Through a doorway to my right, I glimpse a massive four-poster king-sized bed. It’s made up with crisp white linens, a fluffy duvet, and a small mountain of even fluffier pillows.
The whole place is chic and comfortable, and it clearly cost a fortune to construct and decorate.
It’s a dream.
If only I didn’t have a glowering beast of a man beside me, intent to take me out.
I look at him. He looks back.
No use beating around the bush. The guy is being a total jerk, but we need to work together. Time to smooth out the kinks.
Chapter Three
Samuel
“You don’t want me here.” Emma crosses her arms. “I have a good idea why, but I want to hear it from you.”
On the outside, this little scrap of a girl is buttoned up.
She’s wearing a prim black suit and low, sensible heels. Even with some help, she barely comes up to my chest. Her dark blond hair is coiled in a tight bun at the crown of her head, and she wears no jewelry save for the pearl studs in her ears.
But she’s got this raspy, smoky, phone sex voice that’s completely at odds with the bun and the pearls.
Fuck me. This is exactly what I don’t need, a hate-boner for the sommelier I’m determined to kick to the curb. I know a threat when I see one. And Emma’s got that gleam in her eye. That hunger for more. For bigger and better.
For knowledge.
I’ll be damned if I let her know me.
“I don’t want you here because I don’t need you. I’m really fucking good at my job. One of the best in the business, if that James Beard Award is any indication.”
“That award was for your chef.”
“One, Chef Katie is amazingly talented, but I’m the one who came up with the restaurant and food concept at The Barn Door. She takes my ideas and runs with them—she likes the challenge, and she always delivers. And two, what about the other awards? Bon Appetit? And the World’s Fifty Best List? Those were for the restaurant. You know, the one I conceptualized from soup to nuts and now run.”
She crosses her arms, wearing a smug expression on her face.
“You’re good at your job. So what? If you really loved the restaurant, and really believed that story y’all were telling me about family and food and hospitality, you’d welcome expertise like mine, not insult it. What are you afraid of?”
I stare at her. I keep doing that, I just—Christ, I haven’t been around this kind of radical, balls-out honesty in a long time.
No one questions me.
No one digs the way she’s digging. I make it a point to be the ballbuster so people don’t have the chance to return the favor.
But Miss Crawford? She beat me to the punch.
I don’t want to like the curiosity in her eyes. Because curiosity means she’s going to keep digging.
It means she cares. Makes the hollow inside my chest hurt.
“I’ve worked my ass off to learn a whole new field after I retired,” I grind out. “I started from scratch and took a lot of lumps along the way. But I did it for my family, and I’m damn proud of what we’ve built here. I’m proud of my cellar, and I know if I give you an inch of it, you’ll take a mile.”
“Our cellar. The resort’s. And I’ll take what I’m entitled to.”
“It’s mine. I spent a decade building it, and I’m not about to turn over the keys to a stranger. We don’t need change. We need to keep doing what we’ve been doing—crushing it, in other words.”
It’s not the whole truth. But it’s not a total lie, either.
“Stranger? I’ve known Beau for years.”
“A stranger to the family.”
“Right. But that doesn’t explain why you keep working even though you seem to think the cellar is set. You obviously don’t need the money.” Her eyes flick to the watch on my wrist. “Why not ride off into the sunset and live on a yacht with Jennifer Lopez?”
My brother Hank strolls into the room, Emma’s sensible black suitcases in hand.
“Because he enjoys being a pain in all our asses too much,” he says with a smile. He sets down a suitcase and extends his hand. “I’m Hank, Beauregard brother number three. Welcome to Blue Mountain. I’ve heard so much about you—Beau’s seriously impressed with your grape juice skills.”
Emma takes his hand and laughs. The ache in my chest tightens. What in the world?
I’m just exhausted. Yeah. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. When you work night and day like I do, weird stuff can happen to your body.
“Hank,” Emma says. “I like you already.”
“I’m the best of the bunch.” Hank glances at me. “But it looks like I don’t need to tell you that.”
“Thanks for bringing my luggage over.”