Texting With the Enemy (Digital Dating #1) - Marika Ray Page 0,15

El was leaving.

Beautiful Accountant: I did it!

I wanted to tell her she’d made a mistake, that she should go back and say she was just kidding. But I couldn’t.

Me: Congratulations.

***

At the end of the day, I was still in a terrible mood, which Mom picked up on as soon as I walked into the back door of the winery to help move boxes and rearrange the tasting room for her opening.

“Why the surly expression?” she asked, pulling me into a hug.

“Just a long day. We lost a good accountant today.”

“Someone died?” Mom looked horrified.

“No, Mom. She quit.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Mom kissed my cheek and took my hand. “But Cunning Ham Wines has a new sales rep today!” She almost sang out the words.

I stilled, staring at her. “I thought we talked about setting up some interviews. You hired someone already? Where’s the contract? What are you paying? What experience does this person have?”

“Why don’t you just meet her?” Mom suggested. “I went with my gut. She’s perfect.”

Mom pulled me through the door that separated the winery from the tasting room up front. And there, standing behind the newly constructed tasting counter in the same pretty pink sweater she’d worn when she’d dashed my hopes earlier in the day, was El.

“El?” The word fell out of my mouth before I could stop it. I realized too late that I didn’t sound happy to see her.

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes rounded as Mom said, “El Watson, I’d like you to meet my oldest son, Boston.”

6

Isabel

* * *

Crap on a cracker. Please tell me this wasn’t happening.

Inside I was cackling like Mom, complete with a coughing fit and some chest thumps to keep the ol’ ticker going, absolutely hysterical with the ironic turn of events. Outwardly, I was dying a slow death, frozen on the spot while all the realizations came tumbling through my brain to slap me in the face. Boston, my soon to be ex-boss, was the son of my new boss. And I’d told my new boss straight to her face that her son was an ass. I’d be fired before I even got the first day of training under my belt. And I couldn’t go back to West Wines once Pam told Boston why I’d been fired. Why couldn’t my life ever be smooth and graceful?

My eyeballs dared to move, eyeing the black polo shirt Pam had in her hands that was to have been mine. I saw the cute pig logo, the one I would have proudly worn as I poured wines and schmoozed my way to higher and higher commissions. The Cunning Ham. Boston Cunningham. It was all coming together now. What a fool I was.

“Oh, do you two already know each other?” Pam’s head swiveled like a spectator at a tennis match, probably wondering why both of us had our jaws hanging down to the ground.

I snapped my mouth closed and rose to my full height, which was not impressive by any means, but it made me feel more put together, which I desperately needed right about then. Fake it ‘til you make it became my personal motto.

“Hello, Mr. er . . . Boston. Lovely to see you again.” I pasted on a sickly sweet smile and tried to quantify the odds that Pam wouldn’t put two and two together about my jerk of a boss. As an accountant, I liked adding and subtracting, not statistics. Pretty sure it was one hundred percent certain I’d be out of a job in three . . . two . . . one . . .

Boston’s jaw snapped closed. He grabbed his mother’s arm and pulled her into the back room of the winery. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

And there went my job.

Boston’s question was clearly rhetorical as they disappeared out of the room before Pam could answer. I grabbed the front of my sweater and fanned it away from my body. Somebody must have turned the heat up in here and my armpits didn’t appreciate it. How had this even happened?

My gaze took in the most adorable tasting room I’d ever seen. Most wineries played up the high-end wood and leather décor, or went all modern in stainless steel and glass. The Cunning Ham was a pink explosion with some dark gray accents to keep it from being a total girl’s room. I’d been so elated just an hour ago, seeing the new place and realizing that it would be my new