Flirting with Forever: A Hot Romantic Comedy(93)

“Roland,” Leo said, his tone sharp. “Dad’s the one who fucked everything up. He’s not going to fix it. We need you out here, man. If this is about Zoe…”

“It’s not about Zoe.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose again. Just thinking about Zoe gave me a headache. Why my mom had hired my ex-wife to work at the family winery was beyond me. Although, normally I didn’t give a shit. I was in San Francisco, almost a thousand miles from my hometown in central Washington. It’s not like it had any impact on my life if she worked there.

“Because we can, I don’t know, find ways to keep some distance between you two or whatever,” he said.

“I already said it isn’t about her. I’m an adult, I can be in the same room with Zoe.”

“Good,” he said. “Then get your ass home.”

“Leo—” I stopped because I heard the click of the call ending. I tossed my phone back onto my desk. “Fuck. Fuck you, Leo. And fuck you, Dad.”

I checked my calendar. Tomorrow was out, but if I flew out early on Thursday, I could get to the winery and finish up my day from there. I sent my assistant, Danielle, a text, telling her to book me a flight to Seattle and reserve a rental car.

My concentration was shot to shit. I wasn’t going to get any more work done tonight. But it was late anyway. I closed my laptop, grabbed my things, and went home.





I’d bought my condo for the view. During the day, I could see all the way to the water. At night, the lights of the city twinkled in the darkness. It had cost me a shit-ton of money, but every night when I stood looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows, I knew it had been worth it.

I went to the kitchen and took a bottle of Glenlivit out of the liquor cabinet. Poured a glass and took a long swallow. It burned going down, spreading warmth through my chest.

Danielle texted me back with my flight details for Thursday. I blew out a long breath and took another drink of Scotch.

Home. I’d grown up in Echo Creek, a small town in the Cascade Mountains. Growing up on a winery sounded idyllic, but I’d been glad to leave it behind.

How long had it been since I’d been there? Eighteen months? More? That didn’t sound right. But I hadn’t gone back for the holidays last year. It probably had been that long.

I felt a twinge of guilt at that. It wasn’t that I disliked my family. True, my dad and I butted heads, and my siblings liked to give me crap for having moved away. But I knew my mom would like it if I came home more often.

I was just so damn busy. It was hard to carve out the time for a trip that wasn’t business related. And I’d have to endure the inevitable guilt trips. Why don’t you visit more often? Can’t you stay longer? Don’t you want to come back and join your brothers in the family business?

No, I fucking didn’t. But none of them had ever understood why I hadn’t fallen in line. Why I hadn’t taken up my proper place at the winery.

I was made for bigger things than running a goddamn wine business in a small town out in central nowhere. There was no challenge to it. No risk. And the potential rewards—particularly financially—were much too low for me. Money wasn’t everything, but honestly, it was most things. And I was good at making money. Great, even. I’d made my company a hell of a lot of money in the last several years.

I was respected here. People deferred to me. Trusted me with millions of dollars. I had my own office, an assistant, a penthouse condo with a priceless view. Enough money that I could have more or less anything I wanted.

I was living my dream, and I didn’t understand why my family couldn’t just be fucking happy for me. Why they had to harp on the fact that I wasn’t there all the time. My brothers had stayed. My sister would probably wind up back home after college. They even had my ex-wife. What the hell did they need me for?

I took another sip of Scotch and wandered over to the window, wondering what my dad had done that had Leo so riled up. Leo and I rarely saw eye to eye. He wouldn’t have called me over nothing. The big question was, did my dad know he’d done it? Were they expecting me to ride in with my MBA and save the day? Or was Leo going behind their backs to drag me into their mess?

I guess I was about to find out.

Thinking of home brought my thoughts back to Zoe. I went into the bedroom and set my drink down. With a glance over my shoulder—as if half-afraid someone would catch me—I pulled a small box down off a shelf in the closet.

There was only one thing inside. Zoe’s wedding ring.

I’d found it sitting on the kitchen counter of our old apartment the day she’d left me. The rest of her things had been gone. Her side of the closet, empty. Her drawers in the bathroom, cleaned out. She hadn’t taken much that had been ours—the things we’d accumulated together. I’d brought some of it to her later—the things I’d thought she’d want to keep—and given away the rest. But not her ring.

Keeping it was the stupidest thing. I didn’t know why I still had it. It wasn’t even very nice. We’d eloped when we were twenty—just a couple of poor college students. I’d saved for months to get it, and at the time, I’d been pretty damn proud of myself. Looking at it now, it was rather pathetic. Just a plain gold band with a tiny excuse for a diamond. Zoe had loved it when I’d given it to her—said she hadn’t expected a ring at all.