Page 7 of Bitter Rival

“You’re going to want this,” he assures me.

When we hang up, I go back to watching Daisy as she brings a cluster of grapes to her nose. Her eyes drift shut like sniffing grapes is as close to heaven as she’s ever come.

Those grapes are grenache and when they flower, the scent is heady and perfume-like, but I wouldn’t have expected her to notice or care.

This is the same girl who told me via text that she lives on champagne and cigarettes, and her favorite hobby is clubbing with “her squad.”

She also dropped brand names like she was a Kardashian and claimed that The Real Housewives was her favorite show to binge-watch. Which naturally led me to assume that she would be Astrid 2.0.

But now that I’ve met her, it doesn’t add up. Her clothes look like they’re from Goodwill and she was carrying a JanSport, not a designer bag.

But I’m not ruling out the possibility that this is all part of her cunning plan.

Based on the evidence, I find it impossible to believe that she didn’t manipulate my father. He rewrote his will and added her as a co-beneficiary only six months before he died.

Coincidentally, that was right after he showed up at my office with a bottle of Cabernet, put his feet on my desk and lit a Cuban cigar like he was in a Vegas nightclub. If he’d summoned strippers to perform for him, I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised.

I hadn’t spoken to the bastard in fifteen years and had zero interest in a father/son bonding session, so I gave him two options—either be escorted off the premises or walk away on his own two feet.

On his way out the door he said, “I want you to run the vineyard.”

“I already have a successful business to run.”

“Technology? This won’t make you happy. There’s nothing tangible here. You need to come back to the place where the dirt, the rocks, the fog, and the wind speak. You need to inhale the intoxicating scent of the grenache grapes on the vine and taste the sweetness on your tongue.”

My father thought he was Hemingway. “Don’t fucking tell me what I need. Where were you when my mother needed you?”

As a kid, I used to idolize my father. I wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps and become a vintner. But because of him, all my happy memories on this vineyard have been tainted.

I doubt that Astrid Larsson was the first woman he cheated on my mother with, but it was the only time I ever caught him in the act.

I was thirteen when I walked in on them. My father’s back was turned, and Astrid had her back against the wall, smiling as she held her finger to her lips.

Shh. Don’t tell. This will be our little secret.

Instead of being a decent husband and human being, that son of a bitch was fucking another woman in the wine cellar. A woman my mother had moved into the gatehouse after Astrid fed her some bullshit hard luck story.

Astrid was a liar. A con. And a thief.

I have no reason to believe that Daisy is any different.

CHAPTER THREE

Beckett

Later that evening, I look up from my laptop when I hear the front door open and close. A few minutes later, an engine rumbles and classic rock blasts from the radio.

I yank open the front door and catch a glimpse of Daisy’s arm hanging out of the open window of my dad’s old pickup, blonde hair blowing in the breeze as she takes off down the road.

Two hours later she’s still not back so I do the logical thing and check her bedroom to ensure she hasn’t taken her bags and run.

If the situation was different, I would be relieved to be rid of her. Hell, I’d even let her keep the damn truck. But I need to see this through, and unfortunately for me, that means I need her cooperation.

From the threshold, I spot Daisy’s bag lying open on the floor, confirming that she’ll be returning at some point. Although with Daisy, you can never be too certain.

Her scent permeates the room—orange blossoms and jasmine—and she’s already made it her own. In the short time she’s been here, she’s redecorated and moved the heavy furniture around. The bed is facing the windows now and the sheets are twisted as if she had a wrestling match with the Egyptian cotton.

The wall behind the armoire is plastered with photos that have a nostalgic, almost dreamlike quality. But I can’t study them closely enough to determine whether they’re any good or not since I haven’t stepped over the threshold.

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