Page 24 of Love You Always

“All charm, as usual, Archer. Would it kill you to be friendly?” She turns and leans against my truck, arms crossed.

If she only knew how hard I’m trying to be aloof when I want to be more than friendly. To cage her in between my forearms against my truck, inhale the sweet scent of her skin, and see if her lips taste as good as I imagine. But showing her the gruff asshole in me will do a better job of pushing her away, and then maybe I’ll be able to stop thinking about her all the fucking time.

I swallow hard and run a hand over my face. “Sorry. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I just had a meeting with Beatrix to go over some things.”

A part of me feels annoyed that I don’t already know this, but I’m also aware that if I keep meddling, Beatrix will think I’m trying to tank this dream wedding, so I’ve been observing from afar.

“What’s happening here?” She points to where the bins are being dumped into the machine.

“De-stemmer. Before they go into the vats.” I gesture to where clumps of grapes ride up a conveyor belt to where a mechanism removes the stems and deposits the grapes into a clean bin. The stems end up in the composter. Her wide eyes take everything in, following the grapes as they go up the belt.

“Cool.” She laughs. “I know that’s not a proper wine term. But still, I find it cool.”

Watching her geeky fascination, I try to reconcile the public image of Ella Fieldstone—America’s sweetheart, the rom-com queen with a long string of hot-mess relationships—and the calm, inquisitive woman who keeps showing up here wanting to talk about grapes.

We stand side by side for a few minutes longer, watching the machine do its thing, before I ask the question I still want answered. “Did you come here to finish our tour?”

I could be imagining that her cheeks pink up at the suggestion she’s here to see me. Implicit in my question is the moment left hanging between us when she seemed as drawn to me as I am to her.

She looks down, her long lashes feathering over her cheeks, and once again I’m struck by how good she is at making men fall for her. I won’t be one of them, but I can see her appeal to the poor suckers who never saw it coming. They’re no match for the sparkle of her bright eyes that make it seem like she’s never seen anything as fascinating as the person directly in front of her.

“I, um, I’m not gonna lie. I’d love to.” She bites her lip, reluctant. “I mean, I don’t want to take up your time. If there’s someone else you want to send me with…totally okay.” She stalls and stammers and I don’t understand why she’s asking for someone else. Not to mention the shift in enthusiasm from the last time she was here. She looks over her shoulder, and when her gaze returns to me, I see conflict in her furrowed brow.

I should welcome her reluctance. I have a hundred things on my plate today and I’ve been neglecting a critical deal to buy the grapes we need to meet our overseas wine quota. Giving her a tour is the last thing I should be doing. This ridiculous crush or whatever it is that has me utterly distracted by Ella Fieldstone needs to die on the vine, so to speak. I should take her cue and outsource this task to any one of our employees who knows our wine-making process backward and forward. But I can’t resist her.

“I can do it. We have a few different types of fermentation tanks, and?—”

“Good God, are you really talking about fermentation? You must’ve finished the fascinating lecture on mold spores and gas.” Beatrix sidles up next to me and elbows me in the ribs. She thinks she’s being funny, but I’m hardly laughing when I see who’s next to her—Callum Haywood. Tall, musclebound, tattooed. He looks me over with steely impatience, as though I have no right to talk to his fiancée. It makes me flex my alpha male just to prove him wrong.

“Some people actually find it interesting. We’re a winery. It’s what we do,” I remind my sister.

“It’s whatyoudo. I help our guests plan their weddings. And design stuff and oversee the hospitality?—”

I put up my hands to stop my sister from listing all of her accomplishments and duties. “I get it, Trix. You do a lot. We all appreciate you.” It takes all my self-restraint not to roll my eyes,and I exert that modicum of restraint because I’m aware of Ella watching me.

In two strides, Callum is next to Ella, tugging her into his side, possessively. He kisses her cheek like a wolf sampling his first course. “It’s nice.” I cringe at his disinterest in a wedding to the woman he’s lucky enough to be manhandling right now.

Is it my imagination, or does she flinch a tiny bit when his lips touch her skin?

Ella looks at her phone. “You saw everything in fifteen minutes?”

“We walked through the restaurant and looked out at the garden from the roof, but I didn’t show him all the photos of how it looks when we set up the space. And we have a tasting menu prepared so you can decide what you’d like,” Beatrix explains.

Callum shakes his head. “I don’t need all that. Whatever you want is fine.” He turns toward Ella and surveys her face as though searching for imperfections. I don’t like it. He grabs hold of the loose strands of hair that catch the sunlight like gold threads and shoves them behind her shoulders. Patting her hair down, he tries to tame it. My hands ball at my sides, itching to reach out and undo his straightening.

“We toured the garden behind Butter and Rosemary, but we haven’t gone over to the inn yet,” Beatrix says, tucking a stray strand of hair back into the ponytail that’s her signature look. She’s dressed in a pencil skirt and heels, looking much more professional than I do in my worn jeans with holes in the knees. Like she just reminded me, I don’t work much with the guests—I work where there’s dirt and plants and science.

Beatrix taps a pen against a page in her binder and looks at her phone. For a while, I thought she’d mellowed out when she and her college ex fell hard for each other all these years later. But now that she’s a mom, she runs her life on a schedule like no one I’ve ever met. Still, she seems happier than ever with herfiancé Ren, the pro hockey star who became one of my friends in the process.

Turning back to look at Ella and Callum, I feel fucking ill. While Ren and my sister became better versions of themselves when they got together, I can’t help thinking that Ella doesn’t look like her best self, standing under the possessive arm of her fiancé. I don’t know him from Adam, but there’s something about the guy I just don’t like. His swagger, his inked neck, his dark jeans that are so tight there’s no question about the bulge of his dick.

I like the woman I’ve gotten to know a little bit, with her wild hair, sharp gaze, and unfortunate dizziness, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that Callum isn’t good enough for her.

Yeah, I’m jealous as fuck, and it’s a hundred percent inappropriate because I have no claim on her. I’m just a guy who can offer her science nerd side a little distraction from the wedding planning she seems to loathe. Well, fine. As long as she wants to keep learning about wine making, I won’t begrudge her the chance to tag along with me at work. She is the client, after all.

“You ready to see the scene of the crime—or the future one, anyway?” Callum pulls Ella in a little tighter. I want her to squirm away, but she doesn’t. I watch for signs she hates it, but she gives nothing away.

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