Chapter 1
ISABEL
Christmas Day started the same way every holiday did in the Van Orr household—just another day, nothing special about it at all. It was true even before my mother died.
I knocked on the door of my father’s study around noon, hoping we could at least have lunch together. The house echoed with emptiness, too quiet.
“Enter,” he barked.
I eased the door open just as he took a sip from a glass of wine.
Before I could say anything, he looked up from his papers with that expression I knew too well—the one that said I was annoying him.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the chair across from his desk.
I sat, hands clasped in my lap. At twenty-seven years old, I still reverted to that posture around him. Always waiting for approval that never came.
“What you did with the private-reserve wine.” He set his glass down with deliberate care. “Do you have any idea how that made me look?”
My throat tightened. I’d known this conversation was coming. Had been dreading it since that night in the cellar when I’d stood before him, Snapper, Saffron, and Kick and admitted the truth. “I gave them the information. I helped them recreate the wine—”
“After threatening to destroy it first,” he said matter-of-factly. The same way he would handle a business negotiation when someone had disappointed him. “You stood in my wine cellar and made a spectacle of yourself. Again.”
His emphasis on again might as well have been a slap in the face.
He leaned forward, his eyes hard. “You threatened to destroy the Hopes’ last chance to save their home, their legacy.”
“But I didn’t,” I said quietly. “I gave them what they needed.”
“Only after you were caught.” He turned his chair and looked out the window. “Only after you realized how much worse you’d look if you followed through. Don’t pretend this was nobility, Isabel. It was damage control.”
The words stung because if I hadn’t overheard the story my father told about his grandmother doing the same thing, stopping the wine from being made, and the regret she lived with all her life because of it, I couldn’t say I would’ve come forward.
He turned back toward me, and the look on his face was another I knew too well. Anger. “If you cause another scandal,” he seethed, “I’ll cut you off. Completely. No trust fund. No credit cards. No access to Van Orr resources. You’ll be on your own.”
The threat settled between us, tangible and cold. He meant it. I could see it in the set of his jaw and the way he held my gaze without blinking.
“Do you understand me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He returned to his papers. “I assume you’ll be more careful going forward.”
I stood, dismissed. He didn’t look up as I left his study.
Back in my bedroom, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at nothing as what my father said echoed in my head. Another scandal. On your own. Cut you off completely.
Everyone in Paso Robles hated me. That much was clear.
I’d spent years bidding on Snapper Avila, making a fool of myself at every auction while the whole town watched and whispered.
I’d threatened to destroy the Christmas Blessing Wine out of spite.
I’d been cruel to Saffron Hope when all she’d done was fall in love with the man I’d never really wanted.
I was the villain in everyone’s story. Even my own father thought I was a liability, another scandal waiting to happen.
But I didn’t have to stay that way. I could leave. Start over somewhere else. Become someone better. Someone worthy.
A need pulsed through me with an urgency I’d never experienced. It went beyond my father’s threat or the town’s judgment.
I had to change. Had to prove I could be more than the spoiled princess everyone believed I was.