Consciousness crept in slowly, accompanied by the kind of headache that felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to her skull. Emery kept her eyes closed, afraid that opening them would make the pounding worse, and tried to piece together the previous night through the fog of whiskey and humiliation.
The auction house. Harold's betrayal. The bar afterward, where she'd apparently decided that drowning her sorrows was a viable life strategy. And then...
Her eyes snapped open.
Devon was asleep in the armchair by the window, his long frame folded awkwardly into a space clearly not designed for someone his size. His dark hair was mussed, his button-down shirt wrinkled, and there was something endearingly vulnerable about the way he'd managed to fall asleep sitting up.
What the hell had happened last night?
Emery sat up carefully, but that didn’t stop her head from spinning. She remembered Devon appearing at the bar like a guardian angel. Remembered walking back to her Airbnb with his steadying hand on her elbow. And she definitely remembered asking him to stay. However, the specifics of that conversation were frustratingly hazy.
Had she thrown herself at him? Please God, she hoped she hadn't thrown herself at him—again. The last thing she needed was to get tangled up with Devon. He was a nice enough man. Maybe too nice, and that meant trouble. She knew that to be a fact. While she wouldn’t label him a player, he wasn’t the kind of man who hadfuture husbandtattooed anywhere on his body. His reputation for breaking hearts had kept her from pursuing him for the last two years.
That was until last month when she’d found herself strolling past his tasting room and decided to go in for a glass. One turned into two, and the next thing she knew, she’d spent the night at his house down the street.
She looked down at herself—at least she had on pajamas, which was something. But the fact that Devon was still here, that he'd apparently spent the night watching over her...
"Oh God," she whispered, burying her face in her hands. The last time she’d been with Devon hadn’t been under such dire circumstances, but alcohol had been involved.
"You're awake." Devon's voice was rough with sleep, and when she looked up, he was stretching in the chair, obviously working out the kinks caused by his improvised bed.
"Please tell me I didn't make a complete fool of myself last night," she said.
“You were hurting.” He stood, rolling his shoulders. “You needed someone to make sure you were okay. End of story."
She studied his face, looking for any sign that he was lying or sparing her feelings. But Devon had always been direct, even in high school. If she'd done something mortifying, he'd tell her.
"I'm sorry," she said finally. "For putting you in that position. For making you sleep in a chair. For whatever I said that convinced you to babysit a drunk stranger."
“Stranger? We’ve known each other since grade school.” Devon moved to sit on the edge of the bed, seemingly keeping a careful distance between them. "And you don't need to apologize. You had a shit night.”
The memories of yesterday came flooding back—Harold's public humiliation, the whispers of the auction crowd, the devastating realization that her career was over. In the harsh light of morning, with a splitting headache and the taste of lies in her mouth, it all felt even worse.
"God, what am I going to do?" The words slipped out before she could stop them. "I can't stay in Stone Bridge. I can't face my colleagues or anyone who witnessed that disaster.”
“Yeah, well.” He pulled out his cell. “Unfortunately, that disaster has found its way to social media.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Wonderful. I’m an internet joke and I'm apparently unemployable in the only field I have any real passion for and I don’t want to go back to the museum in San Fransico with my tail between my legs.”
“You don’t have to. There are so many options for you in this industry right here in Stone Bridge. Or anywhere in Napa.”
“Who the hell is going to hire someone with that kind of reputation? Especially when…” she snagged his cell. “Jesus. That’s way too many views. I’m so screwed. I’ll never recover from this.”
He leaned forward slightly. "I meant what I said last night about the job opportunity."
Emery stared at him, her pulse rattling in her throat. “I’m pretty fuzzy about the details of that.”
“Good thing I was sober and remember it exactly.”
"I appreciate the gesture, but?—"
"It's not a gesture. It's business. And this is an opportunity.” His tone sharpened slightly. “What happened doesn't change your qualifications or your expertise."
"My expertise in spotting forgeries? In authenticating and developing a creation story for a historical vintage? The same expertise that apparently collapsed when I failed to catch massive fraud, and… never mind.”
