Chapter 10
(Marcus POV)
The photo lit the room like a strike of lightning.
Aria. Standing in a wash of moonlight, nothing between her and the night but a glass of wine angled against her chest. Her back bare, curves caught in a glow of silver, hair tumbling down like a goddess I had no business touching.
I stopped breathing.
I told myself I wouldn’t respond. That silence was power. But my thumb had already typed it. One word. All I could manage. YES.
The moment I hit send, I knew I was ruined.
Because “yes” wasn’t enough. It wasn’t half of what burned through me, what I wanted to tell her, what I wanted to do if I were the kind of man who took what he wanted instead of practicing restraint.
I dropped the phone on the desk and stood, pacing the length of the office like a caged animal. Bourbon didn’t touch it. Work didn’t touch it. I opened the ledger three times and read the same line without understanding a word.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her at that window. Waiting. Wanting. Offering herself to me in a way that had nothing to do with games anymore.
The feeling lasted until dawn. I stared at numbers, my hands shaking with the effort it took not to drive back to her.
By the time the crew arrived, I had my mask back on. Cold. Professional. Untouchable.
I barked orders sharper than necessary, sent interns scrambling, corrected mistakes with clipped words and no softness. Every time Aria drifted near, I found somewhere else to be. Every time her laugh rose above the pad, my jaw locked.
Because if I looked at her too long, I’d give everything away.
At lunch, I caught her watching me from across the crush pad, lips curved in a secret smile, black phone just barely visible in her tote. She knew.
God help me, she knew exactly what she was doing to me.
And for the first time in years, I didn’t trust myself to last the season.
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(Aria POV)
“New phone?”
I froze. Dad’s voice came from over my shoulder as I was scrolling through the black screen Marcus had given me. My heart stopped dead.
I slammed it face down on the counter. “Uh, yeah. Just… new.”
Dad frowned, wiping grape dust off his hands. “Didn’t know you needed one. Thought your phone worked fine.”
“It does,” I said too quickly. My throat felt like sandpaper. “This one’s just, uh—more… accessible. For business.”
His eyes narrowed. “Business?”
Panic rose in my chest. “Marcus got it for me. Said it would… you know… make me more reachable for vineyard stuff.”
Dad’s brows shot up. “Marcus bought you a phone?”
Before I could backpedal, he was already striding toward the office.
My stomach bottomed out. “Dad, wait…” I chased after him, pulse slamming, every nerve on fire.
He pushed the door open without knocking. Marcus looked up from his desk, calm as ever, pen still in hand.
“Tom,” he said evenly.
“Did you buy my daughter a new phone?” Dad demanded.
Marcus leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable. “I did.”
My heart tried to crawl up my throat.
“Why?” Dad pressed.
Marcus didn’t blink. “Her old one isn’t cutting it. The new camera’s sharper. We’ll use her shots for marketing, website, socials. Photos sell wine as much as taste does.”
He said it smoothly, like he’d rehearsed it, but deliberate as a blade, he’d glanced at me when he said, photos. I forgot how to breathe.
Dad’s suspicion ebbed, the hard lines around his mouth softening. “Ah. Right. Well… makes sense. Thanks for thinking ahead.”
Marcus nodded once, cool and final. “Always.”
Dad clapped his shoulder, oblivious to the heat between me and Marcus, then turned and left, muttering something about invoices.
The second the door clicked shut, Marcus rose. He crossed the office in two strides, locked the door, and turned on me. “You nearly ruined both of us,” he said, voice low, lethal.
I backed against the wall, heat crawling over my skin. “I…I panicked.”
His hand slammed the wall beside my head. He leaned in close, dark eyes pinning me in place. “You think this is a game? Flashing that phone around? Making me cover for you?”
“I didn’t mean…”
“You meant exactly what you did,” he cut in. His voice dropped, rough silk. “You wanted to see what I’d say. You wanted to test me.”
My breath came fast, chest rising against his. “And?”
His mouth brushed my ear. “If you want me to take you here, right now, I could. But you’d scream too loud. And your father would hear.”
A shudder ripped through me. My legs barely held me up.
His hand caught my chin, tilting it up. For one unbearable second, his lips hovered just above mine, heat and promise crashing between us. Then he pulled back, sharp, controlled. “Don’t test me again, Aria.”
And just like that, he walked back to his desk, calm as stone, leaving me shaking against the wall, every nerve lit, every part of me screaming for the thing he’d just denied me.
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(Aria POV)
I lay on my back, sheets twisted low, the room quiet except for the thump of my heart. The black phone rested on my stomach like it was daring me. Less, he’d said. And tonight, after what happened in his office, I wasn’t going to stop at less.
I slid the phone up, angled it down the length of me. The frame caught my bare stomach, the curve of my hips, the line of my thighs. No face. Just body. Just me, raw and undeniable.
My hand between my legs, making it clear what I was doing to myself. It wasn’t a tease anymore. It was a confession.
I snapped the picture. Looked at it once, heat flushing through me. Then typed the words, pulse racing so hard I could barely see the letters:
Thinking of you.
For a long second, I stared at the screen. One tap and there’d be no going back. I tapped send. The message whooshed away, leaving me breathless, skin prickling with nerves and need. I dropped the phone beside me, staring at the ceiling, every muscle taut with anticipation.
A minute passed. Then another. Then the buzz. I grabbed the phone, my breath catching.
Marcus: MINE
That was it. One word, clipped and controlled. But it slammed into me harder than any paragraph could have.
Because “mine” wasn’t just approval. It was possession. He’d seen me. He liked what he saw.
I pressed the phone to my chest, eyes closing, body humming with the knowledge that Marcus Hale was out there, probably trying just as hard as I was not to lose control.
And tomorrow, I’d have to stand three feet from him like none of this had happened.