Chapter 15
The vine wound itself around her wrist like it was trying to hold her hand.
Marigold laughed, gently disentangling herself from the overeager grape plant that had decided she was its new favorite person. "You're as bad as your owner," she murmured, brushing her fingers along the leaves in apology.
Behind her, Thallos's voice carried across the vineyard. "Did you just insult me to my grapes?"
"I complimented them, actually. They have excellent taste in company."
He appeared at the end of the row, shirtless again because apparently the concept of sun protection was foreign to satyrs, and carrying two glasses of something pale gold. Sweat gleamed on his shoulders. His horns caught the afternoon light.
Her mouth went dry.
*A week,* she reminded herself. *It's been a week since the Town Square, and I still turn into a puddle every time he takes his shirt off. Get it together, Bloom.*
"Lemonade," he said, pressing one of the glasses into her hand. "Fresh. Made it this morning."
"You made lemonade?"
"Why do you sound so surprised?"
"Because last time you offered me a drink, it was wine that nearly knocked me unconscious."
His grin was shameless. "That was educational."
"That was entrapment."
"You say entrapment, I say romantic opportunity."
She took a sip of the lemonade—tart and sweet and perfect—and tried not to smile. Failed miserably. She'd been failing at not smiling around Thallos all week.
It was becoming a problem.
The festival planning had consumed most of their time.
There were vendor contracts to finalize, decoration orders to confirm, a small crisis involving the portable stage and whether it could actually support the weight of a minotaur folk band.
She had discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that she was actually good at this.
Her color-coded notebooks had proven invaluable.
Her ability to keep track of seventeen competing details at once had saved them from at least three potential disasters.
And Thallos… Thallos had been wonderful.
Not in the flashy, over-the-top way she might have expected.
No grand gestures or elaborate displays.
Just a constant, steady presence at her side.
He listened when she talked. He asked questions that showed he'd been paying attention.
He remembered the small things—that she liked her coffee with exactly two sugars, that she got headaches if she skipped lunch, and that she preferred to work through problems out loud rather than in silence.
He saw her.
It was terrifying. And intoxicating. And she'd stopped trying to fight it somewhere around Wednesday, when he'd shown up at the flower shop with a sandwich and insisted she eat it while he reorganized her supply closet without being asked.
"The stage is confirmed," she said now, pulling out her notebook. "Delivery is set for Thursday morning. We should probably—"
"Marigold."
"—coordinate with the sound equipment people, because the last thing we need is—"
"Marigold."
She looked up.
He was watching her with that particular expression—part amusement, part exasperation, part something warmer—that made her stomach flip. He reached out and gently closed her notebook.
"It's Saturday," he said.
"I'm aware."
"We've been working all week."
"The festival is in two weeks. We have—"
"We have time." He stepped closer, close enough that she could smell him—wine and earth and that wild mush that was all him. "Take a break. Enjoy the afternoon. The grapes will forgive you."
"I wasn't worried about the grapes."
"Then stop worrying about everything else."
She wanted to argue. The part of her that had spent years cleaning up her mother's messes, anticipating problems before they could materialize, and maintaining control because control was the only thing that kept the chaos at bay, bristled at the suggestion.
But the rest of her… the rest of her was tired. And the sun was warm. And he was looking at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered.
"Fine," she said. "One hour. Then we review the vendor list."
"Two hours."
"Ninety minutes."
"Done." He took her hand—just that, just her hand in his, and even that small contact sent warmth spiraling through her. "Come on. I want to show you something."
He led her through the vineyard, past rows of vines heavy with ripening grapes, past the wine shop with its rustic charm and the tasting room they'd spent yesterday arguing about how to decorate.
The property stretched further than she'd realized, rolling hills giving way to a small stream bordered by wildflowers.
And beyond that—
"Oh," she breathed.
A meadow. Golden grass swaying in the summer breeze, dotted with explosions of color—purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans and something that looked like wild bergamot.
Butterflies drifted lazily from bloom to bloom.
In the distance, the tree line of the sacred grove rose like a gentle wall, leaves catching the light.
"I've spent a lot of time here," he said. "Trying to figure out what the hell I was doing with my life."
"It's beautiful."
"Yeah." But he wasn't looking at the meadow. "It is."
She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. A week of compliments that caught her off guard and touches that lingered and she still hadn't figured out how to handle it. How to accept that someone might actually want her, not as a second choice or a convenient option, but as a first and only choice.
They settled in the grass, close enough that their shoulders brushed. The lemonade was cool in her hand. The sun was warm on her face. And all of the tension in her body suddenly just disappeared.
"Tell me something," he said after a while.
"What?"
"Anything. Something you've never told anyone else."
She considered deflecting, but something in his voice, something earnest and unguarded, made her pause.
"I used to want to be a botanist," she said quietly.
"Used to?"
"When I was younger. Before…" She trailed off, plucking a blade of grass and twisting it between her fingers. "Before I realized that wanting things for myself was… complicated."
He was quiet, waiting.
"My mother gets… bored very easily. There's always a newer, more exciting plan. That's how I ended up here." She sighed. "My mother bought the florist's shop two years ago because she thought it would be an exciting new adventure.”
“With a name like Bloom, it's meant to be, darling,” she’d told Marigold cheerfully, and Marigold had bitten her tongue. She was well aware that any attempt to remind her mother of how her previous adventures had ended would only end in tears.
"My mother is —"*flighty, irresponsible, impractical.* She ran through a list of adjectives before finally settling on "not really suited to running a business."
Her mother’s enthusiasm had worn off pretty quickly once she realized that loving flowers and being able to create artistic arrangements was not enough.
Not only did she lack business skills, she was too disorganized to keep up with dates.
And while she could, in fact, create beautiful arrangements, she rarely created the same one twice.
"That's so boring, darling,” she’d said airily, ignoring the fact that if somebody wanted a bouquet of pink and white roses, they weren't going to be satisfied with a scarlet bird of paradise, no matter how beautiful.
And eventually, even her mother's undeniable charm wasn't enough to appease her disgruntled customers.
"So you bailed her out," he said, making it a statement rather than a question.
"Yes. But I was ready for a change,” she added quickly. It had also fulfilled a secret dream of hers because she, unlike her mother, would never have had the courage to go for it. "And it turned out that I loved it."
"Your mother doesn't live in Harmony Glen, does she?"
"No." She barely managed to prevent a shudder at the thought. She loved her mother, and she knew her mother loved her, but their relationship worked a lot better when they were not in close proximity. "She's currently in India."
"India?" He arched a brow.
"Studying tantric yoga with a yoga master.” *Who is younger than I am.*
"She sounds like a very interesting woman," he said, his voice carefully neutral, but she felt herself flinch.
She'd spent most of her life living in the shadow of her mother's effervescent charm. She wasn't small or cute or bubbly. She was tongue-tied around people she didn’t know, whereas Daisy had never met a stranger. Her mother’s friendships tended to end as quickly as they began, but that never felt like much consolation.
"She also has a bad habit of falling in love," she continued.
"Spectacularly. Disastrously. Every few years there'd be someone new—someone who was going to change everything, who was going to be the one.
And she'd throw herself into it completely.
Quit her job. Move across the country. Uproot our entire lives. "
"And you?"
"I was the constant. The one who kept things running while she chased whatever dream the current boyfriend had convinced her to pursue.
" The grass tore between her fingers. "By the time I was old enough for college, the idea of making plans for myself felt…
pointless. What was the use of wanting something when it could all get pulled away the next time she met someone charming at a coffee shop? "
She felt more than heard his exhale. A moment later, his hand found hers in the grass.
"That's why you don't trust charm," he said.
"That's why I don't trust charm."
"And yet here you are. With me."
She turned her head, meeting his gaze. His golden-brown eyes were soft and unguarded in a way she was starting to recognize as precious.
"Here I am," she agreed. "Terrified."
"Of me?"
"Of how much I don't want to leave."
The words hung between them. She hadn't meant to say that much, to reveal that much. But something about Thallos—about the way he looked at her, about the safety she felt when he was near—made honesty feel less dangerous.
He lifted her hand to his lips. Pressed a kiss to her knuckles, gentle and reverent.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "And I'm not going to ask you to, either."
"You can't know that."
"I can know what I want. And what I want is this. You. Here. For as long as you'll have me."
God. How was she supposed to resist this? How was she supposed to maintain walls that had already started crumbling the moment he'd asked her to dance in front of the entire town?
She leaned in, slow enough to give him time to pull away. He didn't. His free hand came up to cup her jaw, thumb brushing over her cheekbone with devastating tenderness.
The kiss was soft. Sweet. A question rather than a demand. They had kissed over the past week, but they'd kept it light, or at least they'd tried to. She knew he was giving her time, but suddenly she didn't want more time.
She leaned into him. His arms came around her, pulling her into his lap, and suddenly soft became something else entirely.
Something hungry and hot and absolutely necessary.
Her hands slid into his hair, tugging him closer, and he made a sound against her mouth that she felt all the way down to her toes.
*This,* she thought. *This is what I want.*
His mouth left hers to trail down her neck, finding that spot below her ear that made her gasp. His hands—those clever, gentle hands—slid beneath her shirt, warm against the skin of her lower back.
"Marigold." Her name was a prayer. "Tell me if you need to stop."
"Don't stop."
He growled—a low, rumbling sound that seemed to vibrate through her chest—and then he was kissing her again, deeper and more demanding. She met him kiss for kiss, overwhelmed by sensation but not afraid, not this time. This time she was right where she wanted to be.
When he pulled back, they were both breathing hard.
"As much as I'd love to continue this," he said, voice rough, "we're in a meadow. In the middle of the afternoon. With a vineyard full of employees who could come looking for me."
She glanced around. They were mostly hidden by the tall grass, but not completely. And while the idea of being caught should have mortified her, she found she mostly just didn't want to share this moment with anyone else. But still…
"I don't want to stop." She pulled back just enough to look at him properly, to make sure he understood.
"I'm tired of being careful. I'm tired of holding back because I'm scared of what might happen.
I want—" She broke off, suddenly uncertain how to articulate the ache that had been building for days.
"Tell me what you want."
"You. I want you. I want—" She gestured helplessly. "More. All of it. Whatever this is between us, I want to stop running from it."
For a long moment, he just looked at her. Then a smile spread across his face—not his usual charming grin, but something deeper. Truer.
"Not today," he said.
"What?"
"Not today." He kissed her forehead, her nose, the corner of her mouth. "Not because I don't want to—believe me, I want to—but because when we take that step, I want it to be perfect. Not rushed. Not in a field full of pollen that's going to make you sneeze."
As if on cue, she felt her nose tickle. She sneezed.
He laughed, the sound bright and warm and completely infectious. She found herself laughing too, the tension breaking like a soap bubble.
"Fine," she said. "But soon."
"Soon." He helped her to her feet, brushing grass off her skirt with hands that lingered just a moment too long. "In the meantime, I believe we have dance lessons to continue."
"I thought you said I should take a break."
"Dancing isn't work. Dancing is…" He pulled her close, settling into the now-familiar hold. "Dancing is this."
And then he was humming something low and sweet, and they were moving together through the meadow, the butterflies scattering around them like living confetti. No music but his voice. No audience but the wildflowers.
She rested her head against his chest and let herself be led.