Chapter 57 I'm ruined
I reach out, my hand closing around his bicep to steer him toward the northern path. It’s a reflex...the need to guide, to dictate the trajectory...but Kaden flinches out of the touch with a fluid shrug. He crosses his arms over his chest again in that defensive way he falls into when he’s intentionally trying not to give me anything. But the fire in his eyes has simmered down.
I let out a short breath, shaking my head as a faint smile tugs at my mouth. He’s like a stray cat that’s agreed to be fed but still expects you to bite.
"Stubborn," I whisper, more to myself than to him. Then I gesture toward the heart of the estate, "This way."
I don’t reach for him again. Instead, I lead the way forward, cutting off the gravel path and into the vineyard itself. We walk in silence for a few minutes, the gravel crunching beneath our boots as the rows of vines begin to swallow us. They stretch out in perfect lines. The scent of sun-warmed earth and ripening fruit is thick enough to taste.
"I inherited this place from my grandmother when I turned eighteen," I say, the confession slipping out before I can audit it. "It was the first thing I ever truly took control of."
He doesn't look at me. He keeps his eyes fixed on the horizon, where the sun is bleeding gold and violet into the hills. "Old money," he says, his voice dry and flavored with a subtle, cutting irony. "Explains a lot."
I turn my head, watching the profile of his face....the stubborn line of his jaw, the way the light catches the hazel in his eyes. "I did come from it," I admit, my voice level. "But everything I have now...I built it myself."
The vineyard opens up slightly as we walk, the rows stretching wider, the land dipping and rising in soft, controlled slopes. The sun’s lower now...gold spilling over everything, catching on the leaves, turning the entire place into something softer than it has any right to be. I glance at him again and it hits me how completely out of place he should look here.
But doesn’t....if anything, he fits too well. Like he belongs in something this carefully curated.
"I did some digging," he says suddenly. His voice quiet.
My heart thuds once, heavy and singular against my ribs. But my expression doesn’t shift. "Yeah? Find anything interesting?"
He stops walking and turns fully to face me, his gaze boring into mine with a sudden, surgical intensity. "You got emancipated at seventeen. Changed your name."
My jaw locks. The air in my lungs feels flash-frozen. I tuck my hands into my pockets, my fingers curling into tight fists as I swallow hard against the sudden, metallic taste of a past I spent years burying.
I don’t think about that.
I don’t ever go back there.
"Why?" he asks. Just one word. Just terrifying curiosity. I shut the door on that entire time period, locking it with a mental click that echoes in my skull.
I look past him, gesturing toward the rise of a small hill in the distance. On its crest sits an ancient, sprawling oak tree, its branches reaching out like gnarled fingers. "The view from up there is better," I say, my voice sounding distant even to my own ears. "You can see the whole valley."
I start walking before he can press me, my pace brisk. I don't look back to see if he's following, I just wait for the sound of his footsteps. After a beat, I hear them...the crunch of gravel as he falls into step behind me.
We’re almost clear of the vines, the hill only a few yards away, when a sudden, mechanical hiss shatters the quiet.
Because of the heatwave, the overhead irrigation sprinklers are on a timer. I’d forgotten. A sudden, heavy spray of water erupts from the lines above us, spraying down in wide arcs, catching the last of the sunlight and breaking it into something scattered and bright.
I stop, the water instantly drenching my hair and soaking through the shoulders of my coat. I turn back to Kaden, who’s standing in the middle of the mist, his shirt clinging to his skin, his hair plastered to his forehead in uneven strands. He looks startled, dripping, and utterly beautiful.
Any other time, I’d be irritated...furious, even. Something slipping out of my control like this, blindsiding me... that's the kind of oversight that usually makes me see red.
But the red I’m seeing now isn’t anger.
Kaden's still frozen, like his body hasn’t caught up to what just happened. He blinks through it, stunned, eyes narrowing as he looks around like he’s trying to make sense of it. Then he fixes his eyes on me.
"Did you..." He starts, breath catching slightly as water hits his face again. He wipes at it, frustrated and a little disoriented. "Did you plan this? Is this part of some... some master plan to keep me here?"
I don’t answer. I’m caught in a trance, watching the way a single droplet of water tracks a path from his temple, down his jaw, and disappears into the fabric of his shirt. All I can think about is the distance between us. I want to reach out, to run my hand through that wet, dark hair and pull his head back just to see if his eyes are still burning.
It’s a problem. A bigger one than the sprinklers.
His eyes dart over me, taking in my drenched state, then he makes a sudden, frantic dash for the edge of the rows. I turn just as he passes me, a short breath leaving me in something that resembles a laugh. And then I follow, my shoes heavy on the mud that’s already beginning to form. Matching his pace easily as we push out of the rows and into the dry edge beyond, the sudden absence of water hitting almost as sharply as the impact of it did.
We burst through the final line of vines, the sprinklers still screaming behind us, and scramble onto the dry grass at the base of the oak-covered hill. We stop, both of us heaving, the air between us thick with the smell of wet earth and something much more volatile. He’s dripping... I’m ruined, and the sun is finally sinking below the line of the trees.