Long arms surrounded her, pulled her arms down and against her body, dragged her close against taut, warm muscles, and tugged her head down so she could hide her face against his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said against her temple as he held her close, surrounded her in darkness and heat as the bottle dropped from her nerveless fingers. Her glasses pressed into his chest. “I’m sorry, shit, I didn’t want to...” He muttered against her hair, words meant only for her as he rocked her. “Things keep getting fucked up with you and I’m sorry.” It was dark here, overwhelming with the smell of him, shocking with the lean hot familiarity of his body wrapped all around her. “No, no, don’t pull away,” he said, rubbing her back. His hands always felt Atlas-size against her body. “She’s...okay, she’s looking away.”
The rocking, Jesucristo, she’d forgotten about that, the soothing dance to the constant rhythm in his head. He tucked his head close to her ear. “Let me help you.” His breath tickled her pulse. “I can help you. I’m an entertainer, Sofia, I know how to entertain. You gotta let me loose from some of these rules. You gotta...” She was shaking her head no, rolling her glasses against his hard pecs as she resisted that voice formed to compel her. “Yes, just show them more of who you are. Who you really are. Show me.” She shook her head harder, inhaling the sun-soaked scent of him, and he captured her neck, calluses against her skin. “Okay, okay,” he soothed. “Then...” That scratchy voice licked directly into her ear. “I’ll do what I can and if you’ve got to punish me, you punish me. But I’m not trying to hurt you, Sofia. I never want to hurt you again.”
Light doused her like ice water as Roman ripped Aish off her and shoved him back against her desk.
Roman turned her to face him. “You okay?” he asked, glancing at Aish like he was waiting for an excuse to tear him apart.
Devonte pulled Aish upright and behind him.
“I’m fine,” Sofia said. Strengthened her voice. “It’s fine. It was only for show.” A show. A play. Aish’s unbelievable one act. “What did Amelia say?”
Namrita sounded shaken. “She was flustered. She apologized for intruding.”
Sofia breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. Another crisis narrowly avoided.” She glared at Aish over her brother’s shoulder. “This is why we’re going to avoid any impromptu conversations.” Then she caught everyone’s eyes. “And this is why I don’t want to be left alone with him.”
She grabbed Henry’s arm and forced him to walk with her, her head held high.
She’d almost escaped when Aish called to her. “I mean it, Sofia. I’m going to help any way I can. You do what you have to do.”
She plastered on a smile for employees and interns and shooed Henry away at her suite door. She slumped back against it once it was closed.
When Aish Salinger had wrapped around her, surrounded her in the smell and strength and heat of him, it felt like being able to breathe after slowly suffocating for ten years. At that moment, she realized that it wasn’t Aish she despised.
Ten Years Earlier
Sofia combed out her long, wet hair in the silence of the girls’ bathroom in the bunkhouse, dripping faucets and her exhausted thoughts her only companions. It had been a rough week. An unusual August cold snap had hit the Russian River Valley, with daytime temperatures only getting up to the high sixties. So on top of all of the regular duties the Laguna Ridge Winery student-workers performed to get ready for the September harvest, they also had to assist the vineyard crew with leaf thinning twenty-five acres so that the pinot noir clusters could get enough sun to fully ripen. The group prayed for more sun so they could get more than a couple hours’ sleep a night.
Sofia liked the hard work, liked the uncomplicated this-equals-that result of her efforts during her waking hours. The vines had needs; she could provide them. She also liked the fact that the workers were spread so thin she never ran into Aish Salinger.
His uncle had taken pity on them tonight and given them a few hours so they could drive into Sebastopol and dance off some steam at a local bar. She’d take advantage of having a bunkhouse free of twenty-nine other people’s smells. And she’d never position herself alone, drinks in her system, with Aish Salinger somewhere in the dark and smoky.
Rumors had run rampant the first couple of days after the incident: “Did they really do it in a...tank?” But Sofia had managed rumors since she was old enough to walk, so her careless shrugs and dismissive looks had quieted much of the noise. The fact that she hadn’t tried to lay claim to Aish also quelled the more malicious rumors. Aish Salinger was free to sleep with whomever he liked. She honestly seemed not to care.
People believed she didn’t care.
It was a tactic she’d learned from her mother. Or rather, learned behaving as the polar opposite of her mother. Queen Valentina would scream at reporters who asked about her latest lover, would organize a photo shoot dressed in virginal white, and then would be caught clawing at a woman in the lap of the lover she originally denied.
At nineteen, Sofia was beginning to understand that life was a series of choices. She could live the bored life of a royal representative of a kingdom. Or she could squash grapes and study why their spoiled juices tasted delicious. She could cry and wail over a man who fucked her under false pretenses. Or she could throw him away as effortlessly as he tossed her.
Did her mother see these options? And if so, why did she always pick the one that was the most destructive?
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