What did that mean? A week? A month? Longer?
I wanted to bring up Christmas Eve, to understand why she’d said she forgave me when she clearly hadn’t. To explain in a way that might actually reach her this time. “When I said I was sorry?—”
“I forgave you.” Her words were clipped. “Can we leave it at that?”
I backed off, but my mind kept going back to this year’s ball. It was held in mid-October, after most of those in the valley had finished harvesting their grapes.
The tension between us at the auction had been electric, crackling in the air every time we ended up near each other. Whenever I’d looked across the room, she was watching me. Then, when she’d turned away, I tracked her movements, unable to stop.
The following night, she’d shown up at my house unannounced, asking if we could talk. The door had barely closed before we were tearing at each other’s clothes. A year of wanting, of dancing around what was building between us, and suddenly there was nothingholding us back. Her hands shook as she grabbed at my shirt. My fingers fumbled with the zipper of her dress.
We barely made it to the bedroom. The need was overwhelming—frantic, urgent, and consuming. I’d spent a year trying not to think about this, about her, and now that I had her, I couldn’t get enough.
When it was over, we lay tangled in my sheets, breathless and stunned by what we’d just done. She’d traced patterns on my chest with her fingertips while I memorized the feel of her in my arms.
We’d barely slept, but when the sun rose, everything between us shattered.
I’d gotten up to make coffee, trying to figure out what would happen between us now. When I returned to the bedroom with a cup for each of us, she asked about the rumors swirling around the Christmas Blessing Wine. She wasn’t accusatory, instead she appeared curious. I told her about the foreclosure Hope Winery was facing, how Saffron came up with the idea that recreating the wine from 1955 might bring in enough money to save them, and that in exchange for bidding on him, Saffron wanted Snapper to help her.
Then she’d asked a question I never should’ve answered.
“Why did Saffron bid seventy-five thousand dollars on Snapper at the auction if her family’s broke?”
I’d responded without thinking. Without considering what the truth would do to her. “She doesn’t pay. Snapper does. Every year. So he doesn’t have to go on an actual date with anyone.”
The color had drained from her face as understanding crashed down on her.
“Anyone,” she’d whispered. “You mean me.”
“Isabel—”
“Years of bidding. Years of everyone watching. And it was deliberate.” She’d stood and wrapped a blanket around herself. “The whole town laughing at desperate Isabel Van Orr, and you all made sure I’d keep coming back for more. Made sure I’d embarrass myself over and over.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it, then? Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly as it is—public humiliation for everyone’s entertainment.”
While it was about Snapper not wanting to have to take someone on a date—namely her—I wouldn’t have gone so far as to say it was about intentionallyhumiliating her. Except I had no defense that didn’t sound hollow.
She grabbed her clothes and went into the bathroom.
“You want to know what’s funny?” she said when she came out dressed, and clearly angry. “I actually found information that could help Snapper and Saffron. Details in my grandmother’s papers, concerning what was missing from the recipe.”
I went still. “Isabel?—”
“But I’ll never give it to them. Not after this.” She looked at me with tear-filled eyes. “This is what they both deserve after what they’ve done to me.”
And that was when I’d said things I couldn’t take back. Things that had been eating at me for two months.
“This is exactly what everyone says about you. You’re a spoiled brat who only thinks of herself. Someone tries to be real with you, and you threaten to destroy the good in other people’s lives because your feelings got hurt.”
She’d gone pale. Every insecurity I’d learned in that bar a year ago—every fear she’d confessed when her walls were down and she’d trusted me with the truth—I’d weaponized. I’d thrown them in herface because I was panicking and defensive and too stupid to see what I was doing until it was too late.
She’d grabbed her purse and headed down the hall.
“Isabel, wait?—”
But she was already gone. The door slammed behind her hard enough to shake the frame.
