Page 52 of Give Me a Reason

The four of them dissolved into giddy giggles, but Anne grew quiet because Frederick walked into the living room. She sat facing away from the entrance, but she didn’t need to see him to know. Shefelthis presence even with her back turned to him. Whenever he was near, the hair on the nape of her neck stood as though a cool breeze had skated across it, and her skin prickled with taut awareness.So much for closure.

If moving on was impossible, maybe she should just throw herself at his feet and beg him to take her back. She covered her humorless laugh with a cough. Even copious amounts of wine wouldn’t give her the courage to do something like that.

More importantly, she didn’t want to burden Frederick with her one-sided longing, especially if Bethany had feelings for him. The mere possibility speared jealousy through Anne, and her nails dug into her palms. Was she torturing herself for no reason? Should she smother the last of her hope once and for all? Was that even possible?

“Captain.” Joe called Frederick over to the picture window, where he, Pete, and Katie stood. “Where’s the brat?”

“I’mtwenty-four. When are you going to stop calling me that?” Aiden sauntered into the living room and headed to his brother’s side.

“Maybe when you’re eighty-four,” Joe goaded. “Or when you stop acting like a brat. Whichever happens first.”

Anne held herself still for as long as she could, but every cell in her body was already listing toward Frederick. She glanced behind her, giving in to the temptation to look at him. But the moment she found him across the room, his eyes unerringly locked with hers.

Her heart stopped for a moment as she wondered… could he feel her, too?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Frederick couldn’t figure out how it happened, but he sat in the stretch limo for their wine tour sandwiched between Bethany and Tessa at the bottom of the U-shaped seats. He should have no complaints sitting with two beautiful women on either side of him, but his thighs burned from being pressed tightly together to avoid any accidental contact. But neither of them seemed to notice his tense silence as they spoke excitedly right around him. He leaned back in his seat to make it easier for them to see each other.

He gulped down the sparkling wine someone handed him, wishing he’d sat up front with the driver behind the dark glass partition. If this ride went on any longer, he might give himself an aneurysm from the strain of keeping his eyes off Anne. She sat to his left at the top of the U, with Katie and Aiden down the length of the leather bench.

Frederick gave up and glanced at Anne just as Katie whispered something in her ear, making her nearly spit out her wine. She clapped her hand over her mouth and barely managed to swallow. Then her eyes crinkled and her nose scrunched as she let out a full belly laugh. She looked and sounded incandescent, and his heart thudded in his chest, much faster than it should for a wine-tasting tour.

He promised himself he’d only steal a quick glance—it wouldbe mortifying to be caught watching heragain—but he kept staring at her like he waswillingher to look back at him. He couldn’t deny that he enjoyed catching the moment she saw him—her eyes widening and lips parting as she stilled on a sharp intake of breath. He enjoyed it even more when her breath whooshed past her lips and a slow blush stained her cheeks.

Frederick prided himself on being more self-aware than most, and he was fully aware that he was in trouble. Anne didn’t leave him because he wasn’t good enough for her. She’d left him to take care of her family. She’d left him, thinking she was protecting him. And he was dangerously close to forgiving her.

But she waswrong. She’d broken his heart. She’d brokenhim. He couldn’t forget that. He could understand her, but he couldn’t forgive her. Only a fool would risk his heart again.

Despite the wise counsel of his logic, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for the last two months. As the days passed, her heartfelt words had sunk deep inside him, knitting his rent soul back together strand by strand.

Maybe forgiving her didn’t have to mean opening himself up to her. Relinquishing his anger might mean letting go of her at last.Letting go of her?Had a part of him held on to her all these years?No.He meant he would finally be able to let go oftheir past.

But when her eyes met his across the limo, he gaped at her—mesmerized by her lips, her eyes, her breath, and her blush. The noise in the car became muted like he was underwater, and every person in the car, everyone other than Anne, blurred into shapeless blobs. He couldn’t turn his head away from her—in fact, he had angled himself to face her with his entire body—so he forced his eyeballs to dart to the opposite end of the U before drool dribbled down his chin.

He was inbigtrouble.

Pete raised his brows, and Frederick blinked slowly, hoping to communicate that he was in big fucking trouble. If he didn’tget away from Anne now, he was going to make a grab for her and kiss those damn perfect lips. The thought jarred him with its intensity, with its desperation, but it didn’t surprise him. He still wanted her. He’d wanted her from the moment he saw her across the classroom. It didn’t matter, though. He could not go down that road again.

Unfortunately, his SOS blink didn’t work. Pete just shook his head and turned to listen to Katie’s conversation with Anne, sitting across from him. Frederick would have roared with frustration if he could draw a full breath.

A massive headache was developing behind his eyes, which werestillswiveled toward a corner of the limo, because his headstillrefused to turn away from Anne. Mercy arrived in the form of Tombstone Winery as the limo pulled up in front of their first stop.

The winery had a tasting room in a stand-alone building resembling a quaint English cottage with a man-made pond out front. And to the left of the cottage, a vast vineyard stretched all the way to the green hills in the distance. Forgetting all his manners, Frederick practically scrambled over his seatmates and escaped into the open air—open air and space to keep a wide berth from Anne.

“You guys go ahead,” Pete said gallantly to Anne and Katie with a pointed look at Frederick.

He didn’t care if his best friend judged him. He’d needed to get away from Anne, and that was what he did. It was a matter of self-preservation. And yet, when her head peeked out the door, he offered his hand to help her out of the limo, and he couldn’t resist holding on to her soft, delicate hand for one second, or five, too long.

Sanity belatedly reared its head, and he dropped her hand and spun away from her. Then he aggressively stomped inside the cottage to put even more space between them. But he nearlyturned right around and stepped back outside, because he was confused as hell. Not only could he still feel the warmth of Anne’s hand in his own, but he somehow found himself inside a gothic fun house, filled with caskets and fancifully posed skeletons, rather than the charming cottage he’d stepped into.

“Keep it moving, Romeo,” Katie whispered with a gentle shove to his back. “You’re backing up the line.”

With Katie’s guidance—or manhandling—he managed to move robotically to a long wooden bar to the side of the morbidly decorated tasting room. He gathered that Anne had reserved the side bar for the nine of them to sit together. The large, rectangular bar in the center of the tasting room—coffin black to match the rest of the décor—was open to all the other guests of the winery.

Reserving a semiprivate tasting was considerate, yet bougie. Frederick pursed his lips in thought, then shrugged, grabbing a stool at the far end of the bar. He liked it. Annewasboth considerate and bougie. He saw nothing wrong with that. She was also smart, beautiful, kind, talented, and…

Oh, man.He was inhugetrouble. While he brooded, the rest of the wedding party grabbed their seats down the bar. He continued brooding until a man in a dandelion-yellow polo shirt approached him from inside the bar and offered him a big, friendly smile.

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