Crush Read online

  Crush

  Mae Wood

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Bonus Epilogue

  Excerpt from Plus One

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Mae Wood

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious or used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2020 by Mae Wood

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contact [email protected]

  ISBN (paperback) 978-0-9862886-6-1

  Copy editing by Julia Ganis

  Proofread by Proofing with Style/ Marla Esposito and Aerin Caley

  Cover design by Kari March Designs

  To Mr. Wood

  I still remember when we met. You stood by a keg, held out your hand to shake mine, and shouted your name over obnoxiously loud music.

  I’ve had a crush on you ever since.

  Chapter One

  Ryan

  “Ryan?”

  I stopped typing and turned toward my boss. “Yeah?”

  “I think I’ve found a deal for you,” said Marlena, pulling up a chair next to me at our team table.

  “Finally.” I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. For the last few months, we’d been talking about me taking the lead on a deal, showing my stuff, and setting myself up for the promotion to senior vice president. That one word “senior” was a big step up with the bank and with my pay. “Whatcha got?”

  My mind spun with ideas. I mainly worked the tech and startup sectors, helping companies get capital to fund growth.

  “It’s real estate.”

  “Resort?” I asked, hoping that maybe I’d be able to get some nice trips in.

  “Ag.”

  “Agricultural?” I asked, convinced she was pulling my leg.

  “Yeah. I know you like tech, but it’s really no different. Productive assets are productive assets, and bonds are bonds, and money is money.”

  “It’s dirt.” I scoffed, but I was glad to have this shot and another deal to lose myself in.

  “It’s some of the most expensive dirt in the state, if not the country. Vineyards.”

  “Who’s the client?” I asked, my interest piqued. The big upside to living in San Francisco was the food and wine scene, and I took full advantage of it.

  “Von Eck. Heard of it?” Marlena gave me a knowing smile. “Because I think you have.”

  I brushed off the comment. My first year on her team I’d gone on a client dinner and passed the thick leather-bound wine list to the client who promptly ordered a bottle of von Eck that was as old as I was. My eyeballs about popped out of my head at the end of the meal when I’d signed the check. My stomach knotted when I submitted the expense report. I didn’t exactly have spare cash to pay back the bank for my mistake and I was a little worried that Marlena was going to fire me. When the dinner expense was approved, I was relieved.

  And then I was her bitch for a few months.

  Late night? Ryan can stay.

  Slide deck needs to be reworked at four in the morning? Call Ryan.

  Ass on a plane to Dubuque in January for a thirty-minute in-person meeting? Yeah, that was me. She treated me like a baby banker for a few months, and I respected the hell out of her for it. “Close a deal and I really don’t care what your expenses look like,” she later told me, but she got more than her value out of the pricey bottle. She was a hard-ass. I was a hard worker. And we made a good team.

  No, Marlena hadn’t just shat all over me by giving me this von Eck land deal. She’d handed me a present in the form of a few business trips to Napa, which I could parlay into weekends—maybe something debauched. Maybe something downright Dionysian with that barista at Blue Bottle.

  “I want you to fly the plane on this one,” she said. “It’s a healthy-sized deal, so it’ll be good for you to have under your belt. But you’re going to have to shepherd this one from soup to nuts. Von Eck is interviewing a few banks and, from what I understand, the underlying land contract has a seller’s escape clause, so what I’m giving you is far from gift-wrapped.”

  “I’ve got this,” I said.

  “You’ve got this.”

  Shelly Balfour, one of the two sisters who owned the winery, was the client contact and she was incredibly tight-lipped about it all. Marlena had worked with her before years ago and said while she was a little aloof, she’d warm up once she got comfortable with me. But when I hadn’t gotten the commitment from Shelly to move forward during our phone calls, I decided that a day trip to Napa was what we needed.

  The next week I was flipping through my presentation notes while parked in a small conference room with Marlena at The von Eck Estate Winery waiting to meet Shelly and her sister Theresa. They needed the cash in hand by mid-September so they could close on the land as soon as the last grape was harvested from it. It was late May, so there wasn’t a rush to get financing in place, but I wanted to land them sooner rather than later.

  I was confident that a private debt offering was the way to go and that finding investors wasn’t going to be a problem. A few meetings with some institutional investors who were savvy enough to research von Eck’s extremely healthy margins, and some qualified individuals who would like the cachet of coming as close to owning a stake in von Eck as they’d ever get in this lifetime—we were certain that the bonds would pretty much sell themselves, and the winery would get very favorable terms. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the way to go or that I was the one to handle this deal for them. I just had to get the client there.

  When Shelly entered the room, I was ready for her. I’d spent hours with her over the phone, as the talk of a bond offering started to firm up. I closed my notes and immediately stood, shaking her hand with genuine warmth. I liked Shelly. I respected her. Third generation owners of one of the most respected wineries in California, and she and her twin sister had grown the company, expanded its reach and prestige.

  “Marlena, Ryan, thanks for coming up. This is my sister, Theresa,” she said, stepping to the side. “And meet McKenzie—”

  I didn’t hear the rest of Shelly’s introduction. My vision focused on a single point. And I didn’t breathe or blink. Because, all of a sudden, she was there.

  Chapter Two

  Kenzie

  “McKenzie, this is Marlena Quisenberry,” said my mom.

  “Hi,” I said, shaking the hand of a friendly woman with dark hair. She was so pulled together and I felt a little ashamed about my casual knit skirt that counted as dressed up for the vineyard.

  “And Ryan Royer.” My mom gestured to a handsome man in a na
vy suit and I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. “They’ve been working with me and now he’s working with us.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ryan,” I said with a smile, looking at him closely, trying to figure out where I’d seen him before. I extended a hand and willed myself not to blush as his hazel-green eyes raked over me from head to toe and back up, the start of a smile crawling at the edge of his left lip. The dark short beard framing that lopsided grin. He liked what he saw and I liked that he liked it. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his right hand flex and fist a few times before he reached out to take my hand in his.

  As our hands met, our eyes locked. Don’t I know you? I wanted to say but my mouth was dry.

  “McKenzie,” he said, and my heart sped up at the deep sound of my name, my body warming.

  I cleared my throat. “Ryan,” I replied, loosening my grip to end the handshake. All of a sudden I was painfully aware of how silly I must be acting. Like a preteen at a boy band concert.

  “Yes,” he said, seemingly answering a question that hadn’t been asked. He gently squeezed my hand again while our gazes remained entwined. He was looking at me like I was looking at him—full of curiosity and wonder.

  “Okay—,” said Mom, taking a seat in a squeaky chair at the head of our conference table.

  Her voice snapped me out of my trance. My hand parted from Ryan’s, and I took my own place at the table, tucking my skirt underneath me as I sat. Was that weird? I wondered. How long were we standing there holding hands? Because it felt like a long time.

  “What’s the good news?” my mom asked. She didn’t comment on the handshake, which I took as a good sign. Maybe it was all in my head. I tried to keep from looking at him. I tried to keep my mind focused on business as my mom, my aunt, Ryan, and Marlena talked, but it was a lot of mumbo jumbo, so my thoughts began to wander.

  Where did I know him from? Not from school. He looked like he was maybe five years older than me, so even if he had gone to Davis, we wouldn’t have overlapped or run into each other at a frat party. He wasn’t a local. I knew that for certain. No way I would have forgotten those broad shoulders and that wavy dark hair even if I’d been in middle school when he graduated high school. And he wasn’t a regular. I’d been working in the tasting room since I was young, and I had a pretty good memory for faces.

  Some party in the city? Some wine and food event? I racked my brain and kept coming up with nothing. I couldn’t see him in any part of my life until this moment, but I was certain he was part of my life somehow. Past life? I smiled to myself, feeling even sillier at the thought.

  “You had a question, McKenzie?” Ryan asked.

  “Oh, no,” I said, suddenly realizing that I’d been staring at him. Hot embarrassment flooded through me and I began diligently studying the neatly bound presentation on the table. I tuned into the conversation as best I could, but I still didn’t understand anything that was being discussed. I knew the financing would be through bonds, which meant that we weren’t selling any ownership in the company. The bonds were like IOUs, as best I could understand it, thanks to my friend Google. Written by us and sold to rich investors, mainly insurance companies.

  The tens of millions of dollars we were borrowing blew my mind, and I couldn’t even process the discussion about rates and placements and offerings and disclosures and calls and a bunch of other words that were equally meaningless to me.

  I kept my hands folded in my lap and my eyes glued to the presentation, allowing myself to look at Ryan only when he spoke. More honestly, letting my eyes linger on his lips, watching them purse and open and flatten and curl, with peeks of his tongue greeting me each time he enunciated the l in “leverage” and “life cycle” and “legal.” The rich sounds were delicious in a way I never imagined finance could be.

  “Kenz,” my mom whispered in my ear, leaning over. “You’re being quiet. Are you feeling okay?”

  I nodded in response, embarrassed again that she’d noticed my weirdness, and I forced myself to be cool. But it didn’t work. I struggled to avoid looking at him, and I felt his hot gaze on me and the rumble of his voice deep in my chest. He was taking up every bit of space in my brain. I tried to focus on the land we were buying, on the grapes we’d coax out of the earth, but my mind kept drifting to puzzling out what a Ryan wine would taste like. Dark and full-bodied, no doubt. But would he be round like a merlot? Or spicy like a syrah? And the finish. Oak-barreled, perhaps? Buttery and lingering smoothly on my palate? Or would he have a smokiness that made my eyes widen in surprise, enticing me to taste more, to enjoy it, to enjoy him?

  “McKenzie,” my mother bit out, and I pulled myself back into the meeting one more time. “Do you have any questions for Ryan or Marlena?”

  What do you taste like, Ryan? I wanted to ask. I wanted to see how he’d react to my question. Find out if a blush would crawl up his own cheeks or whether his eyes would become hungrier. See what he’d look like shaken. See that neatly combed hair tousled and sweaty from effort. Hear what he sounded like, groaning his pleasure in my ear. Feel his body hot and flush with mine.

  I shook my head to clear it. “No, I’m good,” I said, fighting back a smile at my own ridiculousness.

  “Great. This has been really helpful. I think the road show makes sense. Let us meet the folks who we’re going to be beholden to before we get into bed with them. Maybe one set of meetings in LA or New York, like you proposed.”

  “Agreed,” said Ryan. “The easiest way to sell the bonds is to get the investors convinced about the company. And I like the idea of having a dinner honoring them after the deals close. Something at the estate, tour of the new property. Real insider stuff.”

  “I think that’s excellent,” my mom agreed as we wrapped up the meeting. “We’re going to decide which way we want to go and we’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Three

  Ryan

  “Ready for the good part?” asked Marlena. As planned, we were taking the von Eck folks out for an early drinks-dinner thing. It was to celebrate if they’d given us the green light in the meeting and to continue to coax them if they hadn’t.

  “Of course. Angele is always a treat,” said Theresa.

  “Kenzie?” I asked, “Is Angele good with you?”

  “It’s McKenzie,” she said, correcting me.

  “I apologize. McKenzie, Angele?”

  “Angele is great. I love being near the river,” she said, tucking a strand of dark blond hair behind her ear. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties. Fit and friendly. Big boobs. No ring. I knew I shouldn’t be interested. I knew I shouldn’t care or even notice. She was a potential client even though I’d totally whiffed on what her role with von Eck was. But I couldn’t stop myself.

  Throughout the meeting, my mind kept drifting to her. She was pretty—bright blue eyes that looked like they’d enjoy mischief—but it wasn’t just that. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but either I knew her from somewhere or I needed to know her—and I needed to know exactly what mischief would make those eyes light up.

  We were seated on a sun-drenched patio below blue–and–white striped umbrellas—the table laden with small plates and a bottle of French rosé in a bucket of ice. Marlena, Shelly, and Theresa settled in, talking about when the firm had helped von Eck with the tasting room expansion and how much of a boon that had been to the estate. It was a soft sales pitch by Marlena, so I listened with half an ear tuned to their conversation, wondering what to say to McKenzie, when I noticed her popping a green olive into her mouth, her lush lips closing around it. Her fingernails were short but painted a neat silvery-white. I wanted to see those fingers on my skin, feel those lips pressed against my own.

  She was turning me on by eating olives. This was going to be a long, long project.

  I leaned back into the chair, closing my eyes against the late afternoon sun, my thumb running across the cool wineglass cradled in my hand as I tried to ground myself.

  “You look happy,” Mc
Kenzie said. I opened my eyes to find her looking at me while the others continued to chat. “With the rosé,” she continued, the start of a blush or sun coloring her chest. I couldn’t tell which, but I wanted to touch, to kiss, to lick that pinkened skin.

  I gave in, letting my eyes drop to where I’d forced myself not to look through the meeting—the beginning of cleavage so deep a man could get lost in it. “I’d say the same to you. It’s a great wine on such a great day.” My eyes chased the flush on her chest, up her breastbone and along the line of her neck, pausing on her full pink lips before settling on those deep blue eyes that pierced me.

  “Fewer things are finer than the start of summer in Napa,” she said.

  I could think of a few things finer than this right here with her, and she starred in all of those very naked daydreams. “I’ll drink to that,” I said, lifting my glass to her.

  She brought hers toward mine and our eyes caught. Her eyes widened, and in that instant, I realized this wasn’t one-sided. She was in this feeling with me. Lust and something else. I didn’t know what to do with these feelings, but I had to get away from them, so I quickly pushed back from the table and made my excuse about having to take a call.

  I knew Marlena wouldn’t be thrilled with my leaving or my excuse. The client you’re with is the only client you have, she’d drilled into my head. But at that moment, I didn’t care. I needed air before I did something entirely nuts, like lean over the table and find out how that rosé tasted on McKenzie’s lips.