14. Owen
“Hey, QB. It’s me. Listen, I’m not sure what you’re up to next weekend, and you’re probably going to be holed up at the club like you are every Saturday but if you’re miraculously free or whatever, I’m having a birthday slash Halloween party at my house and it’d be really cool if you stopped by. I mean, everyone would love to see you. But also totally fine if you can’t make it. Okay I’m going to go now. See you at our meeting on Wednesday. Bye!”
I listened to Delia’s rambling voicemail no fewer than ten times, my grin growing wider with each one. Despite my horrible overreaction to her touching my mouth, she wanted me at her party. Truthfully, it wasn’t even the touch that sent me over the edge. It was the way she’d shoved that thumb in her mouth and sucked it clean, heat flaring in eyes that never left mine. That was dangerous territory, to allow ourselves to remember we were a man and a woman with urges and not strictly business partners who needed to keep our southern regions far away from each other.
But the fact that she was pushing past the awkwardness from earlier—and my rude and abrupt departure—to invite me meant something to me. It meant she really wanted me there, and if she wanted me there, I’d be there. No questions asked. The club could handle itself for a night. That was, after all, why I paid my men so handsomely.
My first order of business was to pull together a costume. I wanted to make this special for Delia, to really put an effort into dressing up and not half-ass it like normal.
So I called my inside source for ideas.
“What’s your sister wearing to her party next week?” I asked unceremoniously when Amara answered.
“Hello to you too, Owen,” she said. “How are you? Business good? How’s that big ass family of yours?”
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I’m good. Business is great. Family is happy and healthy.”
“That’s good,” Amara said. “Now what can I do for you?”
“You can help me figure out what to wear to Delia’s party next weekend. What are you and Cal dressing up as?”
“Bella and Edward,” Amara said, the names proudly leaving her lips like I was supposed to know what they meant.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“I didn’t either!” Cal shouted from the background, and I laughed.
“They’re fictional characters. Ever heard of Twilight ?”
“Only in passing,” I said. Aria had been obsessed with it when she was in high school and talked my ear off about it every time I’d called home for three months straight .
“Okay well in the final book, Edward, the vampire, gets Bella, the human, pregnant. So that’s what we’re going as. Edward and pregnant Bella.”
I chuckled again. Leave it to Amara to base an entire costume around the baby growing in her womb.
“That’s great, Mar,” I said sarcastically, and I heard Cal snort in the back. “Can we get back to the matter at hand?”
“Which is?”
“What is your sister dressing up as?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because you’re sketching me out,” she said. “Tell me why you want to know.”
“Because I want to wear something to complement her!” I shouted.
Only deafening silence greeted me.
“I mean—” I started as I scrambled to backtrack.
“Oh, no, Owen,” Amara said. “I don’t think so. You’re not getting out of explaining that.”
“I just…” I trailed off, then whispered, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Well, as long as you’re not going to fuck her over or fuck her up, I’ll tell you.”
“Never,” I promised.
I didn’t know what exactly I was agreeing to, but I knew I meant it. Amara seemed satisfied because she said, “She’s dressing up as an old Western brothel madame.”
Immediately, an idea came to mind. It wouldn’t even require me to go shopping because I already owned everything I needed .
“Thanks, Mar,” I said, intent on hanging up and going about my day, but she stopped me.
“I feel like I should warn you.”
“Warn me about what?”
“TJ.”
Unbidden, my blood pressure rose, and I gritted out, “Who is TJ?”
“This guy she’s been seeing.”
Wait, what? She’d been seeing someone and didn’t tell me? Then again…why would she? I was no one to her. Except, I thought our moment at the club had shifted something between us—hence this ridiculous phone call.
“And you’re telling me this, why?”
“Because he’ll be there. As her…date, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, Lawless,” Cal piped in. “You’re much better looking. That guy is a dweeb.”
“Ryder!” Amara protested, and I distantly heard the sound of a smack over the roaring in my ears.
“Just saying,” Cal added.
“Well, you’re not helping. TJ is…nice.”
“Nice,” I spat. “Delia doesn’t need a nice guy.”
“It’s not up to you to decide what Delia does or doesn’t need,” Amara scolded.
Inhaling deeply, I held the air in my lungs for five counts, then let it go slowly, allowing the action to ground me. “You’re right. Either way, I don’t care about…TJ.” I spat his name.
“You may not care about him, but you definitely care about her ,” Cal said with a chuckle. “The longer you deny it, the worse it’ll be on both of you. ”
I hung up before either could say anything else to piss me off, though Cal’s parting words echoed in my head.
Clearly, things were changing, and my irritation over mention of Delia dating some lame ass guy only proved that. Even armed with that knowledge, I didn’t give a fuck if I’d look like a fool showing up in a costume that coordinated with hers.
I was doing it anyway.
The moment I pushed into Delia’s garage the following Saturday, my eyes locked on her, like she was a lodestone pulling me in.
Nearly every inch of her was covered by her dress, save her face, the smooth column of her neck, the gentle slopes of her shoulders, and the high swells of her breasts. The sharp ends of her collarbones dragged my gaze to a sunburst-shaped pendant hanging from the wide piece of black velvet wrapped around her throat. The sleeves of the dress draped off her shoulders and stopped right above her elbows, the black lace running the whole way around, before it turned to a burnt orange fabric that swept to the ground. Velvet slippers peaked out beneath the hem as she moved about the room, conversing with her guests.
She was stunning, looking like she’d stepped off the silver screen from one of those Old Western movies, a starlet greeting her adoring fans.
Even though I was having all kinds of them, I didn’t want to give Delia any ideas about where we might end up, and I had half a mind to turn tail and race out of here before she could spot me .
But I was too late, and I silently cursed as she turned that megawatt smile on me—and at the satisfaction that surged in my chest.
“Howdy, partner,” she said in a terrible Southern accent when she reached me. “You clean up nice.”
I scoffed. “My street clothes are nicer than this, Whiskey.”
“I like it,” she said, still grinning toothily. “We kind of match.”
I shrugged, attempting to play it cool despite the fact that we kind of matched on purpose. “I didn’t know what to wear, and I just had all this lying around.” Not a lie, but so far from the whole truth it may as well have been on a different planet.
She quirked a brow. “Even the buckle?”
“Even the buckle,” I confirmed. “My dad rode bulls for a few years in his early twenties and won a couple championships. This is the buckle from one of those belts. Plus, you forget I was born and raised in western Idaho. This is basically everyday attire on my family’s ranch.”
“You’re telling me you wore a bolo tie and that hideous cowhide vest every day?”
“Faux cowhide,” I corrected. The Lawless ranch had long since stopped slaughtering animals, but that was a story for a different time. “And they were both also my dad’s.”
“Shit, QB,” she said, eyes widening as her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
I waved her off. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
I still hadn’t worked up the strength to share the full story with her, to tell her how and when I’d found out. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was more because I wasn’t ready to pry the lid open on that can of worms and spill my grief at her feet. I’d spent a lot of time over the last seventeen years carefully locking it away.
Plus, those weren’t the kinds of things you shared with business partners.
Then again, I showed up wearing what, from the outside, looked an awful lot like the other half to her couple costume. So maybe , it was time I stopped lying to myself.
“Delia!” someone shouted from behind me, bounding up to us so quickly they knocked me into her. My hands on her upper arms steadied her, narrowly saving her from spilling her drink down her dress.
I whirled on the person, who turned out to be a twenty-something man several inches shorter than me, his floppy hair and long face giving him the countenance of a puppy.
“Watch where you’re going!” I growled at him.
“Sorry,” he said, though the grin never left his face. “Just coming to get my girl for pictures.”
“Your girl?” I choked out, glancing at Delia.
Her eyes were wide, face panic stricken. “He’s not…it’s not…” she started quietly, but the guy cut her off.
“TJ,” he said happily. “And you are?”
“Owen Lawless,” I grumbled. It took everything in me not to puff my chest out and stare down my nose at him.
“Wow,” TJ breathed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
I hummed noncommittally.
I needed to make something clear: I tried to see the allure. I really did.
But I couldn’t find a single thing about this guy that should’ve snagged a woman like Delia. His eyes and hair were the same color, a nondescript brown that was easily forgettable. He was narrow, especially compared to my broad frame, and probably only five-ten, though I would’ve bet good money he told people he was six-feet. His entire air was…eager. The brightness in his eyes, the grin, the fucking dalmatian costume.
I didn’t like the guy on principle, mostly because I thought he had delusions of grandeur where his relationship with Delia was concerned.
A man like this could never satisfy her, not the way I could.
TJ turned to Delia. “Ready for some pictures, milady?” He proffered his arm like some Victorian gentleman. Delia only stared at me. Waiting.
But for what?
“Go.”
A simple command. Two letters. One syllable. But the way her face fell, the way she reared away from me, you’d think I shot her.
It was better this way. Her with him, me…alone.
After they walked away, Amara and Cal appeared at my side.
“I see you’ve met TJ.”
“Yes.”
“Oooooh,” Cal said. “Someone is testy.”
“How long has that been going on?” I asked, not bothering to look at either of them, unable to take my eyes off Delia and the dweeb.
“Since about mid-September, I think,” Amara said. “He asked her out after one of the festival planning meetings.”
I winced as he gestured widely and half his glass of something I couldn’t name on sight sloshed all over, spilling on the hem of Delia’s dress and the concrete at their feet .
“And she…likes him?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amara shrug. “It’s not that deep, Owen. I think she’s just…lonely, if I’m being honest.”
“But…why?”
“We’ve all always talked about having families of our own one day,” Amara said, linking one hand through Cal’s and settling the other on her stomach. “And now that Chloe and I are actually doing it, I think she feels left out.”
God, how badly did I also want a family of my own? A love and life to fill the void left in my dad’s absence?
When I didn’t say anything else, Amara and Cal moved away in favor of conversation with Brie, Ella, Ezra, and Liam Danvers, the winery’s agricultural engineer—though most people referred to him simply as “the grower.” It seemed the entire Chateau Delatou staff was here.
Instead of joining the fray, I remained sentinel against the wall, pounding whiskey like water and covertly watching Delia entertain her guests, TJ following her around like the animal he’d dressed as. Every time he touched her, I flinched, hating the familiarity between them. How the fuck had I not known she was seeing someone? And after the almosts between us at Lawless and again outside this very house that night, what was going through her head? Was she sleeping with him?
My teeth clenched painfully at the idea.
Needing to clear my head, I stepped outside and stalked across the lawn then down the block to my truck. Stuffing myself behind the wheel, I closed my eyes, slamming my skull back into the headrest a few times, trying to jar myself out of my bad mood.
I had no right to Delia, no claim over her time, and no say in who she spent it with.
But I wanted her. I wanted that claim, to monopolize her time, exactly as her dad had accused me of at dinner that night. I wanted more nights like that, molding our families and lives together.
She’d snuck up on me, and since visions of a future with her had entered my mind, I couldn’t shake them loose.
A tap against my window had my eyes flying open, and I found Delia pressing her face against the glass, gesturing for me to roll it down.
“What’re you doing out here?”
“Where’d your boyfriend go?” I retorted, not bothering to hide the iciness of my tone.
“I sent him home.”
That pulled me up short, taking the edges off some of my irritation. “Why?”
“It wasn’t working out,” she said simply.
I dared a quick look at her, and though she didn’t meet my eyes, a small smile bloomed on her lips despite her arms crossed defensively over her chest.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Get out of the truck, QB.”
With a sigh, I rolled the window back up and did as she asked.
“What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Then why were you hiding out in your truck like a loser?”
I exhaled sharply through my nose, schooling my temper. “Just needed a moment.”
“You done? ”
I grinned and nodded. Knowing that TJ had been kicked to the curb had significantly lightened my mood. I playfully bumped her shoulder with mine and followed her back into the garage.
“So, I know your birthday party is the last place you want to talk about work, but maybe Monday we could sit down and figure out a plan for setting up some stills and get some batches of spirits going? If Jay and the team stay on task, they’ll be done in less than a month. I want to get everything perfected so we have plenty on hand for the opening.”
Delia grinned at me. “It’s a date, QB.”
It’s a date. It’s a date. It’s a date.
I hated the way my heart soared at those words.
Later, after the party had wound down and the bulk of her guests were gone, only Delia, Amara, Calvin, and I remained.
“Are you sure you don’t want help cleaning up?” Amara asked as Delia politely but insistently shoved her sister toward the door, Cal not far behind.
“I’ll help her.”
Both sisters stopped dead.
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Delia told me. “Really.”
“Please.”
Delia studied me for a long beat, then shared an unreadable look with her sister. Cal merely quirked a brow at me in question, but I ignored it.
“Fine,” Delia said at last, realizing this was a battle she wouldn’t win .
Then she gave her sister and Cal kisses on the cheek goodbye, and they left us alone.
“Where do we start?”
“Just help me get the perishables into the fridge,” she said, indicating the small white appliance in the corner. “The rest I’ll deal with tomorrow.”
In silence, we covered the snack trays and put caps on any half-full bottles of mixers, carefully stacking it all in the refrigerator. It took far less time than I would’ve liked, and Delia didn’t utter a single word save directing me to do one thing or another.
When we were done, I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck, shuffling on my feet. “Well, I guess I better head back.”
“Do you want to stay?” Delia blurted.
My brows rose. “Stay…here?”
She nodded. “I don’t want you driving back into the city after you’ve been drinking, and I have a guest room.”
“The world’s comfiest bed,” I said, remembering Brie’s comment from that night at Lawless.
“The same one,” she confirmed. “Please. I would feel better if you didn’t drive.”
She was worried about me, and the knowledge pleased me deeply.
“Of course,” I answered, because how the fuck was I supposed to say no?