Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Beckett
Daisy looks like a summer dream in her pale blue dress. As she climbs the hill, I can’t look away. My chest feels tight, and I have tunnel vision. All I can see is her.
Which is pretty damn inconvenient, all things considered.
Why did she have to be Astrid’s daughter?
Why did she have to be sent here by my father?
I consider myself a man of reason. Cool, calculated, and level-headed, I rarely allow my emotions to interfere with my end goal. But over the past few months that’s all been shot to hell and now I’m hard-pressed to remember the last time I acted rationally.
When Daisy reaches the top of the hill, she lowers herself to the ground and sits next to me. No fucks given that she’s going to ruin her pretty dress.
“So what happened back there?” she asks after a few moments of silence.
“I decided you were right. Michael Castellano doesn’t deserve this place.”
I’d rather sell to a buyer with absolutely no connection to the Heywards than to the man responsible for sending Astrid to our front door.
And now that I know Michael has buried the hatchet with my father, he’s not even my father’s enemy anymore. He’s mine .
“Because he hired my mother,” she says, getting right to the point.
“And because today reconfirmed what I already knew. The Heyward men are grade A assholes. Every single last one of us.” I give her my most vicious grin. “But I took immense joy in dangling the carrot in front of Michael’s nose only to yank it away.”
She laughs softly and bumps her shoulder against mine. “You’re terrible.”
“I know.” I rest my forearms on my bent knees and give her the side-eye. “But you like me anyway.”
“Says you,” she sasses.
After a beat, she says, “You’re not an asshole.” I give her a look. “Not all the time. Most of the time you’re not an asshole at all.”
“Such a pretty liar.” I’m a bigger asshole than she even knows.
But I’m going to stick to the plan. Now that I’ve successfully drained Astrid’s account, I’ll be flying to London to confront her after this is all over.
I want justice for my mother, and I won’t fucking stop until I get it.
“I didn’t want to leave here,” Daisy says. “I wanted to stay. It felt like the only real home I’d ever had—” She inhales sharply and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. This was your home. Never mine.”
My gaze sweeps over the verdant hills of the vineyard and the terracotta roofs of the house and the winery.
From this vantage point, it’s all spread out below us like a patchwork quilt. Pretty as a postcard. California gold. The battle ground for feuding fathers and sons for as far back as I can remember. And the place Daisy called home for six or seven years.
Now that I’ve heard her Finn story and the way she was forced to live, I have a better understanding of why this place was so special to her.
This vineyard represents a safe haven. The last vestiges of her childhood innocence. And I guess that’s what it used to be for me too before everything went to shit.
“It was yours too,” I say finally. “You were just a kid, Daisy. Nothing that happened was your fault.” It’s true, and although I’ve known it for a while, it's the first time I’ve admitted it aloud.
She lets out a shaky breath and nods, giving me a grateful smile before averting her gaze and staring into the distance.
“Your dad was good to me. But not always,” she admits. “He was moody. Temperamental. One day he’d treat you like you were the best thing since sliced bread. The next day he’d just ice you out. He ran hot and cold, you know?”
Like me.
“But when he gave me his full attention, it made me feel really special. And I think that spending time with him, philosophizing about life and discussing movies and books and art… really shaped me as a young girl growing up. He always encouraged my art, and if not for him, I might not have found my passion. He figured out that I was dyslexic and got me the help I needed so I could have a lifelong love affair with books. He was wonderful in so many ways, but he wasn’t a saint, and he wasn’t a monster either. He was flawed and so very, very human.”
I look over. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I’m just sharing my experience.” She bites her lip and squints into the distance. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought…and I’ve come up with so many theories as to why he brought us together. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. This vineyard was his apology. His love letter. He hurt you. But he also loved you.”
She pauses, deliberating over her words. “Love is so complex, and he was a complex man and he just…sabotaged the good things in his life, I guess. And I think he regretted that but didn’t know how to fix it. In the same way Michael regrets that their feud went on for so long. Maybe your father doesn’t want us to make the same mistakes he did.”
“You’re giving him far too much credit. My father wasn’t that deep.”
“I guess I’m always looking for a reason for everything and sometimes there isn’t one and that’s so frustrating. I hate that two brothers spent a lifetime hating each other and trying to sabotage each other.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “God. What is wrong with people?” She looks so distraught that you would think she’d never seen the bad side of humanity. The greed. The vengeance. The horrible things people do to get what they want.
Humans are, by nature, selfish. At least, I am. My father too. And Astrid…she was the most selfish one of all.
Daisy was raised by that woman and was left to fend for herself. She’s lived in LA and Manhattan, and I’m sure she’s seen it all.
But she still can’t believe that people are capable of behaving badly. It’s not because she’s na?ve or because she turns a blind eye. It’s because Daisy is inherently good. And when the people around her don’t behave accordingly, she gets disappointed.
“You’re better than this, Beckett. I know you are.”
She expects better of everyone. She expects better of me. I’m not sure why she would though when I’ve never given her any reason to.
“You know, princess…I had a plan for my life that didn’t include this vineyard or you. But then you showed up. Like a fucking wrecking ball. You didn’t respect my privacy. You didn’t respect my boundaries. You knocked down walls and erected your little dreams and schemes and turned everything on its head. You act like you care and even worse, you made me care about you. You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
“What fun would that have been?” Her smile is playful, but it falls from her lips and she sobers. “I’m trying to save you from yourself.”
And then who’s going to save you? “Save your energy for better things.”
“Like what?” she asks with a flirtatious smile.
“I still need to fuck you out of my system.” I lift her into my lap, and she adjusts her position so she’s straddling me.
She wraps her arms around my neck and peers at my face. “Do you really think that’s how it works?”
I look into her mood ring eyes and inwardly groan.
I already know that it’s not going to work, but I’m still hanging on to a thread of hope that it will. “It’s worth a try.”
“In that case, I’m game if you are.” She pulls up the skirt of her dress while I undo my buckle.
“Don’t let me fall,” she whispers, taking my face in her hands and kissing my lips.
I don’t know if she’s talking about falling down the hill or something else but I wrap my arm around her like a steel vise to keep her from falling and kiss the side of her neck. “I’ve got you,” I say, unbuttoning my jeans with my other hand and freeing my cock.
“I wish I didn’t want you,” she murmurs, rocking against me, her hands gripping my shoulders and her lips pressed against mine.
“Same, princess. Same.”
I push her panties aside and in one powerful thrust, I’m buried to the hilt inside her sweet, tight pussy.
She rides me slowly, taunting, teasing. Hazel eyes bright.
Her lips part when I thrust, trying to get deeper, and she rolls her hips, meeting me halfway. The blood roars through my veins.
I’m convinced that if there is a heaven, this is it. Nothing, and I mean nothing , has ever felt this fucking fantastic.
“I never thought it would be like this,” I rasp.
I thrust harder and faster, and she grinds on my dick, her breasts bouncing and her head thrown back, exposing the column of her neck.
“You didn’t think it would be like what?” she pants.
In one fluid motion, I flip her onto her back and pin her beneath me and then I pound into her.
“You.” Thrust. “This.” Thrust. “Us.” Thrust. “Everything. I can’t get you out of my head. I want you all the fucking time. You even invade my dreams.”
My balls tighten and the pleasure is so intense I’m temporarily blinded.
“I hope they’re sweet dreams—oh my god! I’m coming.” She clenches around me, squeezing me so tight, we barrel into shared orgasms that seem to go on and on.
I collapse on top of her, my cock pulsing inside her, and it takes me a moment to catch my breath.
“The sweetest.” I place a kiss on the side of the sensitive spot just below her ear and pull out. “Almost as sweet as your pussy.”
“There you go again with all that sweet talk.”
I laugh and offer her a hand to help her up.
We sit side by side on the hill and while I button up my jeans, she smooths down the skirt of her dress without a single complaint about the way I shoved her into the dirt and fucked her raw.
Fucked her raw .
“Fuck.” I run my hand down my face. “I forgot to use a condom.” I have never gone bare. With anyone. And in all my years of having sex, I have never once forgotten to use a condom.
“It’s okay,” she assures me. “We’re good. I have an IUD.”
I release a breath of relief. Thank fuck for that. An accidental pregnancy is not on my agenda.
“And I’m clean,” she adds.
“Yeah, I’m clean too. But I’ve never done that before.”
She flashes me a bright smile. “Finally, I get one of your firsts.”
Don’t ask me why, but we flop onto our backs and lie side by side on the sunbaked soil, staring at the sky from the same spot where my father died.
If that’s not fucked up, I’m not sure what is. Besides us, of course. And this whole fucking mess we’re in.
“You’ve ruined my dress.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you a hundred dresses.”
She links her pinkie with mine and we continue staring at the sky.
“What’s the opposite of revenge?” she asks a few minutes later.
“Forgiveness. Absolution. Mercy.” None of which I believe in.
I never forget and I rarely forgive.
“And the opposite of hate?” she prompts.
“Are we playing the antonyms game?” She rolls onto her side and props her head on her hand. Dirt clings to her dress and hair and there’s even some dirt smeared across her cheekbone. She’s such a beautiful mess. So fucking lovely and good that I don’t know what to do with myself. “What’s the opposite of hate, Daisy?”
The answer: Daisy is the opposite of hate.
“Unconditional love and respect.” She traces a finger over my eyebrow. Down the bridge of my nose. Over my lips. “If you don’t get it from others, you have to give it to yourself. We all do. In fact, it’s compulsory. It’s the only way to battle your demons. The only way to find peace.”
“Is that what the girl in the mirror taught you?”
She smiles. “Yes, it’s what I learned from the girl in the mirror. Revenge is a waste of energy. It won’t give you the satisfaction you think it will. It will only leave you feeling hollow and empty. If something isn’t serving you, let it go.”
She’s said it often enough that I guess she’s hoping the words will sink in and I’ll start to believe them. But I am, after all, a Heyward, so it’s going to take more than a few words to convince me.
I’ve devoted the better part of my thirty years to the pursuit of vengeance. I’ve been plotting and scheming for half a lifetime and I don’t regret a single minute of it.
After I made my first million, I went after the assholes who bullied me as a teen. Was I supposed to just let that go? Let them walk away free and clear? Fuck that.
I patiently waited until they had something to lose. Namely, wives and significant others. And then I made sure those women knew exactly what kind of men they were with.
If you ask me, I did those women a favor.
But I doubt that Daisy would see it that way. She doesn’t have a vengeful bone in her body. She’s not bitter or jaded. She is everything I’m not.
Once I take care of Astrid, I’ll be done.