I needed to make something clear: I tried to see the allure. I really did.
But I couldn’t find a single thing about this guy that should’ve snagged a woman like Delia. His eyes and hair were the samecolor, a nondescript brown that was easily forgettable. He was narrow, especially compared to my broad frame, and probably only five-ten, though I would’ve bet good money he told people he was six-feet. His entire air was…eager. The brightness in his eyes, the grin, the fuckingdalmatian costume.
I didn’t like the guy on principle, mostly because I thought he had delusions of grandeur where his relationship with Delia was concerned.
A man like this could never satisfy her, not the way I could.
TJ turned to Delia. “Ready for some pictures, milady?” He proffered his arm like some Victorian gentleman. Delia only stared at me. Waiting.
But for what?
“Go.”
A simple command. Two letters. One syllable. But the way her face fell, the way she reared away from me, you’d think I shot her.
It was better this way. Her with him, me…alone.
After they walked away, Amara and Cal appeared at my side.
“I see you’ve met TJ.”
“Yes.”
“Oooooh,” Cal said. “Someone is testy.”
“How long has that been going on?” I asked, not bothering to look at either of them, unable to take my eyes off Delia and the dweeb.
“Since about mid-September, I think,” Amara said. “He asked her out after one of the festival planning meetings.”
I winced as he gestured widely and half his glass of something I couldn’t name on sight sloshed all over, spilling on the hem of Delia’s dress and the concrete at their feet.
“And she…likes him?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amara shrug. “It’s not that deep, Owen. I think she’s just…lonely, if I’m being honest.”
“But…why?”
“We’ve all always talked about having families of our own one day,” Amara said, linking one hand through Cal’s and settling the other on her stomach. “And now that Chloe and I are actually doing it, I think she feels left out.”
God, how badly did I also want a family ofmyown? A love and life to fill the void left in my dad’s absence?
When I didn’t say anything else, Amara and Cal moved away in favor of conversation with Brie, Ella, Ezra, and Liam Danvers, the winery’s agricultural engineer—though most people referred to him simply as “the grower.” It seemed the entire Chateau Delatou staff was here.
Instead of joining the fray, I remained sentinel against the wall, pounding whiskey like water and covertly watching Delia entertain her guests, TJ following her around like the animal he’d dressed as. Every time he touched her, I flinched, hating the familiarity between them. How the fuck had I not known she was seeing someone? And after the almosts between us at Lawless and again outside this very house that night, what was going through her head? Was she sleeping with him?
My teeth clenched painfully at the idea.
Needing to clear my head, I stepped outside and stalked across the lawn then down the block to my truck. Stuffing myself behind the wheel, I closed my eyes, slamming my skull back into the headrest a few times, trying to jar myself out of my bad mood.
I had no right to Delia, no claim over her time, and no say inwho she spent it with.
But I wanted her. I wanted that claim, to monopolize her time, exactly as her dad had accused me of at dinner that night. I wantedmorenights like that, molding our families and lives together.
She’d snuck up on me, and since visions of a future with her had entered my mind, I couldn’t shake them loose.
A tap against my window had my eyes flying open, and I found Delia pressing her face against the glass, gesturing for me to roll it down.
“What’re you doing out here?”
