“Julia, look at me,” I pleaded, and her glazed-over eyes met mine. I shouldn’t be doing this while she was drunk, but it was now or never. “I have feelings for you. I wish they would go the fuck away, but they won’t. They never have. And they never will.”

She started laughing and couldn’t stop. It got uncomfortable, and right before I pushed to my feet, she said, “Feelings? Do you even know what feelings are? I’m sure you don’t. I hate you, Russo. I want nothing to do with you. And I never will.”

“You really feel that way? You, Julia La Bella, genuinely hate me and not just because our parents have told us to for our whole lives?” My heart felt like a boulder inside my chest, suddenly too heavy, too burdensome, as I waited for her answer.

“Not because of our parents. I really feel that way.” She swallowed hard but avoided all eye contact with me.

“You’ve never once thought about what it would be like to be together?”

“Why on earth would I ever think about being with you?”

Without responding to her question, I left. I believed her when she said that she hated me. And I believed when she said she wanted nothing to do with me. But I couldn’t handle it. I’d worn my heart on my sleeve, and she’d ripped it off, thrown it on the ground, and stomped all over it without a second thought. The rejection stung. More than that, it fucking ached. Each beat of my heart reminded me that she didn’t want me; she would never want me, and I was a fool for ever thinking she could.

Why the hell did I put myself out there like that?

I swore I’d never do it again. Not for Julia La Bella and not for any girl.

*  *  *

Dane snapped his fingers in front of my face, and I shook my head.

“Yeah, yeah. What?”

“Drunk confessions?” he asked a little too smugly, already knowing the answer.

“Maybe.”

I had no idea how to get Julia to stop hating me, to stop judging me for something I had no part in. I hadn’t even been born when our great-grandfathers made that stupid bet that ruined our families’ lives. I had nothing to do with it, and neither did she. Yet she despised me as if I’d burned down her vineyards with my own two hands.