Page 99 of Perfect Pairing
I flicked the panel out of the way and punched in the code less than ten people in the world knew. When the lock clicked free, I pulled the door open.
“After you,” I said to Ezra.
His expression was dubious as he asked, “You’re not taking me down here to kill me, are you?”
“Absolutely not,” I promised him. “If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it years ago.”
He barked out a laugh and reached for me, pulling me flush against his body and pressing one hard kiss to my mouth. Then he pulled away and descended the staircase into the darkness.
“What is this place?”I asked Brie quietly, afraid to raise my voice and rouse any creepy crawly things potentially lurking in the darkness at the foot of the stairs. Not to mention, the temperature dropped the lower I went, which didn’t help quell my anxiety that she was about to attempt murder.
It seemed like the perfect place to hide a body until the ground on the vineyard thawed and she could bury me out there, where no one would ever locate my remains.
Instead of answering, Brie pressed against my back and reached past me. A moment later, the space illuminated, and I audibly gasped.
Moving deeper into the cellar, I spun in a slow circle until I once again faced Brie. “How have I been working here for nearly four years and never knew this place existed?”
“It’s a family secret,” she said. “Well…and Cal knows about it, but that’s a story for a different time.”
“And now me,” I said, stabbing a finger into my chest. “Now I know about it too.”
Brie grinned. “You do. I trust you to keep it between us, or we’ll be forced to change the code again.”
“Again?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Delia brought a high school boy she’d been…seeingdown here once. They’d been drunk and young and stupid, and he’d shattered one of the bottles from Great-Grandpa Delatou’s first ever batch of wine. So Daddy forbade her from seeing him again, banned him permanently from Delatou property, and immediately changed the code.”
I whistled low. I understood being an overprotective parent—my sole purpose in life was to shield Hansen from the worst of human nature, to ensure he wasn’t exposed to the darkest parts of people—but I also thought it was different with a father and son. The father-daughter relationship wasn’t one I’d ever understand.
“Your dad is terrifying.”
Brie snorted, turning her back to me as she paced along the shelves, running her hands over the bottles displayed there like trophies, some of the labels yellowed and curling at the edges with age.
“You think that’s bad? I lost my virginity in the backseat of the limo at my senior prom. Ella, the only one of my sisters still living at home at the time, spilled my plans for the evening to my parents.”
I grimaced, already sensing what was coming. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, he did. Showed up at the Villa, pulled my date from the backseat by his hair, and threatened to beat him with the baseball bat he was brandishing if he ever touched me again.”
“Oh my god,” I said, hand flying to my mouth. “That’s…extreme.”
She simply nodded. “I was so embarrassed, I didn’t show my face at school for the rest of the year. It was the first and onlytime I let my dad throw our family name and money around to influence the school into letting me complete my last few weeks of high school remotely.”
I shook my head, a chuckle escaping me.
“I asked him for his blessing, you know,” I told her.
“Youwhat?” Brie exclaimed, whirling toward me, her fists coming to rest on the gentle swells of her hips.
I hitched a shoulder up in a half shrug. “At Thanksgiving. The guys got to talking about fixing up Christmas dinner, and your dad mentioned how happy he was to have help for once. One thing led to another, Cal opened his big mouth—”
“He does that sometimes,” Brie said with a chuckle.
“—and I told your dad I’m crazy about you and wanted the chance to pursue it.”
“What did he say?”
“Told me we’re both adults and don’t need his permission but that I had his blessing anyway.”
