Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“So, what? What is this, Chase?”
“Look, I’m super into you, Harley. You know that. We have so much in common. Obviously, last night was fucking amazing.” He met my gaze firmly but resolutely, and I waited for the other shoe to drop with my heart in my throat. “But we can’t let it happen again.”
I was going to throw up.
This couldn’t be happening. Not after last night. Not after the highest high I had been on this morning. Not after our plans for today.
I shook my head and took a step back, going from sad to furious at the drop of a dime.
“Fine,” I spat. “I get it.”
“Harley—”
“No, I get it. You got your rocks off, and now, you’re over it.”
“That is not at all what happened,” he snarled. “And you know it.”
I laughed derisively. “Do I? You’re acting just like any other male I’ve met from the species.”
I turned and headed back to the door, but he rushed forward, blocking my way.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “That is not why this is happening.”
“Then, what is it? You found out I was young, and now, it’s over? Because that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re not just young, Harley. You’re a literal teenager. I’m ten years older than you. I run my own law firm. We are in completely different places in our lives.”
“I don’t care about any of that.”
“You will,” he said. “You’ll care later, and you’ll blame me.”
I pushed him away. “Don’t fucking tell me how I’ll feel.”
He blew out another breath. “I’m not trying to tell you. And I hate saying that I have the experience of time, but I do. Older guys who go after teenage girls on purpose are not the kind of guys you should want to be with.”
“Sure,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Loud and clear.”
“If you were older…”
I gagged and held a hand up. “Please don’t. I just…don’t.”
He took a step back, fisting his hands into his hair. He looked like he was tearing himself in half. And I wanted to sympathize with him. I wanted to make it all better. But he was the one ruining it all. He was doing this. And there didn’t seem to be any way for me to fix it.
“Look, Jordan would have killed me before, but his nineteen-year-old little sister? I thought you were twenty-two or twenty-three. Maybe twenty-five if I was being generous.”
I paused at that, tilting my head. “Wait, why would my brother have killed you?”
He looked like he was drowning at my question. “Fuck, you don’t know who I am, do you?”
“Um…I don’t know what answer to give for that.”
“Sinclair,” he said. “Chase Sinclair.”
“Oh…oh,” I whispered.
The situation came back to me in bits and pieces. Stops and starts. I hadn’t been here when Jordan and Annie got together, but I’d heard the story while out with my family. Annie had thought she would marry someone else until she started dating Jordan, and Jordan had punched the guy in the face when he interfered.
That person had been Chase—my Chase. His melancholia at the wedding—the thing that had made me first stop and stare—made perfect sense. He had been watching the girl he’d thought he’d marry walk down the aisle to the man he’d lost her to.
I’d never asked what had become of the guy who could get Jordan Wright to unleash like that. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.
I only knew the Sinclair name. The one who had tried to steal Jordan’s girl. Who had broken Julian’s heart. Who had tried to sabotage the vineyard. Their enemy.
An enemy I had inherited by virtue of my name.
Oh fuck.
“Yeah. Oh,” he said.
“I didn’t know you were a Sinclair,” I said, suddenly feeling increasingly sicker. “But you knew I was a Wright. You knew that Jordan was my brother. You didn’t care about it then!”
“No, I didn’t,” he admitted.
Then, a horrible thought dawned on me. “Did you do this on purpose to get back at him?”
“What?” he asked. “No.”
“No?” I demanded. “Because from where I’m standing, it sure looks like you didn’t get what you wanted, so you tried to hurt the person who’d stolen from you.”
“That is not what this was, Harley, and you know it. There was no way I could have faked what we had.”
I wanted to believe him, but my heart ached from the rejection. I wanted a real reason and not what felt like a made-up difference in our age. “So this has nothing to do with Jordan?”
He sighed again. “I won’t lie and say it wasn’t tempting at first, but it wasn’t what drew me to you. It wasn’t why this happened. And it has nothing to do with why this can’t continue. If I wanted to hurt Jordan, why would I be ending this? I don’t care about him. I only care about you.”