At Wits' End: An Enemies To Lovers Romantic Comedy

by Kenzie Reed

  The waiter pours my glass and Donovan’s glass. I inhale deeply. Unlike buttery California chardonnays, this has a brighter acidity. I take a sip and let the juicy stone fruit and citrus peel flavor sting my tongue.

  Donovan grins. “That was actually fun.”

  I return the smile, and it feels weird and right all at the same time. “I don’t want you to think that I’m actually on your side,” I say quickly, before this warm fuzzy feeling has a chance to settle in and make itself at home. “It’s just that I want to mess with Carrie even more than I hate the Witlockes. So I guess we could work as a team. For a while.”

  Donovan holds up his wine and makes a toast. “Team Witlocke!”

  I make a face. “Your whole life has been Team Witlocke.”

  “Fair.” He frowns. “Team Wit-Baldi? No, that sounds terrible. Team Ribald-locke? Sweet suffering Jesus, that’s way worse. We should have a couple name though. For the summer.”

  “Yeah,” I echo, feeling queasiness slosh through me. “For the summer.”

  “Rilocke?” He suggests.

  I consider it, turn it over my head, and then nod. “Rilocke sort of works. It also means that my part of the name goes first, which is as it should be and makes me happy.”

  “You know what they say.”

  I take a sip of wine. “‘Why the hell did you marry Donovan?’“

  He leans forward, puts his hand on my leg, and runs it up my thigh. An explosion of arousal detonates in my lady-bits. I suck in a startled breath and sit transfixed. He’s reminding me that he gives as good as he gets – always. He leaves his hand on my thigh as my cheeks flush with heat, and I will myself to move – and fail.

  “Happy wife, happy life.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  DONOVAN

  Tuesday’s a rest day in the training regimen, which means I don’t get to torture Sienna by dragging her to the park, but otherwise, life’s looking pretty good. The internet is finally in place, because I paid out the wazoo to have a local computer company install a satellite dish.

  I’d rather not rely on satellite, but so far it’s worked well. I’m not able to have co-ax cable run to the house until at least the end of the week. This area’s booming, everybody’s moving from Portland to the green hills of Greenvale and telecommuting, and everybody needs high-speed internet. I don’t want to work out of my parent’s house, because every time I go over there, it ends in tears.

  I’ve set up an office in the loft for now. I’ve got a desk, my computer, and a nice backdrop set up behind me, and I’m ready to go.

  Graham’s sitting in his office in L.A., and he’s clearly not happy. “I don’t like it,” he protests. “There’s just too much that can go wrong. Bad internet connections, Bigfoot…”

  “Bigfoot? My friend, you really need to lay off the espresso.”

  “I mean, you are in a pretty rural area. You never know.”

  “Uh, when it comes to Bigfoot, yes, I do. Stop being such an old woman. There’s nothing to worry about it,” I lie through my teeth. “If I could get started, I would like to rehearse my presentation, please and thank you and shut the hell up.” I sit up straight, square my shoulders, and give the computer camera my billion-dollar smile. “Hello, Mr. Galatos. As you can see, our new top of the line–“

  “Excuse me,” Graham interrupts. “Is that a duck walking behind you?”

  “No.” I glance behind me. Ducktape, who’s walking along the table where I have stacks of paperwork, emits a loud quacking sound. “Yes.” Apparently he’s decided to move into the screened-in back porch, which is Sienna’s fault because she keeps giving him duck treats. I glare at Ducktape and mouth, “You’ll get yours.”

  He replies with a loud, angry quack.

  “Did the duck just poop on part of your presentation?”

  I had no idea Graham’s voice could go that high. I plan on ribbing him about it, but definitely not now. Now would not be the time.

  “I plead the fifth.”

  “And is there a cat walking beside it?”

  Why did I think that the stairs would dissuade a cat and a duck? And don’t they have better things to do than ruin my life? At moments like this, I actually do think Aceto may be Uncle Nuccio’s reincarnation. This is exactly the kind of thing Nuccio would do.

  “Why are you asking questions that you already know the answers to?” I say impatiently.

  “Because I keep hoping that this is some kind of glitch in the matrix and I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.” Graham groans. “They’re sitting together now. On top of your pie charts. The cat is grooming the duck’s head. Don’t cats hate birds? Why is the cat friends with a duck?”

  “That,” I say with a sigh, “is no ordinary cat.”

  I glance at Aceto. He’s staring right at me, as if he understands what I just said. For the first time, he’s not looking at me with utter hatred.

  I turn my attention back to Graham. “As I was saying…”

  The sound of clomping steps distracts me. Sienna is making her way up the stairs. She’s just spent the morning in the vineyards, helping to mulch their cover crops. She’s sweaty and flushed, and it looks so sexy on her that I’m glad I’m sitting behind a desk.

  “Hey, I’m back! The vines are looking good, if I do say so myself. I brought sandwiches, did you want some?” She glances behind her. “Oops.”

  “Don’t say ‘oops’!” I say. “Why would you say that?”

  I hear the sound of hoofs clomping up the steps. Three goats follow her into the room. I bury my head in my hands.

  “Sorry.” She winces, glancing at the computer screen. “Was this an important meeting? I thought your big presentation wasn’t until next week?”

  I manage a pained smile. “We’re rehearsing for the important meeting.”

  She shoots me a puzzled look. “If you’re rehearsing, why did you bring the duck and the cat up here with you? Sorry, Uncle Nuccio. I mean, of course I could see why he’d want your input,” she adds, and picks up Aceto. He butts his head under her chin and purrs.

  “She did not just refer to the cat as Uncle Nuccio, did she?” Graham’s eyes are saucer wide.

  “Glitch in the matrix,” I inform him.

  When Sienna leaves, with all the farm animals trailing behind her, I firmly shut the door.

  I manage to make it through the rest of our rehearsal without any issues, but Graham looks like he’s about to blow a gasket, and when I try to talk to him after I’m done, he signs off abruptly. This is not good. Graham is a walking ball of nerves, and a big part of my job, as both co-worker and friend, is to talk him down. He relies on it. And now he’s too mad to hear a word I’m saying.

  When I make my way downstairs, Sienna’s waiting with a bottle of their 2010 Pinot Grigio and two glasses.

  She waves them in front of me. “Sorry about the animal antics. Apology wine?” she says.

  “Dear God, yes.”

  “There’s a tray of cheese and crackers that I picked up in town earlier, if you want to grab it from the counter.”

  Dutifully, I obey, and follow her through the house and out to the outdoor kitchen, where she sets down the bottle. In the distance, the sun slowly melts into the horizon, and the sky is a glorious purple, the shade of dusky grapes.

  We do our usual pour, sip, sniff, and taste. The pinot is bright and tart on my tongue.

  “Tell me about this wine,” I say.

  She nods, takes another sip, and smiles. “The best wines tell a story of not only place, but time. 2010 was the last year that Uncle Nuccio harvested the grapes. His health declined after that, and a year later he was gone. When I drink this, I can see him in the fields, with his jeans and muddy boots, waving at me. He was wearing a flannel shirt. It was the coolest year in about thirty years, but at the end of the summer, we had a prolonged sunny period that saved the crop.”

  She looks down at her glass. “As for the taste, I’m getting flavors of honeydew melon, green apple
, and citrus, with a little bit of spice. But I can also taste that long, cool summer, with the caress of the sun at the finish.”

  She sees me looking at her. “What?” she says self-consciously. “Do I have something on my face?”

  How can she not know how gorgeous she is? Other men know. They look at her in a way that makes me go full Neanderthal.

  “First of all, if I’m ever staring at you, it’s because you’re not exceptionally painful to look at. You might even be beautiful.”

  She gives me a crooked smile. “Aw. Donovan Witlocke, going all mushy on me.”

  “And secondly, I was just marveling at the depth of your passion and knowledge for wine in general, and also the vineyard. You’ve really got it.” I shake my head. “After you got your CPA degree, why didn’t you come back here? I mean, I understand that you enjoy working with numbers. But you could have stayed here and been an accountant for your family’s business.”

  “Well, not all of my memories of Greenvale are great ones.”

  “I hope I’m not part of that.”

  “Not entirely.” Her mouth curves up in a smile. “If I’m being honest, a lot of the time, our ongoing war was kind of fun. Gave me a way to take out all of my frustrations. It was more…”

  “Your mom.”

  She winces and nods. “She’s really being different this time, so I feel kind of bad complaining.”

  You shouldn’t, I think sourly. But I also understand the craving to be loved by your parents, to believe in that beautiful fairytale even if it can never really be true.

  “She doesn’t get to erase decades of bad behavior overnight. And you have the right to feel any kind of way you want about her selfishness.”

  She nods, then shrugs. “I’ve reconciled myself to her ways. I just try to think of her as free-spirited and adventurous.” Her smile wavers as she says that, and her eyes betray the lie. Linda’s abandonment will always hurt her, and putting an ugly picture in a pretty frame won’t make it any less ugly. “Honestly, my relocation to Seattle mostly had to do with He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

  “For the sake of clarification, can I refer to him as Slimon?”

  “Ooh! Totally stealing that!” She breaks into a delighted grin, which is prettier than a thousand sunrises. Her smile fades a little bit. “But yeah, he was the main reason. Or maybe the last straw. That was seven years ago, I was younger, and I thought he was my true love. I talked it up all over town. Just like my mother does every single time she finds a new man. ‘Brag, brag, brag. Look at me, I’ve found the one.’ But I was so very sure that I was different than her. Ha. At least she usually makes it to the altar. So after what happened, I was just too embarrassed to show my face around here. It took me years even to visit here again.”

  I smile sympathetically and nod and force my fists to unclench. If Slimon were to cross my line of vision right now, nothing could stop me from tearing out his limp excuse for a spine and beating him to death with it.

  She grins at me and pours herself some more wine. “Look at us, being all couple-y. We’ve got a couple name, we’ve got a couple insult for my douchey ex. Next thing you know, we’ll have a couple song.”

  “Aerosmith, ‘I don’t Want to Miss a Thing’.” I say that at the exact same time she says “Eric Clapton, ‘Wonderful Tonight’.”

  “Well, there you are. Further proof that we could never be a thing.” She takes a deep sip of the wine and starts humming to herself, off-key. I let myself enjoy the luxury of staring at her, and I vow to make the most of our summer, to wring every drop of pleasure from it that I can, to steel me for the long days ahead after I fly home and leave all of this behind.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SIENNA

  It’s the day of Donovan’s important business pitch. That’s not what’s got my brain in a whirl, though.

  I woke up this morning realizing I’ve been married to him for almost two weeks now. It’s Thursday. I’m still Sienna Witlocke. Tomorrow will be our two-week anniversary.

  I try not to think about it too much, because it conjures up a jangling thunderstorm of emotions in my stomach.

  He’s up in the loft working during the day, and I’m at the vineyard office, or in the winery, or out in the fields. In the evening, we cook dinner at home or go into town, then he retreats to the loft and I sleep in the bedroom, with Aceto on the pillow beside me. We’ve fallen into an easy routine of light mockery and avoidance whenever we have too much free time. The attraction is there between us, always, smoldering like one of those underground fires that burns for a hundred years.

  I teeter between thinking, I can’t wait for the summer to be over, and fearing the end of all of this. His presence is so big and light and strong, all at the same time. It’s almost starting to feel like something real. When he’s gone, when we file for an annulment, it will really be over.

  Then again, it never really started.

  That’s why I’ve resisted the temptation to talk business with him, to ask him about this presentation and his work in general. Part of me, the fixer, the girl who wants to make everything better for everyone else, would like to ask him why there’s a shadow haunting his gaze, even when he smiles.

  Because I don’t want him to be sad, and maybe I could help. I could offer him advice, be his sounding board, let him practice his spiel for the presentation.

  I’ve held back, though. If I ask him what he’s working on, then I’d have to open up about what’s going on with me and the vineyard. About the money worries that chew at me every day, the measures we’re taking to stay afloat, and my constant fear that it won’t be enough.

  I just can’t open myself up to him that way. I look at my mother, at her constant ups and downs, her hysterical scenes with men, leaving me behind to stalk them across continents… I can’t be that woman. I can’t need someone so much that I lose myself.

  With the wisdom of 20/20 hindsight, I think that maybe I opened myself up to Slimon – ha! I can’t even say his real name in my head anymore – because I wasn’t afraid I’d lose myself in him. There was wild, passionate attraction, but it never went deeper than that.

  That was never the case with Donovan. Despite my best efforts to be sensible about my feelings – ha! When has that ever worked for anyone? – the truth is, I want him so much that I can’t even let myself think about a future with him. I can’t let myself trust Donovan or rely on him in any way, because if I let it go too far, he could end me. This morning, however, I need to ask him a favor.

  First, though, I need to butter him up a little. So before he comes down from the loft office/bedroom, I go into the kitchen and start a pot of coffee, and blend one of his horrifying protein drinks.

  Then I put a cup of coffee and his shake on a tray, walk upstairs and knock on the door. He appears in boxer shorts, hair rumpled, stifling a yawn. My heart stutters a little and skips a beat. You’d think I’d have gotten used to the sight of that broad chest and that 1950s-matinee-idol face, but no. I catch my breath anew every day.

  I flash him a big, winning smile. “Good morning!”

  He looks up at me through narrowed eyes. “If you say so. Why are you so suspiciously perky? Is this finally it? The day you take me out?”

  I walk in past him and set the tray down on a side table. “Oh, ha ha! You’re hilarious. I brought you some tasty beverages. Do you have some free time right now?” I glance at the drinks. “I can taste it first, if you don’t trust me.”

  “You’ve had ample opportunity to poison me. If you wanted to, you’d have done it by now.”

  He reaches out and takes a sip of the protein drink. “So, what’s all this about?” His voice is laced with wariness.

  “I have a favor to ask. It would involve you wearing clothes that you don’t mind being completely trashed. Today is the day that we’re digging up the horns.”

  He arches an eyebrow. “You what, now?”

  I sigh. “It’s a biodynamic practice. Every winter, my aunt and th
e vineyard employees fill female cow horns with manure. Then they bury them. Today’s the day we dig them up.”

  “Well, happy horn day!” He toasts me with his protein drink and takes a healthy swig. “Damn it, I forgot to buy you your horn day gift. What’s the traditional first anniversary horn day present? Does it require diamonds?”

  “Mock if you must.”

  “If I’m going to be handling cow crap, you’re damn right I must.”

  “Anyway,” I continue. “After we dig them up, we mix the aged manure with water, and then, using backpack sprayers, we use the mixture to fertilize the vineyard. It’s a lot more fun than it sounds!”

  No it isn’t.

  “I thought your uncle brought over the chickens and ducks and goats to do that.”

  “Them too. What can I say, it takes a village. No, that analogy doesn’t work. Does it? Not really. The biodynamic system integrates many different aspects of nature, all working in harmony. It takes lots of different kinds of fertilizer.”

  He sits there staring at me blankly, sipping his protein abomination.

  “Yes? No?” I ask.

  “I keep waiting for the part where you admit this is a joke.”

  I gesture at my jeans, T-shirt and boots. “Do I look like I’m joking? Be very careful what you say next, by the way.”

  “I was going to say you look beautiful.” His eyes crinkle as he flashes me that charming, roguish grin that sends little bolts of lightning riding down my nerve endings.

  “Anyway, Carrie is coming by in a little while to take a picture for the paper. It would help if you were there. You could just wait until she left and then you’d be free.”

  “The things I do for love.” He sighs dramatically.

  He doesn’t mean it to, he’s just being a smartass, but for just a moment it makes my knees go weak. No. Bad Sienna. Down, girl. I can’t want Donovan to love me. That’s sailing into dangerous waters. Here there be monsters, as the ancient maps used to say.

  He grabs the coffee and drains half the cup in one long gulp. “Right! I’ll be down in five minutes.”