Page 62 of A Sip of Sherry
His gaze snapped to mine, and for the first time since I knew him, he looked ashamed.Broken.
“He’s my father.”The words came out like an exhale he’d been holding in for too long and they punched me deep in the gut.
My eyes blinked, once, twice and a third time as I tried to make sense of it all.“What?”
Pain etched into the lines around his eyes, and damn it, it tugged at something deep inside me, but I couldn’t let myself feel sorry for him, not when he was the one to betray me.
“Why?”It was the only word I could manage.
“You know about my private label.Everything I told you was true.The only part I left out was that my dad helped finance it.I agreed to pay him back with interest, and I was so fucking confident that I could.We came out the gate fast and hard.Sales were coming in, our name was getting out there, the future looked so fucking bright.Then it started to crumble.Little things at first… A distributor backed out without warning, a shipment got lost, one of our best accounts suddenly dropped us without an explanation.It didn’t make sense.I was so caught up in trying to fix it, to hold it together, I didn’t question it.
“When I had no choice but to shut down the label, I didn’t have a penny to my name.All the money my father gave me was gone.I used my trust fund to keep from asking him for more help, but by the time I realized it was a lost fucking cause, that was gone, too.Now I owe him.That’s what brought me to Vine Valley.”
“So you are a spy.”He looked tired and haunted and not like a man trying to deceive me, and yet, he had.My hand wrapped around the paper towels, and I flung them at his head.“How could you?”
He ducked, holding his hands in front of him as if that would stop the anger surging through my veins.He lied by omission, played a role while I broke my own rules and fell for his stupid smirk and infuriating charm.
“I swear to you, Sher, everything between us, everything I feel is real.I love you.”
“Oh fuck off!”I turned from him, unable to look at him right now.“You don’t get to do that.You don’t get to drop this fucking bomb on me then try to smooth it over with an I love you.”
He moved toward me, taking my hands and forcing me to face him.“I’m a fucking fool from keeping everything from you, but I swear I wanted to tell you.”
“Did you?Is that why you pushed me away?”The idea of him wanting to protect me started to clear in my mind.“Why you bolted after dinner?It started to become too real for you, and you realized you couldn’t thread me along like some puppet in your fucking scheme.”
His eyes closed, jaw clenched like he was holding back the weight of everything he hadn’t said.“Yes.”
I yanked my hand from his grasp and turned away, but he jumped in front of me.“But only because I realized then I cared about you too much.”
“And before that?”
“None of this is coming out right.”
“Then make it.”
“The night we went out to dinner, my father’s goons showed up at my place.I was ignoring my dad’s calls because I was done with his manipulative bullshit..They forced me to talk to him.He was getting impatient; I hadn’t given him anything to work with.And not just because your family runs a clean ship, but because I didn’t want to hurt any of you.
“I didn’t understand families like yours actually existed.The love, camaraderie, the respect, and support.It was a foreign concept to me.I lived my entire life trying to make my dad proud, but nothing I did was ever enough.It was one of the reasons I agreed to his stupid plan to get a job at your vineyard.”
“Was sleeping with me on Halloween part of that plan, too?”
“No.Never.That was a happy accident.”
“Oh, lovely.A happy accident.”My eyes rolled a little too hard, but I didn’t care.“Glad to know I was a detour on your road to sabotage.”
He stepped closer, desperation in his movements, heat radiating off him in waves.“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Do I?Because right now I feel like all I ever was to you was a means to an end.A way to get back into your father’s good graces and to pay off a debt.”
The skin around his jaw tightened.“Coming here was that, but you were anything but.From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew that whatever my father wanted from me was never going to happen.I would string him along, make him think I was helping him, but the entire time, I have been trying to find a way out of this mess.”
“How’s that going for you?”
“Not well.That night at dinner, I saw my dad’s right-hand man.I knew once he saw us together, my father would find a way to use you against me.I couldn’t let that happen.I wouldn’t.I thought maybe he didn’t see, but then I went to the bathroom, and he was there.After I dropped you off and went home, my father’s goons were waiting at my place with a phone to speak with my father.He knew about you, and every inch of my body became paralyzed with fear.If he knew you were my weakness, he would exploit it.I couldn’t do that to you.So yes, whether or not you want to believe me, I pulled away because I thought I was protecting you.”
I shook my head, every emotion crashing into me at once: hurt, anger, disappointment, betrayal.And underneath it all, I believed him.
“When you agreed to go out with me, it meant everything.I didn’t give a shit about my father.I thought I’d be able to hold him off and walk into the sunset with you.But no matter where I go or how far I try to get away from him, his presence lingers.I can never shake it.I was a fool to think that I could.But you made me think that it was possible to get out from under my father’s thumb.To leave who I was behind and be the man who you saw.I wanted to be that man.”
