Page 45 of Tempt Me

Then her expression turns sad and my stomach drops. When she speaks again, her voice is soft, barely a whisper.

“Will you please tell me what you were doing?” she asks. “I have five years of questions circling around in my head.”

Her lips are slightly parted, her face plaintive. How can I refuse her? I owe her my freedom. I only got to have those five years because she stood up for me.

“The morning after Mom died,” I begin. “I went to JFK and bought a ticket to Buenos Aires.”

“Why Buenos Aires?” she asks.

“It was the first flight I could reasonably make.” My chest tightens as I think about that day. Breaking down on the plane. Arriving in the cool climate, the bustling city so unfamiliar. No one cared who I was or where I’d come from. “I didn’t want my father to be able to track me using my credit cards, so I took out a bunch of cash. Kept it in a bag in a locker in the train station and used Buenos Aires as home base. I would take small amounts at a time, only what I needed, storing the cash in my shoe or in a secret pocket in my jacket. Stuff like that. For the first year, I just wandered around the country. I went to La Plata and Salta and San Miguel de Tucamán. I got robbed just outside Cordóba.”

That was not a pleasant experience. I still have the scar on my side. Twelve stiches.

“I was running out of money. My Spanish was decent by that point. I got a job in Mendoza hauling boxes at a warehouse. Then I helped make deliveries. One night, I was at a bar and that’s where I met Sebastian. I knew he worked for a sustainable winery—I’d made deliveries to Catarina Azul, but we’d never spoken. He knew me though. Gringos working manual labor jobs aren’t common in Mendoza. Ninety-nine percent of the Americans in that area are tourists. Sebastian bought me a drink and we started talking. There’s something about him that just invites confidence.”

A smile tugs at my lips, thinking of my friend. His easy laugh, the warmth he radiates out to everyone in his sphere. His unconditional kindness.

“I spilled my guts,” I say. “About Everton. About Mom.”

I want to sayabout you, but that feels inappropriate, given Isla’s current relationship status. Her body has curved toward me as I tell the story. I clear my throat.

“Anyway, he told me to come work for him. He said he’d show me how sustainable wineries were run. He’d been working for the Gonzalez family who owns Azul for three years at that point. They were like his second family. I became close with them too. And with Sebastian’s little girl, Esme. I learned how to do everything at Catarina Azul—every single job there was to do at the winery, Sebastian made me do it. From picking grapes to working the tasting room. And I get it now. I understand what it takes to make a winery run the way I’d always wanted.”

Isla’s expression softens, her face turning even more beautiful. “Wow.”

God, it hurts. It hurts to know I had a chance to be with her yet allowed it to pass me by. For what? For my father? Because he forbade me to see her ever again? I wasn’t a child. Why did I allow him to treat me like one?

But I know the answer. There was no other way. I was still tied up like a marionette—Dad controlled the money, the business…he held my future in the palm of his hand. I needed to reject it all in order to be free. And that meant Isla too.

“Not what you imagined?” I ask.

“Not even close.” She leans back in her chair, her face guarded again. “So now that you know all about running a sustainable winery, are you going to try to implement those ideas at Everton, like you always wanted?”

It hurts how happy I am that she remembers that dream.

I shake my head. “I’m not inheriting the estate anymore,” I say. “Noah says I’ve got until the end of the summer to make a break in Mom’s case. Then I’ll go back to Argentina.”

The slight hunch of her shoulders is her only reaction to this news. She rubs her neck with one hand, and I can’t help the way my gaze snags on her collarbone again.

“Right,” she murmurs.

We sit in silence for a moment. I feel the air around us expand and contract. My pulse thrums a desperate beat. Being so close yet not able to touch her, that fucking ring on her finger…

“It’s a shame,” she says. “Your mom would have loved the idea.”

Something sharp wrenches inside me. She shifts in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. I yearn to cup her thigh in my palm, to fold her into me and beg for forgiveness. To bury my nose in her hair. To stroke the tender skin of her waist.

“Why did you leave, Caden?” she asks.

Her eyes are guileless. As clear and green as a field in summer. I can see her chest rising and falling gently as she breathes. Her teeth press into her bottom lip as she waits for my response and an ache blooms in the pit of my stomach. The air between us crackles with tension.

“I…” My voice trails off, my eyes falling to her mouth. Leaving didn’t change anything. I still crave her. The taste of her. The sweetness of her lips. I hear her breath catch in her throat. When I meet her gaze again, her eyes burn with emerald fire. I should tell her everything. I should confess it all, right here and now.

“I found my book,” Grace says, coming up and startling us both. Isla leaps up from her chair like she’s been stuck by a pin.

“Great,” she says, her cheeks going rosy. “We should probably get home.”

I don’t want her to leave. I don’t want to be away from her. I feel panicked, irrational, edgy.

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