I’m grinning like a fool when Winter finally gets to me.
“Hi.” She smiles back, instantly flushed again.
“Hi. Drink?” I tip my head toward the bar.
“Sure. Champagne.”
Winter takes a spot beside me while I turn and order her a champagne. With her drink in hand, we both stand and stare out at the crowd. The sun is dropping outside, but inside it feels like things are just turning up. The reception is being held in another outbuilding on the same farm, this one set up for events with a large dance floor, family-style tables down one side, two bars, and a DJ booth. Basically, everything you might need on one property to host a country wedding.
“What were you and Harvey talking about?” I glance down at Winter, lips on the rim of the glass as she tips the champagne into her mouth. Pink lipstick kisses the edge when her mouth comes away.
“The procreation prowl.”
Her brows knit together. “The what?”
“You don’t want to know. What were you and Beau talking about?”
Her nose wrinkles slightly, and I can tell she’s weighing her words. “Basically, he cornered me at a family dinner a while back, asking me to write him a script. I said no. He blew up, and I told him to watch his tone. Now he treats me like I’m the Grinch who stole his sleeping pills. I guess after several months of cooling down, he decided to apologize. Though I’m pretty sure his dad told him t—”
“I think it might be a good time to get this girl home.” My mom walks up, pushing a stroller with a passed out Vivi. “She’s partied hard for a ten-month-old. I told Winter I’d go on grandma duty so you guys could stay out. I’ll just watch Grey’s reruns at your house until you’re back.”
Ten months? God. She was nine months when I met her. It seems impossible that a month has passed. There’s a part of me that wants to say no and take her home myself. I want to watch her fall asleep and be there when she wakes up.
But Winter jumps at the opportunity. “Thank you, Loretta. That would be lovely.” She bends down to the stroller and presses a kiss to Vivi’s cheek. And I decide, fuck it, I’m doing the same. So, I place my beer onto the bar and with one hand on the small of Winter’s back, I bend into the stroller and give my daughter’s soft, pudgy cheek a goodnight kiss.
When I straighten, I’m immediately faced with Kip’s stare on me from the opposite side of the dance floor. His dark eyes bore into me as they narrow.
I glare back at him, my hand still firmly pressed to his forgotten daughter’s back. I graze my thumb over the silky pink fabric. This dress looks far too much like some sort of sexy nightgown. It really should be illegal.
“Bye, Mom,” is my absent acknowledgment of her departure.
I’m sure the stare down is obvious, but I don’t give a fuck. Kip might be her dad, he might even be a nice enough guy, but he hurt Winter and hasn’t done shit to show up for her.
Which puts him in the asshole column as far as I’m concerned.
“Wow. This champagne is great.” Winter sidles closer to me, turning her body toward mine as she holds the glass up to assess it. “Like not too fizzy, you know?”
I’m sure she’s aware of who I’m watching, but I wonder if she understands how territorial I’m feeling. “I’m glad. You okay?”
She nods, top teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Finally, she gives me her eyes for more than a few seconds for the first time today. “Yeah.” Her teeth go back to working at her lip, like she’s trying to clamp down on words she wants to say.
I ghost a finger over her lip and it sends a jolt of lust to my groin. “If you want to be bitten, I can help you with that.”
Her eyes widen and she quickly covers by taking a sip of champagne.
Then the questions come.
“Why did you keep that coaster? My phone number?”
“Because I knew I was coming back. You were a mess—respectfully—and I was out of control. We both needed time.”
A thin laugh spills from her lips. “I’m still a mess now.”
I splay my fingers lower on her back, trailing them over the top seam of her underwear as I gaze out over the packed dance floor. “Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I want to be messy with you forever.”
Her body jolts, and I smile before taking a swig of my beer. It feels like several minutes before she says another word.
And they aren’t the words I want.
“Truly, this champagne is superb. Like not too sweet. Not too dry. I’ll have to ask Summer for the name so I can get a bottle.”
“I’ll buy you literal cases of it if you stop avoiding the conversation at hand.”
She sighs and follows my gaze out onto the dance floor where Rhett is spinning Summer. Her full dress trails around behind her, cast almost as wide as the grin on her face. Jasper has Sloane pressed against him like every person in their vicinity might try to remove her from his grip. And Willa is dancing with Luke, doing the most insane moves until they both laugh uncontrollably.
“I don’t know how to react to you when you talk like that, Theo,” Winter says in a soft voice. “Like . . . what was it then? Love at first sight? I just . . . that makes me uncomfortable. That’s a movie thing, not a real-life thing.”
“When you saw Vivi for the first time, did you know you loved her? Did you need time and space to come around to the idea? Or did you take one look at her and just know?”
A deep sigh lifts her shoulders. “I just knew.”
I pull her closer, feeling her stomach press against my hip, her breast against my ribs, as I drop my voice and splay my fingers over her ass. “When I saw you . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to call it love at first sight. Maybe need at first sight? Want at first sight? A connection. It was knowing I’d never get sick of your eyes wandering over my body with that slack-jawed feral look on your face.”
“You should really try this champagne. I think you’d like it.”
“Winter, seriously with the champagne again?”
Her body melts against mine even as her words stay conflicted. “I just . . . That’s crazy. That makes no sense.”
A laugh rumbles in my chest. “I ride bulls for a living, so it’s not the first time I’ve been called crazy. I guess I’m just crazy enough to want my eight seconds on the frigid ice-queen sister too.”
Winter stiffens for several beats and then yanks herself away with a violence that clashes with the peacefulness we had moments ago.
“Are you kidding me?” she hisses right as her eyes go dark and turn glassy.
“Winter . . .”
It was a joke.
A bad one.
“You are the only person in my life who has never referred to me that way. Sorry, you were the only person.” Her mouth pops open and I can see the way I’ve hurt her; it’s written all over her face.
She transforms from raging to heartbroken right before my eyes. A shaking hand places the champagne glass on the bar top, and her quivering lips try to form a polite smile. Her voice comes out watery when she says, “Thank you for the drink.”
Then she’s practically jogging in her high heels across the wooden floor, skirt fisted to keep it from tangling in her legs. I’m too stunned to move for a few beats.
We were just talking, laughing. Heading in a good direction. And she’s going to run away from me now? After everything?
Nah. Not today, Tink.
I stride after her.
Agitated.
Frustrated.
And fucking done with Winter Hamilton running from me.
27
Theo
I sense the weight of people’s gazes as I practically chase Winter through the room. My long, assertive strides gain ground behind her short, choppy ones.
She turns down a narrow wood-paneled hallway. It’s quieter here, even with my heartbeat in my ears and her heels clacking on the floor.
At the very end of the corridor, she goes left and wrenches on the door handle, wild eyes meeting mine over her shoulder. “Theo. Go away. I want to be alone.” A tear streaks down her face.
I know she hates to cry. Hates having big feelings and big conversations. Hates to feel weak or out of control.
But . . .
“That’s too bad, because today, I don’t give a fuck what you want,” I growl as I yank the door open wider to accommodate my width. “Get in.” I push her gently into the washroom, my hand between her shoulder blades as we step into the large space with a butcher-block vanity and bowl sink.
“I don’t want you here!” she hisses, wiping furiously at her face as she turns away from me to face the mirror that runs all the way to the ceiling. “Would hate for happy, lovable fucking Theo Silva to get his legendary dick frostbitten by the ice-queen.”
“Winter, that was a joke.” I lock the door while she stares at us in the mirror. Flushed cheeks, wide eyes, one hand on her heaving chest. “It was a dumb fucking joke.”
“It wasn’t funny.”