Page 27 of Wright Together

I took both cups into the heated water. “Here you go.”

She took the cup. “Thanks.”

I sank into the stone seat across from her and took a sip of the wine. “It’s pretty good.”

“Surely, you’ve had Wright wine before.”

“Of course. They had it at the wedding.”

Her eyes sparkled in the dim light. “Oh, I remember. I think I imbibed half the vineyard.”

“You weren’t that bad.”

“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s not how I remember it.”

“How do you remember it?”

She shrugged. “The same way you do.”

“That I very much doubt,” I told her.

I downed the contents of my first glass and set it down on the side of the hot tub. I waited for her to talk more about the wedding. Were we finally going to have this conversation? After all this time, she’d refused to discuss it.

She met my gaze. Her eyes were pensive. “Why didn’t you ask about the guy at Lee’s?”

I blinked at the change of subject. “Did you want me to?”

“No,” she said at once.

“Well then…good.”

“It was good. But I don’t understand why you let it go.”

“The guy was a jerk,” I growled. “He either didn’t realize or didn’t care that you were uncomfortable. I don’t care who he was or why he made you feel that way. All that mattered was that he left you alone.”

She tilted her head. “You know you’re not a real knight in shining armor, right? I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can,” I told her. “But you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t what?”

“Taking care of yourself.” I rested my arms back against the lip of the pool. “So, I did it myself.”

Her mouth opened into a small O before quickly returning to neutral. She took a long gulp of her wine and then hopped out of the tub. I watched her toned ass as she strode toward the table and lifted the bottle of wine.

“Refill?”

I cleared my throat. “Sure.”

She brought the bottle to the pool and poured wine into my cup. She set the bottle down next to the hot tub, then slipped back into the water. She brought the red liquid to her already-red lips and sipped as she watched me intently. I didn’t know what was behind those emerald eyes, but I was transfixed. I couldn’t have looked away if I wanted to.

“You really don’t want to know why he made me uncomfortable?”

Was I interested? Of course. The situation had seemed screwed up. There must be a reason that she wasn’t talking about her family. From that one small interaction, I had a pretty good reason why. But I wasn’t going to force her to talk about it if she didn’t want to.

“Honestly, it was enough to see that he did. If you want to tell me, I am all ears.”

She shook her head. “No, just trying to figure out who you are.”