Page 8 of Backroom Boy
I didn’t know what game she was playing, but I wanted no part of it. I shoved the earrings back in her hand and stepped back.
“Hell no,” I spat.
She stared at me for a single beat and then gifted me with a brilliant smile, closing her fist around the diamonds. “Good for you, Lukas. Once you take the money, they own you.”
Delta winked at me and walked off toward the house.
I watched her go, my jaw dropped open and my eyes eating up the way I could see the curve of her ass below her shorts. Own me? What the hell had that been about? And why did I get the sense there was a hell of a lot more to Delta Bishop than the rich-sorority-girl persona I’d painted her with?
4
Delta
“Want to go for a run and then I’ll show you the project I’ve been working on?” I put on the turn signal and slowed for the turn into my driveway.
It was Friday night and the end of our first week of working together in the back room of the winery. Ever since that one moment in the vineyards when I swore Lukas had been about to kiss me—and I would have let him—we’d been friends. Platonic friends who got along surprisingly well.
Without my college friends to hang with, Lukas had become my buddy. He’d gone for a run with me two days ago and I’d quizzed him the whole time about the steps in the fermentation process. Who knew all the geeky knowledge I’d acquired over my lifetime as the winery owner’s daughter would come in handy with a hot guy?
“Yeah, that sounds good.” Lukas shifted in the white leather passenger seat of my Range Rover, looking uncomfortable.
“What? Are my seats not right? Because I paid damn good money for cushy seats.”
Lukas smirked and finally relaxed. I’d learned that about him. Get him to laugh and he instantly stopped brooding in that head of his. The guy put my resting bitch face to shame.
“Meet you out back in five?” I put the car in park in front of our five-car detached garage and hopped out.
Lukas nodded and walked down the path to the pool house. His broad shoulders barely fit in that T-shirt. Someone needed to clue him in to the fact that he needed the next size up, but it wouldn’t be me. I quite liked seeing that cotton stretched across his impressive muscles. The sight did something to my insides, making me both mushy as a middle schooler with her first crush and hot as a five-alarm fire at the same time.
Once he disappeared from view, I hustled inside the house and up the wide stairs to my room, already flipping through my workout outfits in my head. I’d worn my skimpiest clothes that first day when I went for my run. I saw Lukas out the window in the back, his muscles pulling and bunching while he did pull-ups from the damn tree. Found out there was nothing hotter than a man who used what was around him to get a good workout instead of flashing his membership at a posh gym and chalking his hands to grip a metal bar. I’d wanted to push him. To see if he’d notice me in the way a woman wants to be noticed. That almost-kiss told me he did.
But that wasn’t what we were. We were coworkers and reluctant friends. I wouldn’t see him again after this summer, and having a fling with the renter on our property wasn’t something I wanted to do when I thought things through. I mean, I loved pushing Daddy’s buttons any way I could, but I had bigger battles to wage this summer. Namely, getting out from under Daddy’s thumb and doing what I wanted with my career and not what he expected of me based on my last name.
So I put back the tiny shorts and put on a normal pair, made for comfort while running. An old sorority T-shirt, my running shoes, and I was ready. By the time I made it out back, Lukas was already down by the cedar tree stretching. Despite my resolve that we remain friends, he looked freaking hot in his athletic shorts. His legs had muscles and I just knew he’d look like that David sculpture when naked.
“All set?” he asked, tilting his neck right and left.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. We started running and I kept glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. I could eye-fuck him all day, but that was all I’d let myself do. Nothing wrong with a little summer eye candy to keep things fun.
“So, you going to tell me about your project?” he asked after we’d run about a half mile.
He wasn’t even out of breath, while I, on the other hand, was struggling to keep from gasping and panting in his presence. Ugh. Nothing sexy about being out of shape.
“Yeah, maybe when we get back to the house?”
He nodded and kept running. A little while later, over the sound of our tennis shoes plodding over the rocky dirt path, he tried again.
“I really hope your dad didn’t take offense when I made that recommendation after only two days of working at the winery.”
I frowned. “No, I’m sure he—”
“It’s just that I really think it could help increase sales of bottles of wine,” he interjected, obviously worked up about the whole thing. “If the tasting fee is twenty dollars and our lowest-priced bottle is thirty dollars, it just makes sense to offer a free tasting with the purchase of a bottle of wine. Almost no one is going to turn down that offer. I think we could really skyrocket sales in the tasting room. We spend all this money to get them in the door. We should make sure they buy wine once they’re there.”
We’d reached the end of the first vineyard, approximately one mile away from my house. My lungs were screaming at me. Lukas ran way faster than I normally did. My pace was basically a fast walk disguised as a jog. I was more of an exerciser because it seemed like the right thing to do, not a goal-oriented avid runner who racked up the mileage.
“Mind if we turn around?” I gasped out.
Lukas’s head snapped my direction and he seemed to notice for the first time that I was struggling. If I could have masked my heavy breathing, I would have, but survival trumped looking cute.
