by HELEN HARDT
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ashley
There.
I did it.
I made the ultimate confession to him.
Well, maybe not the ultimate. That would be those three little words that I feel so profoundly but know Dale will never return.
Already I know he won’t answer. Or if he does, it will be something douchey.
I stare again at the vines, at the gorgeous clusters of black grapes nearly ready to drop to the ground. I reach out and hold a cluster of fruit in my palm. It’s warm to my touch on this sunny day.
Dale inhales. Yeah, he just held back a gasp. Does he think I’d actually harm his precious Syrah? He doesn’t know me at all.
“Let go,” he finally says.
“Of the grapes?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck off, Dale. If you think I’d hurt these grapes, these vines—”
“No,” he says. “Let go, so I can kiss you.”
I drop my jaw open and move my hand back to my side. “Are you kidding me? After you left me alone at your house? You think you can—”
His lips come down on mine. Hard.
Hard and feral and perfectly beautiful.
I open. How can I not? I just confessed to him that making love with him was better than the peaceful beauty of these vineyards.
I wasn’t lying.
He probes me with his tongue, and I respond, melting into him. It’s a primal kiss, a kiss born solely of nature, and it’s fitting that we’re surrounded by nature’s own beauty.
Yes, he left me again.
But God, I love this man. His kisses, his arms around me, his hands caressing my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks. I love all of that. But mostly I love him. His good heart and his tortured soul.
Why can’t he be with me? Why can’t he get past whatever boundary he’s built within himself?
I may never know the answer.
Still, I’ve promised myself that I’ll take what he’s willing to give, and at the moment, that’s a passionate kiss. I urge him on with my own desire. My body responded to his presence the second he arrived, and now I’m as ripe as the grapes I was holding mere moments ago. My legs weaken, but Dale’s strong and muscular body steadies me.
I never want this kiss to end, but like all good things, it does.
But I don’t end it.
He does. He breaks away from me and gasps in a breath.
I stare at his face. His beautifully masculine face with his structured jawline and high cheekbones. His clear green eyes that are heavy-lidded and smoldering. And that mouth, those full lips that are even fuller from the kiss.
Last night, I asked him to make love to me here. Among these vines.
I now realize that can never happen.
To Dale, these vines are sacred, and making love here would taint them in some way.
To me? It would make them all the more sacred. But that’s because I’m in love with Dale. He won’t feel that way because he’s not in love with me. Does he even understand love? I’ve never been in love before, but I understand what I’m feeling. How can you mistake the feeling of passion and wonder and all-encompassing desire and yearning?
“Dale?”
“Yeah?”
I swallow, gaining courage. “Have you ever been in love?”
He widens his eyes. No longer are they heavy-lidded, but still they smolder. Nothing for a moment. A moment that seems like a decade. He’s not going to answer. Can I blame him? It’s a very personal question.
“Only once,” he finally says.
This time I widen my eyes. Definitely not the answer I was expecting. Dale Steel has been in love? When? And with whom? But I don’t ask. He won’t tell me, and part of me doesn’t want to know, anyway.
“Same here,” I say.
With you. How I long to say the words. But I can’t. He won’t return them, and that will be too painful to bear.
He clears his throat. “Ashley, the tasting…”
I whip my hand to my mouth. How could I have forgotten? “I’m so sorry! What time is it?”
“It’s ten thirty.”
“Oh, good. We have time. I can’t believe I forgot. I’m not usually like this.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not, though.” Sure, he left me alone in his house after we made love, but it’s no excuse to slack off on my work. We talked about this tasting all yesterday.
“Come on,” he says gruffly. “I’ll drive you back.”
I nod and walk next to him as we leave the vineyard. He opens the passenger door of his truck, and I climb in.
To the tasting.
I’ll kill it like I did the last one.
I won’t let myself think about the woman Dale Steel was once in love with.
I enjoy the lunch part of the tasting immensely. The tasters are all good-natured and ask a lot of questions, and not a one is young enough to drool over Dale like last time. All are middle-aged couples and a few are in their golden years. All lovely people.
Older couples probably also have more money to spend on wine. It should be a good tasting businesswise.
That part doesn’t matter to me, but Dale will be pleased.
Dale pastes on his “tasting face” and responds to the customers as well. The smile—the smile I long to see more often—plays on his lips as though it’s more natural than I know it to be.
The tasting proceeds without consequence, and as I predicted, we sell a lot of wine, mostly Dale’s table blend, which pleases him.
“You can go on home,” he says to me afterward. “It’s been a long day.”
“I’m fine.”
“Please, Ashley. Go. I’ve got this.”
He looks away from me, seeming to focus on the order forms while employees shuffle cases of wine to the tasters’ cars in the lot.
Does our time together truly mean so little to him? He wants me. That much is obvious. But he doesn’t seem to have any genuine need for me, and he certainly doesn’t love me. Relationships have been built on less.
I bring as much courage as I can to the surface and meet his gaze. “Dale, are we going to even try?”
“Try what?” He continues scanning the papers in front of him.
“To…” I swallow. “To be together?”
He looks up. “Ashley…you don’t want to be with me.”
I lift my eyebrows. “What?”
“You heard me.” He drops his gaze back to the matter in front of him.
Yeah, I heard him, but I didn’t expect those words. I expected something snide or douchey or, more likely, no answer at all.
You don’t want to be with me.
He’s so wrong.
“Isn’t that my choice to make?” I reply.
He scoffs. “Last I heard, I have a choice in the matter as well. You’re not the only one in this relationship.”
A tiny sliver of hope dances in my heart. Relationship. He used the word relationship. Of course, he could simply be talking about our working relationship. He probably is. But maybe not. Maybe, in his eyes, we have something more.
“Dale, please look at me.”
He inhales and lifts his gaze from the paperwork. “I’ve got to get this done.”
“No, you don’t. Have you forgotten I’ve done a tasting with you before? You didn’t touch the paperwork after that one.”
“Maybe the employee who usually does it is out today.”
“I’m not buying.”
He sighs, which turns into a soft growl. Such a light touch of his voice, and already I’m enrobed in the gorgeous color of Syrah.
“Ashley, I don’t know how I can make this any clearer. We can’t be together. We can never be together.”
Though his words aren’t unexpected, an arrow pokes my heart anyway and tears threaten to pool in my eyes. I sniff them back. “Tell me why,” I demand. “Tell me why and I’ll never bring it up again.”
“Because,” he says, “you deserve better.”
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Chapter Thirty
Dale
I don’t expect my response to stop her incessant questioning. If that’s what I wanted, I could have said something else.
I don’t love you and I never will.
We’re too different.
I find you repulsive.
All of which are complete lies.
What I said, though? That’s the truth. She does deserve better.
She’s silent for a few minutes, and I can’t read her expression. Total poker face.
Finally, she says, “What if I think you’re the best? That there’s no one better than you?”
I scoff softly. “Then you’re deluding yourself.”
“Bull. You’re brilliant. You’re a hard worker. An ethical worker. Already I’ve learned as much from you as I have from my best professors. Your love for your work is unequaled. You’re amazing, Dale. If you let me in, I’ll show you how amazing you are.”
I inhale slowly. “Ashley, you’ve got to let this go.”
But she won’t. I already know this, because I already know her. This woman goes after what she wants, and right now her goal seems to be me.
“Why should I let it go?”
“Because you said if I told you why we couldn’t be together, you’d never bring it up again.”
Gotcha.
But it won’t matter.
“I don’t accept your response. I want to know why you think we can’t be together. Your answer has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. You’ve decided, according to some ridiculous rules inside your head, that I deserve better. I reject that. No one knows better than I do what I deserve.”
“You deserve the best,” I say.
“And I think he’s sitting in front of me.”
I rake my fingers through my mass of hair. “Fuck it all, Ashley. Why can’t you just let this go?” I stand and push the papers on the table aside. A few of them float to the floor.
“Because you’re the best,” she says, her lips trembling a touch.
God, those lips. I would give my fortune for one taste of those lips alone. What is the matter with me? How did I let this happen?
“I’m so far from the best,” I say, advancing toward her. “I’m a mess on the inside. Not a mess. A disaster. A fucking disaster.”
“Let me in,” she says bravely. “Let me in and I’ll help you.”
“You can’t! Why won’t you just listen to me?”
She stands and faces me, her blue eyes burning like a thousand suns. “Because I love you, damn it. I love you!”
My legs weaken, and I grab the edge of the table for support. Those words. Those fucking words. My heart is full yet empty. Full because I love her so much. Empty because I know I can’t return her love the way she deserves.
I want to. I want to more than anything.
I learned long ago, though, that wanting something is never enough.
I slump into a chair.
She sits next to me and takes my hand in her own. “You don’t have to say it back. Maybe you don’t feel it. Maybe you do. It doesn’t even matter in the long run. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that, but now that my feelings are out in the open, I’m not sorry they are.” She caresses my palm with her thumb. “I’ve got a little over two months left here. I’ll work hard for you. I’ll be the best intern you’ve ever had or ever will have. I promise you. But I also want to spend time with you. For the time I have left. Then I’ll leave, and if it’s what you want, you’ll never hear from me again.”
God, that’s so far from what I want. But the idea has merit. We can be together. Spend time with each other. And it’s all transitory. I can hold back because I know it’s not permanent. Maybe, just maybe, I can let those amazing emotions flow and still hold back the abhorrent ones. After all, it’s not forever. It’s for two months. She’ll be gone by Thanksgiving.
I look into her sparkling blue eyes. They’re full of wonder and hope. She’s so full of life! I want to sink inside her skin, to be her. To feel what she feels, love the way she loves. Because that’s what this wonderful woman deserves.
“Please, Dale.” She trails a finger over my jawline. “I want to know you.”
Know is a scary word. She already knows me in the biblical sense, and that’s not what she means, anyway. She wants to get inside me, figure me out. Love me.
As much as that appeals to me, I can’t let it happen. For her sake as well as for mine. More for hers, because when I consider her well-being, it trumps my own. Big time.
But maybe… Only a little over two months…
Maybe I can let myself be happy. Happy enough that I can hold the other shit back.
Then once she’s gone…
I’ll explode.
But only I will have to deal with that. Ashley will be back in California and won’t bear witness to who I truly am.
I don’t know if I have the strength to pull this off, but I can’t turn down what she’s offering. I don’t have the inner fortitude.
I love her. And I want her.
So I’ll take her.
For two months, I’ll take her. I’ll cherish her.
I just hope I have the strength to let her leave when I’m done.
I stand and pull her up. I cup her cheek and gaze into those amazing eyes. “All right, Ashley. Until your internship is over. But no longer.”
A smile splits her gorgeous face. “It won’t interfere with my work. I swear to you.”
“I know,” I say. “And one more thing.”
She lifts her eyebrows.
“No more Brock. And no more Brendan Murphy. If you want to be with me, you have to be only with me.”
“I didn’t sleep with either of them.”
A wave of relief sweeps over me. Not that I thought she did, but I’m happy to know for sure. “I’m glad.”
“Dale…”
“What?”
“I do love you.”
How I yearn to return her vow. My lips part, and the words lodge in my throat.
I love you too, Ashley. I love you more than I ever thought I was capable of loving another person. I ache for you. Adore you. Would gladly stop a bullet for you.
But the confession stays locked inside me.
Instead of answering with words, I lower my head and press my lips to hers.
My body responds instantly, and I want to take her with a kiss so powerful she’ll never recover.
I hold back, though. If we’re going to do this for two months, I have time. I have time to explore her slowly, the way I’ve longed to. Slowly and sweetly. I pull back and meet her gaze.
“Tonight,” I say. “My place. We’ll have dinner.”
“And you won’t leave me again during the night?”
“No.” I trail my finger over her plump lower lip. “I won’t.”
I mean the words. I mean them with all my heart.
I just hope the darkness in my soul doesn’t force me to make them a lie.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ashley
After a shower and a change of clothes, I arrive at Dale’s place at six thirty on the nose. He opens the door, and the spicy scent of tomatoes and basil wafts toward me from the kitchen.
“You’re cooking?”
“Did you think dinner would make itself?”
“No, I… You told me you got your start with wine by cooking. I’m not sure why I’m surprised.”
“I still love to cook,” he says. “I just don’t have a lot of time for it. Plus, when it’s just me, it seems a waste to go to all the trouble.”
I nod. “I’m honored you’re going to the trouble for me.”
“It’s not trouble.”
“You just said—”
“I know what I just said.” He sighs. “I never say the right thing, Ashley. If you want to be with me, you should probably just expect that.”
His tone is so…resigned. Am I forcing him into this? He should sound happy, not resigned. Even th
e color of his voice is different. It’s more of a Pinot Noir instead of the dark burgundy of Syrah.
This isn’t the Dale I want. I want the passionate Dale. The angry Dale. The Dale I fell in love with.
He’s in there—hiding inside that beautiful body. I’ll just have to coax him out.
“Can I help?” I ask.
“Can you toss a salad?”
I chuckle. “I think I’ve done it once or twice.”
He nods to the bowl of greens on the counter. “Have at it. Homemade vinaigrette is in the fridge.”
I whisk past Dale, our bodies touching slightly, and a wave of desire pokes at me. Dinner, first. Dinner and conversation. Maybe I’ll get to know him a little better.
Then later…
I’m so ready, I’m about to burst into bloom.
The cool air from the refrigerator does little to take the edge off my aching loins. I grab the bottle of vinaigrette and get back to the task at hand.
“How much dressing do you like?” I ask. “Light, medium, or heavy?”
“However you like it is fine.”
“I prefer medium.” I pour on some of the vinaigrette and toss the salad. “Smells great. What are we having?”
“Linguine frutti di mare,” he says. “I thought you might be missing seafood.”
And oh my God, I love him even more.
“I hope you don’t mind seafood with a red sauce,” he says.
“Not at all.”
“Sometimes I make it with a garlic and white wine sauce, but I prefer my basil marinara.”
I inhale. “It smells amazing.”
“The secret is the tiniest pinch of caraway along with basil, thyme, and garlic.”
