Playing Dirty (Solstice Hearts #1)

Chapter 1

Margot

"You've got to be kidding me," I say, the words escaping before I can stop them. "That arrogant hockey brute is going to be our brand ambassador?"

I stare across the crowded terrace at the man himself. Cillian O'Rourke.

He's the Renegades' golden boy, the only Irishman in the NHL, and looks like he wandered out of a cologne ad.

Tall, with dark hair and olive coloring you don't expect on an Irishman.

Maybe some long-lost Spanish lineage, who knows.

It's all unfair enough as it is, so the piercing blue eyes and dimpled smile are just piling on.

Currently he’s surrounded by admirers near the bar, all of them hanging on his every word like he's delivering the Sermon on the Mount instead of recounting whatever athletic triumph happened last week.

My boss, Carol, arches an eyebrow over the rim of her Pinot, her silver bob immaculate as ever.

"He's here for a team introduction before the launch goes live," she says, sounding entirely too calm. "I figured you'd be thrilled. The visibility he brings to the label is massive." She tilts her head. "You're normally so tactful."

Normally I'm not two glasses of wine into what is technically a work event, but I digress.

The cocktail party is in full swing, a steady hum of conversation drifting across the stone terrace at the back of the Solstice Estates manor.

A jazz trio plays from the corner, string lights crisscross overhead, and the vineyards stretch out toward the hills on all sides, the bare vines only just beginning to bud in the March cool, the whole of Napa Valley going pink in the dying light.

On any other night, I'd be the first to call it magical.

Instead, I feel positively murderous. Because I have a very long-standing grudge against Cillian O'Rourke.

Not that Carol knows that.

“He just isn't who I pictured.” I take a long sip of my wine. "Didn't we have another week before the final decision on the face of the brand?"

“Cillian had an opening in his schedule and we had to pounce.” Carol smiles, clearly amused by my barely concealed horror. "And I didn't want to bother you on vacation."

"Right." I make a noncommittal sound and drain half my glass.

Vacation. What a generous word for it. Vacation was supposed to be me, a stack of paperbacks, my phone off, and a little rental on the California coast. Instead, I spent it helping my parents clear out the house because they're finally downsizing.

Nine days of bubble wrap, deciding which of three identical spatulas held sentimental value, and carefully boxing up decades of old National Geographic magazines my parents couldn't quite bring themselves to part with.

And while I was busy burying my own childhood in cardboard, the universe hired a hockey player.

"Okay, but isn't he the face of Guinness?" I say, unable to let it go. "He doesn't exactly scream Napa wine launch, even if we are going for approachable."

"Margot," she says patiently. "The man has 18 million followers, and the goal is to reach people who don't already know they like wine.

He's a bridge to a demographic we've never touched.

Besides," she adds, gesturing toward the bar.

"Just look at him. Every guy wants to be him and every girl wants him. "

I follow her gaze toward the bar, where a woman is currently clutching his forearm and fanning herself, as if the sheer force of his athletic charisma is about to cause her to lose consciousness.

"Someone should tell her he's just a man," I say.

"Maybe. But he’s marketing gold. Which you should appreciate," she says, tapping her glass against mine with a soft clink, "considering this entire new label was your brainchild."

She has me there.

Solstice Estates is the crown jewel of Napa Valley. It's a working winery, a boutique hotel with a six-month waitlist, and the kind of wedding venue that books out two years in advance.

As head sommelier and client relations manager, my responsibilities have spread well beyond the cellar.

I run the tastings and the partnerships, manage the collectors and the VIPs, and help oversee weddings and galas.

I'm also the one who sells the reserve bottles that run three hundred dollars apiece, a price even I find ridiculous.

So two years ago, I pitched an offshoot. An accessible, affordable line made from the same estate grapes we already grow, and to my everlasting shock, Solstice said yes. I've spent the past two years pouring my heart into it, trying to take some of the intimidation out of good wine.

And now the man chosen as the face of my brainchild is a hockey brute who probably hates me just as much as I hate him.

"Alright." I sigh. "I'll manage. But I'm drawing a hard line at a beer pong game with wine or whatever other approachable concepts marketing is currently dreaming up."

"I'll make sure that's noted." Carol chuckles and studies me over her glass. "You know, I forget you've got a bite to you after you've had a drink or two. I like it. You're pretty funny when the filter comes off."

"I'm hilarious around the clock."

"Debatable." She steals a canapé from a passing tray. "So what's the real issue? Hot athletes not your type? Or do you just hate this one in particular?"

I do, in fact, hate this one in particular.

"Yeah, athletes are not my type," I say instead, swirling my rosé. "I prefer the bookish kind. Philanthropists. My last boyfriend was an environmental lawyer."

"An environmental lawyer." Carol nods slowly. "Sexy."

"Mock all you like, but he never threw a punch over a puck." I lift my glass. "And sustainability is sexy."

"I'm sure. I don't really get the appeal of men in general, but I'll take your word for it."

I snort into my drink. Carol's wife, Elaine, is an artist who shows in San Francisco galleries and speaks four languages, and together they're easily the most sophisticated couple I know. Next to them, my taste in men reads like a stack of beige cardigans.

"Anyway," I say. "I actually did date an athlete once. Married him, actually, and it cured me for life."

"Oh." Carol's expression softens. "I didn't realize your ex was in sports. You never say much about him."

"Yeah, well. It was a spectacular lapse in judgment." I shrug. "We got married in college after a whirlwind year. Courthouse ceremony, backyard party, all very impulsive and entirely unlike me."

Unlike me was, at the time, the entire appeal. I'd spent my whole life being exhaustively like myself, the girl who color-codes everything and agonizes over texts for hours. Marrying someone spontaneous and charming and the opposite of my type was supposed to be the start of a looser, freer me.

Turns out spontaneous just meant unreliable, and charming meant he was good at lying about the women he was sleeping with. The divorce was finalized before our first anniversary.

Carol bumps her shoulder against mine. "Maybe you'll end up finding Cillian tolerable. He could be the key to making this label a legend."

I nod, glancing across the terrace just as Cillian takes a long swig from a beer bottle.

He isn't even drinking wine tonight!

Carol keeps going, talking about media strategies and launch windows, but her voice fades into a distant hum. Because the memory of Blackstone Vineyards has surfaced in my mind, unbidden and deeply unwelcome.

Six years ago, I was interning there while finishing my degree. Blackstone was a huge vineyard and luxury lifestyle brand, and they were hunting for a celebrity face for their new athletic partnership with a resort.

Cillian was a rising star then, and when his team expressed interest, my boss asked for my input.

I was young, eager to prove my worth, and I gave her a candid assessment, which was that he’d be a terrible partner for the brand.

The email somehow leaked back to Cillian and his team, and two weeks later I was cleaning out my desk.

The experience was humiliating more than anything else. I'd spent my whole life being the responsible one, the straight-A student teachers trusted with the attendance sheet, and overnight I'd become the girl who got fired.

My younger sister, Sabrina, would have laughed it off and kept moving. We share the same upbringing, the same parents who valued politeness, but she inherited all the fun genes while I got all the anxious ones.

I spent five months after that scrambling for a new job in this tiny industry. And now here he is, six years later, at my dream job.

"Margot?" Carol's voice cuts through the spiral. "Are you listening?"

"Yes," I say automatically, though I have no idea what she just said. "Sorry. Long day."

She gives me a look that says she's not entirely convinced, but lets it go. "Keep an open mind, alright? I know he's not who you would have picked. But if anyone can make this work, it's you."

"I will," I promise.

She squeezes my arm, and then she's off, swallowed by a cluster of board members near the main doors, leaving me alone with my rosé and a growing sense that I'd rather be back with my parents, wrapping National Geographics.

I really should just march over there and settle the awkward history once and for all, the whole yes, I'm the one who mildly trashed you and yes, you're the asshole who cost me my job situation. Instead, I watch his fan club grow and decide the confrontation can wait a little longer.

So I focus on the appetizers, make small talk with colleagues I haven't seen in days, and manage to keep at least half the terrace between myself and Cillian O'Rourke at all times. In the process, I gather the social intel I actually came for.

Two new engagements (one expected, one a total shock), a heated dispute over the updated parking layout (which I'm personally invested in), and the breaking news that Diane, our lead winemaker, has once again called our lead gardener, José, a dick to his face (a sure sign they're head over heels for each other).

A typical evening at Solstice Estates, then.