At Wits' End - Kenzie Reed Page 0,9

marrying Sienna?” Carrie demands of me. “You two hate each other!”

I wink at Sienna. “It’s a thin line between love and hate, right, babe?”

“So thin.” Sienna’s big brown eyes blaze with anger, and she smiles murderously. “Razor-blade thin.”

“Don’t you live in California?” Carrie juts her jaw out defiantly.

“People from California can’t get married?”

“That’s not what I… I mean…” She spins around to glare at my family. “You were all fighting just now! Because Jonathon, the groom, got caught in the act with one of the bridesmaids!”

“They were fighting because Jonathon’s rude behavior was very disrespectful and out of place at a wedding. And, of course, emotions are running high today, as they tend to do at weddings. Everything’s good now, though, right?” I shoot a look first at my family, then at the Ribaldi family. Everybody nods, pasting pained smiles onto their faces.

“Excuse me, everyone! I just need a quick word with my sweetheart before the ceremony starts,” Sienna says brightly. She grabs my hand and drags me down the hall and into the bridal changing room.

She’s making a hissing sound. She must be really mad. No, wait, the noise is coming from her very large purse.

I try to peer inside, and she swivels away from me.

“Is that a cat in there?” I ask incredulously.

She puts her hand over the top of the purse. “Don’t start. What the heck are you doing?”

“Getting married to the woman of my dreams.”

Her angry eyes blaze at me. I smile down at her and hate how hard my dick is right now. How I’m going to get through an entire summer living under the same roof as her, I have no idea. Separate bedrooms, for sure. With a lock on mine so she doesn’t smother me in my sleep.

“Donovan. My family’s future depends on this.”

I already know that.

Ferguson Property Holdings has the hots for a huge swathe of land that spreads across both the Ribaldi and Witlocke properties. They want to build a sustainable subdivision, all solar powered and built from ethically sourced materials, and the price that they offered has a lot of zeros in it. It’s a thousand acres, and none of it overlaps the Witlocke Vineyard, or the Ribaldi Organic Dairy Farm, or Sienna’s aunt’s tiny boutique vineyard. All the businesses could stay intact, and even benefit from the business they’d get from the people moving into the subdivision right next to their land. It is a sweetheart of a deal.

Unfortunately, Ferguson almost backed out. Something about the ninety-year-old feud between our two families, and the countless lawsuits between them, and the idea of possibly inheriting litigation that would tie them up into the 22nd century, made Patrick Ferguson a little nervous.

This bullshit wedding was designed to fool them into thinking that the families have reconciled. And then Jonathon screwed it up. Who could possibly have seen that coming?

“I am well aware, thanks,” I inform her.

I reach down to stroke a lock of hair from her face.

“Remove your hand before I chew it off,” she says sweetly.

I drop my hand – and place it on her hip, caressing her with my thumb. She stifles a low groan. No matter how much her brain hates me, there are parts of her that feel otherwise. It was true in high school, it’s true now. She sucks in her breath and sinks her teeth into her lower lip, which just about undoes me. Then she leans in, her pelvis pressed up against mine for just a moment before she takes a big step back. Now I’m diamond-hard. I hate it when my own tactics are used against me.

I suck in a breath and take a moment to compose myself.

“I’m here to help make sure the land deal goes through,” I say.

“Why? You don’t care. This is all a big joke to you,” she says scornfully.

“You mean the idea of you being married to Dumb and Dumber there?” I glance at the hallway that my cousin just fled down. “Come on, you’ve got to admit it’s at least a little funny.”

“This deal means nothing to you. We actually need the money, but you could bail your family out, pay off their debt, and buy them new equipment without even blinking.”

I sigh. Aging machinery, increased competition, a couple of bad harvest years in a row, and some questionable business decisions are threatening to drag my family’s business under.

“I could, but it doesn’t matter. My dad would never accept money from me.” That is the truth. Our