Page 39 of Cru's Crush
Daphne shook her head. “I don’t want to.”
I stepped closer, and as much as I wanted to touch her, I didn’t. “If you want to meet him, I’ll understand.”
She folded her arms. “If the situations were reversed, I wouldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
Did I really need to make her say it? I’d noticed jealousy rear its head at the diner when Shelley flirted with me. It wasn’t nearly as much as I felt when Roan couldn’t take his eyes off Daphne at the Sea Chest. But it was all I could do not to get up and throw him through the front window.
“There. It’s settled,” she said, setting herphone down.
“What is?”
“I’ll meet him another day.”
“In that case, I have an idea,” I said.
“Go on.”
“We’d have enough time to shop for the household stuff on our list, swing by the market, then invite your parents for dinner.”
Daphne’s eyes opened wide, and her smile was broader than I’d seen since I found her in New York City. “I love that idea, Cru. What about Lucia and Trevino? Could we invite them too?”
“If you’re up for it.”
The timing was perfect if I could sneak Trevino away for a few minutes to talk to him about my ideas for the upstairs porch. I’d been thinking about it since she and I were out there and saw how taken she’d been with it.
“I’ll ask my parents; you ask your mum and brother.”
I watched as she sent a message. She laughed at either her mom’s or dad’s response, then quickly replied. All the while, I wondered if this was how our life would be if we took our relationship beyond friends. It was too soon, though. First, we had to see if we could work together. That was primary. It wasDaphne’s dream to have her own label, to make her own wine, and it thrilled me to make it happen for her.
I wasn’t selfless in wanting her to work for Los Cab, though. By hiring her, I had someone to take over the second label, allowing me to focus on our main varietals, plus my dad’s blend that I was still perfecting.
When she’d tasted it at Stave, I told her that maybe sometime I’d tell her what I’d named it. My dad never had because he hadn’t gotten it “exactly right,” as he’d say. If he had, I knew he’d have named it for my mother, just like I’d named it for Daphne—the woman I loved with all my heart—enough to do everything in my power to make sure she remained in my life, even if she could never be in my bed.
10
DAPHNE
Last night, I shut my eyes and drifted to sleep only once. It seemed that, within minutes, I dreamed I was locked inside a room, unable to get out. Except, unlike at the apartment in New York, I wasn’t alone in this one. Ryder was there with me. I shook myself awake, but after that, I was too afraid to close my eyes again.
Rather than risk sleeping, I got my tablet out and read a book until sunrise, then made coffee and waited for my parents to get up. In Australia, they were early risers. Who knew what timetable they might be on only one day after arriving in the States.
“Something smells good,” my father said when he joined me in the kitchen a few minutes after the coffee finished brewing.
We sat in the breakfast nook, and he asked me about Cru. At first, I tried to play it off as nothing, but he saw through it.
I told him about the conversation we’d had and that Cru said there was too much at stake for us to experimentby adding romance to the mix. Those weren’t his exact words, but I knew that’s what he meant.
“We need time to let things happen naturally between us, Dad,” I’d said. “If we force it, there’s far more to lose than a romance. I might lose my job and, worse, one of the most important friendships of my life.”
“He’s a good man, Daph,” he responded. “Most wouldn’t care enough to handle it the way he is.”
“Beau wouldn’t have.”
He nodded and rested his chin on his hand. “You and Beau had your time. If it was meant to be, you’d be with him.”
