Fate Actually (Moonstone Cove #2) - Elizabeth Hunter Page 0,37
a fraction of a chance with you before tonight, and now I’m going to have nothing. It’s not the job. I don’t care about the job; I can get another one if Nico fires me, but us…” He shook his head.
“Did you sleep with her?” The thought twisted her guts, but she needed to know.
“No!” He swallowed hard. “She tried. It was right after I moved here and started working at the winery; it was pretty obvious she and Nico were unhappy. I was trying to be nice, and maybe she took it for something else. I don’t know. I’d had a little too much to drink after a Friday staff party, and she cornered me in the barrel room.” He closed his eyes and stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest again. “She kissed me. I didn’t react fast enough—my head was swimming—but I realized what was happening and I pushed her away.”
Toni felt the worst of her anxiety release. He was finally telling the truth.
Henry didn’t look relieved though. He looked ill. “She laughed at me.” His cheeks were flaming red. “She laughed and said it could be our little secret. Don’t tell Nico, she said. Don’t tell anyone. If I did, she’d tell them I came on to her.”
It was the truth. She could feel his shame and his anger. “Henry, that wasn’t your fault. She was your boss’s wife. She had the power in that situation and she abused it.”
“I realize that. Now. But I didn’t say anything, not even after she left him. I should have told Nico what had happened and been honest. But by the time she’d left, I’d met you.” He blinked hard and reached across the space between them.
Henry ran a finger down her cheek, his thumb brushing the edge of her lip. “I’d met you, and I just thought you were so… cool.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “You weren’t like anyone I’d ever met before. You were so funny and smart. You didn’t care what anyone thought about you. You were so bold, and I’ve never felt that way. I always worry what people think.”
“You could have told us. Me or Nico.”
He dropped his hand. “You are so damn loyal to your family, Toni, and your family may like me, but I am not one of theirs. If Nico got angry with me, you’d have sided with him. And I was still working up the nerve to make a move with you. I didn’t want to mess anything up, so I just…”
“Tried to pretend like nothing happened.”
Henry nodded. “Yeah.”
It was the truth. He was telling her the truth, but he wasn’t telling her everything.
“What happened after?” She held her hand out. “Tell me, Henry.”
He let out a long breath and crossed his arms over his chest. “It was about a month after we’d won our first medal at the Central State Fair. It was a really big deal, remember? First gold medal for a Dusi wine, and it was the first pinot noir that Nico and I had worked on together.”
“I remember. He called you his lucky charm.”
Henry’s smile was bitter. “Fairfield approached me—came here, in fact—and at first I was confused. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew what Nico said about the guy. I about shut the door in his face, but then he told me he knew about me and Marissa.”
Toni’s heart fell to her stomach. “She told him.”
“She told Fairfield that we’d had an affair. I told him he was full of shit and she was lying, but he said it didn’t matter if she was.” Henry shrugged. “Fairfield said, ‘In a little town like Moonstone Cove, a rumor is all it takes to ruin a life.’” Henry swallowed hard. “I never forgot that. A rumor was all it would take to ruin things. My job. My relationship with my boss. My relationship with you.”
“A year ago. So we’d just started…”
Henry nodded. “The mantel.”
“That damn fireplace mantel.”
Henry hooked a finger through her belt loop and tugged a little. “It’s my favorite part of your house. I’ll always love that mantel.”
“Henry—”
“He threatened to tell Nico that Marissa and I’d had an affair. Said it wouldn’t matter if it was true or not; Nico wouldn’t trust me again because I hadn’t told him in the first place. And if I wanted him to shut up, all I needed to do was give him a little bit of information every now and then.”