Page 34 of Bordeaux Bombshell (Sunshine Cellars #3)

I have to pause, fighting the sadness that hits me whenever I think of that perfect golden day.

“That birthday, the one a year before Greg sold the Ridge, he’d come back so much more grown-up.

And I’d been away at school, dating a little, but nothing serious because no one could ever compare to him.

There was something about that perfect day—it was like every time we glanced at each other, there was electricity in the air.

I’d always been painfully aware of his presence, but that day it was like we were breathing together. ”

Lauren nods. “I know the feeling.”

“Just when I thought I might explode, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the vineyard. We snuck off to the farthest corner of the fields and, well…”

“Did what people in love who finally say it out loud do?”

Heat crawls up the back of my neck before blooming on my cheeks, but I nod. “Yeah. It was my first time, and it was perfect. He was perfect. We didn’t tell anyone.”

“Brother’s best friend. I get it.” Lauren gives me a knowing look I don’t understand, then purses her lips. “Not that Kel seems like the type to get all stupid about it.”

“Um, no?” I shake my head, not following. “It had nothing to do with Kel. I’m pretty sure he’s known the whole time and just Kel’ed it by never saying anything.”

“Kel’ed it?” Lauren burst out laughing. “Oh god, that’s the best description I’ve ever heard.

The man is both ridiculously observant and obtuse.

Did you know I’d been hanging around Sunshine for over six months before I heard him talk?

And the first thing he did was tell me that my brakes needed to be looked at. ”

I laugh. “I believe it. Anyway, no. We didn’t say anything because I knew our moms would be planning the wedding within the hour.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m not a girly girl.

I never dreamed of prom or weddings or getting dressed up.

In fact, I never had any girlfriends at all until I got to college.

From the time I was in high school, I just wanted to live on the Ridge with Nate and a million cats. Didn’t care about anything else.”

I take another sip, rolling the wine around in my mouth to distract me from the way my heart is squeezing. I’ve never spelled all of this out before—when I told Nate the night I left, it was the first time I’d ever confessed what happened, what had shattered my heart so badly.

“He didn’t want to make anything official while he was away. Said he didn’t want to tie me down ‘just in case,’ even though I kept insisting there would never be anyone else for me. But he didn’t believe me and insisted I consider myself single until he came back for good.”

God, he was so determined to be noble. To let me live my life until he came back.

He never did understand how much of my life revolved around him, around the possibility of us.

I got a degree in marketing because I thought it would be helpful for growing our wine dynasty.

Even when I thought there was no real hope, I kept working freelance in case he suddenly changed his mind.

There are a million reasons, but more than one of them was so I could travel at a moment’s notice.

“Except he never came back for good, did he?” Her words are softer and softer, no longer goading me into revealing the truth. Almost hesitant, like she’s not sure she likes where my story is going.

She’s right—she’s not going to like this.

“No. The next year, when he came back for our birthday, it was my turn to pull him out into the fields. I offered to come to France with him and do a semester abroad. Almost convinced him, too, but then Greg dropped the news that he’d sold to Sutton.

Nate took off in the middle of the night.

Left me a note telling me not to wait, that he was never coming back. ”

Lauren’s face has gone pale with my story.

“Oh my god. I took Alfie to Sunshine. I’m the villain.

We’re the fucking villains in this.” She keeps muttering to herself while I push up from the couch, needing to move.

She looks up when I walk past her to stare out the window at the waves outside. “I’m so sorry.”

I sigh, shaking my head. “You’re not the villain, Lauren. Nate is the one who spent the next five years throwing a temper tantrum in France.”

“Five years is a long time to wait.”

“I wasn’t waiting. Not on purpose.” I swallow hard and rush through the next part, the part I’ve only ever confessed once. “I followed him there. Waited a month for him to calm down, and when he never responded to my messages, I got on a plane and tracked him down.”

“What did he say when you got there?”

“Nothing. He didn’t know until a few weeks ago.

When I arrived, I spotted him and Manon at a café in town.

Kissing.” Saying it still hurts. Even knowing they were never really together, it still pulls me toward the anger I’ve held on to for so long.

“Turned around and left immediately, never said a word about it to anyone. My parents think I went to London.”

I turn at the sound of footsteps behind me. Alfie wiggles the wine bottle in his hand, pouring more for both of us.

“London’s overrated.” Lauren smiles at him with a cheeky grin.

“Blasphemer,” he mutters into her lips as he kisses her.

God, I want that. I want that easy teasing, followed by affection. I’ve wanted it every time I’ve seen Kel carry the diaper bag for Maggie, or my dad open the door for Mom.

“Is he listening, or does he just know you that well?” I can’t help the question.

Alfie disappears again, and Lauren turns back to me, clearing her throat. “He’s not listening, he just knows how long it takes Sophie and me to finish a glass when we’re having a good gab. Keep going, you were just getting to the good part.”

Keeping my back to the view, I lean against the window. I focus on the cool glass behind me instead of the heat building in my chest. “Not sure I would call it the good part. He was gone, and I tried to move on.”

“And then he came back, and…?”

“You’re fucking persistent, you know that?” Turning the conversation back on Lauren so I can take a second to wrangle the emotions running roughshod over me seems like a good idea until she grins. Now I’m worried.

“I’m a nosy bitch who loves a good romance. It’s one of my finest qualities. Sophie would agree.”

A tiny part of me regrets asking Lauren for help, but a bigger part of me had a feeling she was going to drag the story out of me. And maybe I wanted her to. Maybe I finally need to tell someone else the whole messy truth.

Guess I should have thought harder about going to therapy. Probably not too late for that.

“You know the first thing Nate said to me when he came back?”

Lauren leans forward, picking up my wineglass and handing it to me with a smirk. “I’m a fucking idiot?”

That makes me laugh. “He wishes. No. He took one look at me, sleep-deprived and a mess from sitting in his dad’s hospital room for hours, and told me to leave. That he couldn’t deal with my shit too.”

“Rude.”

“Yeah. But I left, and I vowed not to speak to him again until he apologized.” Sipping my drink, I focus on identifying the notes on my tongue while Lauren sits in silence with me.

When she still doesn’t speak, I sigh and keep talking. “Later, when Greg was home again and I came to help Jackie, he tried to talk to me, but I shut him down. And then it was just easier to avoid him than to deal with his horrible attitude.”

“Okay, hang on.” Lauren sets her glass down on the coffee table and leans forward. “Hey, babe—”

A tapping on the window behind us interrupts her. We turn to find Alfie out on the patio, inspecting the planters out there. “Already ordered dinner,” he says, holding up his phone. “Should be here in twenty.”

“I love him.” I can’t help myself. As soon as I say it, I clap a hand over my mouth, eyes wide as I look sideways at Lauren. Thankfully, she’s laughing.

“I licked him first. Sorry, girlfriend,” she giggles. “Okay, but can we go back to the part where I was convinced you and Nate were having super-hot hate sex, but you didn’t want anyone to know? Because I have been arguing with Sophie about it for years now, and I need to prove a point.”

“Um, what made you think we were having sex?”

“You looked entirely too unstressed to not be getting orgasms on the regular. And you both were a little too obviously not speaking. I always assumed it was because you were hiding it from Kel, but now you’re telling me he knew the whole time and didn’t care. Explain.”

All those times I’d leave the room as soon as Nate entered. Or he’d find a reason to be busy outside when I was in the tasting room. I guess we weren’t so subtle after all.

Who am I kidding? I knew we weren’t subtle. But I didn’t care. At first, I just wanted to make him angry, but when he didn’t give me the satisfaction, it was my pride that kept me from extending an olive branch.

I drain half of my glass before answering. “Orgasms were had, but not sex.”

Instead of being shocked like I expected, Lauren carefully picks up her glass. “No sex, huh? How were orgasms had, then?”

“Uh…He’s very good with his fingers. And tongue.” To avoid elaborating, I quickly gulp down the rest of my wine.

“If a lesbian would count it as sex, then it was sex.”

At that, I nearly spit out the liquid in my mouth. “Jesus, Lauren. Seriously?” Maybe I don’t want to learn how to have girlfriends after all. I always assumed Sex and the City was an exaggeration—that no one really talked like that.

“Just saying…doesn’t have to be penis in vagina to count as sex.”

Covering a cough, I pull a fringed throw pillow into my lap, curling around it.

“Whether it counts as sex or not aside. I let him get me off, and I occasionally returned the favor, but I still refused to talk about it. Based on what I’d seen, I assumed he’d been fucking his way through France, while I’d been here wading through the atrocity that is dating in Portland.

” I shift in my seat, rubbing lengths of fringe between my thumb and forefinger, needing something to do with my hands.

“I wanted nothing to do with him, except that my stupid body seemed determined to only want the kind of orgasms he could give me.”

“So he wore you down with his tongue? Familiar enough story. Where does Manon come into it?”

A spike of irritation shoots through me, and I toss the pillow aside before I tangle the delicate strings.

“If I’m being honest, she just pissed me off.

She was hanging all over him, always touching him and having to prove how smart she was.

Also, Nate and I had finally done, um, it, the week before—”

I cut myself off at the look on Lauren’s face.

Again, I push to my feet and pace the living room. I’m too agitated to sit still while everything pours out of me in a rush.

“Fine. About a week before the shower, Nate and I had finally had penetrative sex for the first time, and I was feeling all kinds of ways about it. I was ready to actually talk to him about what it all meant, when Manon called and he fucking answered the phone. We were literally still naked, and he answered her call. So I maybe lost my mind a little bit there. But I was so damn mad. You’d be mad, too, wouldn’t you? ”

My feet lead me back to Lauren, where I pause, hoping to find compassion on her face. I do.

She stares up at me, eyebrows raised. “Oh, I would be livid. You’re not wrong there. But what happened at the shower that made you so mad at her and not him? And why are you here?”

My feet take over again, walking me back to the window. “I’m surprised Emma didn’t tell you the whole story.” I don’t stop my mouth to check what I’m saying, just vomit my questions and the random memories surfacing.

“She was surprisingly tight-lipped about it, actually.”

I pace back to the kitchen, where Alfie’s opening a plastic delivery bag that smells divine. He gives me an encouraging smile before I turn to trek the length of the living room again.

“I saw a picture of her son with Nate and jumped to the conclusion that he was their kid together. And not only did it break my heart that he’d truly moved on from me while he was in France, but then I was extra mad that he would abandon them like that after abandoning us all first. Also, Jackie is dying for some grandbabies. ”

“But it’s not his kid, right?”

“No. I just made a fool of myself, again.”

“And…?”

With a single word, the pent-up energy that compelled me to stalk around the room leaves me, and I flop down onto the couch.

“And I knew I needed to sort my shit out, away from Nate and my family and my life back home. I’m tired of being an angry hot mess all the time. I thought if I could get away from everyone who knew me, I could figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life. Maybe finally move on from Nate.”

A long silence stretches on until I look up to see Lauren and Alfie giving each other a meaningful look across the room. And my heart twists painfully at the absolute love in their eyes, knowing I’ve screwed up any chance I had at having it for myself.

It’s Alfie who breaks the silence. Setting a plate heaped with pasta, salad, and garlic bread in front of me, he presses a kiss to the top of my head. I don’t know why it’s not weird that he does it, just that I feel a bit like their kid sister.

“Or you could realize that most of us don’t meet our soulmate at the age of four. And you should figure out how to forgive him and yourself for being human and making mistakes.”

Well, fuck that for making a shit ton of sense. Irritated but also hopeful, I rip into my garlic bread and answer with my mouth still full. “Or that.”