A cool breeze cut through the warm April afternoon. Her stomach twisted, tight and cold, a slow-spreading ache she hadn’t braced for.
He’d been kind today—sweet, even. Thoughtful in a way she hadn’t expected from someone like him. And maybe that’s why it stung more than it should.
And the dresses he bought her. They had felt meaningful. But now, with that woman’s easy laughter still ringing in her ears, it felt cheapened.
Unknowingly, Ani was making her way back toward the gaudy fountain. Walking without a destination, only wanting to put distance between herself and him.
When he handed her the gifts, though, he seemed embarrassed, not suave and debonair, not dashing in a con man sort of way. He was nervous. He wanted her to like them. He wanted to get it right.
But.But.
She didn’t know what to do. She found herself drawn to Raffi, felt that the man she’d come to know was different from his reputation, but—
That was when her shoe caught hard against something solid—a hidden ledge? A loose stone? She didn’t have time to figure it out before her legs lurched violently out from under her.
She was weightless for a moment, then the impact came, sudden and merciless.
The shock of cold water punched the air from her lungs, biting through fabric, skin, bone. It took her a moment to register the icy grip seeping into every inch of her, the way her clothes clung to her like dead weight. She’d fallen into the goddamn liability fountain.
Her first instinct was to scramble upward, but something was pulling her down.
Standing up shouldn’t have been a problem, except the water was heavier than it should have been, except—
Suddenly her back and butt slammed into something hard, the jarring force rattling through her bones. It was so dark and murky in here, she couldn’t see a damn thing. A deep, mechanical whirring hummed beneath her, vibrating through the water. A pump.
Shit.
Ani twisted and tried to push away, but her limbs slippeduselessly on the algae-slick bottom of the fountain, her pulse hammering faster now, her chest tightening like a vise. At some point, she’d lost her shoes.
The hem of her dress was stuck and being sucked into the pump more and more. She yanked hard—nothing. Shit, shit, shit. Ani got to her knees, which were still slipping along the bottom, and she just barely broke the surface, gasping—yes, air!—but she then slipped again and swallowed a mouthful of foul, grimy fountain water. The suction continued to pull at her dress, pinning her underwater. Panic surged through her chest. How many more breaths could she steal like that, how much more water could she swallow before, before…
15
Raffi
Raffi was processingseeing…what was her name again? Kylie? Kayla? Kyrie? K-woman was talking to him a mile a minute about all the changes in her life, about her new workout routine and her spiritual healer telling her to go for things she’d previously shied away from, and huh, was she talking about him? About trying to ask him out on a date? They had hooked up one night when he was new to the Napa scene. It hadn’t meant much at the time, but now he saw it for what it was: a careless moment that had ripples he hadn’t considered.
He wished, more than anything, that Ani didn’t have to witness this—that she wasn’t seeing this version of himself he was doing his best to reform. Wait. Wasn’t she here a second ago? Where had she gone?
His former fling touched his arm, and Raffi was about to come up with a polite way to tell her he wasn’t interested when he heard the loud splash. His head snapped up to the fountain, but he couldn’t see what had caused the noise. It was a significant splash, so not a twig or an acorn from the trees on theproperty. As he scanned the area, he saw it. My God. A single red heel sat splayed at the base of the fountain, as if it’d fallen off unexpectedly.
Ani.
His blood ran cold. Oh no. No, no, no.
Raffi rushed over without thinking. The fountain was far from where he was standing—how had she wandered off so quickly? But surely she’d emerge any minute, right? By the time he got there, she should be out of the water.
Instead, the water agitated, like something was fighting under there, so Raffi ran faster, ripping his jacket off and throwing it to the ground. This shouldn’t be happening. Something was terribly wrong. He knew if he didn’t get over there as fast as humanly possible and wrench her out of the water—if anything at all happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.
There were a couple of people nearby, peering toward the disturbance, but no one was doing anything. No one! They were all sitting around, staring, sipping wine while letting a woman drown—what the hell was wrong with people?
Raffi approached the fountain, spotted Ani’s thrashing arms just under the surface, and without another thought, jumped in. Oh fuck. He shut off his brain from the full impact of seeing her fighting for her life and concentrated on getting her safe as fast as possible. No matter what, he would not fail.
The icy water stabbed at him and his clothes dragged with heavy weight as he submerged himself to try to figure out what was wrong. He couldn’t see much, but as soon as Raffi put his arms around Ani, her jerking settled a bit. He pulled her up, but something resisted.
Following the area of tension, his fingers found where shewas stuck, the fabric trapped, tethering her to the bottom like an anchor. Her hands suddenly joined his and together they yanked, not caring about anything except getting her free.
And then—release.
