Page 35 of Love You Always

“Maybe four years ago. It was a pool party in some fancy yard in the Hollywood Hills with huge views of all of LA, and I saw you and just…wanted to meet you. But your bodyguards told me to take a hike.”

My face goes hot at the thought that I came off like the kind of diva I swore I’d never be when I was offered my first movie role. I hate the idea that people I paid to work for me kept me away from someone like Archer Corbett.

I’m halfway through my second glass of wine, and I already feel buzzed. It’s not the right time to reveal the brewing feelings I have for Archer. I’m sober enough to realize that. But I can’t have him thinking I’m the kind of person who’d ignore someone I didn’t know if he tried to meet me.

“I vaguely remember a party. Or a dozen. There were a lot of pool parties, a lot of places I had to be when I’d have rather been home in sweats with a book. Most of the time, I stayed in my little bubble, talked to as few people as possible, took the photos my publicists wanted, and got out of there.”

He nods. “I should have known that.” He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck, looking like a guilty child. “It wasn’t you. It was me feeling like a failure in LA, and trying to talk to you just convinced me I had no reason to be there. Maybe I was looking for proof I didn’t belong. Anyway, that’s maybe why I came off a little frosty at first when we met here.”

I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. “A little frosty? That’s how you’d describe it?”

He hangs his head in mock shame. It’s adorable. When he looks up at me, there’s something different in his eyes. They’re clear, unencumbered by doubt. They’re also hooded and deep blue. It’s like he’s asking permission, but I’m not sure for what. And I’m not sure what I can give him permission to do.

I know what I want him to do. I want him to kiss me. But…I can’t.

I can absolve him of any doubt about what happened back in LA. “Archer, I can assure you that if I saw you at a party, I’d want to meet you. And now that I have, I’m very glad it was here in Napa and not in LA.”

His eyes drop closed for a moment, and I watch him suck air into his lungs. When he opens his eyes, he nods. “Let’s get some fresh air. We can taste the rest outside. I want to give you the whole wine-tasting experience.”

“Wow. A ‘wine-tasting experience,’” I say, mocking. “Sounds serious.”

He shakes his head and leans his forehead on his fingertips, blocking part of his face. But I can still see him clearly enough.

I love that I’ve just made Archer Corbett blush.

CHAPTER 16

Archer

The day couldn’t be nicerfor wine tasting, and the property is humming with activity. Ringed by a stand of oak trees, one group of visitors tours the kitchen gardens and learns about the farm-to-table philosophy of our restaurants. The tour will end at Butter and Rosemary, our Michelin-starred restaurant, where guests can either take a cooking class with one of the chefs or sit down for a four-course tasting menu of seasonal dishes paired with wines. It’s one of the “experiences” Beatrix has been working on, and she has a two-month waiting list to get a spot.

In the other direction, guides set out with groups of guests on tours through the wine caves, where our in-house sommeliers will give presentations on our varietals and sell limited quantities of our special edition wines. Every wine-tasting slot throughout the day is filled, and a handful of guests have shown up on the off chance someone cancels. If they can’t get in for a tasting, they’lltour the grounds and buy a bottle or two to have a picnic on their own.

“Wow, it’s bustling here,” Ella says as I walk her down a path lined with lavender and rosemary bushes next to the wine-tasting patio, where every table is filled. Our employees bustle through, setting out clean glasses and bringing the next in a procession of wines for tasting, starting with tender whites and ending with the bolder reds. Some of them eye me as I walk past.

“I think you make people nervous with the whole gruff and angry thing,” Ella observes.

“It’s not just me. They’re probably just nervous in front of a Corbett family member.”

“Really? Because I’ve walked through here with your sister, and no one scurries around in fear like they’re doing now.”

I look around us and see no scurrying. Everyone looks the way they always do when I’m around—serious about their jobs, as they should. Then again, I’ve never done anything to make them feel less nervous, so today I try to nod and smile.

“Now you just look constipated,” Ella says, her laugh ringing out like a bell across the patio. I notice I’m not the only one who heeds the call, as several guests look in our direction, and a few whisper to the people they’re with and try to gesture inconspicuously. A couple pull out their phones and snap quick shots. It’s then that I remember Ella Fieldstone is widely recognized, and I shouldn’t be parading her through the middle of the patio.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to attract unwanted attention for you,” I say, guiding her toward a separate patio off the back of the wine cave. As soon as we round the bend, the chatter of the crowd dies down, replaced by the chirp of birds and the quiet I crave.

“It’s fine. I’m used to it by now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. No glasses, remember?” She points to her unadorned eyes. I feel sad that she seems more resigned to this part of her fame than thrilled about it, and it makes me think back to thatnight at the party in LA with even more understanding about why she was surrounded by protectors. I doubt I’d even have approached her back then if I understood this aspect of her life better.

I walk us over to a smaller tasting room with a high counter and barstools on one side. I gesture for Ella to take a seat on one of them, and I go around to the other side of the bar to line up the varietals I want her to try.

“Tell me more,” I say, pulling a bottle of Pebble and Clay sauvignon blanc from the fridge and wiping down the condensation on the label. I had Ruby, Jax’s wife, give me the list of wines she recommended for the wedding. Ruby’s the best sommelier we have, and she talked my ear off last night about each of the wines. By the end of an hour, I had sixteen pages of notes and was in over my head, but I’m a determined son of a bitch, and I stayed up late studying everything Ruby told me.

“More of what?”

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