Chapter 3
(Aria POV)
His office was quiet in the pre-dawn dark, lit only by the weak glow of the desk lamp he left on the night before. I’d gotten there fifteen minutes early, steel-toed boots, band aids on my blister, new socks cushioning my sore feet, hair up, coffee clutched like a talisman.
And boredom.
The restless, itchy kind that makes bad ideas feel smart.
I leaned against his desk and lifted my phone before I could talk myself out of it. I angled the camera and framed myself in the reflection of the office window. The vineyard behind me was a silhouette, with rows cast in shadow.
Inside, the warm desk light kissed the hem of my sundress, shorter than it probably should have been, I could admit. I tugged it higher, then even higher. Enough to see my white panties. Just enough to look dangerous, sexy, not stupid.
Click.
I knew my angles. I knew my mouth, my eyes, the way a girl looks when she wants to be wanted. I wasn’t thinking about Marcus. Not exactly.
Except I was.
“Delete it.”
The voice froze my blood.
I jerked around, phone clutched like contraband. Marcus stood in the doorway, hair still damp from an early shower. His face stone cold.
“How long…”
“Long enough.” His eyes flicked to the phone, then away, then back, as if yanked by gravity. “Give it to me.”
My pulse thudded everywhere at once. “It’s private.”
“You took it in my office.” His hand extended, steady, inevitable.
I should’ve refused. I should’ve shoved the phone into my tote and walked out like an adult. Instead, I put it in his palm.
The screen lit.
The photo stared back at us. My dress riding high, bare thigh, panties peeking out. Heat and invitation written all over my face. Not innocent. Not subtle.
His thumb hovered but didn’t swipe. His throat moved. He should’ve looked away, but he didn’t. Not right away.
“Christ,” he said quietly.
Heat burned up my neck. “It’s not…”
“What it is.” He set the phone face-down on the desk, “is inappropriate.” His voice low and strained. “And reckless.”
I swallowed hard. “It was stupid, I know. I’ll delete it.”
“You will,” he said. “After work.”
I stared at him. “You’re keeping it?”
He looked at the phone again, some private war raging in his chest. He picked it up again.
“You’ll get your phone back at the end of the day. This is strike one,” he said, voice quiet but edged in steel. “But if you ever pull something like that again…”
“You’ll tell my dad,” I whispered.
His gaze locked on mine. “No. I’ll handle it myself.”
The radio on his belt crackled, breaking the moment. He stepped back, his demeanor snapping into place like armor. “Five minutes,” he said. “On the pad.”
Then he was gone.
The rest of the morning blurred under sweat and sun and steel-toed clumsiness. But every time Marcus passed within ten feet of me, my stomach flipped.
Because I knew. I knew he looked at my picture again.
I caught it in the pauses, like when his hand drifted toward his pocket. Or when his gaze landed on me and flicked away too fast. When Alma called his name twice before he answered, like he’d been somewhere else entirely.
By the time the day wound down, my nerves were threadbare. We hosed the pad clean, water running pink to clear. Alma clapped my shoulder again leaving a mark on my shirt and I forced a smile, but my head was already in Marcus’s office, where my life sat in his pants pocket.
He was there waiting, leaning against the desk where it all started. He pulled out my phone. He didn’t look at it this time. He set it on the desk, screen-down, and slid it toward me.
I grabbed it like oxygen. My pulse pounding.
He met my eyes. Dark, steady, unreadable.
I tucked the phone into my tote.
On the way out, he opened the door for me again, his hand on my hip like the first day, guiding me out. “Don’t forget,” he said. “Employee party tonight.” Then, quietly in my ear. “Nice panties.”
Not a threat, not a promise. A fuse. And I wasn’t sure which of us had lit it.
==========
(Aria POV)
The vineyard didn’t look the same under the lanterns. Strings of lights cut across the courtyard, music spilled from the patio. It was a celebration of the first bins in. Plastic cups of house white flowed freely and no one seemed to care who counted.
For the crew, it meant laughter and songs in Spanish and jokes I only half understood but loved anyway. For me, it consisted of my dad boastfully introducing me to distributors while adding how Aria has such a good eye for marketing, like I was a portfolio instead of a person.
It was too much, so I snuck one sample, then another. I drank fast. Warmth slid through me, loosened my shoulders, made my shoes feel lighter.
By the time Marcus found me, I lost count of how many samples I’d had. I was leaning on the bar, listening to Alma tell a story about how she once broke her arm mid-harvest and taped it up by herself just to finish.
“You’re done.” The voice dropped beside me, quiet but absolute. Marcus’s hand closed over my cup and set it aside.
“I’m almost twenty-one.” I grinned at him like I’d won something.
“Almost and being are two very different things.” he said. “Come on.”
He guided me away from the bar, away from my dad’s sharp eyes scanning the crowd. His hand at my elbow was steady, firm, the way it had been on the crush pad. My skin remembered the language.
We ducked behind the barrel room, lantern glow thinning to shadow. My head buzzed, my chest warmer than it should’ve been.
“Busted,” I whispered.
“You don’t want your father to see you like this.” His tone was clipped, but softer than it should’ve been.
I tilted my head, squinting at him. “You’re always saving me. Forklifts, ladders, wine, my dad. You keep me safe, Marcus.”
“Mr. Hale,” he corrected automatically.
“Marcus,” I whispered back, daring. “I know you liked it.”
His shoulders stiffened. “What?”
“The photo.” I let the word drip. My fingers brushed his forearm, then slid higher, testing, teasing. “You kept it all day. You wanna see more?” I took my hands off him and started lowering my spaghetti straps, I didn’t bother wearing a bra tonight.
He grabbed the straps and put them back on my shoulders. I could feel the tremble in his hands. His eyes, dark and stormy, locked on mine. For one charged second, the air between us burned like static.
“Aria,” he said, low, almost hoarse. “You’re drunk.”
I leaned closer, my breath hitting his collar. “Not too drunk.” I pressed up against him. My breasts the only thing between us.
His jaw clenched. Every line of his body was rigid and restrained. I was surprised when he grabbed my waist with those rough hands of his. I felt him hard against me. God, he was huge. I didn’t plan on doing what I did next, it just felt so right. I started rubbing my body against his erection.
He moaned while his hands gripped me tighter. Then he pulled me away, fast.
“Strike two,” he said finally, voice tight. He let go of my waist, stepped back, and put a canyon between us. “You ever pull something like this again, you won’t like the consequences.”
I didn’t know if he meant my rubbing or my drinking, but something in his words made me sober up fast.
I swallowed, suddenly small under his gaze. “I just…”
“You just crossed a line,” he cut in. “Now you’re going to sit, drink water, and get sober before you ruin this night for both of us.”
He steered me to a bench by the dark edge of the vines, set a bottle of water in my hands, and stood there like a sentry while the party raged on without us.
I sipped, heat and humiliation rising in equal parts. He didn’t move, didn’t look at me, didn’t leave.
Strike two.
And I had no idea what strike three would mean.