“I’d pay to have someone turn off my brain, to be honest,” he says. I trail my finger down his nose, over the slight bump, then the curve of his lips. He opens them, taking my fingertip between his teeth and biting down gently.

I watch him closely, and I can see those wheels turning. I lower my voice a register. “I know just the thing to make it stop.” I take my finger out of his mouth and kiss him softly. He lets out a faint moan that I can feel in my core. I put my hand on his chest and push myself back. “But first, let’s go to the wine tasting.”

He shuts his eyes and his head flops back onto the pillow. “Do we have to? Why can’t we just stay here and you do that thing that turns off my thoughts, and I’ll do that thing that makes your cunt wetter than a waterslide.”

“Come on,” I tell him, throwing his arm off me and getting up. “We’re doing this because you want to see your cousins before you go, and they want to see you. Let’s just have some wine and disappear.”

He grumbles at that, but gets up. We leave Emily with her dinner and some water then head out into the hotel.

The building itself is huge, and we find ourselves strolling through courtyards and past the opulent pool area. It’s busy, and everyone seems to have a glass of wine in hand which makes something in my head stutter and pause. Maybe a vineyard wasn’t really the best place to bring Lachlan.

I glance up at him as he walks beside me, eyes darting around, never resting in one place. I take in what I know about him. Behavioral problems. Tattoos that hint at a past shadowed with downfall and demons. The fact that he doesn’t drink much, if at all, might not just be about the rugby training. It might be about a whole other thing.

But he hasn’t said anything to me about it, and because it’s so personal, I’m not going to ask. People who are fucking for a week don’t need to disclose the nitty gritty, perhaps painful, details of their lives to each other.

The wine cellar is located in the Estate Cave which is set right into the rolling hillside of grape vines that flank the back of the property. Inside it’s cool and dim, with the spa entrance to the left of us and the wine tasting bar to the right. Ahead of us are big dark doors that just beg to be pushed open.

I’m in the middle of doing so, peeking my head inside to see a large, empty cavern with curved stone walls and hanging chandeliers, when Lachlan pulls me back and Steph is screeching in my ear.

“Yay, you came!” she says, and when I turn to look at her, she gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. I exchange a look with Lachlan. She’s even drunker than before.

“Of course we came,” I tell her as she beckons us to follow her into the bar. There are a few people lined up along its length, looking over lists and being doted on by wannabe sommeliers, but we follow Steph to the back where they’re all sitting around a private table.

They all cheer when they see us, and I give them a quick one-handed wave in response.

“So,” I say, looking over their empty, wine-stained glasses. “You’ve got quite the head start.”

“We’re just one drink in,” Nicola says, gesturing to the two empty seats next to her. Lachlan and I both sit down, and the wine girl appears immediately.

“Hi,” she says in an overly bubbly voice. I guess you have to be bubbly if you want to sell expensive crates of vintage. “Let me top you two off. We started off with a light sauvignon blanc blend.” She reaches with her bottle, expertly pouring in a mouthful, but when she moves for Lachlan’s glass, he puts his hand over it.

“I shouldn’t,” he says, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

I look at Bram curiously to see if this is odd behavior from his cousin or not. Bram in turn is watching Lachlan carefully, though he doesn’t seem surprised.

“Would you like another kind of wine?” the girl asks.

“Give him the red,” Linden says. “He seems more like a red wine kind of guy. Right? Less sugar in red wine.”

Bram gives his brother a conflicted look and opens his mouth to say something when Lachlan shrugs and removes his hand from the glass.

“Sure, red is fine,” he concedes.

I feel like everyone around the table has suddenly tensed, making Lachlan the center of attention so I quickly say, “Bram, thank you so much for arranging this.”

And then everyone’s attention is on Bram with numerous expressions of gratitude. I put my hand on Lachlan’s leg, his muscles flexing as he anxiously taps his foot on the floor.

The wine girl, whose name tag reads “Jennifer Rodriguez,” comes back and pours Lachlan a hefty dollop of their red grenache blend. She’s actually quite attractive in the white teeth, tanned skin, wavy, honey-colored hair, overly obnoxious way. She won’t stop making eyes at Lachlan either.

But she doesn’t even appear on his radar. While she’s giving him all the information on the wine, babbling on, her eyes flitting over his tattoos, the bulk of his arms and shoulders, he doesn’t even look at her once. He just takes a sip of the wine and nods.

The rest of us don’t get the same amount of attention, although the wine is quite good. Bram asks a million questions about everything we drink, but Jenn’s attention is always on Lachlan. At one point she actually touches his bicep and coos over it.

“I love your tattoos. My ex-boyfriend used to have a fleur-di-lis on his arm and a quote across his chest. I always thought they were very sexy on men.”

I’m so close to telling her to step off but Lachlan folds his hands in front of him and calmly looks up at her. “Just pour the wine, darling.”

Jenn immediately looks flustered, her pouty mouth dropping for a moment, but then she steps into professional mode, sparing herself from further humiliation. I feel like giving Lachlan a high-five but keep my small triumph to myself.

We’re a few wine glasses in and Bram has started filling out an order form to bring back a crate of his favorite when Lachlan leans into me and whispers, “Meet me outside in a few minutes.” He then gets up and strides out of the bar.

I turn around to face everyone else and they’re all looking at me expectantly.

“What?” I ask, finishing off my wine.

“What’s with him?” Linden asks.

“He’s your cousin. You know how he is.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but at this point, I think you may know him better.”

I look at Bram for backup but he just goes back to filling out the order form. “I’m afraid Linden is right, Kayla. You’re the expert now.”

“He is so sweet on you,” Nicola adds, her eyes all warm and gooey.

“So sweet on me?” I repeat. “First of all, we’re not in the fucking south, okay? Second of all, that man is not sweet on anything. Except maybe dogs.”

Well, and he was pretty sweet with my mother the other night.

Steph violently shakes her head. “No, no, no. Then you don’t see what we see. He wants you, Kayla.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, that’s a given at this point.”

“No,” she says, louder now, and Linden has to shush her. Good lord, they’re all getting drunker by the minute. “No, let me say this,” she says, pushing her hand against Linden’s face and smushing it. “Let me say this, okay? Let me say this.”

I stare at her and gesture with open palms. “Okay, drunky. Say it.”

She leans forward, eyes wide with urgency. “He wants you. Like…he’s in love with you.”

That proclamation emits a simultaneous groan from both Linden and Bram.

“Don’t get carried away,” Bram chides.

“You women think that any man who gets his dick in you is in love with you,” Linden says to her.

“Hey,” I say sharply, jabbing my finger at him. “Please don’t lump me into the ‘you women’ category. And I happen to know for a fact that none of us here think that, especially your little wife who was in love with you loooong before you got your stupid dick in her.”