou first seeded and harvested this land, nor did we have the time or energy to accomplish the schooling required to do so. During my dad’s tenure, he’d hired a company to take care of that sort of thing. Liam was our grower who, along with Vic and a small team of men and women from the area, tended to the vineyard daily. The developers were here for the big picture stuff like optimizing our land to ensure maximum yield.
