I was in my senior year of high school, and while I eagerly awaited news from the colleges I’d submitted applications to, I was dedicated to spending the last moments of my high school experience with my close friends. My heart was still set on attending UC Davis, though the thought of leaving Telluride was beginning to weigh heavily on my heart.
California was a fifteen-hour drive from home. I might get to come back for the major holidays, but I worried about all the days in between. Ridge and I had yet to discuss the topic, but we couldn’t wait much longer. I could feel the ticking of the clock as our time together ran down.
While Ridge had planned to pick up more work with Jason in the springtime, he wasn’t needed there anymore. Ridge had fulfilled his obligation to find Jason a replacement. So Ridge drove up to Mountain Village, the ski town above Telluride, and got a job working the gondola for the rest of the snow season. He worked there during the days while I went to school, then we met at the hilltop until suppertime.
Ridge and my eagerness to see him was on my mind when the final bell chimed at school that day. After grabbing what I needed for the night’s homework at my locker, I slammed the door and slid my backpack over my shoulders, then I met up with Josie and Raven near the front of the school. They were giving each other strange looks, and I couldn’t figure out why until Raven drove off and Josie stopped me outside of my Jeep.
Josie looked around before stepping closer to me. “Trip is going to ask you to the prom.”
Her words didn’t sink in right away, but when they did, a laugh burst from my throat. “Funny, Josie. Trip doesn’t even go here anymore.”
“He doesn’t have to go here for him to come as your date.”
I scoffed, still finding the humor in what she was telling me. A college boy wanting to go to a high school dance was ridiculous. My chest ached as I remembered that Ridge was the same age as Trip, and if I could have it my way, Ridge would be the one asking me to go to senior prom. “Trip is in New York, remember?”
“Actually, he’s already home and taking the rest of his courses virtually.”
I just stared at her for the next string of seconds, hoping she would burst into laughter and tell me it was all a sick joke. When the laughter never came, my heart started sinking fast. “Okay, Josie. I’m having a little trouble grasping this.”
“Look,” she said. “This isn’t a rumor or a hunch. Apparently, Thomas put some pressure on Trip to make a move last night at dinner.”
“What?” I shrieked. “How do you know that?”
Josie frowned and looked around us, like she was worried someone would hear. “Raven vented to me in science class. She feels like Thomas doesn’t give a shit about her. He never once asked who she’s taking to the dance.”
Raven and I had never been the best of friends, but I hated that she felt that way. “That’s sad.”
Josie sighed. “Yeah, well, I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
I shook my head, trying to clear the clutter from what Josie had just told me. “If Trip wants to go to prom that badly, then he’ll have to find another date. He can take Raven, for all I care.”
Josie burst into laughter. “His sister?”
I shrugged.
Sympathy shone from her eyes. “I don’t know how you don’t see this for yourself yet, but Trip is madly in love with you. Always has been. And you giving him the cold shoulder at the vineyard when he comes home from school has only made him more adamant to get your attention.”
Her words began to sink in, the weight of them crushing me. Trip had always been a friend, even as annoyingly protective as he had always been. Sure, he was smart, wealthy, and handsome, but he wasn’t Ridge. And that last fact was enough to tangle my insides with dread. I’d thought if I ignored his advances, he would go away. I’d thought he had gone away.
Groaning, I leaned against my Jeep. “What am I going to do? If I tell him no, Papa won’t be happy. But if I say yes…” I wanted to cry at the thought of having to tell Ridge I was going to a dance with another boy.
“Why can’t you just talk to your parents? You and Ridge shouldn’t have to keep your relationship a secret because of a stupid old feud that no one even knows what it’s about anymore. You’re eighteen. Almost in college. This is your life, Camila. I can’t believe your papa still thinks he can control you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. I can’t even go there right now. You know my papa. Everything’s a business negotiation to him. Thomas is in his ear all the damn time. My parents and Thomas have been planning my wedding to Trip since my birth. Turning Trip down isn’t even an option.”
“I’m sorry. I wish there were an easy way around this. I don’t know why Trip hasn’t moved on by now, but you need to deal with it. Either by talking to your father about Trip or talking to him about Ridge.”
She was right, and I knew what I wanted to do. When it came to adventure, I was never too intimidated to look fear in the face and barrel through it at full speed. But talking to my papa about Ridge was different—bigger than taking a risk that could lead to a broken bone or a scrape on the knee. Ridge and I had the power to end a century-old rivalry… or start a brand-new one.
“Papa, I need to—” I skidded down the hall to my papa’s office and froze at the doorway.
Thomas was sitting at my papa’s desk, his fingers resting on the keyboard, and he peered at me over his glasses.
“Your papa is working.” Thomas looked at his screen and typed something else before looking back at me. “In the vineyard.”
His pointed response caused heat to rise in my chest. “Isn’t that where you should be? Does my papa even know you’re in here?”
Thomas’s laugh boomed before he set his glasses down and pushed back against the chair. “And what is it you think I do around here, Camila?” He raised an eyebrow and waited a whole second before continuing. “As future heir to this beautiful palace, I sure hope you know.”
I narrowed my eyes, more annoyed by his presence than with his tone. Thomas was the business development manager for Bell Family Vineyards, but he didn’t just create marketing strategies. He was our greatest salesman, too, giving him far too much power, in my opinion. And while my papa loved to work in the vineyard, hand in hand with our grounds supervisor, cellar worker, and winemaker, it strangely felt like Thomas was the one in charge lately.
“Don’t you have your own office down the hall?” I made a purposeful sweeping gaze in dramatic fashion. Everything felt and looked wrong, from who was sitting at my papa’s desk to the closed blue-framed windows behind him. My papa loved to keep them open when the weather permitted so that he could breathe in the same air as his grapes, especially at that time of year, when they began to sprout from new buds.
“Don’t you have a vineyard to frolic through?”
I glared at the older version of Trip, wondering what my papa saw in Thomas Bradshaw that he couldn’t find in someone else. I also started to question the validity of what Raven had told Josie. Thomas wasn’t acting like a man who wanted to see me date his son. He sounded like someone who thought I was a nuisance and an obstacle he wouldn’t mind doing away with.