Bitter Rival (Sutton Ridge #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Daisy

I stumble off the plane, sleep-deprived and slightly nauseous. Thanks to Finn, I haven’t slept in three days. To make matters worse, the baby in the seat next to mine screamed for the entire six-hour flight, arms flailing, legs thrashing, until finally falling asleep the minute the plane touched down in San Francisco.

After a quick pitstop in the restroom, I zip up my hoodie to cover the coffee stain on my T-shirt and head to the baggage claim.

My phone buzzes and I keep an eye on the carousel while checking my missed messages.

Beckett

Did you manage to catch this flight? Or did you oversleep again?

Beckett

Where are you? I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes and while I’ve gleaned that punctuality and being a responsible adult is beyond your limited capabilities, my time is valuable.

I sigh and massage my temples, hoping it will ease the tension headache that’s building. Unsurprisingly, the headache only intensifies, and I can feel my left eye twitching. That’s what this guy does to me—gives me a big fat headache and makes my eye twitch.

I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and not judge him too harshly. But he’s on a mission to suck all the joy out of life, so he doesn’t make it easy.

I’m at the bagged clay

Ugh. Stupid autocorrect.

I’m waiting for my bag

Beckett

I highly doubt that. I’m at the baggage claim and I don’t see anyone resembling Astrid.

The only resemblance I bear to my mother is our blonde hair, but this is no time to quibble over DNA.

I scan the people waiting and don’t recognize a single person from my flight. That can’t be a good sign.

I’m about to text him back when a new message pops up.

Beckett

Unless you’ve changed your flight AGAIN you should be at baggage claim NINE.

I groan and smack my forehead. I’m at baggage claim six. When I’m tired, letters and numbers get more scrambled than usual, but at this point, I doubt he’ll believe any of my excuses or even care to listen.

To say we got off on the wrong foot in our text exchanges over the past few months is like calling the Grand Canyon a shallow ditch on the side of the road.

With a sigh, I head to the correct baggage claim and quicken my pace when I see my bag taking another lap around the conveyor belt.

There are only a few people left from my flight, so I spot him immediately. He’s the guy with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed. His gaze roams over my hoodie and baggy jeans and his lip curls like he’s smelled something bad.

In an ideal world, he would look like Quasimodo, all hunchbacked and disfigured with a grotesque exterior that hides a heart of gold.

In reality, Beckett Heyward is tall and muscley with dark hair and a sharp jawline. His white button-down is tailored to fit his broad shoulders and he’s wearing charcoal gray pants like he came straight from a meeting and left his suit jacket in the car.

He’s good looking in a GQ model, I played football for Stanford, kind of way, which is fine if you’re attracted to that type. I am certainly not. And I’d bet good money that his “beautiful” exterior hides a heart of stone.

I reach for my bag just as he does.

“I’ve got it.” I try to wrestle it out of his grip but he’s bigger and stronger and clearly trying to establish dominance, so he wins this tug of war by a landslide.

I release the bag with as much grace as I can muster and take a step back. I have to crane my neck to look up at him. I’m five foot six, which isn’t short, but he’s at least six foot four.

“Hey, I’m Daisy, but I guess you already know that. Otherwise, you’ll have to explain why you’re trying to steal my lingerie.” I cross my arms over my chest and quirk a brow like I’m expecting an explanation for this dastardly deed.

Ice-blue eyes narrow on me as if I’m an insect he’d like to squash under the sole of his size fourteen shoe. “You’ve wasted enough of my time,” he says brusquely. “Let’s go.”

Well, okay then. Nice to meet you, too .

Not that this is the first time we’ve met, but the last time I saw him I was only eight years old.

This whole situation is already awkward enough, but he’s gone out of his way to make everything even more difficult and unpleasant. I was hoping when we met again in person, he would be more charming than he was in his texts and emails but clearly that’s not going to be the case.

Instead of rolling my bag like a normal person would, he’s carrying it by the handle like it weighs nothing and charging ahead like a Viking on a mission to pillage and plunder every town and village in his path.

When we burst through the exit doors, I have to half-jog just to keep up with him. Which I’m sure is by design. It’s a power play.

He beeps the locks of a shiny black BMW, and I stash my backpack in the footwell before sliding into the passenger seat.

The inside of his car smells like leather and whatever soap he uses—clean and masculine, a scent I would find comforting if not for the devil himself behind the wheel.

It’s a picture-perfect summer’s day in San Francisco with a relentlessly optimistic sun shining on the city and the bay as Beckett expertly navigates the midday traffic with one strong, capable hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift.

He’s a smooth driver, not erratic like Finn, who jumps the lights and doesn’t understand the concept of staying in your own lane.

For the first time in a long time, I feel safe. It makes me wonder if maybe he cares about my safety enough to drive responsibly, although I suspect it’s purely for selfish reasons. A dent or scratch on his custom paint job would probably send him into a tailspin.

But just because we got off to a bad start doesn’t mean we can’t turn things around, so I take a stab at being civil. “Thanks for picking me up. I would have taken an Uber?—”

“Given your track record, I couldn’t take the risk that you’d show up on the designated day.” His voice is clipped, tone scathing just like the glance he throws my way.

I sigh as I take off my hoodie and roll it up to use as a pillow. I had to cancel one flight due to an emergency, but he’s making it sound as if I’ve been stringing him along for decades.

I’m glad he insisted on picking me up, though. A seventy-mile Uber trip would have cost me a small fortune and since I won’t be getting paid for any of this, I’ll have to watch my money.

“You look as if you’ve been sleeping under a bridge,” the bane of my existence drawls.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

He raises a skeptical brow. “I would have thought your mother’s special talent for seducing married men and shaking them down for money would have ensured you lived a cushy lifestyle.”

If only he knew how wrong he was. “I get my kicks by slumming it. One grows so tired of the lavish lifestyle.” I fake a yawn that turns into a real yawn and now I can’t stop yawning.

God. I’m so tired I feel seasick.

My eyes drift shut and I’m just about to nod off when he asks, “How did you get my father to leave you half of everything?”

I had no idea he would leave me half of his estate.

Not that Beckett and I actually own it yet. First, we have to meet the conditions of his father’s last will and testament—to live and work on the vineyard for three consecutive months. Together .

God help me. I don’t know how I’ll survive three days with someone this insufferable, let alone three months.

“I held a loaded gun to his head.” I blow the smoke off my finger gun and holster it in the waistband of my jeans. “Obviously.”

He lets out a weary sigh and pushes his hand through his dark hair. “Don’t expect to make a fortune off this vineyard.”

“You mean I won’t be able to buy that new yacht?” My hand goes to my heart. “Please tell me I can still buy the Birkin bag at least.”

He presses his lips into a flat line of disapproval like he’s the adult and I’m the unruly toddler who’s two seconds away from being sent to a time-out. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing that look a lot.

“I suppose it was too much to hope that you’d be nothing like your mother.”

I hear the disdain in his voice tinged with disappointment and maybe I should set him straight, but I don’t appreciate the way he jumped to his own conclusions and made assumptions about me long before I ever stepped off that plane.

He doesn’t deserve an explanation.

“How convenient that you have me all figured out. Saves us from having to go through that whole getting to know you phase.”

“I already know as much as I need to,” he retorts. “Congratulations on exceeding my low expectations.”

“Then I guess that makes us both overachievers,” I volley. “You’ve exceeded mine as well.”

With a snort of derision, he reaches into the side pocket and tosses a leather binder onto my lap.

From what I can gather as I flip through the pages, it’s a list of repairs and improvements that need to be made to the house and the winery.

For all I know he’s massively inflated the cost and invented half the stuff on this list.

There are rows and rows of numbers and calculations, but the gist of it is that he’ll pay for everything up-front and deduct it from my share after we sell.

“Someone had a little too much fun making spreadsheets.”

“ Someone has to be organized.”

“You could have at least color coordinated it and used some pretty tabs,” I say with a mock pout. “A few illustrations would have been a nice touch.”

“This isn’t nursery school. My office doesn’t come equipped with crayons and magic markers.”

“And you wonder why you’re not a successful businessman,” I scoff.

He doesn’t even deign to respond. Judging by the Patek Philippe on his wrist and his air of condescension and superiority, I suspect he’s wildly successful in the business world. Guys like him usually are.

When I met his father for lunch in New York last year, he told me his son is a CEO—something finance, or technology-related, dreadfully dull by the sounds of it.

“I know my son,” Robert said. “And what he’s doing now won’t make him happy in the long run.”

I’d questioned what gave him the authority to make that assumption when he hadn’t spoken to his son in years. Robert’s reply, “You owe me, Daisy.”

I should have kept my big mouth shut.

While I could argue that my mother owed him, not me, I’d become so accustomed to shouldering the blame that I acknowledged that, yeah, maybe I did owe him something.

But that was before he died, when I was still blissfully unaware that he would be using me as a pawn in his twisted game.

As I flip through pages with a detailed itinerary of jobs to be done around the vineyard and winery, I wish that I had told Robert Heyward to take a fucking hike.

Every week is accounted for, beginning with tomorrow right up until the third week of September. And there’s only one name at the top of the column. Mine.

“What will you be doing while I’m cleaning out tanks and tending to the vines?”

“Supervising. Obviously.”

“Oh gosh, this is not at all the holiday I had in mind.” I let out an exaggerated sigh. “I envisioned myself sunning on the terrace with a glass of wine while I watched you getting your hands dirty. In my fantasy you were shirtless and sweaty riding a tractor.” I lick my lips and bat my lashes, but my acting skills are lost on him.

He’s wearing a mask of indifference, and my comment is met with utter silence.

“We’re supposed to be in this together.” I slam the binder shut and toss it into the back seat. “This isn’t what your father wanted.”

“Then he should have thought about that before leaving half of his estate to a spoiled princess with a sense of entitlement,” he says. “You probably haven’t done a hard day’s work in your life. This will be good for you.”

He makes it sound as if he’s doing me a favor. “If you find me so objectionable, why did you agree to do this?” I challenge.

He glances over, and in the sunlight, his eyes are the same shade of blue as an alpine lake frozen over. Such a shame to waste those pretty eyes on someone like him.

But if I look closely, I can practically see the shards of ice floating in his irises.

He’s so cold .

“Why do you think I agreed to it? If I could have cut you out completely, trust me, you wouldn’t even be taking up space in my car.”

I guess I already knew that so I’m not sure why I asked. He’d dragged this out for months, trying but failing to get me cut out of the will.

If Beckett hadn’t agreed to meet the conditions, everything would have gone to me.

If I hadn’t agreed, everything would have been sold, and the money would have gone to…wait for it… a mausoleum and a rose garden for Robert Heyward. The least he could have done was choose a worthy charity but no, he had to be a bastard right up until the end.

What a cruel trick for a father to play.

But why did he have to involve me in any of this?

I can’t even blame Beckett for resenting me. He was his father’s only son. I would resent me too. But I’m not my mother and I’m not the one who seduced his father. I’m just the girl trying to make things right. And so far, I’m failing miserably.

“Are you in on this with your mother?” he demands. “Is she behind this?”

I laugh but not because I find it funny. I haven’t seen my mother in years. “You think I conned your dad into giving me half of the vineyard?”

He shrugs. “Like mother, like daughter.”

“If we’re going with that theory then I can only assume you’re exactly like your father.” Say what you will about my mother, but Robert Heyward was no saint either.

His jaw clenches and I can tell I hit a nerve. Beckett doesn’t want to be anything like his father whose favorite hobby was seducing women half his age.

He was even hitting on the waitress while we had lunch together. He was seventy-two at the time, and she couldn’t have been much older than me, which had prompted me to ask, “Who do you think you are? Mick Jagger?”

He’d leaned back in his chair with a smile and said, “Smart, funny, and beautiful. That’s a lethal combination.”

I guess he thought I was joking.

He told me that he was trying to make things right with his son, but judging by Beckett’s reaction, I don’t think he succeeded. Maybe, if he’d had more time, he would have. Or maybe Beckett isn’t the type to forgive so easily.

Either way, it was a huge error in judgment to throw me into the equation. All it achieved was to make a bad situation a thousand times worse.

“Just stay out of my way,” Beckett says. “And Daisy.” I raise my brows. “Whatever game you’re playing, I can guarantee that I’ll get to the bottom of it. When this is over, you won’t walk away with a dime.”

I flash him a bright smile that we both know is fake. “When this is over, you’ll probably be begging me to not walk away.”

He gives me a contemptuous look. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

Trust me, I’m not.