Seduce Me Sweetly (Heron's Landing Book 1) (24 page)

Adam couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t take in both stories at once, and he could barely comprehend what was on his small phone screen. He knew Joy had loved him, but that she would write and publish an article saying as much? And the retraction—that must have been her doing as well.

He’d been wrong. One-hundred-percent, completely, stupidly wrong. He’d pushed Joy away the second he’d been given a reason, and he’d refused to see what had been right in front of him. He’d known he’d loved her, but he hadn’t realized that that knowledge had scared him so much he’d destroyed what they’d had and then blamed Joy for that destruction.

She didn’t write that article. She didn’t do it.
He put his head in his hands, his head whirling.
She didn’t do it. She didn’t do it!

Relief, pure and exhilarating, filled him. He’d agonized so much over her betrayal that the realization that she was innocent lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. His business was failing, and his vineyard was falling apart, but the woman he loved hadn’t betrayed him.

She didn’t do it.

He stood up. He paced. He mumbled under his breath. He thought of ways he could get her back, and then shook his head. How could he ever make it up to her? How could he convince her that he’d screwed up and that he was so sorry for it? Could she forgive him?

He wasn’t sure if he could forgive himself.

He drove back home, his mind in pieces. Entering the house, he flipped on a single light and looked at the photos of him and Carolyn on the wall. He picked up the nearest one and said quietly, “She didn’t do it. And I love her. I do, Caro.”

Of course there was no response, but Adam felt better all the same. He’d always love Carolyn, but she was gone. She’d never return. And he knew that she’d want him to be happy.

An hour later, he got a text:
Do you get it now?
Grace asked him.

His hands were trembling as he replied,
Yes, I get it now.

Chapter Eighteen

A few weeks earlier…

“These are your options: either you write a retraction and I don’t rat you out to the entire industry, or I rat you out to the entire industry and you lose face with pretty much any writer under the sun.”

Joy watched as Jeremy scowled, his handsome face turning into something ugly and, she had to admit, a little comical. After she’d met with Regina, Joy had gathered as much information as she could regarding Regina’s allegation against Jeremy, including proof of plagiarism and various conversations with other writers who had it out for him for scalping their stories. But the plagiarism was the biggest card she had. He hadn’t full-on copied anyone, just a few sentences here and there. It had been subtle, and she wasn’t surprised he’d gotten away with it for so long. She just hoped Jeremy took it seriously enough that he’d do what she wanted.

“And what’s your proof?” he finally asked, raising an eyebrow.

Joy shoved a file toward him. He opened it with a scoff, but when he glanced at the contents, the color slowly drained from his face. “What do you want?” he asked quietly.

“I told you: I want you to write a retraction for the story about Carolyn Danvers under your name. The entire town of Heron’s Landing thinks I was the one who wrote it, since you so nicely decided to use a pseudonym.” At his look, she sucked in a breath. “That was your intention, wasn’t it? To get a quick buck and hopefully screw me over, too?”

Jeremy shrugged. “You weren’t listening to what I wanted, so I thought it was a way to make things even. Level the playing field. And what does it say about these people that they accepted it was you without any issue?” He smiled, his teeth gleaming white in the low light of the café they sat in. “Does that also include that man you were with—Adam?”

Joy bit the inside of her cheek. She shoved the folder of evidence back into her purse, saying in a tense voice, “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you write that retraction. I’m serious, Jeremy. I will rip you to shreds if you don’t do this. I might do it anyway, because you’re a selfish little prick who I wish I’d never met in the first place.”

“You don’t mean that, Jo-Jo.” He reached out to touch her, but she pulled away. “What we had was good, right? We had some fun times together. I know we did.”

She agreed, but those times were over. They’d been destroyed by selfishness and a petty need for revenge, and when the times got tough, Jeremy had decided to dismantle everything they’d built together. It hurt, but at the same time, there was something freeing about realizing that.

“Look, I’m not here to talk about the past. Are you going to write the retraction or not?”

Jeremy stared at her, and then he tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You weren’t like this before, you know. What changed? You aren’t the Joy I knew.”

Adam changed me
, she thought. Falling in love with the man she was meant to be with changed her. Losing the man she loved changed her. “I’m not the girl you met when we were just out of college, that’s all.”

“He must’ve done a number on you. Adam. Because you know that if you threaten me like this, I can have you blackballed from the industry. I have enough connections who will support me regardless of your allegations.” Jeremy sat back in his chair and folded his hands into a steeple.

Anxiety filled Joy, but she knew that even if she lost out on clients and couldn’t work as a writer anymore, she was doing the right thing. For Adam, for Heron’s Landing, for Carolyn. “Are you seriously threatening me when you’re the one who’s been caught red-handed?”

“I never bluff.”

“No, I guess not. But my point still stands: write the retraction, or face the consequences. Your choice.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. I’ll write it. When do you want it up?”

“This weekend.”

“Fine.”

Jeremy then asked, his voice surprisingly tentative, “How’s Regina?”

“Better, now that she’s moved on from you.” Joy took some satisfaction in seeing him wince. Regina had been depressed, too thin, and defeated, but now she was going to therapy once a week and had gained some self-confidence back, she was a changed woman. Joy didn’t know if they could ever be as close as they were, but they could at least call themselves sort-of friends as opposed to enemies. And really, the snake here wasn’t Regina—it was Jeremy. He’d drained Regina dry and left her in the gutter without a look back.

“Well, I guess I should be glad she’s doing well. Last time I saw her, she looked terrible.”

“No thanks to you.”

Jeremy rubbed his chin. “I know you think I’m this villain who’s ruining people’s lives, but Regina made her choice to be with me. And that town of yours made the choice to believe what they wanted. I merely facilitated those things. So if you should be blaming anyone, it’s not me.”

“Maybe,” Joy replied. “But facilitating those things is just as bad, don’t you think? Knowing that what you’re going to do is going to hurt others. And I’d argue that intending to hurt is almost a worse sin.”

She gazed at her ex-fiancé, wondering if there was a glimmer of humanity underneath all of that bravado. Maybe she saw it, in the twitch of his eye, but maybe it was a trick of the light. She wondered, once again, how she’d missed the obvious for so many years. But she knew it wasn’t so much that she’d missed the obvious: it was that Jeremy had transformed from a somewhat shallow boy to a vicious man. He’d evolved. And with that evolution came the realization that she no longer wanted anything to do with him. 

Joy stood up. She didn’t feel excited by this victory: instead, she felt tired and hollow. As she turned, though, Jeremy added, “Just remember: I can ruin you, Jo-Jo. I know you think your feelings for this guy are important, but are they important enough to destroy your career? You want to live in your car because some guy said he loved you?”

She didn’t turn, but instead stared straight ahead, gazing into the café. She saw couples chatting, and families sitting together. She saw a life she could’ve had, maybe, if things had gone differently.

Then she replied quietly, “He is that important to me. Which is something you’ll never understand.”

***

When Grace called Joy a week later, Joy didn’t think anything of it. She and Grace had been in contact since she’d left Heron’s Landing, and Joy let the call go to voicemail. But Grace called again, and again, and finally Joy picked up the fourth time she called, thinking that something terrible had happened.

“Oh good, you picked up! I’m sorry for calling so late, but I just found out that Adam is selling River’s Bend.”

Joy sat up straight. Already in bed, she was typing at her computer, but she shoved the laptop off of her. “What do you mean he’s selling?”

“Just that. The harvest was so bad that he feels like there’s nothing else he can do. But I think he’s doing it to punish himself. Joy, he read the retraction and your story. I know he did. He’s been a zombie all week. He knows he screwed up.”

Joy’s heart squeezed, and she closed her eyes.
He read them
, she thought.
He knows I didn’t write that story. And he knows I’m still in love with him.
When she’d decided to publish the piece about Heron’s Landing and the vineyard, she’d almost chickened out. Part of her was still angry with Adam for refusing to recognize her innocence, while the other part just missed him and wanted everything like it was. She wanted him to realize he fucked up and that they were meant to be together.

Now, though, she had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t supposed to sell the vineyard, the thing that mattered most to him outside of the people in his life. It signaled that he felt defeated, and that there was no going back.

“He can’t sell River’s Bend. What will he do? Where will he go?” Joy asked.

“I don’t know. It’s been in our family for generations. Joy, I know you don’t owe us or him anything. He hurt you. But I also think you’re the only one who can talk sense into him.” Grace took a deep breath. “Will you talk to him? I promise this is the last favor I’ll ever ask of you.”

Joy slumped down onto her pillows. “I don’t know, Grace. I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

“I get it. But think about it, okay?”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

Joy did think about it: she thought about it all night, not sleeping a wink. She thought about it in the morning, while she ate breakfast and took a shower. She thought about it when she tried to get some writing done. She thought about it until her head hurt and her heart hurt.

He can’t sell the vineyard. He can’t. He
is
the vineyard.

“I have to go back,” she murmured to herself the following day. “If not for him, then for Grace.” She told herself she was doing it for her friend: not for the town, who turned its back on her; and not for Adam, who refused to believe her when she spoke the truth.

She may still long for him, and wish things had been different, but she wouldn’t beg for him to take her back, either. She deserved better than that.

Buying her plane ticket, she packed her things, and hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

***

When Joy arrived in Heron’s Landing, seeing how the town looked with the changing leaves of autumn, her heart swelled to bursting. She’d missed the place, even if it hadn’t treated her well in the end. It was a weird emotion, a mixture of peace at coming back and agitation that everyone still hated her.

When she drove up to River’s Bend, though, her heart just about burst from her chest when she saw Adam’s truck parked out front. She got out of her car and shaded her eyes. No one was in the fields; Grace had told her that they’d finished harvesting already. Looking at the building, Joy swallowed. She could do this. She could do this for Grace—couldn’t she?

But she didn’t even step inside. Instead, she watched as Adam himself came outside, and at first he didn’t see her. Her traitorous heart leapt, and she forced herself to be calm. He hadn’t apologized, had he? She’d do well to remember that.