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“What?” I protested, leaping from his lap. “I really fucking love tutti frutti!”
Cal rose to his feet and stalked toward me, snaking his arms around my waist and tugging me close.
“Well, the good news, Princess”—he pressed a kiss to my nose—“is that I don’t eat candy, so you’ll never have to fight me for the last tutti frutti.”
“Lucky me.”
“Yes,” I said quietly, answering him at last, my voice steady despite the maelstrom of emotion swirling in my chest. “Watermelon tutti frutti.” I brought my hand to my face, suddenly feeling faint with Cal’s eyes on me. At last, I heaved a sigh, letting it out in awhooshthat reverberated through the speakers, and began again. “I’ve worked a lot of jobs around here over the years, but there was never a doubt in my mind that I wanted to be involved. I always knew being here”—I gestured to the vineyards to my right—“spending my days surrounded by these fields and the people I love most was my dream job.”
I loved this place. I’d grown up traipsing through the vineyards with my sisters, playing hide and seek among the vines, always coming home sticky and stained. Yet our parents never scolded us, never got mad at us for turning the vineyards—which were, in essence, our family’s livelihood—into our personal playground. They simply let us run amok through the rolling hills. It may have been a bit unorthodox as far as upbringings were concerned, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I knew from a very young age that there was nowhere I’d rather be than here on the peninsula, surrounded by the fruits of generations of my family’s labors.
“I love that about you,” Cal said, stalking slowly through the crowd. “How loyal you’ve always been to this company—and your family. How much work you’ve done behind the scenes.”
I huffed a breath but ignored him. I couldn’t risk indulging him and getting derailed again—and I couldn’t afford to stop and savor his words.
“I would’ve been happy not to go to college at all when that time came, honestly. I didn’t think there was anything I could learn atsome state schoolthat I couldn’t learn simply by working side by side with my father every day.”
Yeah, that was a dig at him, and his answering chuckle told me he knew it. Told me he was remembering that day in the cellar the same as I was, when he’d lobbed that insult at me. Something told me he knew now how far off the mark he’d been that day, and he confirmed it with his next words.
“The London School of Business, right?”
Noises of shock rose from the crowd, and what could I do but grin? An MBA from the London School of Business was a daunting undertaking and one of my proudest accomplishments.
“Well, I went to Tennessee first,” I said, shooting Cal a smirk. “Daddy wanted me to get out and experience being a regular college girl before I…what was it you said, Dad? Oh, right. Shackled myself to this place for the rest of my life.”
My father grinned, nodding, and the crowd broke into laughter again. That conversation was as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. Me begging to forgo college so I could stay home and work. Him pushing me out the door.
The man was more stubborn than me—which explained where my sisters and I got it from, though none more so than yours truly.
“So I went to UT,” I continued. “Joined a sorority, though those sisters could never replace my real ones.”
“Became president of your chapter too, didn’t you?”
How the fuck did he knowthat?
“I did, Calvin. Thank you for pointing that out.”Calvin. God, when had I last called himCalvin? It felt weird, too formal, the syllables tasting wrong as they came out. But I plowed ahead. “And then, as Calvin so graciously pointed out, I moved to London, where I attended the London School of Business during the week and spent my weekends…” I trailed off, tapping my finger to my chin in fake contemplation, zeroing in on Cal again. “Help me out here, Calvin. What did I do on the weekends?”
I was clearly baiting him, and he rose to the challenge without missing a beat. “You traipsed around Europe partying.” The accompanying smirk told me he knew that wasn’t all I’d been up to.
Seemed someone had finally done their research.
I offered the group a modest little smile and shrug. “Thatpartyingpaid off, though, because it increased our international distribution by three hundred percent in the first year.”
A staggering number, one the company had never seen before or since.
I grinned widely at Cal, narrowly holding myself back from telling himI told you so.
His own smile shifted from delight at our verbal back and forth to something softer, something secretive.
Something for just me.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” Cal said, taking a step closer to me and the stage. “I love you, Princess, and I’ll spend forever proving it to you.”
I love you I love you I love you.
The words were a balm to my soul.
What else could I do but say them back?
