Page 4 of A Taste of Chardonnay

“Just today? I would have guessed you haven’t been in the mood for me for twenty years.”

“Exactly, so go away.”

He rooted beside me, all six-foot-four of him. He’d always been tall, but after high school, he filled out. He was bulky, made up of solid muscle. An intimidating man.

Not that I noticed.

He smiled, and it brightened his face.

I’m still not noticing.

“Why would I leave when I can annoy the hell out of you?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, wanting to yank that stupid bun clear off his head. I swear he hadn’t cut his dark brown hair with natural light highlights—I had to pay for in order to achieve—in twenty freaking years. I wondered how much shampoo he went through, considering he washed his hair at all. Though, he stood close enough for me to smell his clean scent, like warm oak and spicy bergamot.

Then there was the beard. I swear he was devolving into a Neanderthal. Maybe that’s why he lived deep in the woods. Or he was a serial killer. Wouldn’t surprise me with his love of horror movies.

We stood in silence for what felt like an eternity but was probably no more than a minute. “Are you seriously just going to stand there to annoy me?”

“It’s a free country. I can stand where I want.”

“Well, technically, that’s not true. You can’t wander onto someone’s property and just stand there. You could get arrested for trespassing.”

He shook his head. “Do you always have to take everything so literal?”

“Do you always have to be around?” The words were a little harsher than I meant, but he was wearing on my nerves in a way that only he could.

“I know it kills you that I’m here, but your parents invited me.”

“Of course they did.” Brady was like their son. Mom might as well have given birth to him like my other four brothers. Brady could do no wrong, and my entire family put him on a pedestal, while I’d like to knock his ass off the damn pedestal. Everyone loved him. Except me. And because of that, I was the bitch.

But there was a time when I actually liked the jerk. Then he got kicked out of his house, and he was never the same. He was angry and bitter, and while that sucked, that didn’t give him the right to take it out on me. I hadn’t done shit to him but be a good friend. At least Ithoughtwe were friends. Now… now he was my enemy.

“You’re just mad they like me more than you.”

“Don’t you have a distillery to run?” I asked.

“I hired someone.”

“Look at you, finally making enough to hire help,” I said, masking the actual pride I felt for him with sarcasm. My specialty.

I might have hated him, but I could still remember the boy he once was. And I was happy for that boy who always dreamed of making something of himself, despite his circumstances.

He leaned in, his warm breath brushing against my ear. “It must kill you.” He pulled back, his green eyes locking on mine, a raw sharpness cutting through me before he smirked and walked away.

What the hell did that even mean? Why would his success kill me? I swear his dad must have knocked him in his head real good before he left home.

Quinn, my brother’s girlfriend and Gio’s former nanny, walked over to me, holding Sally’s leash. Apparently, she had a bearded dragon growing up, so she was well versed in all things beardies. I was convinced Sally was an escape artist in another life. She went missing more times than not. They really dropped the ball by not naming her Houdini.

“You okay?” Quinn asked, bumping my shoulder. She held a glass of white wine. Most likely pinot grigio. Franc was trying to find a wine she’d like. She’d never been a wine drinker before. Understandable, but if she was going to stick around our family who lived and breathed wine, she needed to get accustomed to it; it was at every birthday, every going away party, and basically every get together. Random dinner on a Wednesday night? Wine. I’d give her credit, though. She was trying.

“I’m fantastic,” I said to the woman who I once judged unfairly, but only because I thought she was after my brother’s money. If I had taken two seconds to have gotten to know her before jumping to conclusions, I would have realized Quinn didn’t have a scheming bone in her body. She was a good person and the perfect match for Franc.

I apologized for my behavior, and I was working on getting over the guilt I carried with me because of it. I tried to remind myself I did it to protect my family, and I would do anything to protect the ones I loved. But that also required me to eat crow when I was wrong. Which didn’t happen very often.

“I know it’s none of my business, but why do you and Brady hate each other so much? I’m not usually one for gossip, but I feel like there’s a juicy story there.”

I glanced over at her. She was only about an inch shorter than me. Her red hair fell in waves over her shoulders. Her brown eyes locked on mine, filling with patience yet a subtle sense of excitement.

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