Page 20 of Bourbon Wishes (Wine Country Alphas #3)

Constance

" Y our cousin sucks," I mutter, stepping into the winery at the end of the day.

Haven glances up from her computer, a furrow between her brows. "You're going to have to be more specific than that because I have nine hundred cousins, and most of them suck."

"I heard that!" Jax shouts from his office.

"You were supposed to hear it!" she yells back, grinning. "What did Bastian do this time? And if it's about listing your job, you're right. He does suck."

"We were supposed to meet behind the winery, but he's late. I guess he's still…" I trail off, blinking as her words register. "Wait, what?"

"Shit." Haven's brown eyes widen. "You don't know."

"Know what?" I growl, feeling a little like I can't breathe.

"Um…"

"He's firing me?"

"No. Not exactly." She grimaces, looking wildly uncomfortable, which is just great because that's how I feel right now. "Um, you should really talk to him about this, Constance."

"I want to talk to you about it. What's going on?" I demand, crossing my arms. "What do you mean, he's listing my job?"

She stares at me for a long, silent moment, and then sighs before turning to pull something from the printer. She glances at it, hesitates, and then holds it out to me. "He asked me to get this ready a couple hours ago," she says softly. "He said we need to hire someone else for the position."

I take the paper from her with shaking hands. People say you can't hear a heart break, but that's a lie. There's an audible snap when mine cracks in half. I feel the jolt all the way to my bones, and it hurts enough to bring tears to my eyes.

He's replacing me. Just like that.

"Jesus," I whisper, choking on a hysterical laugh. "He's actually listing my job. He can't fucking wait to give it to someone else, can he?"

"That's not true," Haven says. "He wants to move you somewhere else."

"Where? To Italy?" I snap, dropping the paper on her desk.

Her face falls. "Of course that's not what he wants. You really need to talk to him."

But I don't really want to talk to him right now because nothing he says will change the fact that he did this behind my back, without even talking to me about it.

That's not respect. It's not partnership.

It's him, moving me around on the board like a damn chess piece, slotting me in where he thinks I should be.

I tell him my fears, and this is his response. To just…give my job to someone else. No conversation, no explanation.

"Yeah, I'll do that," I mumble, spinning on my heel to stride for the door. My heart is pounding like a war drum. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to hunt Bastian down and run him over with a tractor.

But I already know if I even try to talk to him right now, I'm going to say something I might regret. I'm too damn mad to listen right now, and too damn hurt to be reasonable.

I feel like he just pulled the rug out from underneath me, and I don't understand why. I tell him my fears about us being together when he's my boss, and he just…goes behind my back to give my job—the job I love—to someone else. Yeah, that hurts. It hurts like hell.

I stumble toward my car, the ground blurring beneath my feet.

God, I fell in love with him, and the whole time, I was just…what? A problem to solve? Something that needed a solution so he could feel good about what we've been doing? He just had to be in control.

"Constance?"

I glance up to see him striding across the parking lot toward me, his jacket over his arm and his tie undone around his neck. He looks so damn good. I choke on a whimper.

I can't talk to him right now. I'll crack, and I'll break, and I'm not sure there will be any pieces left to put back together.

I hurry my steps, practically racing toward my car.

Of course I don't make it before he gets to me. Of course I don't. He hits me like a ton of bricks, pinning me up against the side of the car.

"Why are you running from me?" he growls, trying to spin me around.

"Do not touch me," I snap, trying to shove him away from me before I fall apart. "I am so mad at you right now!"

"Fuck." His wild eyes run across my face. "What happened, baby?"

"You're an asshole, that's what happened!" I shout, clinging to anger because it's better than curling up in a ball and sobbing. Mad hurts less than broken. "You're hiring someone else for my job!"

"Fuck. Haven told you." He doesn't even try to deny it. He doesn't even look guilty.

And that's the confirmation that sends tears slipping down my cheeks. It isn't a misunderstanding or a mistake. He's really listing my job.

"Let me go."

"Hell no," he growls.

"Let me go." I plant my hands against his shoulders, shoving as hard as I can. I actually manage to move him back a few steps. "You're never touching me again, Bastian Grayson."

"Yeah, I am."

"No, you aren't." I scowl at him through tears. "I'm leaving."

His face pales. "You're leaving me?"

"I…" Is that what I'm doing? Leaving him? God, that thought hurts almost as much as anything else. He's everything to me…but I don't think he feels the same about me. If he did, he wouldn't be making decisions about my career for me. He'd be my partner. And yet, today, he isn't that.

"I don't know," I whisper, my voice cracking.

He stares at me for a long moment, and I see the pain in his eyes. I see the fury, too. "You aren't fucking leaving me, Constance. Not until you give me a chance to explain. I deserve that much, at least."

"And I deserved a conversation before you asked Haven to post my job."

He grimaces, shoving a hand through his hair, which he only does when he's stressed. "Fuck. You're right," he says softly. "I'm an asshole for not talking to you about it first. But I have a good reason."

"Fine. Let's hear it then."

He swallows, actual anxiety churning in his gaze. "I can't tell you."

"What the hell?" I gape at him. "Are you serious right now?"

"I mean, I can't tell you yet ," he says. "There's something else I need to do before I can tell you what's going on. But I promise you, baby, as soon as I'm finished, you'll know everything. I just need you to trust me."

"Trust isn't the issue, Bastian," I say with a sad shake of my head.

"Respect is. You owed me the respect of coming to me if you were thinking about hiring someone else to take my job.

You owed me the respect of letting me hear it from you.

And now, you're telling me that you can't even tell me why you did it.

Maybe you do have a good reason. But that doesn't change the fact that I deserved to hear it from you before you got anyone else involved. "

"Baby, I–"

"No, Bastian," I cut him off. "I told you how I felt last night and why.

And the very first thing you do is exactly what I was so afraid of in the first place.

You start making decisions about my career without consulting me.

And you drag Haven into the middle of it.

So I don't really want to hear it right now. I'm going to see my brother."

"Please don't quit," he whispers, more vulnerable than I've ever heard him.

"Quit? Do I even have a job to quit?" I ask and immediately feel guilty when he flinches like I hit him, but it's a valid question.

Because he's hiring someone else for my job…

but he won't tell me why. He won't tell me what that means for me or what I'm supposed to do next.

I'm just supposed to trust him. And yeah, I do trust him.

I trust him more than I've ever trusted anyone.

But that doesn't take the sting out of realizing that, when it counted, he wasn't my partner.

He was my damn boss, making decisions for me.

And right now, I'm not even sure if he's that anymore.

I crack my door open, needing space. But his hand lands on my arm before I can climb into the car.

"You belong here, Constance. You'll always have a place here. Don't give up on us without hearing me out," he whispers, his voice a painful rasp. "Don't give up on me, baby."

He's pleading like he thinks I can salvage us…but he's the one who broke me.

"I have to go," I mumble, falling into the seat as more tears well in my eyes.

"Constance…"

"Bastian, please," I whisper, two seconds from losing it.

He clings to the doorframe, his knuckles white. And then he mutters a curse and leans down, brushing his lips across my cheek. "I'm letting you go see your brother because I know you need it, but I'm not letting you leave me," he growls. "Not now, and not ever."

"Please," I whimper, my bottom lip quivering.

He carefully latches my seatbelt and then steps back, closing my door for me.

I start the engine with shaking hands, staring straight ahead. But I feel him like a sunspot on the edge of my vision, willing me to look at him, to see him. As if I've ever been able to see past him.

Maybe that's the problem. I see him, but right now, I'm not sure if he's ever really seen me.

I make it all the way to the house the record label rented for my brother and Sutton before I fall apart. As soon as he pulls me into a hug at the front door, I crack, a loud sob wracking my body.

"Fuck," he growls, burying my face in his throat as I break. "Come on, Constance. Let's get you inside before I decide to kill the prick."

I called him on the way to give him a brief overview of recent events. Naturally, he's furious—both because I've been sleeping with my boss and because I'm crying over him.

Caleb has been overprotective for my entire life, and he's always hated when I cry. So Bastian is not his favorite person right now.

"You c-c-can't kill him," I choke, clinging to him as he practically hauls me into the foyer before slamming the door behind me.

"Oh my," Sutton whispers as their tiny terrorist of a dog tries to climb my legs. "Koda, behave." She says it as if she expects him to listen, but Koda has never listened a day in his life. He does what he wants.