Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Emma
T he first thing I notice is my throbbing head. A pounding, dull pulse behind my eyes that threatens to split my head in two. The second thing I notice is the unfamiliar scent in the room—clean linen mixed with something distinctly masculine. Not my bed. Not my sheets.
Panic sets in as I peel open my eyes, squinting against the early morning light streaming through the curtains. I glance around, heart racing, and everything floods back in bits and pieces. Jumpin’ Jacks. Whiskey. The stranger at the bar. A hotel room. The amazing sex.
Shit.
I blink, sitting up slowly, careful not to disturb the other side of the bed where the man I spent the night with is still fast asleep. His large, muscled arm is draped lazily over his head, his face and square jaw relaxed and peaceful. My stomach twists with a mix of shame and regret. We never exchanged names, and I’m thankful for that. I barely know a thing about him, yet here I am, tangled up in his sheets like a terrible one-night stand cliché.
I have a vague memory of balloon animals.
That can’t be right.
I slide out of bed as quietly as possible, grabbing my clothes off the floor from where they’re scattered around the room. Each movement sends a new wave of nausea through me, and my head swims from the remnants of last night’s whiskey. Wine I can handle; whiskey apparently is my kryptonite. I tiptoe toward the bathroom to get dressed, wincing with every creak of the floorboards and praying he doesn’t wake up. I can't deal with any awkward morning-after conversations right now.
Once dressed, I peek back into the bedroom and see my mystery man hasn’t stirred. Thank god.
I grab my phone from the nightstand and slip out of the hotel room, making my way down the hall, through the lobby, and out into the bright morning sun. The heat of the humid Florida air hits me like a slap, and I blink against the brightness of the sun as I hurry toward my car. I need my sunglasses.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, I take a deep breath, trying to calm the anxiety clawing at my chest. What the hell did I do? I’m not ashamed of what I did last night, but I am embarrassed that I drank so much. Humiliation surges through me. I cannot drink like that anymore… I’m not in college.
Before I can dwell on it too much, my phone vibrates. Brennen’s name flashes across the screen, and the knot of guilt in my stomach tightens. I know he’s probably been trying to reach me since he woke up and I’ve been… unavailable.
I answer, bracing myself. “Hey, Brennen.”
“Emma, where the hell have you been?” he barks, sounding more frantic than usual. I wince and hold the phone away from my ear. “I’ve been calling you for the past hour!”
Yep. I was right. Frantic.
“I… overslept,” I lie, rubbing my temple to ease the headache. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on!” His voice rises with panic. “The world’s most respected wine critic is in town, and I just found out that he’s planning to visit the winery… TODAY! He’s going to taste our wine today, Emma, and I’m not ready. The wine’s not ready!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, my brain scrambling to catch up with the onslaught of information. “Wait—what? The critic is here? And he’s coming today?”
“Yes, today!” Brennen’s voice is nearly hysterical now. “I didn’t get any warning, no heads-up, nothing! I don’t even have time to make any adjustments or check the batches. And the wine he’s coming to taste—it’s not ready, Emma. It’s not ready. You’ve got to do something.”
I can almost picture him pacing the winery floor, running his hands through his hair in that anxious way he does when things go south for him. “Brennen, calm down. I can’t stop the critic from coming to taste the wine. Besides, the newest batch is good, really good. I think it’s ready.”
“But… there has to be something!” he pleads. “Can’t you file an injunction? Or delay him somehow?”
I stifle a groan. “An injunction to stop a wine tasting? Brennen, that’s ridiculous.”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line before he exhales, defeated. “What am I supposed to do, Emma? He’s going to write the review, and if it’s bad… god, if it’s bad, we’ll never recover from it, and we’re so close to fixing Dad’s fuck up.”
I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, my brain still foggy from the hangover. This is not how I imagined starting my Friday morning. “Okay, listen,” I say finally. “How about I come down to the winery and be there when the critic shows up. Maybe I can help smooth things over, make sure they know that the latest batch of wine is still in development or something.”
“Really?” Brennen asks, sounding relieved.
“Yes, of course. I’ll head over there after I shower and get coffee. Just… try to keep calm, okay? We’ll handle it.” I’m going to need two coffees to deal with my brother and a critic today.
“Thank you, Emma. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I hang up and drop the phone onto the passenger seat, my heart racing. Between last night’s questionable decisions and today’s impending disaster at the winery, I feel like my world is spiraling out of control.
But right now, Brennen needs me, and I have to focus on that. I’ll deal with everything else later—the nameless stranger and the hangover. For now, it’s all about damage control at Celtic Knot.
My shower, my coffee, and the drive to the winery do nothing to ease my nerves. I replay Brennen’s words over and over in my head, wondering how things got so out of hand. The critic’s visit was supposed to happen next month, not today. Why the sudden change? Why didn’t we know earlier?
When I pull into the gravel parking lot, the familiar sight of the winery stretches out before me, the sun glinting off the glass windows of the tasting room. Normally, this place calms me, grounds me. But today, the tension in the air is palpable.
Brennen is waiting for me outside the front door, pacing anxiously near the entrance. He spots my car and rushes over, his face pinched with worry.
“Emma, thank god you’re here,” he says, his voice breathless. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to this critic, but nothing sounds right. What if they hate it? What if this ruins us for good?”
I step out of the car and place a reassuring hand on my older brother’s arm. “Brennen, relax. You’re overthinking this. Wine critics are used to tasting wines at different stages of development. We just need to be upfront about where we’re at. Honesty will go a long way.”
He nods, though he still looks unconvinced. “I hope you’re right.”
“Trust me. We’ll get through this. Are Isabella and Sophie aware?”
Brennen nods, “Yeah. They’re just inside.” He waves toward the entrance, and I open the door.
“Morning.” I call to my friends, hoping they can’t see the guilty look on my face. They have a way of seeing straight through me, and I have a feeling one look will tell them everything I did after they left last night.
“Good morning,” they say in unison.
“He’s here.” Brennen says in a panic, his face draining of color. “I’ll go greet him.”
“That’s my cue to leave.” Sophie waves to us as she leaves through the fermentation room door.
“Wait…” I frown up at Brennen. “Shouldn’t Sophie be here for this? She is the winemaker after all.”
Brennen scoffs. “No. Sophia refuses to be part of this because she didn’t make the wine. I think her exact words were that she wouldn’t serve this swill to pigs.”
I roll my eyes – that sounds exactly like Sophie. The girl is great and all, but she is the epitome of an elitist wine snob. But that is why we hired her.
As the actual winery owner, Brennen has taken the reins of our family business and spent years trying to fix what our father did to our family name, not to mention creating a rift with my other brother with me playing referee.
As the attorney for both, I’m able to keep one business separate from the other — Brennen’s winery and Ryan’s conglomerate. If Brennen ever found out that I was working for Ryan too, he’d disown me just like he has Ryan. Fortunately, he doesn’t know. Thank god for client confidentiality laws.
“He’s been crazy all morning,” Isabella says under her breath.
We can hear as Brennen and the critic enter the front doors, “Here we go.” I say out loud.
I stand beside Brennen, offering a professional smile as the critic approaches. But the moment Mr. Dawson looks up, his eyes meet mine, and the color drains from my face.
No. It can’t be.
No.
No.
No.
His mouth opens in shock, too, his gaze flicking over me as if trying to process what he’s seeing. My heart stutters in my chest, my pulse thundering in my ears.
It’s him.
The man from last night. The one I left sleeping in that hotel room this morning. The man whose name I never got because we agreed there was no reason for names. But I know every inch of his body. And he knows mine.
Mr. Dawson—the world-renowned wine critic Miles Dawson—is my one-night stand.
Brennen doesn’t seem to notice the awkward tension immediately crackling between us. “And this is my sister, Emma,” he says proudly, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m praying for the ground to swallow me whole. “She’s our legal counsel.”
Dawson recovers quickly, his expression morphing into something polite but cold. He shakes Brennen’s hand firmly, his gaze briefly flicking back to me before he speaks. “Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to the tasting.” He gives me a coy look, the double entendre obvious.
Brennen turns to me, clearly still nervous as his hands keep fidgeting. “Emma, would you mind helping with the tasting notes? You’re better at this kind of thing than I am.”
I nod mutely, unable to form a coherent sentence as I lock eyes with Miles again. His expression gives nothing else away, but the weight of what happened between us hangs in the air. This can’t be happening. Of all the people to show up at Celtic Knot today, it had to be him.
Brennen, blissfully unaware of the silent storm brewing between us, leads the way to the tasting room. I follow in a daze, my mind racing as I try to figure out what to do, what to say. Do I acknowledge last night? Pretend it never happened? How am I supposed to maintain any semblance of professionalism with him standing there, knowing what we did?
Oh my god… the things we did.
The three of us step into the tasting room, and Brennen arranges the wines for Miles to sample. Isabella has abandoned me.
I stand awkwardly beside the table, my heart pounding in my chest as Miles methodically goes through each glass, swirling, sniffing, and tasting with the same laser focus he had last night at the bar… and in bed. I notice that Brennen didn’t offer our newest wine up for review, the one he’s been working on for so long, and internally I shake my head. I think my brother is trying to perfect something that’s already perfect and may cost the winery in the end.
For a few excruciating minutes, there’s nothing but the sound of glass clinking and Brennen rambling nervously about the winery’s history. But I can’t focus. My eyes keep darting to Miles, searching for any acknowledgment of what we did last night, but he remains infuriatingly composed.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Miles sets down the last glass and turns to Brennen. “Your wines have potential,” he says carefully. “But they’re not quite there yet. The tannins need more time to develop here, and the acidity is still a bit harsh in this one.” He points to two of the glasses.
Brennen’s face falls slightly, but he nods, trying to hide his disappointment. “I see. Thank you for the feedback. We’ll definitely take that into consideration.”
Miles nods curtly, his eyes flicking to me one last time before he picks up his notebook. “I’ll be watching for the final product. I expect it to be impressive when it’s ready.”
With that, he turns and heads toward the exit, leaving me standing there, heart racing, palms sweating, and absolutely no clue what to do next.
“Emma?” Brennen’s voice pulls me back to reality. “You okay?”
I blink, realizing I’ve been staring after Miles for too long. “Yeah,” I lie, offering a tight smile. “Just… thinking about what he said.”
Brennen runs a hand through his hair, exhaling in relief. “Well, that wasn’t as bad as I expected. At least he didn’t tear us apart. We have time to make improvements. Plus, I didn’t have him taste the 2023 bottle. I want to get that one just right before anyone knows about it.”
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Brennen is just chatting away while I’m still trying to process the fact that the man I slept with last night is not only the world’s most famous wine critic, but also very likely holding the future of my brother’s winery in his hands. The same hands that held my breasts and ass last night.
After Brennen cleans up the tasting room and we sit and talk awhile about Miles Dawson’s visit, I’m leaving the winery and on my way to my office to meet with a client when my phone buzzes in my pocket. At the stoplight, I pull out my phone and what I see makes me freeze.
Unknown: Had a great time last night. Since I’ll be sticking around a while, maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime?
It’s from him. How did he get my number?
My pulse quickens as I stare at the screen, the events of the past twelve hours crashing down around me.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?