Page 65 of A Sip of Sherry

“Oh, and third.Heard you and Sherry had a sleepover last night, and I need to know if I should be planning on buying a wedding gift, or is it just a friends-with-benefits type situation?It can go either way with you two.”

I blinked.“How do you know I slept over Sherry’s?”

“Steve drove by Sherry’s late last night and saw your truck there.I drove by this morning, and it was still there.Seeing as you’re just getting back, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, I think it’s safe to say where you were.”

Even if Vine Valley Vineyards had some sort of shady business practices, they’d never get away with it with neighbors like this.

“Is there a neighborhood watch on my whereabouts I should know about?”

“Just small-town nosiness wrapped in good intentions.Got to get our kicks somehow.Now, do you prefer Shen or Bennyberry.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I’m not sold on either of them.I’ll keep working on it.”

“You do that, but I really have to go.”I managed to get around her and picked up my pace before she cut me off again.

“See you next Saturday.”

“I never said yes!”I called back.

“But you didn’t say no.”

Vine Valley was one thing, but Robin’s Landing should have come with a warning label.Welcome to Robin’s Landing, where your secrets aren’t safe, your neighbors know your business, and group activities are a requirement.

If I didn’t go next Saturday, I’d never hear the end of it, but that was the least of my worries.I had bigger fish to fry.I fumbled with my keys, then pushed my door open, grateful I was alone.I guess my father was okay with giving me more time.Except I wasn’t using that time to help him get intel.I was using it to take him down.

I hurried to my laptop and powered it up.Something had clicked in my head when I was confessing everything to Sherry.

The sudden and rapid failure of my label never made sense.I was too blinded to look at things clearly, to try and get a better understanding of what the hell happened.

I opened the folder labeledRedmark Reserve, clicked into the Fourth Quarter folder, and went through the invoices and shipping logs.I opened the business email and started going back and forth.My stomach churned the more I read and compared.

My eyes scanned over a record of a delivery reroute.It was approved by someone using an admin login that wasn’t mine.What the…?Realization dawned on me, and my fingers curved into my palms.The login belonged to one of my father’s long-time assistants, someone I’d foolishly had given access to when we were expanding too fast and needed help.

That backstabbing bitch.

Another email stood out—a cancellation from our second-largest account.It had sounded cordial at the time.Professional.Something about rebranding and narrowing their focus, but the sender’s name poked at my memory.How the hell did I know it?

I searched again.Buried in an older thread, I found it—the link to a restaurant/vineyard recently acquired by my father.

Anger raced through me, a fury so potent I wanted to scream.

Then came the shipping logs.More rerouted deliveries.Sudden hold-ups from warehouses.Missing crates that were never located.All of it pointed to decisions made above my head, through people I had trusted… peoplehehad hired.

He’d been pulling strings the whole fucking time.

I thought I’d failed because I wasn’t good enough.

But I only failed because the bastard didn’t want me to succeed.

He didn’t just fund me.He buried me.

And I let him.If I had paid closer attention.If I had trusted myself and my abilities, I would have looked sooner.

I was pulling myself together, and when I did, I was going to kick him into the dirt where he belonged.

Chapter 22

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