“Will you ever stop trying?” He gave me the side-eye, and I had no idea if he was being serious or not.

The winery was in my blood. I’d been groomed to take it over, to create and make wine from our vines. As much as I hated losing year after year, quitting wasn’t an option.

“Why would I stop trying?”

“No reason. Just asking, is all.” He started to turn his back to me, and I placed a strong grip on his shoulder.

“No, really. Why would I stop competing? This is my livelihood. My business. My career. Why would I ever stop doing what I love?” My blood pressure started rising as my pulse quickened. It took all of two seconds to get me completely defensive.

“James, I was just asking.” He pulled my hand from his shoulder. “You don’t have to compete year after year in order to have a successful winery, and we both know it. These competitions are just an added bonus, a feather in your cap really, a little extra publicity that you don’t even need. You’re already running one of the most lucrative wineries in the state, with or without this shit.” He waved a hand around the crowded space.

He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have to do these sorts of things. But I wanted to. It was the only way I got close to her. I knew exactly why I kept entering every single one of them, and Dane did, too. If I didn’t, then I’d never see Julia La Bella in this capacity. Especially not since she had moved out of the main house and had a separate bungalow built where I could no longer see her from any window on my property. I always suspected she’d done that on purpose.

“Should I go try the she-devil’s wine? See what we’re working against?” he suggested with a sly grin, and my skin prickled.

“You know better than to call her that,” I said between clenched teeth.

The first time he’d called Julia a she-devil, she’d overheard him and started to cry. I punched him right in the stomach because of it. Our third grade teacher forced him to apologize in front of the entire classroom, and I had to apologize as well. I had done it, but my fingers had been crossed behind my back because I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t sorry at all.

“Anyone ever told you that you’re delusional?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Just you,” I said in response because Dane was the only one I’d ever willingly admitted anything to.

From the outside looking in, I hated Julia the same way she hated me. I acted cocky, arrogant, and sometimes a little mean. It was my defense mechanism; bad attention was still attention, right?

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, man.”

“Doing what exactly?”