I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” he said with a disarming smile.
I could see why he got millions of likes and follows. The charisma oozed out of his pores.
A slow song came on the speakers, and Nate held his hand out. “Dance?”
She grinned excitedly and put her hand in his. He dragged her out on the floor and whirled her around the room. I was happy for her. It had been a long time since I’d seen my friend even consider dating.
“What a party,” a voice said, sliding into Blaire’s unoccupied chair.
I found Chase Sinclair seated next to me. I’d seen him in the crowd, but the wedding was upward of four hundred people, and it had slipped my mind that he was even here. Small-town weddings were enormous. And since Peyton had had so many friends coming in from New York, it had swelled nearly out of control.
“Hey. Yeah, it’s great, right?”
“I suppose.” But he was watching Annie and Jordan out on the dance floor.
“Did you want to dance?” I asked. “Hollin left to take care of something. Work, I guess.”
“I’ll just sit, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. I didn’t realize that you were invited.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I wasn’t. I came here with a date. Tori. Do you know her?”
“Oh, Tori. Yeah. She works with Peyton.”
“That’s right. We met online,” he said with a shrug. “Tinder.”
“I’m happy for you,” I told him honestly.
And after things hadn’t worked out with him and Annie, I wanted him to be happy. We’d had one date, but it hadn’t been anything special. Dating someone new was a good start for him.
“Thanks,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “It’s nice to kick back. I’ve been working with my dad day and night. The insurance company for the barn has been such a headache.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion.
“Well, you know,” he said casually, “because he bought back Sinclair Cellars.”
Part V
A Love Like War
34
Piper
My stomach dropped out of my body as we both came to our feet. “What are you talking about?”
Chase paled and straightened. “You do know, don’t you?”
Every nerve in my body went numb at the same time. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. No, Chase must be wrong.
“That’s not possible.”
He frowned. “I swore that you already knew.”
“No. Why would you say something like that? The winery is my entire life. There is no way in a million years that my dad would sell to your family again. Never, ever, ever.”
“Piper, I’m sorry.”
I scrambled away from him. I couldn’t deal with this right now. It wasn’t true. It absolutely wasn’t true. And my dad would confirm it. That was the only scenario that I would consider. Chase had wrong information. That was it.
I scoured the room for my dad. He was currently standing in a corner, talking with some people I only had vague recollections of. Some of Peyton’s friends and a guy he golfed with. They were all laughing, as if my entire world wasn’t imploding.
“Piper,” Chase said, reaching for me again.
But I was well past whatever he was going to say. I needed to hear it straight from the source.
I hiked up my shimmery dress to march across the room. Someone tried to stop to talk to me, but I just kept going. My dad saw me coming, and his smile ignited.
“Piper!” he cheered. “You remember my friends—”
I interrupted him, “We need to talk.”
He balked at my tone. If I’d used that voice with Abuelita or my mom, either one of them would have been cussing me out in Spanish for ten straight minutes until I got my attitude in order. My dad looked half-ready to start in on it, but I didn’t have the energy for any of that today.
“Now,” I barked.
He seemed shocked. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to speak with my daughter.”
The men all looked at me with wide eyes and raised eyebrows before hustling away. Let them talk. I didn’t fucking care.
“What is it, mija?” my dad asked. “You were very disrespectful.”
“Tell me it isn’t true.”
“What isn’t true?” He conciliatorily held his hands out in front of him.
“Tell me,” I ground out, “that you didn’t sell the winery to the Sinclairs.”
My dad opened his mouth and then closed it. “I, uh…I was going to tell you.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, covering my mouth in horror.
Everything I’d felt earlier when Chase said the most asinine thing I’d ever heard came back to me fresh and new. My stomach dropped hard, and at the same time, it felt as if it were in my throat. Everything tingled and ached as if I’d been hit by a bus. I was numb and empty and on fire and bleeding out, all at the same time. This couldn’t be real.
“No,” I whispered.
“Let’s step outside,” he said, gesturing to the open door at his back.
I rushed through the door and took in deep, heaving breaths. I couldn’t get enough air in. I was hyperventilating. “How could you do this?”
He hurriedly closed the door. “It isn’t what you think.”
“What isn’t what I think, Dad?” I demanded. “You sold us out to the Sinclairs. You sold the winery that we run. The winery that we have made what it is. I was always upset that you wanted to keep the name, but I understood. It made sense because it was an established brand. But now? I can’t fathom what you were thinking.”
“Listen, mija, we were in trouble.”
“Trouble?” I asked. “What sort of trouble?”
He shook his head and paced away from me. “The IRS performed an audit on the company. Remember that last year?”
“Yes. Of course. We handed over all of our documents, and then all was well.”
My dad shook his head. “No. We handed the documents over, and it turned out, the accountant we’d worked with for the last decade had been pocketing our tax payments and forging our paperwork.”
“What?” I cried. “How could this have happened?”
“I had no idea. I trusted him with my life. But we weren’t the only company that he did this to. We would have lost everything. We owed over a million in back payments. Plus fines and fees. There was no way I could afford that. There were only two options: bankruptcy or selling.”
I shook my head. Desperation was taking over. This was too much. Far too much. “So, you sold.”
“Bankruptcy would have been on our records for seven years. We never could have gotten anywhere. The winery would have been all but defunct. I took the only viable option.”
“You reached out to Mr. Sinclair.”
He nodded. “Arnold had been contacting me periodically over the last decade, as he’d resumed interest in the winery. I never took him seriously. I never had any intention of selling. But we needed the money.”