Unfortunately Yours (A Vine Mess, #2)

Unfortunately Yours (A Vine Mess, #2)

Tessa Bailey




Chapter One




For as long as August Cates could remember, his dick had ruined everything.

In seventh grade, he’d gotten a hard-on during a pep rally while standing in front of the entire school in football pants. Since his classmates couldn’t openly call him Woody in the presence of their teachers, they’d called him Tom Hanks, instead. It stuck all through high school. To this day, he cringed at the very mention of Toy Story.

Trust your gut, son.

His navy commander father had always said that to him. In fact, that was pretty much all he’d ever said, by way of advice. Everything else constituted a direct order. Problem was, August tended to need a little more instruction. A diagram, if possible. He wasn’t a get-it-right-on-the-first-try type of man. Which was probably why he’d mistaken his “gut” for his dick.

Meaning, he’d translated his father’s advice into . . .

Trust your dick, son.

August straightened the wineglass in front of him in order to forgo adjusting the appendage in question. The glass sat on a silver tray, seconds from being carried to the panel of judges. Currently, the three smug elitists were sipping a Cabernet offering that had been entered into the Bouquets and Beginners competition by another local vintner. The crowd of Napa Valley wine snobs leaned forward in their folding chairs to hear the critique from one judge in particular.

Natalie Vos.

The daughter of a legendary winemaker.

Vos Vineyard heiress and all-around plague on his fucking sanity.

August watched her full lips perch on the edge of the glass. They were painted a kind of lush plum color today. They matched the silk blouse she wore tucked into a leather skirt and he swore to God, he could feel the crush of that leather in his palms. Could feel his fingertips raking down her bare legs to remove those high heels with spikes on the toes. Not for the first time—no, incredibly far from the first time—he mentally kicked himself in the ass for sabotaging his chances of taking Natalie Vos to bed. She wouldn’t touch him through a hazmat suit now, and she’d told him as much umpteen times.

His chances of winning this contest didn’t bode well.

Not only because he and Natalie Vos were enemies, but because his wine sucked big sweaty donkey balls. Everyone knew it. Hell, August knew it. The only one to call him out on it, however, was preparing to deliver her verdict to the audience.

“Color is rich, if a bit light. Notes of tobacco in front. Citrus aftertaste. Veering toward acidic, but . . .” She held the wine up to the sun and studied it through the glass. “Overall very enjoyable. Admirable for a two-year-old winery.”

Murmurs and golf claps all around from the audience.

The winemaker thanked the judges. He actually bowed to Natalie while retrieving his glass and August couldn’t stifle an eye roll to save his life. Unfortunately, Natalie caught the action and raised a perfect black brow, signaling August forward for his turn at the judging table, like a princess summoning a commoner—and didn’t that fit their roles to a T?

August didn’t belong in this sunny five-star resort and spa courtyard on a Saturday afternoon ferrying wine on a silver tray to these wealthy birdbrains who overinflated the importance of wine so much it felt like satire. He didn’t belong in sophisticated St. Helena. Wasn’t cut out to select the best bunch of grapes at the grocery store, let alone cultivate soil and grow them from scratch to make his very own brand of wine.

I tried, Sammy.

He’d really fucking tried. This contest had a grand prize of ten thousand dollars and that money was August’s last hope to keep the operation alive. If given another chance, he would be more hands-on during the fermentation process. He’d learned the hard way that “set it and forget it” didn’t work for shit with wine. It required constant tasting, correcting, and rebalancing to prevent spoilage. He might do better if given another season to prove himself.

For that, he needed money. And he had a better chance of getting Natalie in the sack than winning this competition, which was to say, he had no chance whatsoever—because, yeah. His wine blew chunks. He’d be lucky if they managed to let it rest on their taste buds for three seconds, let alone declare him the winner. But August would try to the bitter end, so he would never look back and wonder if he could have done more to bring this secondhand dream to life.

August strode to the judge’s table and set the glasses of wine in front of Natalie with a lot less ceremony than his competitors had, sniffed, and stepped back, crossing his arms. Disdain stared back at him in the form of the two most annoyingly beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. Sort of a whiskey gold, ringed in a darker brown. He could still remember the moment the expression in those eyes had gone from take-me-to-bed-daddy to please-drink-poison.

Witch.

This was her domain, however. Not his. At six-foot-three and with a body still honed for the battles of his past life as a Navy SEAL, he fit into this panorama about as well as Rambo at a bake sale. The shirt the entrants had been asked to wear for the competition didn’t fit, so he’d hung it from the back pocket of his jeans. Maybe he could use it to clean up the wine when the judges spit it out.

“August Cates of Zelnick Cellar,” Natalie said smoothly, handing glasses of wine to her fellow judges. Outwardly, she appeared cool as ever, her unflappable New York demeanor on full display, but he could see her breath coming faster as she geared herself up to drink what amounted to sludge in a glass. Of the three judges, Natalie was the only one who knew what was coming, because she’d tasted his wine once before—and had promptly compared it to demon piss. That occasion was also known as the night he’d blown his one and only chance to sweat up the sheets with Princess Vos herself.

Since that ill-fated evening, their relationship had been nothing short of contentious. If they happened to see each other on Grapevine Way or at a local wine event, she liked to discreetly scratch her eyebrow with a middle finger, while August usually inquired how many glasses of wine she’d plowed through since nine a.m.

In theory, he hated her. They hated each other.

Dammit, though, he couldn’t seem to actually do it. Not all the way.

And it all went back to August’s mistaking his gut for his dick as a youngster.

As in, Trust your dick, son.

And that part of his anatomy might as well be married to Natalie Vos. Married with six kids and living in the Viennese countryside wearing matching playclothes fashioned out of curtains, à la The Sound of Music. If all of August’s decisions were up to his downstairs brain, he would have apologized the night of their first argument and asked for another shot to supply her with wall-to-wall orgasms. But it was too late now. He had no choice but to return the loathing she radiated at him, because his upstairs brain knew all too well why their relationship would never have gone past a single night.

Natalie Vos had privilege and polish—not to mention money—coming out of her ears.

At thirty-five, August was broker than a fingerless mime.

He’d dumped all of his life savings into opening a winery, with no experience or guidance, and losing this contest would be the death blow to Zelnick Cellar.

August’s chest tightened like he was being strapped to a gurney, but he refused to break eye contact with the heiress. The growing ache below his throat must have been visible on his face because, slowly, Natalie’s smug expression melted away and she frowned at him. Leaned in and whispered for his ears alone, “What’s going on with you? Are you missing WrestleMania to be here or something?”

“I wouldn’t miss WrestleMania for my own funeral.” He snorted. “Just taste the wine, compare it to moldy garbage, and get it over with, princess.”

“Actually, I was going to ordain it as something like . . . rat bathwater.” She gestured at him with fluttery fingers. “Seriously, what’s up? You have more asshole energy than usual.”

He sighed, looking out at the rows of expectant spectators who were either in tennis whites or leisure wear that probably cost more than his truck. “Maybe because I’m trapped in an episode of Succession.” Time to change the channel. Not that he had a choice. “Do your worst, Natalie.”

She wrinkled her nose at his wine. “But you’re already so good at being the worst.”

August huffed a laugh. “Too bad they’re not giving out a prize for sharpest fangs. You’d be unmatched.”

“Are you comparing me to a vampire? Because your wine is what sucks.”

“Just down the whole glass without tasting it, like you usually do.”

Was that hurt that flashed in her eyes before she hid it?

Certainly not. “You are an—” she started.