“For now.” Copper narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth between us for a moment and then nodded. “I have to get on the road anyway. I’ll pick you up tonight.” He leaned in and kissed her on her cheek, his beady eyes on me as he did it. More rage kicked up in my gut. I was tempted to hit him—what did it matter now? Instead, I stood there clenching my jaw over and over again, attempting to regain control of my emotions. Cooper pointed to me. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
I simply stared at him. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
He walked briskly out the door without turning back, my eyes finally moving to Kira. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide. She obviously hadn’t expected to see me while she was with her new/ex-boyfriend.
“Gray,” she whispered. She took a step toward me and I whirled around, stalking out the door of the restaurant. There was nothing more to say to her. My heart felt like it was breaking open in my chest. I hadn’t realized it could break any more than it already had.
“Grayson!” I heard her call behind me. I stopped, turning and then walking straight back to where she was standing on the sidewalk. There was a small alley right next to her, and I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into it, pressing her up against the brick wall. She let out a small gasp. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to remember what I ever saw in you.” I put my mouth against hers, licking the seam of her lips. She mewled softly and opened for me, though her body was still tense against my own. I dipped my tongue into her mouth and then quickly withdrew, forcing a blank expression onto my face. “No, not nearly as good as I remember.”
Her eyes widened and she blinked at me, confused. I leaned in and ran my lips down her throat. Her body stiffened and I pulled away. “Nope, nothing.” Her lips turned down, and tears glistened in her eyes. I shook off the uncomfortable feeling of guilt trying to take hold. She’s a liar, I reminded myself.
“You know what I think? I think I must have been desperate, and you were…what’s the word? Convenient. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve decided I like more of a variety of women than marriage vows dictate.”
She flinched, tears flowing down her cheeks freely now, and although shame swirled in my gut, I showed no reaction. I won’t. If she was going to jump straight into Cooper’s bed, then I could at least leave with a small modicum of pride. As we stood staring at each other, that small chin came up. Even now, she was going to rally. Damn her straight to hell!
I wanted to break her like she had broken me.
I would not be the one to slink away in wounded hurt like I’d done so often before. Not this time.
And yet, even still, I wanted to fall to my knees and beg and plead with her to make it all okay somehow—to wrap her arms around me and tell me it was all a terrible nightmare. And I hated myself for it.
I hated myself for hoping.
That old familiar feeling of grasping for the love of someone who would never give it to me made a shudder run through my body. She stood there looking pale and stricken and heartbreakingly beautiful and she had no right! She had taken everything from me—even more than I ever realized I had to lose.
The torturous vision of Kira tangled in bedsheets with Cooper came unbidden to my mind, and I swallowed down the bile in my throat.
“I liked what we had while it lasted. It turned out you came at a very high price, however.” I ran one finger down her smooth cheek and she stared up at me, unmoving. “My name, my vineyard, my freedom as it will most likely turn out…” My heart, my soul.
A tear hit my finger, and I pulled it back as if I’d been burned by acid, turning away from her and stepping out of the dim alleyway onto the bright sidewalk. I heard the soft sound of her sobs, but she didn’t call after me, and I didn’t look back. I left my heart in that alleyway. I wouldn’t ever need it again.
I drove home full of icy pain, my skin prickly with more misery than I’d ever felt in my life. When I got there, I went straight to the liquor cabinet and brought out a bottle of aged scotch. Wine wasn’t going to be strong enough today.
As I tossed back the first shot, I looked out the window at the vineyards beyond. Right before Kira had left, I’d measured the sugar, the acid, the tannins, and determined when the grapes would be perfectly ready to harvest. They were ready now. But I didn’t have the funds to hire anyone to help. I raised my glass to the vines in a mock toast. “You did your part beautifully. Sorry I failed you too.” In a very short time, the fruit would be rotting on the vine, a complete waste—the perfect metaphor for my entire life.
I poured another shot and let it burn down my throat. All of it was lost. There was no hope, no hope left at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Grayson
The world shifted into focus as I groaned, grabbing my head to stop the incessant pounding. I was in the living room, sprawled across the couch, the bottle of empty scotch lying on my stomach, along with the shot glass I’d been drinking from. I didn’t bother to move them before sitting up, and they rolled off me onto the floor, not breaking, just landing on the area rug in a soft thud.
I stumbled to my feet and rubbed at the back of my neck, trying to massage the kink out. Outside, the sun was just rising, the sky awash in shades of gold. I blinked and froze. It looked like there were…dozens of workers in the grapevines, harvesting fruit. I squinted, scratching absently at my stomach, trying to understand what I was seeing.
“I figure you’ll need these,” I heard behind me and turned to find Charlotte setting down two tablets I assumed were pain relievers and a glass of water on the table next to the couch. “Not that the way you’re feeling isn’t exactly as you deserve. I’d like to smack you upside the head myself, but I won’t. Seems you’ve been doing enough of that by yourself.”
“What in the hell is going on outside?” I demanded, ignoring her other remarks.
“The grapes aren’t going to harvest themselves,” she said.
I took a deep breath. “What I mean is, who hired those people? You know very well I can’t pay them.”
“Harley called in some favors and he, Virgil, and José pooled the money you paid them up to the end of the month. They’ll split it among the men who agreed to work for you this week.”
They did what? Why? What a useless waste of money. “Harvesting grapes takes longer than that.”
“Yes, well, this will be a start, and if you can get the wine in barrels into bottles, you can start selling it. There’s a second crew coming in the evening to help with that.”
I turned toward Charlotte, grimacing at the sudden, sharp ache in my skull. “Why? Why would they do that?”
“I suppose because they believe in you.”
“Believe in me?” I let out a bark of laughter that only served to hurt my head. “What good is that going to do them when it comes time to feed their families? Speaking of which, why are you still here?”
Charlotte only pursed her lips. “Perhaps you’d like to get showered and go down and join them.”
I snorted. “No. A second bottle of scotch and I have plans for the day.”
I told myself I didn’t care about the disapproving look she shot me before she left the room. She had lied to me as well. The only reason I didn’t kick her out of my house was because this had been her home longer than it’d been mine. But she’d be forced to leave soon enough—once I could no longer afford baking ingredients. Or once I got arrested for assaulting Cooper Stratton. I groaned, running my hands through my hair, the mess of my life coming back into blinding focus.