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“I have been honest with her.”
“Have you?”
He didn’t say much else after that. It took us twenty minutes to get to my car. I probably could have made it in ten if I walked, but there was something about being on the tractor, rolling past the trees that would be flaring red, yellow, and orange in only a few weeks that was calming to my soul.
I had a lot of time in my head. I had hoped with time answers would come. But as I climbed from the tractor and said my goodbyes to Albert, I still didn’t have a single one.
The thought of other women didn’t appeal to me anymore. All I thought about was Lainey. But how did I convince her she was all I wanted?
I shoved my hand through my hair and jumped into my car. I thought about heading to the tasting room to check on things, but instead, I sent Chris a text since Donna never had her phone on her.
It took him a bit to get back to me, which meant he wasn’t fucking off on his phone. He said Rhone and Sutton had showed up, and they had everything under control.
Letting other people help out had been hard, but it also had been proving to be a success. I didn’t need to be in the tasting room for every hour it was open. I had a staff I could trust, and it was time I did that. I had asked Lainey to trust me, so how could I not trust others who expected the same of me?
I put my cell in the holder and headed home. It had been a long afternoon, and it would be nice to sit on the couch and relax for once. I pulled into my driveway, and my heart stuttered at the sight of Lainey’s car. Confusion tugged at my eyebrows, but when I spotted her sitting on my steps, my heart damn near stopped.
Her blonde hair hung in loose curls just above her shoulders, and the milkmaid dress she wore highlighted her sexy as sin curves.
She was so fucking beautiful.
She pushed from the stairs and walked toward my car.
I jumped out and shut the door. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
“You looked into my eyes.”
Eyes? What the hell was she talking about? “What?”
“When we had sex. You looked into my eyes.”
I wanted to understand what she was saying, but I was as lost as Ron was. “Where else would I look?”
She ran her fingers up my jaw to behind my ear. I inhaled, tilting my head toward her palm and savoring her touch. Her thumb glided across my cheek. My eyes snapped to hers, so blue and so mesmerizing.
A slight smile curved at the edge of her mouth. “You don’t look other women in the eyes, but you looked me in the eye. You saw me, and you wanted to see me.”
“Always, Lanes. Always.”
“A part of me thought maybe you didn’t want to see my body.”
I shook my head, lips parted, but she cut me off.
“It was easy to convince myself that’s why you left. The sun rose, and you saw what you were trying not to see.”
“You’re fucking gorgeous, Lanes.”
“And that’s not why you left.”
“No.”
Albert’s words slipped into my head. It was time I wasn’t only honest with Lanes, but I was honest with myself.
“I was scared,” I said. “Terrified actually. I let what Franc said have so much power.”
“What did he say?”
“That I wasn’t good enough for you. Don’t be mad at him. He was just protecting you, just as I would have. But I was convinced you could do so much better than me. That I would inevitably fuck up and hurt you far worse than if I just ended things before they began.”
