A Vine Mess (Love on the Vine #4)

14. Liam

“What do we want to do today?” I asked Ella over coffee.

The stuff was the terrible instant kind, and I grimaced as it hit my tongue. That was the one thing we’d forgotten when we’d gone grocery shopping the day before, and these packets were all I’d managed to locate in the cupboards when I stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchenette this morning after too many bourbon and Cokes at the fire last night with Jon.

What a vastly different experience last night had been compared to the night before. Ella had disappeared earlier than me, whispering that she wanted to call her family and urging me to stay put. I wasn’t complaining. I liked Jon and Laura a great deal, and their girls were a chaotic bunch that passed the time before their parents put them to bed making up scary stories and disputing the best way to construct a s’more.

I hadn’t laughed that much in a long time, and I was happy and relaxed by the time I returned to our cabin, deliciously fuzzy-brained .

But that fog cleared away quickly when I stepped inside, the liquor coursing through my veins the only reason I’d managed to convince myself I’d imagined the tail end of Ella’s conversation with her sisters.

Because there was no fucking way Ella was feeling this attraction between us the same way I did. That simply wasn’t possible. I was trying and fucking up every step of the way, so there was no reason for her to be interested in me.

Then again, I had poured my heart out to her. She was aware of my feelings, and maybe that had her seeing me in a new, more favorable light.

There are worse guys in the world to move on with than Liam Danvers.

Obviously, I agreed, but those were just pretty words from one of her sisters. Whether or not Ella acted on them remained to be seen.

We stood side by side on the little porch of our cabin, and each sip of coffee went down my esophagus like acid.

Ella took a sip of hers, swirled it around in her mouth briefly before turning and spitting in the ground beside the porch, dumping the whole mug out after it.

“I vote we go somewhere with real coffee,” she announced. “And stop at the store for some too.”

I tipped my head back and laughed. “Deal.”

“How are your sisters?” I asked once we were seated at a hole-in-the-wall diner that had been listed on the KOA’s website for local eateries. I practically moaned in appreciation when the waitress set a pot of coffee between us, a similar sound breaking free from Ella when she swallowed her first sip .

I stilled and, realizing what she’d done, Ella whispered, “Sorry” with a sheepish grin.

“But to answer your question,” she continued, “my sisters are good. Dying to know what we’ve been up to.”

“Did you tell them…everything?”

Ella grimaced but nodded, hitching up a shoulder in a half-shrug. “They’re my sisters.”

“You guys are really close,” I said, stating the obvious, my voice surprisingly steady given the realization that my boss now knew what a jackass I’d been to her younger sister so far on this trip.

Ella grinned. “Yeah we are.”

“Must be nice.”

The waitress reappeared then, quickly taking our orders before once again leaving us to continue our conversation.

“You and Sam aren’t close?” Ella asked.

“No.” I swallowed hard, unsure of how much I wanted to reveal.

My childhood hadn’t been idyllic like hers. Ella and I…we were a study in contrasts. The different ways rich families raised their children. What it was like to be nurtured versus being treated as nothing more than another employee to manage. “We—my dad had a habit of pitting us against each other growing up. Made it hard to be friends when he always felt like my enemy.”

In the end, Sammy got everything he wanted anyway. The title, the money, the status. Everything that, as the first born son, rightfully had been mine first.

But I’d spit on that tradition.

Then pissed on it and set it on fire.

Leaving for college and finally getting a taste of life out from under my father’s thumb made me realize how little I wanted that life. And I never would’ve gotten out had it not been for Gramps. He was the paternal figure I’d always longed for, he and Gran giving me the love I’d so desperately craved but lacked in my own home. And Mom too. She did what she could under the circumstances, and I loved her for it. They’d all tried with Sammy, but he was our father’s son through and through.

Simply to placate my dad, I’d originally gone to school for architectural engineering and business. I had always been a great student, and while the work stimulated me to an extent, I felt the much larger, creative side of my brain dying a little bit more every day.

When I’d gone home for Christmas break my sophomore year, my grandfather sensed something wasn’t right with me and offered to help.

Up to that point, Dad had been paying for college, only doing so on the condition that I majored in what he wanted.

By supplying me with an early loan from my trust, which I wouldn’t have been able to access until I was twenty-five otherwise, Gramps made it possible for me to quietly switch from architectural to bio-engineering and drop business altogether. Thanks to my summers working at a winery, I’d become fascinated with the process of wine production, and loved the idea of making a career out of it. I got a job locally at a bar to supplement my spending money, and that fostered my love of mixology. When I moved to Michigan and into the Traverse City area, I completed a certification, making me sort of an authority on the subject.

“What does your family do?” Ella asked. “I don’ t think you’ve ever told me.”

I hadn’t, and for good reason.

“They’re in construction,” I said, though that was putting it mildly.

What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“I can’t imagine that,” she said quietly. “Not being close with my family.”

“I’m still close with my mom,” I told her, my heart warming at the thought of seeing her at the end of this trip. It had been too goddamn long. “And my grandpa.”

“Tell me about him.”

So I did. While we waited for our food to arrive—and even after the fact—I told Ella about William Preston Danvers the first.

“He’s been more of a father to me than my dad ever has,” I started. “It’s honestly a wonder people as incredible as my grandparents created such a monster.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,” Ella piped in.

“No, it definitely wasn’t. They were both busy when my dad was growing up, and he developed that classic rich kid, single child mentality thanks to nannies and years of boarding school. By the time Gran and Gramps realized he’d gone bad, it was just too late.”

I’d never understood how my mother, my sweet, kind, nurturing mother, ended up with an asshole like him.

“But Gramps…they vowed not to let him turn us into the same kind of man. It worked on me, not so much on Sammy.”

“Aren’t you Canadian?” she blurted.

I barked out a laugh at her outburst, grinning widely as I nodded. “I have dual citizenship. Right before I started high school, Gramps decided he wanted to move the company to somewhere more centrally located so we could service a larger area. The board ultimately settled on Portland, and that first summer, he got me a job at a winery that the company had recently done a major renovation on.”

I’d been a glorified errand boy that summer, spending more time pushing paper than working out in the vineyard. Being cooped up hadn’t suited me, and I’d been damn near coming out of my skin by mid-July.

Then I met Mellie, and everything changed. We’d met one day when I’d dropped by her father’s office to deliver some reports from the CFO, and she’d been waiting to go to lunch with him. I quickly realized she had no idea who I was, thinking I was some middle class summer hire and not the heir to the Danvers Architecture empire.

I hadn’t bothered to correct her.

Sneaking around proved thrilling for both of us. Those early kisses snuck when one of us pulled the other into a supply closet when no one else was looking.

The picnics deep in the rolling hills of the vineyard where no one would ever find us.

The first time we had sex, right there on a blanket between the vines.

When she eventually learned who I was, she wasn’t even mad. She reacted by finally introducing me to her family—as William Preston Danvers, III, which to this day still grated; I’d change my last name if it wasn’t also my grandfather’s. For years after that, we were on again, off again, a truly chaotic love story better suited for television teen dramas than real life.

And then, it all came crashing down, and I ran away to Michigan.

I didn’t tell Ella any of that, though, and she didn’t press me about my momentary silence while my mind was a thousand miles away.

She only said, “We never really got to know our grandparents.” She chuckled softly and gently shook her head. “Although Great-Grandpa Andreas is such a legend in our family, I feel like I know him .”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, he was a bootlegger during prohibition.”

I inhaled so sharply a piece of egg lodged itself in my throat. Once I’d cleared it and chugged my entire glass of water to soothe my burning throat, I implored Ella to start at the beginning.

“They started construction on the main building, which now holds the restaurant and offices, in the summer of 1917. Thanks to those wonderful Michigan winters, it took ages to finish. They’d been planning to open in the spring of 1920, but Prohibition went into effect that January, so they never got the chance.

“But while the winery was being constructed, Andreas had been tending to the vineyards in preparation for opening the doors,” she continued. “Despite Prohibition, they opened the doors anyway. With Great-Grandma’s help, they sold grape jam, juice, and other grape-based products out of what should’ve been the tasting room, using that legitimate business as a front for the smuggling.” She leaned closer, and I mirrored her so I could hear when she dropped her voice and whispered, “There’s a smuggler’s tunnel below the winery that leads right to the Villa, which Andreas built for the family before construction on the winery started.”

I sat back in my seat, scrubbing a hand over my beard, absolutely floored by this knowledge.

Ella chuckled at what I’m sure was a gobsmacked expression on my face. “Who knew, right? The Chateau Delatou legacy was built on a criminal enterprise.”

“Your family history is so cool,” I told her. “It must be amazing to live in the place your ancestors actually settled.”

“It has its perks…but also its downfalls. Everyone knows you, for starters.”

“Good or bad?”

“Bad,” she breathed out on a laugh. “At least recently. But most of the time, it’s good. The history part of it is cool though. To look at old drawings and schematics of the vineyards and see how much it’s grown. To realize how much the area has changed in the last hundred plus years.”

“But you didn’t want to be part of the family business?”

“Hell no.” She vehemently shook her head. “That’s all Amara’s domain. And Chloe would’ve done what was expected of her, but thankfully for her—for all of us, really—Amara was more than willing and equipped to step up to the plate. And the beautiful thing is, especially for me and Brie, who found our passions outside of the winery, our parents didn’t care what we wanted to do as long as we were happy doing it.”

“That’s a gift, Wildflower. One not all kids are afforded. You and your sisters…you’re really lucky.”

Before she could respond, the waitress returned to clear our plates and drop the check off, telling us we could pay at the counter on our way out. A quick glance at my watch alerted me to the fact that we’d been sitting there talking for nearly two hours.

It had been so goddamn easy, I hadn’t paid attention to how much time was passing.

“You ready to go?” I asked her.

“Sure am,” she grinned.

And before I could react, the little shit swiped the check from the table and ran toward the counter, cackling maniacally the whole way.

With a muttered curse through my smile, I took off after her.