by Kenzie Reed
He’d wanted a son to carry on the family name and the family tradition. My mother nearly died giving birth to Toni and had to have an emergency hysterectomy, so, desperate for a son, they adopted me. But I was never the son they wanted. High school valedictorian, president of our science club, award-winning editor for the school newspaper, prom king, track star, shortstick defender for the winning-est Lacrosse team in Greenvale High history…it never felt like enough. They hugged my sisters and praised them to the high heavens and hovered over them with the fierce protectiveness of eagles, while they barely noticed where I was or what I was doing.
And someday, when my sisters get married and my father retires, the vineyard will be run by someone whose last name isn’t Witlocke. Either Toni and her husband Jim, or Jamie and whoever she ends up marrying. The disappointment I caused him corrodes me from the inside out.
I was meant to attend Oregon State and major in viticulture and enology, but – for reasons I’ve never shared with anybody – I knew it would never work out.
When I announced that I’d secretly applied to and been accepted at Berkeley, and I’d be majoring in robotics instead, my father immediately threw me out of the house and cut me off. My mother called me, frantic, and told me that she’d pay my way through college herself. She didn’t say I could come home, though.
I turned her down.
My high school extracurriculars and a 4.2 GPA earned me a full scholarship. My roommate Graham became my best friend. We started Futuristic Robotix in my sophomore year, taking it public the year after I graduated.
Relations between my father and I have thawed a little over the years, but they’ve still never really recovered. We live in an icy state of détente.
“Don’t let him get to you,” my mother murmurs. “It’s just that we expected…”
They weren’t bad parents. They tried to love me as much as my sisters, they really did. Graham’s parents beat the crap out of him, and he ended up in foster care and then got abused some more, so who am I to complain?
As if summoned by my thoughts of him, my phone rings with the jazzy Graham ringtone. He’s video-calling me.
I answer it, walking into the hallway. His round, freckled face, topped with wheat-blond hair, appears on the screen.
“Hey, Graham.” I twist around so he won’t see the wedding décor. “How’s it going?”
He peers at me anxiously from behind his retro horn-rimmed glasses. He knows me too well. He can tell something’s up.
“Fine here.” There’s a querulous tremor to his voice. “I heard that the equipment was delivered at your parent’s property today and the team will be installing it tomorrow. And the training won’t take more than a couple of run-throughs. So you’ll be back in time for the meeting Thursday, right?”
Constantine Galatos may be my friend, but he won’t let it sway any business decisions. Nor should he. He moves slowly when it comes to making purchases, and he requires a lot of hand-holding and reassurance. That’s understandable, because he owns a huge shipping fleet, and jobs and lives depend on us – or someone – being able to manufacture the equipment that would more safely and efficiently load and unload shipping containers.
Our company is massively successful, but only in the US so far. We’ve also taken on a hefty heap of debt to get to the level we’re at. This deal takes us international, pays off our debt, and puts our name on the map worldwide.
I draw in a deep breath. I hate letting Graham down. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Graham got a legal settlement from the state because of the abuse he suffered at his foster home, and he invested every last penny of it to start the company. He put in ninety percent, I used savings from my summer jobs to put in ten percent. I’ve gradually paid him back over the years, but the fact is he put all his faith in me and my ability to make our company a success, and we wouldn’t exist without him. We’ve been working towards this deal for years.
“Um, about that.”
“No. Nope, nope, nope.” His eyes widen in alarm. “You’re coming. He’s your friend, and you need to be the one to talk to him. You’re the people person. I’m the money person and the math person. I don’t people well, you know that.”
“It’s just…I may be a little bit married.” I grimace at the ridiculousness of that statement. “I know, I know, that’s like being a little bit pregnant or a little bit dead.”
Graham glares at me and pushes his glasses up his nose using his middle finger. “You’ll be a lot dead if you cost us this deal. Also, you are the man whose life motto is, ‘Marriage is for suckers and people who want to slowly calcify until they die of boredom.’”
I wince. “That wasn’t a life motto so much as something I said when I was drunk, after a bad breakup.” It’s not really what I believe, anyway. Saying it is just a defense mechanism to explain why every relationship I’ve had has felt hollow and temporary.
“You’ve said it more than once. Now, explain, please. I could have sworn that static on the line made it sound as if you were married.”
I lower my voice and glance around to make sure that nobody’s lurking nearby, like Carrie or one of her minions. “It’s on paper only. It’s nothing, I swear. It’s just something I’m doing to help out my family and solidify a business deal. I can fly back to L.A. from time to time, but it looks like I’m going to be here all summer. I will be coming back home in September. I one hundred percent promise you I will come back to Los Angeles.”
“Holy shitballs.” He stares at me, eyes saucer-wide. “You’re really actually married. You went to Greenvale and got married. You said you’d be gone for less than a week!”
Words spew from my mouth as my stomach ties itself into a knot. “Well, plans change. Things happen. Life happens. Family first.”
“Are you having some kind of seizure? Because you’re babbling like a fucking lunatic.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve come through for you every other time, haven’t I?”
“Mostly. I mean, I can name five times that you had to run off in the middle of major business deals to testify in court cases involving your family and the crazy people next door.”
Of course he can, he’s the math person. His brilliant brain remembers everything.
“I still managed to ensure the business deals went through, though, didn’t I? We can video-conference. I swear, it’ll be just like me being there.”
“It won’t be even remotely like you being there.”
“It’ll be exactly like me remotely being there!” I flash a hopeful grin. “Because it’ll be remote!”
He looks at me sourly. “Too soon,” he says, and hangs up.
A tap on my shoulder makes me turn around. My lovely wife is standing there, head tipped back, big brown eyes blinking up at me.
“I need to get Aceto back home. You ready?” she asks, with a hint of evil mischief in her voice. I recognize that tone. It summons up flashbacks from more than a decade ago.
“Have a great game, Donovan!” she cooed to me before our lacrosse game back in junior high. Yeah, I had a great game, all right, with my face mask reeking like dog poo no matter how hard I scrubbed it.
And yeah, maybe I put a box of spiders in her desk the next day, but she’d asked for it.
She’s using the exact same tone today.
I narrow my eyes at her. “What do I need to be ready for?”
She just replies with a sunny smile that means I’m in for a world of trouble. She turns and walks off so quickly I have to take a couple of long strides to catch up. As she makes her way to the door, she’s muttering something under her breath.
“What’s that?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, just keeps repeating something again and again. I could swear it sounds like “Never trust a Witlocke”.
Chapter Six
SIENNA
From the outside, the barn looks perfect. My aunt was already in the process of updating it when she had her stroke. She’d planned on having the new vineyard ma
nager move in there.
It’s painted a lovely traditional rust red, and it’s two stories high, with dormer windows where the hay loft used to be. After I got the news of my aunt’s stroke, I flew in from Seattle and went to work on it. I put window boxes with geraniums outside the windows, and terracotta pots on either side of the barn’s front door, a little touch of my aunt’s native village of Assisi. She came to the United States as an orphan in her teens, to live with distant relatives in New York City, and brought with her a little cloth sachet of geranium seeds. She met my uncle Nuccio there when he was freshly discharged from the Navy.
Since I arrived here two weeks ago, I’ve been staying with my uncle and cousins and visiting the barn every day to prepare it for Fernanda. I cleaned up all the weeds and planted flowers in undyed mulch beds in the front of the house. There’s an outdoor kitchen to the right, with a double sink, a new propane grill and a metal and glass table and chair set.
When we arrive at the front door, Donovan sweeps me up in his arms as easily as if I were a feather pillow. My purse dangles heavily and awkwardly from my arm, and Aceto growls.
I want to nestle into Donovan’s neck and breathe in the scent of him, woodsy notes of cologne mingled with his own sexy musk. But I remember his low, urgent voice, talking to his friend right after we were united in unholy matrimony.
It’s on paper only. It’s nothing, I swear. It’s just something I’m doing to help out my family and solidify a business deal.
It’s nothing.
It’s nothing.
So I do the opposite, stiffening in resistance. “What are you doing?” I cry.
“Carrying you across the threshold.”
“You don’t have to make it ridiculous,” I scoff.
“Why not? Everything about this situation is ridiculous.”
I sigh. “Fair.”
He stands there, looking at me expectantly.
“Yes?”
“Uh, could you get the doorknob? My hands are kinda full.”
He’s not going to be thrilled with what he sees, but then again, we can’t stay out here all night. Sullen gray thunderclouds are bunching on the horizon, threatening rain. I reach over and twist the doorknob, and my husband carries me over the threshold.
He takes one look around and drops me on the floor. I stumble and almost fall. “Hey!” I cry indignantly. I guess the honeymoon’s over.
Donovan spins to pin me with a suspicious glower. “This is a joke, right?”
“I mean, not any more of a joke than a wedding between a Ribaldi and a Witlocke.” I smooth my wedding gown. “This is actually where we are staying, if that’s what you’re asking.”
We’re standing in an open-concept space with exposed barnwood beams, windows that flood the room with sunlight, a single walled-off bedroom, a bathroom, an area that’s been set aside for the kitchen, a fireplace on the far end in the area that will be a living room, and open riser stairs with a handrail, leading to the second-floor loft area. The kitchen is semi-finished, with cabinets, a sink, and a butcher-block counterspace. There’s a rack of wine and a few bowls of snacks on the counter. At the very far end of the living room is a screen door that leads to a big screened-in back porch.
The lack of refrigerator, stove and furniture are also immediately evident.
Donovan folds his arms across his broad chest. “I am not sleeping here.”
I smile sweetly. Sign me up for jogging, will you?
“Well, you’re a big boy, Donovan. You’re welcome to sleep anywhere you want. For instance, there’s a barn on Rocco’s part of the property. You’d be sharing it with goats and cattle…oh, and the ducks tend to escape and wander in there, but there are plenty of soft, cushy hay bales.” I set my purse down and open it wide. Aceto leaps out and shoots to the top of the elaborate cat tower I’ve set in the living room area. It’s covered in carpeting and has multiple levels and hanging rope balls.
“The cat has furniture.”
I nod in agreement. “Your keen powers of observation never cease to amaze.”
“But we do not have furniture.”
“Priorities. I don’t want him to keep trying to escape, and he needs places to climb and be entertained. This is possibly my uncle Nuccio we’re talking about.” I wave at Aceto. “Hi, Nuccio.” He lashes his tail from left to right, and commences cleaning his whiskers with his paw. He’s very fastidious. Just like Uncle Nuccio was. Then I turn back to Donovan. “I’m working on a limited budget here. And we do have some furniture.”
He brightens a little. “Where?”
I point to the far wall, to a card table and chairs. “You’ll just have to help me unfold it.”
“Unfold… For the love of God, Sienna! There’s no fridge and no stove!” he protests. He flips the switch by the front door. “Where’s the light?”
“We’re having the electrical inspected on Monday, and once we get the okay, we can turn the electricity on.” I point at the sink. “We do have running water, in both the kitchen and the bathroom. Hot and cold, even. We’re fancy like that. In the meantime, we can eat at my family’s house…” He shakes his head. “Or in town. And there’s a propane grill outside. There is a bed and a chest of drawers and a wardrobe in the bedroom. And a bedroll up in the loft.”
“Oh, hooray,” he says, with very little enthusiasm. “I cannot live like this. I need a refrigerator.”
If memory serves, Donovan likes to make himself these gross smoothies made of things like road tar, gravel and weeds. Maybe those aren’t the exact ingredients, but I smelled one of his smoothies years ago when I still lived in town and he stopped by the Espresso Self coffee shop, and I nearly heaved. He’s always been driven about absolutely everything – school, work, sports, exercise, diet. He gave up his family’s orgasmic chocolate-chip cookies in high school and switched over to some low-carb low-taste food regimen, and apparently he’s stuck to it ever since.
“You need a fridge so you can store that sludge you call food? Is that part of your ‘no-pleasure’ regimen? What are you punishing yourself for?” I scoff. “Being a Witlocke? I’d say that’s punishment enough.”
“Oh, pleasure is a very important part of my life.” His gaze goes warm and hungry, and sweeps over me from head to toe. I bite my lip and cross my arms over my chest to hide the fact that my nipples are now swollen buds of desire. This round goes to Donovan.
“I thought you were such a workaholic that you didn’t have time for fun. Got a girlfriend waiting for you back in L.A.?”
He smirks. “Jealous?”
“Psssh.” I make a hissing sound of contempt. Yes, weirdly, always, but I’ve also always been able to squish that crazy part of my psyche down until it barely exists. Anyway, from what I hear, his relationships never last long. Not that I’ve kept my ear to the ground when it comes to Donovan and whoever he’s messing around with, but that Instagram influencer babe who pushes liquid cleanses and publicly weighs herself every morning was clearly all wrong for him.
“In answer to your question, I have short-term relationships with like-minded women. My work schedule has left me no time to develop a relationship.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and shakes his head. “There’s no Wi-Fi. You do understand I run a business, and I’ll be working this summer?”
“We’re getting internet next week too. I hope. Depending on their schedule. In the meantime, there’s Wi-Fi at the winery. And an office. Well, a small crowded one, but we could fit in a little desk for you…maybe in the hall.”
My aunt has a winery with a tasting room and a wine cellar right next to the vineyards. It’s ancient, and the building and equipment are all in desperate need of an upgrade, which will happen as soon as the money fairy waves her magic wand over our heads. Good Wi-Fi, though.
“No, this won’t work.” He shakes his head decisively. “We’re going to have to stay at my family’s guest cottage. Sorry.” He bends over, picks up my purse from where I set it on the floor,
and hands it to me. “Let’s go.” There’s a snap of impatience to his voice.
I shrug. “Enjoy. And give me back my purse. Thief.” I reach for it, and he holds it up so I can’t reach it.
“So you’re going back on your word?” He glares at me. “Typical Ribaldi.”
That’s such utter bull-fertilizer I can barely restrain myself from laughing. “Witlocke” is a synonym for “liar”.
“I kept my word, or I wouldn’t be wearing this.” I hold up my left hand and wiggle my ring finger, with the chintzy zirconia ring I bought for myself. “I went through with the wedding.”
“Staying in the guest house was part of the agreement!” His voice is raised now.
“The original agreement was that I would marry one of Phillip’s sons! You were never even in the running!” I shout.
“Oh, so you wanted to be married to Jonathon?” he snaps. “I’m so sorry I came between you and your dream man. Wait, no, I think it was Mia’s coochie that came between you and your dream man.” If I didn’t know better – and I do, unfortunately, know how little Donovan actually cares about me – I’d swear he sounds jealous.
We stand there bristling with anger and glaring at each other.
The door flies open with a bang, and I let out a shriek of alarm then clap my hand over my mouth. Carrie and her twin sister Tonya, who owns an interior decorating business and furniture shop, stroll in uninvited.
The two of them visit the same hairstylist, and right now their hair is the exact same shade of flame red, glossily brushed into a shoulder-length bob. Tonya dresses in the same severe businesswoman style as her sister, although she’s more given to skirt-suits.
Donovan and I are instantly all smiles, and he steps up next to me and puts his arm around my waist. An unwelcome feeling of warmth and arousal spreads throughout my body. Note to self: If you could bottle whatever potent mix of pheromones he’s exuding, you’d be a squillionaire.