Time slowed as he faced Annie Donoghue with a stunning Cartier ring. Her hands flew to her mouth. Tears came to her eyes. Shock rippled through the crowd. They’d only been together for a year. But when you knew, you knew.
Didn’t you?
Bradley’s eyes were on me. I looked over at him, and he was giving me giant puppy-dog eyes. Ones full of hope and awe. As if he saw us in what was happening right now.
My eyes didn’t mirror his. I felt…horror. Riotous, dawning, gaping horror in the pit of my stomach. This couldn’t be happening. Bradley couldn’t propose to me. I imagined myself in Annie’s shoes for a minute and thought I might be physically ill. I’d say no.
No.
It was so final. The end of everything we had. And yet I knew it without a shadow of a doubt.
I’d touched that ring box in his gym bag and tossed it aside like it didn’t matter. But now, it was an immediate visceral reaction. I had to do something about this. I couldn’t sit here and pretend things were okay.
“Yes!” Annie cried.
Everyone was up and applauding as Jordan slid the diamond onto her finger. They embraced as if this were the best day of their entire lives. A year ago, everything had started in this very room for them. It was magical.
If only there wasn’t a distress signal in my head. A loud beeping, telling me to escape.
I stepped out of Bradley’s arm when I got to my feet, and as I stumbled forward to congratulate Annie, my foot caught on something imaginary. I tripped, barely catching myself before face-planting on the hardwood floor of the recently renovated barn.
Then, there was a strong pair of arms on my hips, steadying me. I was hardly the clumsy damsel in distress.
So, my first instinct was to push the person away. “I’m fine.”
I looked up to find Hollin arching a pointed eyebrow at me. “Medina,” he said, rolling my surname across his tongue.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
Every inch he touched was on fire.
“You’re welcome,” he said cheekily. “You almost fell on your face.”
“I had it.”
He finally released me. “Seem flustered.”
“Hollin,” I growled. “Shut your face.”
“Just saying,” he purred under his breath. “You went into straight panic mode at the sight of that ring.”
Had it been that obvious? “I did not.”
“Okay, fine. Only I saw it.”
“You can’t read me that well.”
“You almost fell on your face,” he repeated.
“I’m happy for Jordan and Annie.”
“Of course. How could you not be? They were made for each other.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you agreeing with me?”
“No,” I said automatically.
He chuckled. His hand slid to the sleeve of my shirt. I looked up at him as he fixed where the sleeve had come undone.
“Abbey,” Bradley said, suddenly appearing at my side.
Hollin dropped the shirt and smiled at my boyfriend. “Had to fix my shirt. Looks good on her, doesn’t it?”
Bradley looked between me and Hollin, as if he couldn’t figure out whether or not he should punch him. Of course, that would be a real problem. Since Hollin probably had a hundred pounds of muscle on Bradley. Frankly, it was obscene.
“Shut up, Hollin,” I growled and turned back to my boyfriend. “Come on. Let’s congratulate the happy couple.”
Bradley followed me away. “Is…something happening with y’all?”
I blinked at him. “With Hollin?”
He laughed softly at my incredulity. “I know you say you hate him, but…”
“But I’m wearing his shirt?”
“Yeah. And he riles you so easily.”
“You know why that is.”
Bradley nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I know what you told me. It just felt different.”
It had, hadn’t it? Fuck.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s the same Hollin.”
I glanced back at Hollin Abbey. A flash of possessiveness came into Hollin’s eyes, and my cheeks heated from the one look. It didn’t matter how attractive he was or that he looked at me like every book boyfriend I’d ever read about. He was still Hollin Abbey, and I wouldn’t ever go there.
4
Hollin
My new life mission was to see how often I could make Piper blush. I’d never seen her do it until that look back. Now, it was something I absolutely had to see more often. Mostly, she scowled at me and told me to fuck off. This was a whole new look.
And sure, I’d been a dick to say that shit to Bradley. I’d never been able to hide my feelings about the guy. But taunting him was a new low. I’d thought he might swing on me. Would have been a waste of energy anyway. Piper looked like she was long over him.
Finally, I tore my gaze from her to return to the moment. My friends were engaged.
“We have to celebrate,” I cheered. “Let’s open a bottle of the new vintage.”
Julian nodded eagerly. “Yes, bro. Let’s do it.”
Jordan shot us both a stern look. “Before we find out about the award?”
“It’s not like we’re opening it up to the entire party. Just us.”
Annie nudged her new fiancé. “Come on. I haven’t even tried it! And we used to taste-test all the wine.”
She winked at him, and I had a feeling she was talking about something else entirely.
Jordan’s face softened at her words. She had that effect on him. “All right. We are celebrating.”
Julian and I clapped hands and then barreled through the party and out the side door. We didn’t keep the newest wine in the barn yet. We’d bring it out as a special-edition vintage after we found out about the award. But we had a few cases in the cellar, and we trekked across the lawn to grab the bottles.
Julian shot me a look. “What’s going on with you and Piper?”
“Nothing more than normal.”
“So, you’re antagonizing her for no reason?”
“Not for no reason,” I said with a laugh.
Julian punched in the code to open the cellar, and we entered the long line of wooden wine barrels. The machinery was on one end of the cellar with offices on the other end, and a storage unit was in the middle for processed wine to sell. For the last year, it had been predominantly empty since for our first harvest, we had been using the slightly neglected grapes from when the place was West Texas Winery. Now that we had our own operation, from harvest to bottling, it was running much smoother. And the wine was exponentially better as a result.
“I have a case in my office,” I told Julian. We passed the barrels and headed into my office. I grabbed two bottles, handing them to my cousin. “Should be enough?”
“Probably.”
I grabbed another bottle for safe measure. “Just in case.”
He laughed. “You mean, more for you?”
“This red is the shit. If I do say so myself.”
“It’s your baby.”
I winked. “Obviously.”
I took great pride in looking down at the first bottle that had been all my doing. The label was cream in color with Wright Vineyard written in a fancy blood-red script and a red wax seal with the WV inside it. Under that, it said the vintage—Abbey. My wine. We’d decided a year ago to give the wines names and then describe them under the label. So, the red was Abbey, and the first white, we’d named Annie. Guess that should have been my first clue about the pending engagement.