by Maisey Yates
Emerson stormed out of the room, and left Holden standing there with James.
“She makes your victory ring hollow,” James said.
“Even if she divorces me, part of the winery is still mine. We didn’t have a prenuptial agreement drafted between us, something I’m sure you were intending to take care of when she married that soft boy from the East Coast.”
“What exactly are you going to do now?”
“I haven’t decided yet. And the beauty of this is I have time. You can consider me the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. And one day, you know the thread will break. The question is when.”
“And what do you intend to do to Emerson?”
“I’ve done it already. She’s married to me. She’s mine.”
Those words burned with conviction, no matter her protests before storming out. And he didn’t know why he felt the truth of those words deeper than anything else.
He had married her. It was done as far as he was concerned.
He went out of the office, and saw Emerson standing there, her hands planted firmly on the balustrade, overlooking the entry below.
“Let’s talk,” he said.
She turned to face him. “I don’t want to talk. You should go talk with my father some more. The two of you seemed to be enjoying that dialogue.”
“Enjoy is a strong word.”
“You betrayed me,” she said.
“I don’t know you, Emerson. You don’t know me. We hadn’t ever made promises to each other. I didn’t betray you. Your father betrayed you.”
She looked stricken by that, and she said nothing.
“I want you to come live with me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because we’re married. Because it’s not fake.”
“Does that mean you love me?” she asked, her tone scathing.
“No. But there’s a lot of mileage between love and fake. And you know it.”
“I live here. I work here. I can’t leave.”
“Handily, I have bought a property on the adjacent mountain. You won’t have to leave. I do have another ranch in Jackson Creek, and I’d like to visit there from time to time. I do a bit of traveling. But there’s no reason we can’t be based here, in Gold Valley.”
“You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not understanding the part of your maniacal plan where we try to pretend we’re a happy family.”
“The vineyard is more yours now than it was before. I have no issue deferring to you on a great many things.”
“You’re not just going to...let it get run into the ground?”
“If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have to own a piece. I own part of your father’s legacy. And that appeases me.
“So,” he concluded, “shall we go?”
Twelve
Emerson looked around the marble halls of the Maxfield estate, and for the very first time in all her life, she didn’t feel like she was home.
The man in the office behind her was a stranger.
The man in front of her was her husband, whether or not he was a stranger.
And his words kept echoing in her head.
I didn’t betray you. Your father betrayed you.
“Let’s go,” she said. Before she could think the words through.
She found herself bundled back up into his truck, still wearing the dress she had been wearing at yesterday’s party. His house was a quick drive away from the estate, a modern feat of design built into the hillside, all windows to make the most of the view.
“Tell me about your sister,” she said, standing in the drive with him, feeling decidedly flat and more than a bit defeated.
“She’s my half sister,” Holden said, taking long strides toward the front entry. He entered a code, opened the door and ushered her into a fully furnished living area.
“I had everything taken care of already,” he said. “It’s ready for us.”
Ready for us.
She didn’t know why she found that comforting. She shouldn’t. She was unaccountably wounded by his betrayal, had been forced into this marriage. And yet, she wanted him. She couldn’t explain it.
And her old life didn’t feel right anymore, because it was even more of a lie than this one.
“My mother never had much luck with love,” Holden said, his voice rough. “I had to take care of her. Because the men she was with didn’t. They would either abuse her outright or manipulate her, and she wasn’t very strong. Soraya came along when I was eight. About the cutest thing I’d ever seen. And a hell of a lot of trouble. I had to get her ready, had to make sure her hair was brushed for school. All of that. But I did it. I worked, and I took care of them, and once I got money, I made sure they had whatever they wanted.” He looked away from her, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “It was after Soraya had money that she met your father. I don’t think it takes a genius to realize she’s got daddy issues. And he played each and every one of them. She got pregnant. He tried to get her to terminate. She wouldn’t. She lost the baby anyway. And she lost her mind right along with it.”
Hearing those words again, now knowing that they were true...they hit her differently.
She sat down on the couch, her stomach cramping with horror.
“You must love her a lot,” she said. “To do all of this for her.”
She thought about her father, and how she had been willing to marry a stranger for him. And then how she had married Holden to protect the winery, to protect her family, her father. And now she wasn’t entirely convinced she shouldn’t have just let Holden do what he wanted.
He frowned. “I did what had to be done. Like I always do. I take care of them.”
“Because you love them,” she said.
“Because no one else takes care of them.” He shook his head. “My family wasn’t loving. They still aren’t. My mother is one of the most cantankerous people on the face of the planet, but you do what you do. You keep people going. When they’re your responsibility, there’s no other choice.”
“Oh,” she said. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “You see, I love my father. I love my mother. That’s why her disapproval hurts. That’s why his betrayal... I didn’t know that he was like this. That he could have done those things to someone like your sister. It hurts me to know it. You’re right. He is the one who betrayed me. And I will never be able to go into the estate again and look at it, at him, the same way. I’ll never be able to look at him the same. It’s just all broken, and I don’t think it can ever be put back together.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I never came here to put anything back together. Because I knew it was all broken beyond the fixing of it. I came here to break him, because he broke Soraya. And I don’t think she’s going to be fixed either.” He came to stand in front of Emerson, his hands shoved into his pockets, his expression grim. “And I’m sorry that you’re caught up in the middle of this, because I don’t have any stake in breaking you. But here’s what I know about broken things. They can’t be put back together exactly as they were. I think you can make something new out of them, though.”
“Are you giving me life advice? Really? The man who blackmailed me into marriage?” He was still so absurdly beautiful, so ridiculously gorgeous and compelling to her. It was wrong. But she didn’t know how to fix it. How to change it. Like anything else in her life. And really, right at the moment, it was only one of the deeply messed up things in her reality.
That she felt bonded to him even as the bonds that connected her to her family were shattered.
“You can take it or not,” he said. “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. Whether or not I exposed him, your father is a predator. This is who he is. You could have lived your life without knowing the truth, but I don’t see how that’s comforting.”
It wasn’t. It made a shiver
race down her spine, made her feel cold all over. “I just... I trusted him. I trusted him so much that I was willing to marry a man he chose for me. I would have done anything he asked me to do. He built a life for me, and he gave me a wonderful childhood, and he made me the woman that I am. For better or for worse. He did a whole host of wonderful things for me, and I don’t know how to reconcile that with what else I now know about him.”
“All I know is your father is a fool. Because the way you believe in him... I’ve never believed in anyone that way. Anyone or anything. And the way my sister believed in him... He didn’t deserve that, from either of you. And if just one person believed in me the way that either of you believed in him, the way that I think your mother believes in him, your sisters... I wouldn’t have done anything to mess that up.”
Something quiet and sad bloomed inside of her. And she realized that the sadness wasn’t for losing her faith in her father. Not even a little.
“I did,” she said.
“What?”
“I did. Believe in you like that. Holden Brown. That ranch hand I met not so long ago. I don’t know what you think about me, or women like me. But it mattered to me that I slept with you. That I let you into my body. I’ve only been with two other men. For me, sex is an intimate thing. And I’ve never shared it with someone outside of a relationship. But there was something about you. I trusted you. I believed what you told me about who you were. And I believed in what my body told me about what was between us. And now what we shared has kind of turned into this weird and awful thing, and I just... I don’t think I’ll ever trust myself again. Between my father and you...”
“I didn’t lie to you.” His voice was almost furious in its harshness. “Not about wanting you. Nothing that happened between you and me in bed was a lie. Not last night, and not the first night. I swear to you, I did not seduce you to get revenge on your father. Quite the opposite. I told myself when I came here that I would never touch you. You were forbidden to me, Emerson, because I didn’t want to do the same thing your father had done. Because I didn’t want to lie to you or take advantage of you in any way. When I first met you in that vineyard, I told myself I was disgusted by you. Because you had his blood in your veins. But no matter how much I told myself that, I couldn’t make it true. You’re not your father. And that’s how I feel. This thing between us is separate, and real.”
“But the marriage is for revenge.”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t have taken the wedding night if I didn’t want you.”
“Can I believe in you?”
She didn’t know where that question came from, all vulnerable and sad, and she wasn’t entirely sure that she liked the fact that she’d asked it. But she needed to grab on to something. In this world where nothing made sense, in this moment when she felt rootless, because not even her father was who she thought he was, and she didn’t know how she was going to face having that conversation with Wren, or with Cricket. Didn’t know what she was going to say to her mother, because no matter how difficult their own relationship was, this gave Emerson intense sympathy for her mother.
Not to mention her sympathy for the young woman her father had harmed. And the other women who were like her. How many had there been just like Soraya? It made Emerson hurt to wonder.
She had no solid ground to stand on, and she was desperate to find purchase.
If Holden was telling the truth, if the chemistry between them was as real to him as it was to her, then she could believe in that if nothing else. And she needed to believe in it. Desperately.
“If I... If I go all in on this marriage, Holden, on this thing between us, if we work together to make the vineyard...ours—Wren and Cricket included—promise me that you’ll be honest with me. That you will be faithful to me. Because right now, I’ll pledge myself to you, because I don’t know what the hell else to believe in. I’m angry with you, but if you’re telling me the truth about wanting me, and you also told me the truth about my father, then you are the most real and honest thing in my life right now, and I will... I’ll bet on that. But only if you promise me right now that you won’t lie to me.”
“I promise,” he said, his eyes like two chips of obsidian, dark and fathomless. Hard.
And in her world that had proven to be built on a shifting sand foundation, his hardness was something steady. Something real.
She needed something real.
She stood up from her position on the couch, her legs wobbling when she closed the distance between them. “Then take me to bed. Because the only thing that feels good right now is you and me.”
“I notice you didn’t say it’s the only thing that makes sense,” he said, his voice rough. He cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb over her cheekbone.
“Because it doesn’t make sense. I should hate you. But I can’t. Maybe it’s just because I don’t have the energy right now. Because I’m too sad. But this...whatever we have, it feels real. And I’m not sure what else is.”
“This is real,” he said, taking her hand and putting it on his chest. His heart was raging out of control, and she felt a surge of power roll through her.
It was real. Whatever else wasn’t, the attraction between them couldn’t be denied.
He carried her to the bed, and they said vows to each other’s bodies. And somehow, it felt right. Somehow, in the midst of all that she had lost, her desire for Holden felt like the one right thing she had done.
Marrying him. Making this real.
Tonight, there were no restraints, no verbal demands. Just their bodies. Unspoken promises that she was going to hold in her heart forever.
And as the hours passed, a feeling welled up in her chest that terrified her more than anything else.
It wasn’t hate. Not even close.
But she refused to give it a name. Not yet. Not now.
She would have a whole lot of time to sort out what she felt for this man.
She’d have the rest of her life.
Thirteen
The day he put Maxfield Vineyards as one of the assets on his corporate holdings was sadistically satisfying. He was going to make a special new label of wine as well. Soraya deserved to be indelibly part of the Maxfield legacy.
Because James Maxfield was indelibly part of Soraya’s. And Holden’s entire philosophy on the situation was that James didn’t deserve to walk away from her without being marked by the experience.
Holden was now a man in possession of a very powerful method through which to dole out if not traditional revenge, then a steady dose of justice.
He was also a man in possession of a wife.
That was very strange indeed. But he counted his marriage to Emerson among the benefits of this arrangement.
Her words kept coming back to him. Echoing inside of him. All day, and every night when he reached for her.
Can I believe in you?
He found that he wanted her to believe in him, and he couldn’t quite figure out why. Why should it matter that he not sweep Emerson into a web of destruction?
Why had he decided to go about marrying her in the first place when he could have simply wiped James Maxfield off the map?
But no. He didn’t want to question himself.
Marrying her was a more sophisticated power play. And at the end of the day, he liked it better.
He had possession of the man’s daughter. He had a stake in the man’s company.
The sword of Damocles.
After all, ruination could be accomplished only once, but this was a method of torture that could continue on for a very long time.
His sense of satisfaction wasn’t just because of Emerson.
He wasn’t so soft that he would change direction because of a woman he’d slept with a few times.
Though, every night that he had her, he felt more and more connected to her.
He had taken great pleasure a few days ago when she broke the news to her fiancé.
The other man had been upset, but not about Emerson being with another man, rather about the fact that he was losing his stake in the Maxfield dynasty. In Holden’s estimation that meant the man didn’t deserve Emerson at all. Of course, he didn’t care what anyone deserved, not in this scenario. He didn’t deserve Emerson either, but he wanted her. That was all that mattered to him.
It was more than her ex-fiancé felt for her.
There was one person he had yet to call, though. Soraya. She deserved to know everything that had happened.
He was one of her very few approved contacts. She was allowed to speak to him over the phone.
They had done some very careful and clever things to protect Soraya from contact with the outside world. He, his mother and Soraya’s therapists were careful not to cut her off completely, but her social media use was monitored.
They had learned that with people like her, who had built an empire and a web of connections in the digital world, they had to be very careful about cutting them off entirely, or they felt like they had been cast into darkness.
But then, a good amount of their depression often came from that public world.
It was a balance. She was actually on her accounts less now than she had been when she’d first been hospitalized.
He called, and it didn’t take long for someone to answer.
“This is Holden McCall. I’m calling for Soraya.”
“Your sister is just finishing an art class. She should be with you in a moment.”
In art class. He would have never picked something like that for her, but then, her sense of fashion was art in and of itself, he supposed. The way she framed her life and the scenes she found herself in. It was why she was so popular online. That she made her life into art. It pleased him to know she had found another way to express that. One that was maybe about her more than it was about the broader world.
“Holden?” Her voice sounded less frantic, more relaxed than he was used to.