by Karen Booth
“Are you listening to me?” she asked suddenly, her green cat eyes getting sharp.
She was dressed in a tight-fitting red dress that fell to the top of her knees. It had a high, wide neck, and while it didn’t show a lot of skin, it hugged her full breasts so tight it didn’t leave a lot to the imagination.
Even if it had, his imagination was damn good. And it was willing to work for Wren. Overtime.
She had on those ridiculous spiked heels, too. Red, like the dress. He wanted to see her in only those heels.
He wasn’t into prissy women. Not generally. He liked a more practical girl. A cowgirl who would be at home on his ranch.
Wren looked like she never left her family showroom, all glass walls and wrought iron furniture. Maxfield Vineyards was the premier wine brand for people who were up their own asses.
And still, he wanted her.
That might be her greatest sin.
That she tested control he’d had firmly leashed for the last eighteen years and made him want to send it right to hell as he burned in her body.
Of all the reasons to hate Wren Maxfield, wanting her and not being able to do a damn thing to make himself stop was number one on the list.
He looked around the Cowboy Wines showroom, the barrels with glass tabletops on them, the heavy, distressed beams that ran the length of the room.
And then there was him: battered jeans and cowboy boots, a hat for good measure.
Everything a woman like Wren would hate.
A testament to just why there was no reason to carry a burning torch for her fine little body.
Too bad his own body was a dumbass.
“I wasn’t listening at all,” he said, making sure to drawl it. As slow as possible. He was rewarded with a subtle flare of heat in those eyes. “Make it more interesting next time, Wren. Maybe do a dance.”
“The only dancing I’ll ever do is on your grave, Creed.”
The sparring sent a kick of lust through him. They did this every time they were in a room together. Every damn time. No matter that he knew he shouldn’t indulge it.
But hell, he was afraid the alternative was stripping her naked and screwing her against the nearest wall, and that wasn’t a real option.
So verbal sparring it was.
“What did I die of?” he asked. “Boredom?”
Those eyes shot sparks at him. “It was tragic. You were found with a high heel protruding out of your chest.” Her magic lips curved upward and he felt it like she’d pressed them against his neck.
“Any suspects so far?”
“Your own smart mouth. Are you going to listen to me or not?”
“You’re already here. So am I. Might as well.”
He leaned back in his chair and, for effect, put his boots up on the table.
Her top lip curled up into a sneer, and that thrilled him just as much as if she’d crossed the room to straddle his lap. Okay, maybe not just as much, but he loved that he got to her.
“Fantastic. As you know, things at Maxfield Vineyards are changing. My father is no longer the owner. Instead, my sister Emerson, her husband, Holden, and our sister Cricket and I now have ownership.
“This plan is Emerson’s idea. To be clear. As she is the person who oversees our broader brand.” She waved a hand in the air as if to distance herself yet further from whatever she was about to say. “I had to defer to her on the subject. She doesn’t think a rivalry is beneficial for any of us. She thinks we should join forces. A large-scale event where both of our wines are represented. As you know, wine tours and the whole wine trail in general have become increasingly popular.”
“A rising tide lifts all boats and gets more people drunk?”
“Basically,” she said.
“I’m not really sure I see the benefit to me,” he said. “Seeing as everything is going well here.”
“Everyone wants to expand,” she said, looking at him as if he had grown a second head.
“Do they?”
“Yes,” she responded. “Everyone.”
“Well, the way I see it, our business is running well. We have just the right amount of staff, every family member has a position in the company, and it supports us very well. At a certain point, Wren, more is more. And that’s it.”
She looked at him, clearly dumbfounded. There were very definite and obvious differences between the Cooper and Maxfield families. The Coopers might be wealthy, but they liked their winery to reflect their roots. Down-home. A Western flare.
In the early days, his father had been told that there was no way he would ever be successful unless he did something to class up his image. He had refused. Digging in deeper to the cowboy theme was ultimately why they had become so successful. There was no point in competing with fancy-pants places like the Maxfields’. It wasn’t the Coopers’ way.
Joining up with the Maxfields made even less sense than trying to emulate them, in his opinion.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re ambitious, Creed, don’t pretend otherwise.”
And that was where she might have him. Because he didn’t like to back down from a challenge. In fact, he quite liked a challenge in general. That she was issuing one now made him wonder if she was just baiting him. Taunting him.
He wasn’t even sure he cared. All he knew was that he instantly wanted to take her up on it.
There was something incredibly sexy about her commitment to knowing her enemy.
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“I want to have a large event featuring all of the wineries in the area. A wine festival. For Christmas.”
“That’s ambitious. And it’s too early to talk about Christmas.”
“All the stores would disagree, Creed. Twinkle lights are out and about.”
“Ask me if I care.”
“I’d like to do a soft launch, a large party at Maxfield in the next month,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “We’ll invite our best clients. Can you imagine? The buzz we’ll make joining forces?”
“Oh, you mean because everybody knows how profoundly our families dislike each other?” He paused for a moment. “How profoundly we dislike each other?”
It wasn’t a secret. They were never civil to each other.
They never tried to be.
“Yes,” she said. “That.”
“And how exactly do you think we’re going to get through this without killing each other?”
She looked all cheerful and innocent. “Look on the bright side. If I do kill you, you’ll get that dance you wanted so badly.”
“Well. A silver lining to every cloud, I guess.”
“I like to think so. Are you in?”
The only thing worse than giving in to the attraction he had for her would be hurting a business opportunity for it. He didn’t let other people control him. Not in any way.
Least of all Wren Maxfield.
And that meant he’d do it. No matter how much he’d rather roll in a pit of honey and lie down on an anthill.
“How is this going to work? Logistically. I’m not going to roll up to your event in a suit.”
“I didn’t think you would. I thought you might be able to bring your rather...rustic charm.” The way she said rustic and charm implied that she felt the former did not go with the latter.
He smiled. “It goes with me wherever I go.”
“Do you have to wear a hat?” She wrinkled her nose.
“That is nonnegotiable,” he said, reaching up and flicking the cowboy hat’s brim with his forefinger.
“I figured as much.” She sniffed. “Well. I can accept that.”
“You have no choice. We’ll provide the food. Barbecue.”
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“I am not standing at a fancy party with
nothing but raw fish on a cracker to eat. And anyway, if you want my clients, you better have meat.”
“With wine.”
“Hey. We work hard to break the stereotype that cowboys only like beer. I myself enjoy a nice red with my burger.”
“Unacceptable.”
His gaze flickered over her curves. That body. Damn what he’d like to do to that body. “Too repressed to handle a little change, Wren?”
Color flooded her cheeks. Rage. “I am not. I just don’t like terrible ideas.”
“It’s not a terrible idea. It’s on brand.” He said the last bit with no small amount of self-deprecation, and a smirk.
“Whatever. I don’t care what you like with what. Really. I just want to know if I can count on you to help me put this together.”
“You got it.”
“I look forward to this new venture,” she said. She smiled, which was strange, and then she extended her hand. He only looked at it for a moment. Then he reached his own out, clasped hers and shook it.
Her skin was soft, like he had known it would be. Wren was the kind of woman who had never done a day’s worth of manual labor in her whole life. Not that she didn’t work hard, she did. And he knew enough about the inner workings of a job like theirs to be well aware that it took a hell of a lot of mental energy. It was just that he also worked on his own ranch when he wasn’t working on the wine part of things, and he knew that his own hands were rough as hell.
She was too soft. Too cosseted. Snobby. Uppity. Repressed—unless she was giving him a dressing-down with that evil tongue of hers.
And damn he liked it all, as much as he hated it.
The thing was, even if he’d been a different man, a man who had the heart it took to be with someone forever, to do the whole marriage-and-kids thing, if he’d been a man who hadn’t been destroyed a long time ago, it wouldn’t be her.
Couldn’t be her.
A kick of lust shot through him, igniting at the point where their hands still touched. Wren dropped her hold on him quickly. “Well. Good. I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, then.”
“I guess we will. Looking forward to it.”
* * *
“Dear reader,” Wren muttered as she walked back into the family winery showroom. “She was not looking forward to seeing more of his arrogant, annoying, infuriating, ridiculous...”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Wren stopped muttering when her sister Emerson popped up from where she was sitting.
“I was muttering,” Wren replied.
“I know. What exactly were you muttering about?”
“I was muttering,” she restated. “Which means it wasn’t exactly meant to be understood.”
“Well. I’m nosy.”
“I just had my meeting with Creed.”
“Oh,” Emerson said, looking her over. “Huh.”
“What?”
“I’m checking you for burn marks.”
“Why? Because he’s Satan?”
“No. Because the two of you generate enough heat to leave scorched earth.”
She narrowed her eyes at her sister. “You’d better be talking about anger.”
Regrettably, anger was not the only thing that Creed Cooper made her feel.
Oh, Creed Cooper enraged her. She typically found herself wanting to punch him in the face within the first thirty seconds of his company.
He was an asshole. He was insufferable.
He was...without a doubt the sexiest man she had ever encountered in her entire life and when she woke up at night in a cold sweat with her pulse pounding between her thighs, it was always because she had been dreaming of him.
“Yeah,” Emerson said. “Anger.”
“What?” Wren snapped.
“It’s just... I don’t know. The two of you seem to be building up to some kind of hate-sex situation.”
Wren shifted, hating that she felt so seen in the moment. “No.”
“Why not?” Emerson asked.
“Several reasons. The first being that he disgusts me.” Her cheeks turned pink when the bold-faced lie slipped out of her mouth.
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“You would know. You’re...on fleek on the internet. Or whatever.”
“That is an incredibly passé bit of pop culture there, Wren. And I think we both know disgust is not what he makes you feel.”
She pulled a face. “Can we talk about business?”
“Sure, sure. So, what was your conclusion?”
“He’s a dick.”
“Yeah. I know. But what about the initiative?”
“Oh. He’s on board. So I guess we’ll be having a party. But he’s insisting on barbecuing.”
“Barbecuing?” Emerson asked, her sister’s hand rising upward, bent at the wrist, her fingers curled.
“Yes.” Wren lifted her nose. “Beef.”
“I guess that’s what we get for joining forces with cowboys.”
“Says the woman who’s married to one.”
Emerson shrugged. “Sure. But I don’t let him plan my parties. He has many uses, the primary one being that he allows me to do good work and save horses.”
“Save horses?”
She batted her lashes. “Ride a cowboy?”
“For the love of God, Emerson.”
“What? He’s hot.”
She was not here for her sister’s smug married-frequent-sex glow. Emerson had very narrowly escaped an arranged marriage with a man their father had chosen for her. The whole thing with her husband, Holden, had been dramatic, had involved no small amount of blackmail and subterfuge, and had somehow ended in true love.
Wren still didn’t quite understand it.
Wren also didn’t understand why she felt so beset by her Creed fantasies. Or why she was so jealous of Emerson’s glow.
Wren herself wasn’t overly sexual.
It wasn’t her thing. She’d had a few boyfriends, and she enjoyed the physical closeness that came with sex. That much was true. It had been a while since she’d dated anybody though, because she had been so consumed with her job at Maxfield Vineyards. She enjoyed what she did for work quite a lot more than she enjoyed sex, in point of fact.
Her dreams about illicit sex with Creed were better than any sex she’d ever had, and she found that completely disturbing.
Also, proof that her subconscious didn’t know anything. Nothing at all.
“Great,” Wren said. “Good for you and your libido. But I’m talking about wine, which is far more important than how hot your husband is.”
“To you,” Emerson said. “The hotness of my husband is an entirely consuming situation for me.”
“Anyway,” Wren said, her voice firm. “We get our joint party.”
“But with beef.”
“Yes,” Emerson said. “And then hopefully in a few months we’ll have the larger event, which we can presell tickets to. Hopefully we can bring a lot of people into town if we plan it right.”
“I do like the way you’re thinking,” Wren said. “It’s going to be great,” she added, trying to affirm it for herself.
“It will be,” Emerson agreed. “Have you talked to Cricket about it at all?”
Cricket was their youngest sister. She had been... She had been incredibly wounded about the entire scandal with their father.
The situation with their parents had gone from bad to worse. Or maybe it was just that they were all now aware of how bad it had always been.
The reason Holden had come to Maxfield Vineyards in the first place had been to get revenge on their father for seducing Holden’s younger sister and leaving her emotionally broken after a miscarriage.
After that, Wren and her sisters found out their father had carried on mu
ltiple affairs over the years, all with young women who were vulnerable, with so much less power than he had. It was a despicable situation. Holden had blackmailed Emerson into marriage in order to gain a piece of Maxfield Vineyards, but he and Emerson had ultimately fallen in love. They’d ousted their father, who was currently living out of the country. Their mother remained at the estate. Technically, the two of them were still married.
Wren hoped that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. Her poor mother had put up with so much. She deserved better.
They all did.
But while most of the changes that had occurred around the winery really were good things, their sister Cricket had taken the new situation hard. She had a different relationship with the place than the rest of them did. Cricket had been a late-in-life baby for their parents. An accident, Wren thought. And it had seemed like no one had the energy to deal with her. She’d been left to her own devices in a way that Emerson and Wren had not been.
As a result, Cricket was ever so slightly feral.
Wren found her mostly charming, but in the current situation, she didn’t know how to talk to her. Didn’t know what Cricket wanted or needed from them.
“She’s been... You know,” Emerson said. “Cricket. In that she’s not really talking about anything substantial, and she’s been quite scarce. She doesn’t seem to be interested in any of the winery’s new ventures.”
“It’s a lot of change.”
“True,” Emerson said. “But she’s not a child. She’s twenty-one.”
“No,” Wren said. “She’s not a child. But can you imagine how much more difficult this would have been for you ten years ago?”
“I know,” Emerson said softly. “It is different for us. It’s different to have a little bit more perspective on the world and on yourself. I think she feels very betrayed.”
“Hopefully she’ll eventually embrace the winery. She can have a role here. I know she’s smart. And I know she would do a good job, whatever Dad thought about her.”
Emerson shook her head. “I don’t think that Dad thought about her at all.”
“Well, we will,” Wren said.