Page 24 of Taken With You
“So.” He opted for neutrality. It seemed the prudent course. “Was it a productive first day?”
“Yes.” Shadows deepened below her cheekbones. “Thanks to your help shoveling.”
“Glad to do my part.”
She couldn’t quite meet his gaze. With her hands in front of her, she worked the fleshy delta between the thumb and forefinger of one hand.
“Back at the barn,” he said, “was I imagining the fireworks?”
“No.” She raised one shoulder and bent her head into it. “I’d be a liar if I said I’m not attracted to you.”
Heat shot through him and pooled in a very inconvenient place. She was so damn honest. He wasn’t used to that. He always followed a woman’s lead, chasing them if they wanted to play coy, opting for a more physical approach if their interest was in something sweaty and uncomplicated. But this emotional honesty between them was undiscovered country. Amanda wasn’t ignoring the tangled knot they were trying to unravel. Bald honesty was a rare thing in his experience. It put him on his back foot.
She said, “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
He nodded. Her throat was tight, dark shadows showed under her eyes. Even the starlight seemed to fall heavy upon her. He wanted to work this out, but clearly nothing was going to happen tonight, not with Amanda half-asleep on her feet.
He said, “You’re exhausted.”
“I am.”
“Get some sleep.” He jerked his chin toward the stairs that led to the bedrooms. “I want you to have a clear head when—”
“This conversation can’t wait, I’m afraid. Free time will be a rare thing in the weeks to come. It’s not a wise idea to leave matters between us so…unsettled.”
He pulled his focus away from the lip she was nibbling on. He couldn’t stare at her mouth without imagining it crushed under his.
He said, “Do you want me to start?”
“No. I will.” Her shoulders lifted and fell on a sigh. “But there’s something that I have to tell you first, though it will seem unrelated.”
“I’m listening.”
“My family,” she said, her breath hitching on the word, “lost our farm when I was a teenager.”
He stilled. Where was she going with this?
“From the moment I looked out the back window of my family car that last day, I’ve been working toward the goal of having my own place.” Her gaze drifted to the window, to some point far beyond the hills. “First I focused on science classes in high school, stumbling through physics. Then I worked toward an undergraduate degree in chemistry, though organic chemistry nearly defeated me. I followed that with graduate school at Davis. Then landed a job as an apprentice winemaker at Windsor.” She nodded, more to herself than at him. “Twelve years I’ve wanted this, Garrick. Now, miraculously, I have it. Because of you.”
His chest tightened. So she recognized the complications of a sexual relationship, too. Getting involved with him might crater the dream that put theAlice-in-Wonderlandlook in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her for worrying. Most workplace relationships ended in ugly and spectacular ways.
He said, “I won’t interfere with this venture’s success, Amanda. No matter what happens between us.”
“It’s easy to say that, until things go wrong.”
He wanted to deny it, but the words stopped at his throat. His own brother had fallen hard for two ill-advised attractions that ended in contentious divorces. Garrick had absorbed those lessons better than Dominic ever did, opting to keep things casual in his personal relationships. But lately he’d witnessed two of his best friends falling hard. He’d met Logan’s Jenny and Dylan’s Casey and witnessed their absorption in one another. He’d be a fool not to admit that the intimate affection they shared had shot through him, churning up a longing that just might be the root cause of his current muddled mind, when it came to this particular, undeniably brilliant, gorgeous, and refreshingly plain-spoken woman.
He made an effort to clear the battle in his head. “We have a signed contract. I honor my promises, legal and otherwise. The portion of this winery promised to you will be yours in eighteen months, and you can do with it what you will. No matter what happens between us.”
And hell, though they stood farther than arm’s-length from one another talking in measured tones, every inch of his flesh wanted something to happen between themright now. If he hadn’t revived this place to honor Dominic, he would sign it all over to her, just to untangle business from the pleasure his body ached for.
But he pulled the reins on his libido. “If you don’t want to pursue this,” he said, balling his fists in his pockets, “then this conversation never happened, and we’ll go on as before.”
“I didn’t expect this, Garrick.” She gifted him the faintest of smiles. “We hardly know each other.”
He nodded, because it was true. But he’d had a hell of a lot of business partners. Normally, it took years to learn how to work together, to sand down the rough edges of different temperaments, to compromise on visions. But since the day Amanda had shown up at this winery, he’d worked with her with the same ease as he’d worked with Dominic.
And that was damned dangerous thinking.
