At Wits' End: An Enemies To Lovers Romantic Comedy

by Kenzie Reed

“I’m scheduled to give a tour,” she says icily.

  “Not wearing those, you aren’t. Take them off.”

  She ignores him and keeps walking. He runs after her, through the door and out into the hall. My mother and I follow.

  “Take them off, I said!” he shouts.

  She spins around. “Not until you take me seriously and agree to let me operate the equipment. I want to be a wine-maker, I don’t want to do hospitality, and you know that.”

  “My business. My decision. You do not operate the equipment.” His face is flushing a dangerous red. My mother puts her hand on his arm, and he shakes it off.

  “These stay on until you treat me the same way you would Donovan.”

  “Then you’re fired.”

  My mother lets out a cry of protest.

  “Dad, no!” I shake my head.

  “Excellent,” Jamie snaps. “I hear Sienna’s hiring.”

  “You what?” my father says in astonishment, and swivels to face me. “Since when?”

  She is? I thought the Ribaldi Winery was beyond broke. Come to think of it, I’ve seen unfamiliar people working at the winery over the past couple of weeks. She used to only have one or two people working there, and now she’s got three or four people manning it every day, and lots more business too.

  I don’t know why she wouldn’t tell me if she’d hired a bunch of new employees. Of course, I don’t tell her anything about my business either, but I don’t think it’s the same. I know wine; she doesn’t know, and has never expressed an interest in, robotics.

  “You will not work for the Ribaldis while you’re living under my roof!” my father shouts.

  “Excuse me, then I guess I’ll be packing. My friend Bridget has a spare room in her house and I can crash there.” Jamie stomps out.

  “You can’t leave!” my mother cries. She bursts into tears and spins to shout at my father. “You’ve driven another one of our children away!”

  My father glares at me. “You see what you’ve done?” he shouts, and storms off down the hall.

  “What I’ve done?” I yell after him. I’m about to bellow that what I’ve done is give him half a million dollars’ worth of machinery that I custom-designed just for this business, but my mother grabs me by the arm.

  “Just let him go,” she says bitterly. “He won’t listen to reason. Arguing just makes him worse.”

  “Fine,” I say heavily. “While I’m here, I’m going to go take a look at the equipment.”

  I head to the production room. My team is still there, working with my father’s crew to make everything goes smoothly. I spend a couple of hours chatting with them and inspecting the equipment from one end to the other.

  When I’m done, I head over to the Ribaldi Winery to talk to Sienna.

  I scowl when I see Linda in there, talking to a customer. She’s got a Ribaldi Winery T-shirt on, and she’s putting bottle after bottle into the customer’s shopping basket. The man is beaming at her. That’s the Linda charm at work.

  I look around, but don’t see Sienna. “Got fired from the restaurant?” I say icily, when Linda’s done with the customer.

  Linda flips her hair back, a flirtatious gesture that’s as automatic to her as breathing. “I come here and help out so I can spend time with Sienna. I work at the restaurant tonight. Are you treating my girl all right?” She glances at me with a knowing look. “I saw her earlier. From the expression on her face, I’d say you are.”

  I shake my head in disgust. “Out of the two of us, which one do you think is the most likely to break her heart?”

  I walk off before she can answer. I’m not interested in anything she has to say.

  I look around the room in the hopes of spotting Sienna, and my gaze lights on my sister, beaming me a glare of hatred from behind the cash register.

  “Hello, and welcome to Ribaldi Winery. Our next tastings aren’t scheduled until Monday. There’s the calendar,” she says in a wooden monotone. “They’re on sale for $19.99.”

  “She put you to work already? That was fast.”

  “Yeah, well, some people appreciate talent when they see it. Thanks for sticking up for me,” she says darkly.

  “I tried, Jamie. You’re right, he’s wrong, but he’d kiss a Ribaldi before he admitted that. In other words, he’d rather die. Yelling at him isn’t going to help.” I glance at the deely-bobbers. “And that’s a little childish.”

  “Your face is a little childish.”

  “I seriously can’t believe you’re two years older than me.” I look around. “Where’s Sienna? Is she at the house?”

  She glances at the door, then stares out the window, refusing to look at me. “She had to run an errand.”

  “What errand?”

  She turns her back on me, grabs a feather duster, and starts dusting a clean shelf. “Ask her yourself. She’s your wife.”

  Okay, something is definitely going on here. “Is she…hiring an assassin?”

  Jamie spins around and meets my gaze squarely. The little penis antennae wave at me. “Yes. I chipped in. Sleep with one eye open.”

  I sigh, shaking my head. “I’m married to a Ribaldi, that’s a given.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  DONOVAN

  The rain pours down in sheets. The tension in my chest is coiled up and ready to explode, and I’m itching to hit the jogging trail. This never-ending drama with my family, coupled with the threat of my business imploding and letting my best friend down, is squeezing me like a vise.

  I need to run.

  I drive into town, park in front of the Body & Soul gym and yoga studio, and walk inside.

  Jonas, the gym owner, is behind the counter when I walk in. He’s a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned guy with a high-top fade, wearing a tank top that reveals sculpted biceps. “Long time no see,” I say to Jonas. “I’d like to sign up for a membership for me and Sienna.” Small town. I went to high school with him. His dad was my gym coach in middle school. He knows me, and he knows her.

  “Oh, Sienna already bought a pack of day passes,” he says. “She was in earlier. She wanted me to tell you she ran for twenty minutes. Also, she left something for you in case you came in.”

  He pulls out an envelope from behind the counter and hands it to me. It’s a pop-up card – and the pop up is a hand with a middle finger extended. She’s scrawled “That’s for making me JOG!!!” I’ve earned three exclamation points. I must be pretty special. Jonas catches a glimpse of it and shoots me a puzzled look.

  “My wife, she’s such a joker.” I laugh a little too heartily, fold up the card and stuff it into my gym bag. “Can you just add her to my gym membership and refund her the day passes?”

  “I will do that right now. The refund should show up on her card in a day or two.”

  I know this will get under Miss Independent’s skin. I mean, we’ve got a troubled history, but will she ever lay it to rest? Why won’t she let me help her? She’s still bugging me to tell her how much the furniture cost. She won’t even let me make her coffee. I was shocked that she asked me to do the cow horn thing.

  I stuff my frustration down deep and head into the locker room. Angus, Pamela’s husband, is changing back into a suit. A tall, rangy man with a shock of blond hair, he was a couple of years ahead of me in high school. He greets me with a wave.

  “Hey, Angus. How’s the wife?” I ask. “Is she still sticking pins in a voodoo doll with my name on it?”

  He flashes me a friendly grin. “I can neither confirm nor deny. Mostly because she’s a demon of vengeance when she wants to be, and I’d like to maintain the ability to father more children. But the fact that she was willing to rent you an office in our building is a sign that she’s not currently feeling too murderous towards you. How are you settling back into life in Greenvale?”

  “Very nicely, thank you. Seriously, though. I know that Pamela’s very protective where Sienna is concerned. I just want you to know, and maybe tell Pamela, I care about Sienna a
lot more than my actions in middle school and high school may have demonstrated. I have no ill intentions towards her whatsoever.”

  “Well, that’s reasonable. We were all little assholes back then, weren’t we? I tried to pull Pamela’s pigtails once when I was eight and she was six, because I had a crush on her.”

  “Oh no.” I shudder. “How did that go?”

  “About how you’d expect.” He chuckles ruefully and grabs his gym bag. “She pivoted out of my reach, then whirled back and punched me in the nuts. The next day, all of her brothers met me on the playground and informed me that if I even looked at her again… Well, let’s just say I still have flashbacks in which I remember what they described. I didn’t even speak to her again until high school.”

  He fishes in his jacket pocket and hands me a card. “Call me if you ever need anything, or if you want to grab a drink in town. I usually hang at Shaughnessy’s a couple of nights a week.” That’s a pub owned by one of Pamela’s brothers. “I will relay your message to my wife. Not sure it’ll help.”

  I head out to the treadmill room. Unfortunately, the only free treadmill is two down from the ones where Carrie and Tonya are perched like vultures. How do they manage to be everywhere I am?

  I make a big show of putting my headphones on so they won’t try to talk to me, then proceed to do a punishing hour-long run. Some of the tension fades from my body.

  Carrie and Tonya finally finish up on the treadmills, but they don’t leave. They stand there checking their phones, gossiping with each other, and stalling so they can pounce on me as soon as I’m done with my run.

  As I’m finishing, Heather walks by in a strategically slashed gym shirt that reveals her bra.

  “Whore,” Carrie and Tonya say at the exact same moment.

  “Bitches,” Heather sneers, but she quick-steps back away from them.

  “She’s had so much work done she can’t stand next to a radiator or she’ll melt,” Carrie smirks.

  “You’re so old you were a waitress at the last supper.” Heather takes a step towards the door.

  “You’re such a slut you’ve got a turnstile on your bedroom door.”

  “You’re so ugly, your portraits hang yourselves.” Heather spits out the words.

  “Bitch!” Carrie screeches, and she and Tonya charge towards her. Heather screams.

  I leap between them. I’ve had it with pointless fights today. “Knock it off, or the manager’s going to end up calling the cops!”

  Heather takes the opportunity to bolt out the door.

  “And stay out!” Carrie screams after her. “Quit skanking up my gym!” Then she returns her attention to me. “Why aren’t you at Greenvale Used Auto?” Her lips curl up in a snide, angry grimace that’s meant to approximate a smile.

  Has she finally cracked? I mean, Carrie’s annoying AF, but her needling normally makes sense. “I like my car just fine, thanks.”

  “No, I mean to give your wife a ride home.”

  I look at her blankly.

  “You know, because she just sold her car.”

  Normally, when it comes to anything important, I’m the king of the poker face. But I’m so shocked I speak before I think. “She sold her car?” I blurt out.

  Her triumphant smirk makes my blood boil. She reaches into her purse and makes a big show of pulling out her notepad and pen. “Trouble at home,” she purrs. “To the surprise of…absolutely no-one.”

  For once, I don’t have a rejoinder. I fetch my gym bag, stalk out to my car, and drive home. I try to call Sienna and she doesn’t answer. I’m so angry I can barely concentrate on work that afternoon. I send Graham an email full of typos, one that he’s supposed to read and then forward to Constantine , and he shoots back a furious reply:

  Are you kidding me with this?

  I stomp out to the back porch and toss Aceto some treats. “What the hell is with her?” I demand of him.

  He blinks his yellow eyes slowly, then walks over and rubs up against me.

  “If you’re trying to cheer me up, it won’t work.”

  I absent-mindedly stroke him, and he purrs.

  “Okay, it’s working a little bit. Very little.”

  Ducktape waddles up and fluffs his feathers. When I pet him, he bobs his head and makes a happy quacking sound.

  “Why is she being so damn…I don’t know…Sienna?”

  But all I get is more purring and quacking. I’ll have to settle for that, I guess.

  When she gets home at seven, I’ve given up on trying to get any work done and I’m sitting on the sofa downstairs, drinking a glass of wine and fuming. The biodynamic calendar may say that it’s not a good wine-drinking day, but I do not give a damn.

  As she walks in, I hear a car pulling away. Looking out the window, I see that it’s her cousin Cesare.

  “Oh, hey!” she smiles at me. “Aceto’s sitting next to you and you have no open wounds. I’d say things are looking up. Where’s Ducktape?”

  “On the porch. I fed him, cleaned his water bowl and gave him fresh water. How did the car sale go?”

  She looks surprised and a little guilty. “Uh, it went okay. How did you know about it?”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Carrie told me. So I assume you’re getting a trade-in or something?”

  Her gaze drops. She sets her purse down on the side table by the door and slowly walks towards me, making a show of fussing with her hair. “No. I’m using the money to fix the bottling machine. If you can’t give me rides when I need them, Pamela said she could do it.”

  “Why would I not give you rides?” I say, astonished. “How big of an asshole do you think I am, exactly?”

  “Well, because… I don’t know.” Her mouth opens and closes, then she shrugs. “You might be busy.”

  “My sister obviously knew that you were out selling your car. Why didn’t you tell me you were selling your car?”

  She looks away defensively. “It didn’t occur to me. And I don’t have to tell you everything.”

  So, it’s like that.

  “I see.” Ice coats my voice. “Well, it was really fun hearing about it from Carrie, who’s the number one cheerleader for Team Divorce. After she dropped that little news bomb on me and saw that I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, she pulled out her notepad and started taking notes. It’ll be in the gossip column of the Greenvale Herald that you sold your car and I had no idea, and I can’t even sue the harpy for libel because it’s true. Thanks for that.”

  She goes pale. “Oh my God. I put the whole deal at risk. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s why you’re sorry?” I yell.

  Aceto hisses at me and jumps back, his hair standing on end.

  I leap to my feet and stomp towards the door.

  “Where are you going?” she calls out.

  “I don’t have to tell you everything.”

  I slam the door behind me. I’ve never done that before – and now I know why people do it. It’s childish, but it feels really good.

  Chapter Twenty

  SIENNA

  "Something’s wrong,” Aunt Fernanda observes, studying me shrewdly from her chair. She’s been knitting, working on getting her dexterity back. They’ve given her giant wooden needles and extra-fat yarn, which are resting in her lap.

  She’s damn right something’s wrong. My husband – I mean Donovan – didn’t come home last night, and he didn’t answer my calls or texts. I was reduced to calling Pamela so she could discreetly ask one of her older brothers, who is now the police chief, if he’d been in an accident or something like that. It was humiliating.

  Nope. He wasn’t in any of the local hospitals, he wasn’t in the drunk tank. It was pretty obvious he just didn’t feel like coming home.

  I texted Jamie to see if she’d heard anything. She texted back that she hadn’t, but since she was crashing at her friend’s house, she wouldn’t know if he’d gone home or not. She ended her text with, Screw the Witlockes! I’m changing my last name! />
  This morning, when I woke up and checked the loft, I saw he still hadn’t come home. I borrowed Cesare’s ridiculous muscle car, a black 1952 Mustang Fastback, and drove to the park to see if he was there. He wasn’t, but Carrie and Tonya were, and so were Brooke and Fraser, stretching out and gossiping on the grassy area near the beginning of the trail. I turned around and went home.

  In the afternoon, I borrowed Sara’s battered, trusty old Volvo to visit Aunt Fernanda. Now I’m baking under the skeptical gaze of my aunt’s squinting brown eyes. I hate lying to her, but our entire future depends on it.

  So I manufacture a smile. “Oh, no, I’ve just been super busy. I spent all week working with our new hires and the website designer, and the new website and social media accounts went up about a week ago, and we’ve got so many new customers I barely have time to breathe. We’re staying open past closing time every day, and there’s a line at the door in the morning before we open.”

  Aunt Fernanda shoots me a look of bewilderment and worry. “Oh, that’s not good.”

  “What?” I say, hurt. I’ve worked my butt off to turn things around, and we’re now getting more sales than we have in years. “More business isn’t good?”

  “We don’t need more business,” she huffs.

  “Ribaldi Winery’s books are in the red. Seriously in the red.”

  She waves her hand dismissively. “That’s because it was winter. Business always slows down in the winter.”

  I bite down on the temptation to argue. But she’s wrong. Yes, sales pick up in spring and summer, but it’s not enough and it hasn’t been in years.

  “More money is never a bad thing.”

  She shakes her head at me. “When you go back home, who is going to run this website? Who’s going to answer the electronic mails? Who’s going to keep up with all this nonsense you’ve started?”

  When I go back home. There it is. Sometimes I almost let myself forget.

  Seattle feels so far away. I haven’t heard from any of my friends, which is kind of like a punch in the gut. We used to get together every Wednesday night after work for karaoke and gossip. I’ve messaged them several times since I got here, and…nothing. I guess they were really just work-friends, not friend-friends. Still, I can hardly stay here…especially when things end between Donovan and me in September.