Chapter 10 #2
Grant stops just inside the office.
He looks at me.
Not the laptop.
Not the proposal.
Me.
“Congratulations.”
That is all.
No offer.
No acquisition.
No helpful contact.
No plan for scaling Bell & Weather to sixteen states by lunch.
Just congratulations.
I stand.
“Thank you.”
His hands stay at his sides.
Also learning.
I cross the room and kiss him.
He makes a surprised sound against my mouth.
Very satisfying.
His hands settle at my waist after I am already touching him.
When I pull back, he is smiling.
“I assume that means I am allowed to be pleased.”
“Moderately.”
“Can I ask questions?”
“Two.”
“When does the LOI arrive?”
“This afternoon.”
“And what do you need next?”
I look at him.
He realizes what he asked.
Not what can I do.
What do you need.
Again.
“Tomorrow’s bank meeting. Insurance binder. Contract review.”
He nods.
“Anything from me?”
“Yes.”
His expression becomes carefully neutral.
I enjoy making him wait for once.
“Lunch.”
He laughs.
“I can do lunch.”
“I am paying.”
“Of course.”
“Do not say of course in that tone.”
“What tone?”
“Billionaire compliance.”
“I have only one tone.”
“You have at least nine. Cameron probably has them indexed.”
He kisses my forehead.
The tiny gesture hits somewhere sex has made extremely vulnerable.
I clear my throat.
“Lunch. Then work.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I point at the door.
“Get out.”
He does.
Still smiling.
God help me.
* * *
At two twenty, the internet decides my successful morning has created dangerous levels of emotional stability and takes corrective action.
Priya finds me beside the tasting barn while I am checking the revised Saturday shuttle route.
She has the expression of a woman approaching a raccoon that may possess a knife.
“What?”
“Nothing catastrophic.”
“That phrase has never improved a day.”
She hands me her tablet.
A paused video fills the screen.
Celeste Wynn is standing beneath a sponsor wall at her Manchester appearance in a cream coat and boots probably worth more than my first laptop.
The caption beneath the clip reads:
CELESTE WYNN ON GRANT ASHFORD: “WE BOTH GOT TOO GOOD AT MANAGING THE STORY.”
I close my eyes.
“Context?”
“Better than the clip.”
“Naturally.”
Priya taps play from thirty seconds earlier.
A reporter asks Celeste whether she and Grant might reconcile while they are both in Vermont.
Celeste smiles.
“No. Grant was clear with me, and I respect that. We both got too good at managing the story instead of dealing with the relationship. I hope he’s happier now. I mean that.”
The next reporter asks whether she has met me.
Celeste says, “No, and I don’t plan to insert myself into their relationship.”
Then the clip ends.
I hand the tablet back.
“That’s almost aggressively reasonable.”
“Yes.”
“And somebody cut it to make it sound like she accused Grant of staging me.”
“Also yes.”
Priya scrolls.
There are already posts asking whether the Bellweather relationship is “organic,” which is a word I prefer applied to carrots.
One account has placed photographs of Grant and me beneath a chart showing Northspan’s recent social engagement.
Another has discovered that our first public kiss happened the same afternoon Celeste’s reunion post began circulating.
That part is true.
The conclusion attached to it is not.
My stomach tightens.
“Where’s Grant?”
“Call with Cameron and communications.”
“Did he ask you to bring this to me?”
“No.”
I look at her.
Priya gives me a small smile.
“He said you should decide whether you wanted to see it. I decided not knowing people were discussing you was worse.”
“Correct.”
“I thought so.”
My phone buzzes.
An email.
Financial Ledger.
Of course.
I open it.
The reporter thanks me for my time, although I have given him none, then asks whether my relationship with Grant began before Northspan selected Bellweather and whether I receive compensation, promotional consideration, or business referrals connected to him.
The questions are factual.
They still make my skin feel too tight.
Priya watches me.
“Communications can handle it.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to answer personally.”
“I know.”
Another voice joins us.
Grant.
“She also doesn’t have to stay out of it because we prefer that.”
Priya glances between us.
“I suddenly have somewhere else to be.”
She leaves.
Grant stops a few feet away.
He looks angry.
Not at me.
That distinction is immediate now.
“Did you see Celeste’s full answer?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know.”
“Do you hate knowing that?”
“Deeply.”
I laugh despite myself.
His shoulders loosen.
Then he looks at my phone.
“Financial Ledger?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to do?”
I reread the questions.
Three weeks ago, I would have wanted someone else to make this disappear.
Or I would have refused to answer on principle and then spent six hours furious that nobody understood me.
Both are forms of letting fear choose.
“I want to answer two facts.”
Grant waits.
“Bellweather was selected before we met. I am not paid for dating you and I do not receive Northspan business because of you.”
“Okay.”
“I am not explaining when we first kissed.”
“Okay.”
“I am not giving them the rules.”
His eyes flicker.
“Definitely not.”
“And I want to tell them Bell & Weather is separate from the orchard and from Northspan.”
“Good.”
I narrow my eyes.
“That sounded proud.”
“Internally.”
“We have discussed this.”
His mouth twitches.
I type the reply myself.
Bellweather Orchard was selected for Northspan’s campaign before Grant Ashford and I met. Our personal relationship is not paid campaign content, and Northspan does not finance or refer business to Bell & Weather Events. I don’t have anything further to add about my private life.
I read it twice.
Then I show Grant.
“Any problem?”
“No.”
“That was not an invitation to edit.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
I hit send.
My pulse jumps anyway.
Grant puts his hands in his coat pockets.
I recognize the maneuver now.
It is what he does when he wants to act and is making himself not act.
“Say it.”
His eyebrows lift.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re not solving.”
He looks toward the orchard.
The leaves are farther along than they were even a week ago. Yellow and red are taking over the maples. The wet grass has finally begun to firm beneath the afternoon sun.
“I want to issue a statement.”
“About Celeste?”
“About us.”
My chest tightens.
He continues.
“Not details. Just that this isn’t a Northspan strategy and I won’t discuss you as campaign content.”
“You already said our private life isn’t campaign content.”
“I know.”
“Then what changes?”
He looks at me.
“The part where I make it clearer that you’re not temporary.”
There it is.
My heart gives one hard beat.
“Grant.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Probably not.”
I almost smile.
He steps closer.
“Our public arrangement ends at Harvest Lights.”
“Yes.”
“We agreed to that before any of this was real.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like that I still think about the date as if it applies to us privately.”
Everything inside me goes very still.
A tractor passes on the work lane behind him, pulling empty bins toward cold storage.
Somewhere near the market, Tessa yells at somebody about fryer oil.
Normal life continues with offensive confidence.
Grant watches my face.
“I’m not asking you for a promise about next year.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking whether Harvest Lights is still an expiration date for anything except the public story.”
I look at him.
The answer scares me.
Not because I do not know it.
Because I do.
This morning I sat in the office and asked people to trust Bell & Weather with a January event.
Tomorrow I am asking a bank to trust me with credit.
I have spent two years pretending my future would become safe if I made it small enough.
It never did.
It just became smaller.
I am not doing that again.
Not with the business.
Maybe not with him either.
“The performance ends at Harvest Lights,” I say.
Grant does not move.
“The pretending ends.”
His eyes stay on mine.
“But us?”
I breathe in.
Cold air.
Apples.
Woodsmoke from somewhere across the road.
Autumn in every ridiculous direction.
“Us doesn’t have an end date.”
His face changes.
Not dramatically.
Grant does not do much dramatically unless he is accidentally buying traffic infrastructure.
But I see it.
Relief.
Want.
Something warmer and more dangerous than both.
“Okay,” he says.
I laugh.
“That is all you have?”
“I am trying not to frighten you.”
“With vocabulary?”
“With what I actually want to say.”
My stomach turns over.
I take one step closer.
“Maybe don’t say all of it yet.”
“Probably wise.”
“But you can kiss me.”
His hand comes out of his pocket.
He pauses before touching me.
“Here?”
I look around.
Two orchard workers are unloading baskets.
A couple near the public lawn is taking pictures of the changing leaves.
No reporter.
No ex.
No useful reason to perform anything.
“Here.”
Grant touches my face and kisses me.
Slow.
Warm.
Real enough that the rest of the orchard blurs for a few seconds.
A gust moves through the maple branches above the tasting barn.
Three leaves spin down between us.
One lands on Grant’s shoulder.
I pull back and stare at it.
He follows my gaze.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“I have been told my face has limited legal authority.”
I pluck the leaf from his coat.
Red at the edges.
Yellow through the middle.
Just a leaf.
Probably.
My phone buzzes again.
I look down.
Lydia.
The letter of intent is attached.
Grant sees my expression.
“Good?”
I open it.
Bell & Weather Events appears on the first page beside a January date.
My company.
My work.
My next season.
“Very.”
Grant smiles.
I slide the phone into my pocket and take his hand.
Not because anyone is watching.
Not because Celeste is in Manchester.
Not because Landon is fifty yards away or a reporter has questions or a maple tree has developed opinions.
Because the performance now has an ending.
And, for the first time, we do not.