“He’s a good friend and a bad enemy.”
“There’s no chance that was a set-up and he’s already an enemy?”
“Nick Rogers doesn’t need to play the kind of games that comment suggests. He has the prowess of—”
“-a tiger.”
“Yes,” Frank says. “A tiger. He’ll—”
“-rip your throat out if you cross him or his clients,” I supply. “I know his reputation, but what I don’t understand is how he, above others in his field, is so well known.”
“He’s one of the top five corporate attorneys in the country and he’s local to our region.” He narrows his eyes on me. “But back to you. Do you have any other questions about what I shared today?”
“Not now.”
“Then let’s get to what’s important. Happy birthday, Faith.”
“Thank you,” I say, my voice cracking, forcing me to clear my throat and repeat, “Thank you.”
“It’s a rough time to have a birthday, I know,” he says. “You lost your father at about the same time of year.”
“I did,” I agree. “But at least every year it’s all concentrated in one window of time.”
“Your birthday.”
“Birthdays are for kids.”
“Birthdays are for celebrating life,” he says. “Something you need to do. I’m glad you didn’t cancel your appearance at the art show tonight in light of your mother’s passing. It’s time you get back to your art, to let the world see what you do. And a local display with a three-month long feature is a great way to get noticed again.”
Again.
I don’t let myself go to the place, and history, that word could take me to. Not today.
“Your agent did right by you on this,” he adds.
“Josh overstepped his boundaries by accepting this placement, and had he not committed in writing before I knew, I’d have declined. He was supposed to simply manage my existing placements and related sales.”
“Declined?” he asks incredulously. “This is an amazing opportunity, little girl.”
“Le Sun gallery is owned by one of our competitors, a winery which infuriated my mother.”
“Your mother was selfish and wrong,” he says. “I know she’s gone but I’m not saying anything we don’t both know. And Le Sun is owned by a rock star in the artworld and the godparents said rock star artist. Every art lover who visits Sonoma wants to see Chris Merit’s work at that gallery, and when they see his, they will see yours. And you’ve put your life on hold for too long. If you decide to keep the winery—”
“I am,” I say. “It’s my family legacy.”
“You’re sure your uncle wants no part of it?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “Very.” And even if he did, I add silently, my father would turn over in his grave if that man even stepped foot on the property again. “Bottom line,” I add firmly. “I’m keeping the winery.”
“Make the decision to keep it after you achieve some breathing room. After your show and the chance to remember your dreams, not his.” He reaches inside the drawer again and retrieves an envelope, holding it up. “And after you read this and give yourself some time to process it.” He sets it in front of me.
My gaze lands on my name and a birthday greeting written in my father’s familiar script. I swallow hard, my stomach flip-flopping, before my gaze jerks to his. “What is that?”
“He asked me to give it to you upon his death, if it was after you turned thirty or on your thirtieth birthday, should he pass before that date.”
My hands go to the back of my neck, under my hair, my throat thick and I have to turn my head away, my eyes shutting, a wave of emotions overwhelming me. “And yet my mother didn’t even have a will,” I murmur.
“People don’t want to believe they’re going to die,” he says. “It’s quite common.”
I jerk back to him, anger burning inside me at my mother, and at him for protecting her. Again. “You do what’s responsible when you hold a property of this value. You just do.” I grab the envelope my father left for me. “Please just buy me time.” I stand and walk to the door and just as I’m about to leave, he says, “Faith.”
I pause but do not turn. “Yes?”
“I know you’re angry at her and so am I, but it, like all things, will pass.”
I want to believe him. I do. But he wouldn’t be so confident, if he knew all there was to know, which I will never allow to happen. And so, I simply nod as a reply, and leave, thankful that Betty is on the phone and has a delivery driver in front of her, which allows me to pass by her without any obligatory niceties. Exiting the office, the cool air is a shock I welcome, something to focus on other than the ball of emotion the envelope in my hand seems to be stirring. Maybe I didn’t want to feel again after all, and eager to be alone, I quicken my pace, entering a tunneled path beneath an ivy-covered overhang and don’t stop until I’m on the other side. Clearing it, I turn left to bring my car into view where it’s parked on the opposite side of the street, my lips parting, my feet planting, at the sight of Mr. Rogers himself leaning against it. And he isn’t just leaning on it. He’s leaning on the driver’s side door, as if to tell me that I’m not leaving without going through him first.
I NOW KNOW THE SOURCE of the dark lust and energy I’d felt with Nick Rogers wasn’t just about sex. It was about betrayal. Because the fact that Mr. Rogers, no, Tiger, is here at my attorney’s office, leaning arrogantly on my car, watching me with arms folded in front of his chest, ankles crossed, can mean only one thing. He’s working for the bank. And he’s doing it in a custom-fitted dark blue suit that I don’t have to see up close to know is expensive. Because apparently ripping out someone’s throat requires style. And he wears that suit well, too, it doesn’t wear him. He has a way of owning everything around him that I’d actually thought attractive last night. I’d allowed myself to be drawn into a flirtation with him. And I might have embarrassment in me if I wasn’t so damn furious with myself for being foolish and him for being an asshole.
I charge toward him, and he tracks my every move with those striking, navy blue eyes. I actually got lost in them last night. I also know them to be intelligent and brimming with arrogance which I plan to use to knock him down a notch or ten. Crossing the road, I don’t stop until I’m standing in front of him. “Get off my car,” before adding, “Mr. Rogers.”
His lips, which are really too damn pretty and full for a man, but still somehow brutal, quirk with amusement. “You don’t take requests well, I see, Ms. Winter,” he says. “I told you to call me anything but Mr. Rogers.”
“I can think of many names to call you right about now,” I retort. “But Mr. Rogers was the kindest. I don’t like being played with.”
He arches a brow. “And… you think, I’m playing with you?”
“I know you are.”
“You’re wrong,” he says, immediately.
“If I’m wrong, how did you know I’d be here?”
“Your staff,” he replies simply.
My anger kicks up about ten notches and I can almost feel my cheeks heat. “Do you win all your cases by lying? Because my staff didn’t know I was here.” I turn away from him, click my locks with my keychain, and open the door despite him leaning against it. He moves without argument, but my win is short-lived as the earthy male scent of him rushes over me and I whirl around to find myself caged between a hot, hard male body and the hard steel of the car.
“Talk to my lawyer,” I order, before he can speak. “Not me.”
“I have no interest in talking to your lawyer,” he states. “I am not working for, nor am I associated with, your bank.” He steps closer, so close we are a lean from touching. So close that I can feel the warmth of his body and if I wanted to, I could trace the barely-there outline of a goatee. “And I don’t lie,” he adds, a hardness to his voice, a glint in his eyes that tells a story beyond this moment. “In fact, I hate liars, and I don’t use the word ‘hate’ liberally.”
“Wrong,” I say, hating the way my body wants to lean toward his. “My staff—”
“-told me you had a meeting,” he supplies, “and it was fairly obvious after last night that it would be with your attorney, and I’m resourceful enough to have that bring me here.”
“Why would you even do that?”
“You interest me, Faith,” he says, his voice lower now, my name intimate on his tongue, a soft rasp that still manages a rough, seductive tone, etched with a hint of something in his voice, in his eyes, I don’t quite read or understand. “And unless I’ve developed a colorful imagination, I interest you, too.”
“You don’t work for the bank?” I ask, my anger easing, but not gone.
“No,” he confirms. “I do not work for the bank, and to be clear, I do not work for anyone who has your business interests in mind. I work for me, and I have you in mind.”
“If this is all true, then explain to me how you thought showing up here, knowing what you learned about my situation last night, was the way to get from no to yes?”
His hand settles on the window beside me, somehow shrinking my small space, somehow creating more intimacy between us. “We were red hot last night and you know it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“That’s not a denial, but I’ll answer your question. If I’d have shown up at the winery today, you would have disappeared into some corner again until I left, like you did last night. I wasn’t prepared to let you run again.”
“I didn’t run,” I say. “I simply decided you could be playing me. And I don’t need more enemies than friends.”
“And now?” he challenges softly. “Am I a friend or an enemy?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Something flickers in his eyes, gone before I can name it, before he asks, “All right then. I’ll settle for either as long as you keep that old saying about enemies in mind.”
“They aren’t the nice guys.”
“If you have an enemy who’s a nice guy, it’s no different than having an attorney who’s a nice guy. You might as well call him a friend.”
“But you’re not a nice guy. You said so.”
“What I am is the man who made you drop that ten-foot wall of yours when I touched you last night.” His gaze lowers to my mouth, lingering there before lifting. “And I’ve been thinking about touching you again ever since. About tearing down that wall and keeping it down.”
“That wall is to keep men like you out.”
He narrows his gaze on me. “Who burned you, Faith? And what scars did he leave?”
That wall of mine slams back into place, and damn it, he did tear it down, and he did so without touching me. He’s dangerous. He sees too much. Things I don’t want to show anyone ever again. “I’m leaving,” I say, turning back to the car, but as I do, my purse strap falls from my shoulder. I try to catch it, and only then do I realize I’m still holding the card from my father, and it tumbles to the ground. I suck in air, hating the idea of it on the ground for reasons I’ll analyze later. Turning and squatting down, I intend to grab it, but Tiger is already there and it’s in his hand. I wobble on the toes of my boots just enough to instinctively flatten my hand on his powerful thigh to catch myself. The impact of that connection is electric, instant, that wall he’d mentioned, falling. I can’t breathe and my heart is instantly racing. I try to pull back my hand, but his covers mine.
That breath I’d sucked in moments before is lodged in my throat, and my gaze lifts to his, the impact punching me in the chest, heat waving between us, that dark lust charging the air between us. I tell myself to stand up, but I don’t. I tell myself to jerk my hand back from where it rests against him. But he smells so good, a cocoon of earthy masculinity that seduces me to stay right where I am, lost in those deep, blue eyes of his, and he smells so good.
“Touching you again,” he says, his voice as earthy and warm, as his scent, “or rather you touching me this time, is better than the first time.” He offers me the card. “Happy Birthday, Faith.”
I don’t ask how he knows it’s my birthday. It’s on the card. It’s also on documents that he, no doubt, studied before he came here today. I reach for the envelope, but he doesn’t let it go. He holds onto it and me, and it hits me that the two things in life that I’ve learned you cannot explain nor can you control, have now collided: Death and lust. And I have never needed control more in my life than now.
Tiger reaches up and strokes the hair from my eyes, his hands settling on my cheek, a stranger that somehow feels better than anything has in a very long time. And just as I feared, I’m reminded of how good an escape that dark lust can be, how addictive. He’s right. I am afraid. I’m afraid of losing what little control I have right now.
I stand up and go on the attack. “You researched me like a client or someone you’re prosecuting,” I charge, knowing it’s a ridiculous reason to be mad. I would have researched him too had I gotten in earlier last night, but I don’t like it right now. I don’t like how he’s taken my life by storm. “You knew it was my birthday before you came here.”
“I researched you like a woman I want to know. And I do want to know you, Faith.”
His tongue strokes my name again, soft yet rough edged, which somehow screams sex to me. HE screams sex to me. “Stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, and in that moment, with his long hair tied at his nape, and his deep voice, roughened up, he is lethal for no logical reason.
“Like we’re intimate,” I say. “Like you know me, because the internet doesn’t determine who or what I am.”
“Then you show me who you are.”
“Why?” I challenge. “You already read me like a book. I need to get to work.” I turn and climb into my car, as I should have before now.
He kneels beside me, and I brace myself for the touch that I am both relieved and disappointed doesn’t follow, but I can feel him compelling me to look at him. “This is what I do,” he says, undeterred when I do not. “I push and I push some more to get what I want.”
I look at him before I can stop myself. “You officially pushed too hard.”
“If you’re still running, I haven’t pushed hard enough.”
“This doesn’t work for me.”
“Good. It doesn’t for me either.”
I blink, confused by a reply that conflicts with his pursuit. “What does that even mean?”
“Our shared state of mind simplifies the attraction between us and even explains it. Bottom line: We both just need to fuck a whole lot of everything out of our systems, including each other.”
“Who even says something like that to someone they don’t know?”
“Me, Faith. I might not always show my hand, but as I said, I don’t like lies. When I say something, it’s honest. It’s real.”
“You don’t think not showing your hand is a lie?”
“Do you?” he counters.
“Good dodge and weave there, counselor,” I say. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Nick Rogers.”
“I could say the same of you, now couldn’t I, Faith Winter?”
“Yes,” I dare, because most likely he already knows this as fact, and anything else would challenge him to prove otherwise. “You could.”
He arches a brow. “I expected denial.”
“Seems you didn’t learn everything about me on the internet that you thought you learned.”
His eyes glint with something I can’t name. “The internet was never going to give me what I want from you anyway.”
I tell myself not to take the bait, but there is more to him than meets the eye. More that I don’t just want to understand. More than I almost feel I need to understand. And so, I do it. I dare to ask, exactly what he wants me to ask.
“Which is what?”
“You. Not the you that you show the world. The one behind the wall that intrigued me last night and now. The real you, Faith, stripped bare and not just expo
sed. Willingly exposed.” He stands up, backs away, and shuts the car door.
I LEAVE DOWNTOWN WITH NICK, or Tiger, or whatever I decide to call the man, on my mind, and he stays on my mind. Five minutes after my encounter with him, much to my dismay, I can still feel that man’s touch, and the warmth of his body next to mine. Ten minutes later, the same. Fifteen. The same. This, of course, was his intent when he suggested we fuck and then left without so much as another word. He wanted me to crave his touch. He wanted me to be ready for next time, which we both know will come. And it worked.
I hit the twenty-minute mark with Tiger haunting my thoughts, but I finally have the blessed distraction from him as I pull onto the long, winding path leading to the place I call home. The white country-style house I’d bought with my inheritance six months after my father’s death. I’d finally accepted that my mother would run the winery into the ground if I didn’t leave my life in L.A. behind. I’d had this crazy idea back then that I could merge my world with that of the winery. I’d been wrong, but today it’s my birthday, and I’m giving myself the gift of a weekend with my art, including a brush in my hand.
I park in the driveway rather than the garage, and quickly grab my bag, hurrying up the wooden steps to the porch that hugs the entire front of the house. Once I’m inside, I clear the foyer and hurry across the dark wood of the floors of the open living area to my bedroom. I enter the room I haven’t slept in for a month, everything about the space artsy and clean, done in cream and caramel tones. A cream leather-framed bed and fluffy cream area rug. Caramel-colored nightstands. A cream chair with a caramel ottoman. My painting, a Sonoma landscape, is the centerpiece above the headboard, because hey, I can’t afford a Chris Merit, though Josh loves to tell me I could be the next Chris Merit. I’d be happy to just be the next me, and actually know what that meant, which reminds me of the card from my father. I set my bag on the bed, and pull out the card, staring at my father’s script. I run my fingers over it, missing him so badly it hurts, but I remember that he saw my art as a hobby, and the winery as my future. I’ve accepted that destiny. I’m protecting our family history and his blood and sweat. But I can’t open a card tonight and risk gutting myself before a night I’ve already committed to surviving. I set the card down and whisper, “I love you, and I’m going to make you proud.”
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