Chapter 5
Cole
MY CORRUPT ASS
I’m behind enemy lines.
Well, not really, but I might as well be. I’m at Ledger Winery, and if I’m being honest, being here is a touch uncomfortable.
I grew up with my dad’s voice in my ear, constantly griping about this place. Now it’s practically Pavlovian—one step past those massive double doors made from Ledger wine barrels and my stomach is already in knots.
But Ethan told me to meet him here. Part of me thinks he gets some sick joy out of making a Benton willingly enter Ledger territory. He’s an ass like that, but he’s also, weirdly, one of my closest friends. Not that I have many friends to begin with.
We had a bit of a rough patch when he moved back to town and I unintentionally hit on Marisa, the girl he had his sights set on. Nothing happened between us, but once I caught on, I might’ve messed with him a little.
He’s over it now. Mostly. I think.
And now they’re a couple, so clearly he won that round.
“You’re the last person I expected to see here.” Marisa laughs as she approaches me from down the hallway.
“Hey.” I smile and pull her in for a brief hug. “I thought for sure he’d tell you I was coming. You know how much he hates seeing us together.” I give her a playful wink as we break apart and she shakes her head at me.
“He said you two were meeting to strategize some golf thing, but he didn’t mention you’d be coming here.”
“Can’t leave you alone for two seconds, can I, baby?” Ethan says from behind me.
Marisa forgets I exist and rushes up to him like she hasn’t seen him in years. He hoists her off the floor for a kiss, but not before aiming a glare at me.
I avert my eyes, chuckling.
I’ve known Ethan my entire life, and I’ve seen him with girlfriends, but I’ve never seen him like this.
I’m still not used to it. But maybe if I had a woman who looked at me the way Marisa looks at Ethan, I might be the same way.
Very doubtful, though. I’d never entertain the idea of a relationship long enough for a woman to ever see me as something more than temporary.
I’m not relationship material. Kennedy said so herself.
“Hey, man,” Ethan says to me when he’s done devouring Marisa. “You weren’t just hugging my girlfriend, were you?”
Marisa rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, we hugged. Big deal.”
“Yeah, just a friendly hug.” I paint on a shit-eating grin.
“Whatever,” Ethan grumbles, putting a territorial arm around her.
I think by now he knows I have no romantic interest in Marisa, but I can’t help giving him shit. He makes it too easy.
Marisa spins out of his embrace. “I actually came to check the tasting room.” She coughs softly, cheeks flushing. “From the other night. I think I may have left something behind.” She gestures vaguely toward the hall. “So I’ll…handle that. You two have fun.”
Ethan smirks, watching her walk away.
Not sure what that was about, and I think I’d rather not know.
“We can head up to my office,” Ethan says once he tears his eyes off Marisa’s ass.
The upstairs closely resembles Benton’s, and I feel myself relax slightly.
A woman I recognize as Tawny smiles at me as I pass her on my way into Ethan’s office.
He shuts the door behind us and flops into a plush chair behind an ornate wooden desk as I claim the seat across from him.
“Okay, time to strategize.”
I groan. “Isn’t it a bit early for that? The tournament isn’t until the end of October.”
The Red Mountain Vintners Association decided to launch an annual charity golf tournament to celebrate the end of harvest. Since it’s the first year it’s officially happening, we figured we’d add a little friendly competition and team up against our dads, who also happen to be the association’s co-chairs.
The problem? Neither of us is a big golfer.
Ethan, being aggressively competitive, wants to start practicing immediately. I want to win too—but not enough to sacrifice all my free time chasing golf balls around the course. Meanwhile, our retired fathers have nothing but time on their hands to transform into scratch golfers.
This is, in all likelihood, going to end in embarrassment.
“We have to get in a few rounds at least,” Ethan says as he looks over a calendar.
Ethan and I are cut from similar cloth, heirs to the weight of our families’ legacies, but he’s relentlessly Type A and rigid as hell, while I prefer a more freehand approach.
“We should probably book tee times now,” he continues, tapping a pen against the desk. “Block them out before the tourists swipe them all up.”
I lean back in my chair, stretching my legs out in front of me. “Good call.”
He flips the calendar toward me. “Look. If we can get in two rounds these next two months, and at least one in September, we might have a shot.”
He launches into a breakdown of potential practice schedules, wind patterns on the back nine, and the unfortunate reality that neither of us has a short game worth bragging about. I half-listen, nodding at appropriate intervals, my gaze drifting around his office.
Through the wall of windows behind him, Red Mountain stretches out. It’s an incredible view, and I hate to admit I’m mildly jealous his is better than mine.
I stand, moving to get a better look.
Red Mountain looks especially red with the sun blazing overhead, the hills practically glowing beneath the light. But when my gaze drifts from the ridgeline down to the parking lot below, I spot a woman walking with her head bowed.
Even from this distance, I know it’s Ariana.
The blunt cut of her brown hair just below her chin is the first giveaway. But it’s the curves of her body that confirm it. Today she’s in the standard Ledger Winery uniform—a fitted polo, black slacks, the logo stamped over her chest—and for once, there’s no oversized cardigan swallowing her up.
For reasons beyond my comprehension, she tries to hide herself beneath loose layers, as if that could ever make her less noticeable. Still, I’ve caught enough glimpses—on the rare occasion she wears something that shows her shape—to have it burned into memory.
Full breasts, generous enough to make a man’s hands itch. Hips made for gripping. The sweep of her waist curving inward before flaring back out again. A body that begs to be worshipped paired with the face of an angel.
She’s way too young and innocent for my corrupt ass, but I’m just fucked up enough to subject myself to some sort of exposure therapy and keep ending up in her shop a little too often for a man who doesn’t even like coffee.
Except something’s off about the way she’s carrying herself right now. The usual bounce in her step, the upbeat sway of her hips, is nowhere to be seen. Instead, her shoulders are hunched, like she’s trying to fold in on herself.
She stops beside her car, resting against it. Even from up here, I see the hitch in her movements, the hand lifting to her face. She swipes under her eye quickly, glancing around the parking lot like she doesn’t want anyone catching her.
Is she crying?
A strange heat creeps up my spine.
“What the fuck is she crying about?” I mutter before remembering I’m not alone.
“What?” Ethan asks, turning in his chair. “Am I boring you so badly you had to look out at the parking lot for entertainment?”
Shit.
I step away from the window like I wasn’t just laser-focused on his little sister. “No, just stretching my legs.”
His eyes flick toward the windows, narrowing. The last thing I need is Ethan realizing I was staring at Ariana.
Especially when I would never go there. It’s fun to tease her, to rile her up, and yes, she’s easy to look at. Beautiful in an untouchable way. But I would never cross that line. Besides, I get the impression she’s a hearts-and-flowers, romance type—definitely not the fun, casual-sex type.
Such a shame, really.
Ethan and I make plans to golf next weekend, but my mind isn’t on it as I get the hell out of there. It’s already back on Ariana and wondering why she was crying.
Cristina Benton is a complicated woman. On the one hand, she’s fiercely loyal, incredibly devoted, and would do anything to protect her children. On the other hand, she has a very narrow-minded view on how we kids should live our lives.
Whether she’s trying to make up for the time she lost while she grieved or she would’ve been this way anyway, I’ve never been able to figure it out.
What I do know is that she came to this country from Mexico as a kid with her family, and they had almost nothing.
It took years of hard work and sacrifice to become the woman she is today.
Because of that, she has a work ethic I didn’t inherit, and a deeply held belief that a life without family isn’t a life at all.
Which is a beautiful sentiment, truly.
It just doesn’t leave much room for a son who has no interest in doing any of those things.
I find her in what’s technically Blake’s office, though you’d never know it with how little it gets used.
She’s dusting the desk anyway, rearranging things that were already in order.
I don’t need to ask if something’s wrong.
With my mom, cleaning is a tell—the more spotless the surface, the louder the thing she hasn’t said yet.
“I was wondering when you’d come find me.” She doesn’t look up from her task.
“Were you?” I lean against the doorframe. “Because it looks like you’re very busy doing absolutely nothing.”
She cuts me a look over her shoulder that would’ve sent seven-year-old me diving behind a couch. “Don’t be smart.”
“I can’t help it,” I say through a laugh.
The corner of her mouth twitches in spite of herself, which is the closest thing to a victory I’m going to get. She turns back to her task, adjusting a book that was already perfectly straight.
“I spoke with Carol this morning,” she says, in the same casual tone she uses when she’s about to say something that is anything but casual.
Carol is Whitney’s mother. I would imagine they’ve been talking a lot more lately.
“Great. How is she?”
“Happy.” She sighs, staring off into the distance. “So happy. Her daughter is getting married.”
I cross my arms. “To someone who isn’t me, just to be clear.”
“I know that.” She finally turns around, balling up the rag in her hands.
“I just think it’s nice. A wedding. A family starting.
Two people deciding they want to build a life together.
” She looks at me with those eyes, warm and brown and lethal in the way only a mother’s eyes can be. “Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”
“Hmm,” I muse.
“Cole.”
“Mom.”
She releases a long breath, which is her version of counting to ten. Then she crosses the room and takes my face in both hands the way she used to when I was small, tilting it down to hers. She smells like the same perfume she’s worn my entire life and I feel like a little kid again.
“You are my oldest,” she says. “And I love you more than you will ever understand.”
“I know you do.”
“But I am going to need you to bring a girlfriend to this wedding.”
I step back, freeing myself from her grip. “Mom—”
“Hear me out.” She holds up a finger. “Whitney is getting married here. Carol and I are both going to be crying all day, because that is what we do at weddings—we cry. And everyone is going to be looking at you to see how you’re doing.
And I cannot spend my entire day reassuring people that my son is fine—”
“I am fine. I’m happy Whitney is getting married.”
“—when he shows up alone to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding at his own winery.” She says it all in a rush, like she’d been holding onto the words for a while.
“I don’t need a girlfriend to prove I’m fine. I am, in fact, completely fine.”
“You are also completely single.” She raises both brows. “Same as you always are. Like you were last Christmas. And our anniversary party. And Easter. And before that—”
“I see where this is going.”
“I just don’t understand.” She throws her hands up and moves to the other side of the room, which I’ve learned means she’s gearing up for the full speech.
“You are handsome. Successful. You have your dad’s blue eyes and my beautiful skin tone.
You’re funny and handsome and rich. Any woman would be lucky—”
“I date plenty of women, Mom.”
She makes a sound that is not quite a scoff and not quite a laugh but somewhere deeply unimpressed in between. “Those are not women. Those are revolving doors.”
I open my mouth and promptly close it. She’s not entirely wrong, but I’m not about to confirm that.
“All I’m asking,” she continues, her voice dropping back into something gentler, “is that you give someone a real chance. That’s it.
Not a ring. Not a baby. Just—” she presses her fingers together like she’s pinching the word out of the air—”a chance.
Show up to Whitney’s wedding with a woman on your arm, and I will not say another word about it. ”
“This sounds like a trick.”
“Take the deal, Cole.”
She looks at me with the very calm, very patient certainty of a woman who has never once in her life not gotten her way.
I drag a hand down my face. “And if I show up with someone who seems like she’s a girlfriend, you’ll leave it alone? And you won’t interrogate the poor girl?”
“It’s called making conversation.”
“Not the way you do it.”
She waves a hand. “That’s just how I talk.”
“Why can’t you just let me be?”
“Maybe I would if you gave me some grandchildren to spoil.” She says it lightly, but her eyes carry something softer underneath it—something I recognize as the quiet grief of a woman who just wants her family whole. “I’m not asking for much. Just this one thing.”
I look at her for a long moment, guilt permeating my stubbornness. “Fine,” I relent.
Her face breaks into a smile so swift and satisfied it’s almost suspicious. Like she knew I’d say it before I did.
“Don’t look so smug about it.”
“I’m not smug. I’m just happy.”
“You’re both,” I mutter, already heading for the door.
“Cole.”
I stop, hand on the doorframe.
“And remember—not just some random girl. I won’t have the family pictures we take with the bride and groom tainted by someone you’re not serious with. If you don’t meet someone soon, I’ll be forced to take matters into my own hands.”
I don’t doubt it for a second. Once she sets her mind to something, there’s no telling what lengths she’ll go to make it happen. And the last thing I want is to be subjected to countless setups and more of her meddling.
I’ll find someone myself. I have to.