by Kim Karr
My eyebrows drew together. “Am I missing something here?” I pointed between him and I. “I thought we got married so that we would be a team? You know, California Jane and Highway 128.”
Tyler’s lips twitched and then he let out a low huff of laughter. “Convenient how that works for you now.”
I gave a small shrug. “I was actually okay with it last night, if you must know.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have time to discuss our marital status or our lack of consummation with you right now. I have to go meet Buck.”
“Wait.” I stood up and pointed my finger at him. “You can’t just come on my property and start changing things without talking to me about it.”
The charming smile he gave me held a thousand ounces of mirth behind it. “Why, Love, I thought we just decided there is no yours and mine, just ours.”
I narrowed my stare and harrumphed. “I’m running out. I’ll be back.”
He snatched my wrist. “Whoa. You’re not going anywhere.”
That electricity was hot, thick, and wild under his touch and I wiggled out of it before I jumped him right there. “I need to get my phone. I left it at the courthouse. And while I’m at it, I’m going to grab a cup of coffee and something to eat, and then I’ll get started.”
His lips pinched in annoyance as he pointed to the instant Sanka and some kind of Stella Dora dunkers my father kept in the corner of his office. “Help yourself.”
“Those are probably older than me,” I protested.
“Chances are they aren’t as old as the documents we have to work with in declaring you CEO.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re any good.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said, and picked up the keys to the Rover, kissed my forehead, which I found rather strange, and then strode toward the door, tossing over his shoulder, “I’ll be back at three. I’ll get your phone while I’m out. And Paris,” he said. “I expect your work to be done and emailed to Lawson by then.”
“I don’t have his email.”
He stopped in the doorway. “I’m leaving my computer. The access code is my birthday,” he said, and then he was gone.
I sighed.
I had said he’d changed, but I hadn’t realized just how much.
The party boy in him seemed to be gone. Destructive Tyler had turned into Determined Tyler.
And wow . . . was he hotter than ever.
Paris
I WAS SIPPING my second cup of Sanka and munching on the last of the stale cookies when Tyler came striding in the room.
“Did you send everything?” he barked, tossing my phone and a brown bag at me.
Setting my cup down, I picked the bag up and peered inside. The mouthwatering smell of grilled cheese from my favorite diner in St. Helena wafted in the air beneath my nose. There was also a fruit cup and a bottle of mineral water.
As I brought the sandwich to my mouth, I saw the way he was looking at me, and I set the sandwich aside. “I already ate.”
He smirked at me. “Is someone still suffering a hangover from too much champagne last night? The same champagne you told me not to uncork.”
Picking up my pen, I squeezed it so I didn’t reach out and squeeze him—around the neck. “I am not hung over.”
“Fine, whatever. Did you send everything or not?”
I smiled widely at him at batted my lashes. “Yes, sir, I did. Everything you asked me to. Anything else I can do for you? Wax your car? Take the stick out of your ass? Send you on a long trip?”
Unamused, he strode over to my desk and nabbed his laptop, which happened to be under my storyboard for the ad campaign I was working on. “Save the sir for the bedroom.”
“Hey,” I protested. “You could ask nicely. Keep it up and I’ll be headed to divorce court.” But I did like the idea of sir in the bedroom. That sounded like fun.
His eyes raked down my body and they took their time climbing back up.
I flushed, squirming in my chair. “Earth to Tyler. Did you hear me? That’s my hard work you’re tossing aside like trash.”
Flicking his gaze down, he glanced at the marketing materials spread all over my desk and spoke as he did. “Read your contract, Love. You can’t divorce me until the marriage is consummated.”
What? No!
He had to be joking.
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“Fine print. Rule number one in business. You should always read the fine print.”
My blood started to heat. “Then I’ll get an annulment,” I said through clenched teeth.
He laughed.
Laughed!
Wickedly.
His gaze was still roaming the campaign I’d been working on tirelessly since I started at Highway 128 when he spoke. “I believe that’s addressed in the clause following the one about consummation and the terms surrounding it. I can have Brick the Prick send you the full executed copy if you’d like to re-read it.”
I threw him a disgusted look but said no more about any of that since I was in quite a pickle with Highway 128 and really did need his help.
While his gaze was trained on my work, mine was on him.
Why did he have to smell so incredibly good? And look so good. Gone was the Armani suit and hello to what took its place, and it was almost as scrumptious. He was wearing dark jeans and a black shirt that hugged his muscles in all the right places and those combat boots that screamed badass. “You changed out of your lawyer clothes.”
His lip curled up. “My lawyer clothes?”
“Yes, your suit. Why?”
Again, his hot gaze racked over me. “Because, unlike you, I’m a professional and dress like one when I leave the house to go to work.”
“I beg your pardon.”
Ignoring me, he went on. “However, since today,” he paused, stuck my pen behind his ear, and yanked my drawer open, exposing my Winemaking for Dummies book, “is lesson number one for the girl running a million-dollar business without the first idea how to make wine, a change of clothes was in order. Does that answer your question sufficiently?”
Mortification slowly crept up my exposed neck and around the collar of my plaid shirt. “Yes, I think it does.”
His lips curved into a sexy smile, turning me on against my will. “Good,” he said almost sardonically.
Lesson number one.
Lessons.
We’d had lessons before, but they had nothing to do with work.
Feeling heated, I closed the drawer. “For the record. The book is just for reference.”
“Noted.” That arrogant grin was one I wanted to slap right off his face.
When he leaned against my desk, his fine ass was right in my line of sight. I was just about to reach up and grab my pen back when he plucked it from his ear and pointed to the storyboards. “Now, Love, tell me about these.”
Feeling somewhat smug myself, I squared my shoulders and cleared my throat before I started talking. I had more than a half-dozen marketing campaigns mapped out for Highway 128. The thing was, not a single one called to me, which was why I was still working on them.
I was searching for the one.
Like the one in front of you, my brain said. Oh, great, now my mind was short-circuiting along with my body.
“Anyway,” I went on. “I want a campaign that will forge ahead and include a striking new visual identity, be impactful at the point-of-sale, and I want to include a new brand website and digital content which will bring to life the mindset, methods, and wines of Napa Valley.”
“Go on,” he said.
“To be truthful, I’ve been considering changing the company brand name or adding to it. Starting new. Forging a new sign-off line even, with a fresh perspective to harness the optimistic forward-thinking spirit of the Millennials.”
“Not bad,” he mused, “But I believe that one is taken.” He picked up the top storyboard and tossed it aside before moving to the next. “I really l
ike what you’ve done with the coloring and font on this one. It’s attractive to the eye. You should hone in on this one a little more. Sharpen it up.”
Hone in?
Sharpen it up?
Creativity didn’t work that way.
Jackass.
When he grabbed the one I’d been recently working on, it must have really caught his attention because his eyes widened like saucers. “Where did you get these renderings?”
Still fuming, I pulled out the topographic maps I’d found this morning, and retrieved once I’d finished his assignment, and shoved them in his direction. Marketing was where I excelled after all. And for him to sit there and toss my hard work aside, well, it made me mad and drove me wild at the same time. Why did he have to be so freaking attractive when he took control?
“Where did you find these?” he asked.
“In my father’s old records. By using the old maps, I thought I could put a fresh face on Highway 128.”
His eyes studied the maps, and he was ignoring what I was saying. “Let’s take the box with us. Tonight I want to compare them to the surveys I copied from the St. Helena County Clerk’s office.”
I smacked my lips. “Sounds like a super-fun night. Too bad I have plans to go out to the club and then meet up with my vibrator.”
The atmosphere between us turned dark, stormy, and all out hot. “The only plans you have are with me. And for the record, the only one getting in your pants will be me. Do we understand each other?”
I leaned back in my chair, flushing at the idea of him in my pants. “Gee. Relax. I was only kidding.”
His lustful expression cleared, but the air still crackled dangerously around us. In order to avoid the feeling, I grabbed the paper bag and pulled out the grilled cheese, offering him half.
Taking what I offered, he bit into the sandwich. I stared at him, watching the way his mouth moved, the way his tongue snuck out to lick at the corner of his lips, the way his throat bobbed in the sexiest way, and wondered how it was I went from hating him so much to wanting him?
Every. Single. Minute. Of. The. Day.
Paris
I WASN’T A FAn of these kinds of lessons.
Moving from vine to vine, I removed the dry, tired branches that had born the fruit harvested last fall and tossed them in the aluminum barrel at the end of the row.
Remembering hearing the pickers talk about how each grape had been as juicy as a ripe woman, I laughed out loud.
Tyler glared at me as he worked the vine with a ruthless hand.
“You know,” I said, “I have done this before.”
He lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. His belly was tight, taut, mouth-watering. My eyes followed that very faint line of hair trailing from his navel into the waistband of his low-slung jeans and his belly button, well, I remembered it all too well. I had to look away. “In this lifetime or the last?” he mocked.
I narrowed my eyes at him and thought about sticking out my tongue but that would have been immature of me. Then again, Tyler Holiday made me feel like that young naïve girl again most of the time. “Funny. I think I was eleven when my father came home one day and found me watching television when my chores weren’t done. That’s when he decided it was time for me to learn how things worked around here.”
“How’d that work out for you?”
“Well, it lasted one summer.”
He let his shirt fall. “You never told me about that. What happened that you didn’t continue working on the estate anymore?”
“It’s not a fond memory.”
“Tell me about it, anyway.”
I kept pruning. “I wanted to make it fun. To have fun. One day, I took a bucket of grapes, removed my socks and sneakers, and was just about to stomp my feet inside the bucket when he drove up and spotted me.”
Tyler started to snicker. “My grandfather let me do that all the time. It was a blast.”
I pulled in a breath that hurt my throat. “Well, my father was never one for fun, you know that. So, when I told him to watch how I made wine, he grabbed the bucket and told me I never took anything seriously. After that, he refused to bring me out to the vineyards again.”
Tyler looked over at me with those blue eyes, that pouty mouth, and sympathy written all over his face. I hated the sympathy. “I know you didn’t have it easy growing up here and I have to say, I’m surprised you decided to come back.”
I wiped my brow with my shoulder and glanced over at him. “Well, like you said, things change.”
He came upon a shriveled grape that had been missed by the pickers and plucked it from the branch, offering it to me. “Can I ask you something without you getting upset?”
With a laugh, I took the raisin from his fingers and dropped it into my mouth. I relished its spicy sweetness. “Now, I’m worried.”
“Oh, yeah, why?”
“You’re asking me instead of telling me. What? Is this a peace offering before the slaughter?”
We were at the end of the row, and he took a flaming vine from the previous bucket of burning ones to ignite a new fire. “Did you take over Highway 128 as a final fuck you to your father? I mean I get it if you did. But I just want to know.”
The bitter stink of the smoke caused me to take a step back. I pondered his question for a few moments before responding with what I felt to be the truth. “A fuck you, no, I don’t think so. I really want to be a part of something here. For ten years I’ve been a gypsy. Wandering. Looking. Searching. And for what, I don’t even know. I just want to feel like I matter. But I will tell you, whether my father can comprehend what I hope to accomplish or not, I will prove to him that I am so much more than the daughter he had to replace another.”
“You are already so much more.”
I looked up at him through the shield of my hair and thought about pressing a kiss to his lips.
“Mr. Holiday.” We both turned around when we heard the voice and saw Buck making his way across the vineyard, not pausing to speak with any of the other workers along the way.
“Thank you,” I whispered, putting an end to that conversation.
Tyler took the pruners from my hand. “Come on, I think he has some good news.”
We met Buck near the tractor he’d rode up here on. The two exchanged a silent conversation and then Tyler tossed him the keys to the Rover. “Meet us down there in fifteen,” he told him.
I was trying to understand what this was about.
“Hop on,” Tyler said with excitement I felt all the way in my bones.
Sitting beside him, I watched as he pumped the throttle twice, turned the key, and then pumped the gas once the engine rumbled to life.
The air was cool, and Tyler rubbed his hands together before easing the tractor forward. I watched as he gripped the black wheel and squinted, looking for obstacles as we chugged along the dirt track toward the winery.
As soon as we started around the other side of the mountain, I saw what he was excited about. The winery had been cleared of the debris from the fire and the destroyed exterior walls taken down. And there, beneath all the rubble that had been cleared, sat all ten stainless steel tanks.
I felt a flutter in my heart that could have been a bird wanting to take flight. This was Highway 128, and I wanted it to survive.
Tyler released the throttle and let the tractor settle to a halt. A wake of dust billowed up around us, then subsided.
With a grin, he looked over at me. “As far as Buck can tell, the stainless tanks weren’t damaged from the fire, but the French Oak barrels are toast and the sorting equipment was crushed when the beams above them collapsed.”
This was good news, although looking at what was left of the winery it didn’t feel like it. The wine lab was gone and the crew’s office, too, as well as most of the equipment.
Still, I smiled because we had white grapes fermenting in those steel tanks that had survived, and that meant with California Jane’s help, I could produce lots of Chardonn
ay.
I swallowed the lump in my throat before asking, “And what about the cellar?”
Tyler grabbed a flashlight and hopped off the tractor. “Come on. Let’s go take a look.”
Excitement fluttered to life as I hurried after him. I think I was more excited about this than I had been about anything, besides him, in a very long time.
When we got close to the rubble, he grabbed my hand. “Stay close.”
While stepping carefully over charred pieces of wood, I allowed my gaze to drift to the stainless steel tanks. “Do you think the temperature variation the tanks underwent this winter are going to be a problem?”
He scratched at his head. “I’m not one-hundred percent sure. It’s been a cold winter, and the roof remained relatively intact until this morning, so there’s a really good chance we’re going to be fine.”
We’re.
I liked that word.
That thrill I had been feeling was still fluttering inside my chest. “When do you think Buck will have a chance to get test samples?” I asked.
Tyler strode ahead of me and then turned around to walk backwards. Excitement shown all over him when he said, “He took some initial ones, but since there hasn’t been any monitoring of the yeast levels, we need to get a winemaker down here right away to help determine our next steps.”
Realizing I didn’t really care for the man that worked for my father as winemaker, and that he was past ready to retire anyway, I frowned. If I didn’t use him, that left CJ’s. But then, using Tyler’s, seemed like I was giving him everything.
“I was thinking,” Tyler said, turning back around, “about contacting Paulo Movado . . . if you agree.”
The space between us had grown vast and I hurried to catch up to him. When I was beside him, I placed my free hand on his strong shoulder. “You mean the winemaker from Cliff Star Wines?”
Tyler stopped and looked over his shoulder, his warm breath blowing against my cheek. “Wow,” he grinned. “I’m impressed you know who he is.”
Apparently he thought I was completely ignorant to the field I worked in. “I’m not a complete wine illiterate, Tyler. I might not know the art of successfully taking the helm of a business from a grumpy old man with undiagnosed Alzheimer’s or the scientific process to creating a blend, but I do know the business.”