The first time he kissed her, it wasn’t planned.
It wasn’t a culmination of a grand romantic gesture. There was no moonlit speech, no swelling soundtrack, no convenient mistletoe.
It was a Tuesday. Again. Tuesdays, apparently, were dangerous.
They were bottling the last of the 2022 whites.
The mobile bottling line had pulled in at dawn, a rumbling metal beast with hissing hoses and rattling conveyors. The yard was a mess of pallets and empty glass and cardboard. The air smelled like SO₂ and stale coffee.
“Be gentle with her,” Nora told the bottling crew lead, patting the side of the line. “She’s old.”
“So are we,” he said. “We still work.”
“You squeak less,” she said.
Rhys had hovered at the periphery, fascinated by the process. He’d watched labels go on slightly crooked. Watched cases slide down the little ramp into neat stacks.
“This is…satisfying,” he said, taping up a box with surprising competence.
“Wait until something jams,” she said. “Then it’s less ASMR, more horror movie.”
Around midday, the inevitable happened. A labeler misaligned. Bottles started coming out with skewed fronts, the vineyard name slanting drunkenly.
“Shit,” Nora muttered. “Kill it! Stop the line.”
They did. Bottles backed up. Someone swore in Italian. Someone else in Spanish. The sound of pressurized air hissed as hoses were disconnected.
Rhys jumped in without being asked, helping pull mis-labeled bottles off the line and into a reject bin. He moved fast, hands sure. He looked like he belonged here, in steel-toed boots and a flour-dusted—no, dust-dusted—T-shirt, not in a glass-walled conference room.
“You’re getting good at this,” she said as they stacked rejects.
“I’m highly trainable,” he said.
“You’re not trainable at all,” she said. “You’re just…adaptable.”
“Same thing,” he said.
They fixed the labeler. Started the line again. Bottles flowed. Cases stacked. The rhythm resumed.
By late afternoon, the work was done. The mobile line rumbled away, leaving quiet and scattered cardboard.
The crew drifted off, tired and smelling like Sauvignon Blanc.
Nora and Rhys stayed, cleaning up. She folded broken-down boxes. He swept.
“My glamorous life,” he said. “MBA to janitor.”
“Occupational hazard,” she said.
They finished almost at the same time. The yard looked…bare. The absence of the line made the space feel huge.
She leaned against a stack of pallets, catching her breath. A stray hair clung to her lip, stuck with sweat and something sweet. She blew it away futilely.
“Hold still,” he said.
He stepped in, reached up, and brushed the hair away with a gentle flick of his fingers.
His thumb grazed the corner of her mouth.
Electricity shot through her. It wasn’t metaphorical. It was a real, physical jolt that made her gasp.
He froze. So did she.
For a long, suspended second, the world shrank to the exact square of air between their faces. To the way his pupils blew wide. To the way her chest rose and fell.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He didn’t move.
“It’s a bad idea,” she said. Her voice shook.
“I know,” he said.
His thumb still rested at the corner of her mouth. His other hand had found its way to the pallet behind her, bracketing her hip.
“You promised,” she said.
“So did you,” he said.
He had a point. She hated that.
“We said…no,” she managed. “We agreed.”
“We did,” he said.
“We’re…staying on this side of the line,” she said.
“We are,” he said.
“You’re on my side,” she said.
He huffed a laugh, low and rough. “Story of my life,” he said.
She closed her eyes for a second. Opened them.
“Move,” she said.
He didn’t.
“Rhys,” she said, louder.
He swallowed. “Nora,” he said. “If I move away right now, I’m going to regret it every day until…forever.”
She hated him a little, then, for saying the thing she’d been trying not to think.
“And if you don’t?” she asked. “If you stay?”
“I’ll regret that too,” he said.
She laughed, shaky. “You’re very bad at decision trees,” she said.
“I’m very good at them,” he said. “They just…all suck.”
They stared at each other. The sun slid lower. The air cooled.
Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears. His eyes were fixed on her mouth, then flicking back to her eyes like he was trying to be noble and failing.
She thought of all the reasons she’d given herself. Power dynamics. Professional boundaries. Future board visits. Her own self-respect.
She thought of the fact that in a month, maybe two, he’d be gone. Back to his towers. To dumplings and Aanya and new deals. She’d be here. Or not. She’d be somewhere. He’d be somewhere else.
She thought: If I don’t do this once, I will hate myself in different ways.
“Once,” she heard herself say.
His brows drew together. “What?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“Once,” she repeated. “We get…once. One kiss. One…moment. That’s it. No promises. No…anything.”
He stared at her, shock and something like hope flaring. “That’s…not how this works,” he said.
“It is today,” she said.
He searched her face. “You sure?” he asked. “Because once we cross that line…”
“We’re already standing on it,” she said. “Might as well know what’s on the other side.”
He exhaled, shaky. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You’re going to ruin me.”
“Occupational hazard,” she said.
He laughed, helpless and disbelieving, and then his mouth was on hers.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative. All the restraint they’d been practicing for weeks snapped like a cheap cork.
His hands were on her face, thumbs at her jaw, fingers in her hair. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, like her body had decided long ago and was only now informing her brain.
The first touch of his lips was heat and salt and a taste she couldn’t quite name. Coffee. Wine. Him. She gasped, and he took advantage, deepening the kiss, tongue sliding against hers in a way that made her knees buckle.
He made a sound. Low. From somewhere deep.
Her spine hit the pallets. He pressed into her, body solid, heat radiating. Every point of contact sparked: his chest against her breasts, his thigh between hers, his hands cradling her head like she was something precious and fragile and breakable.
She wasn’t. But in that moment, she let herself be.
Her brain tried to catalogue: technique, pressure, timing. It gave up. There was only sensation.
The scrape of stubble on her chin. The soft hitch of his breath when she bit his lower lip lightly. The way his hand slid down the side of her neck to her shoulder, then lower, hovering at the small of her back before settling there, fingers splayed, possessive.
She arched into him, a whimper caught in her throat. He swallowed it with his mouth.
His tongue tasted like the 2022 Sauvignon Blanc and bad decisions.
Her hands slid up, fingers threading into his hair. It was softer than she’d expected. She tugged, just a little. He groaned.
Their hips shifted, finding some frantic, unplanned rhythm. The friction sent sparks streaking through her. Her body, neglected for too long, remembered what it liked with terrifying clarity.
His hand left her back, slid sideways, brushing the side of her breast through the thin cotton of her shirt. She shuddered.
“Rhys,” she gasped against his mouth.
He froze. Slightly. Trembling.
“Too much?” he asked, breathing hard.
She wanted to say no. Wanted to say, More. Wanted to say, Don’t stop.
Instead, she remembered Christmas. The tree. The purchase agreement. The meeting in the glass tower.
“Yes,” she said. “Too much.”
He dropped his head to her shoulder, cursing softly in a language that sounded like pain.
They stood there, pressed together, panting. The pallet dug into her back. His heart hammered against her chest.
“Once,” she whispered. “We said.”
“I hate you,” he said into her neck. It didn’t sound like hate.
“I know,” she said, fingers still twisted in his hair. “I hate me too.”
He pulled back, slowly, like it hurt.
His eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them. His hair was a mess. His mouth was swollen. She wanted to kiss him again so badly her teeth hurt.
He stepped away. One. Two steps. Each like walking through mud.
“We can’t…” he said. “We really…can’t.”
“I know,” she said.
They stared at each other, the air between them crackling.
He laughed once, jagged. “That was…” He groped for a word. “Ill-advised.”
“Astoundingly,” she said.
“Memorable,” he added.
“Unfortunately,” she said.
They both laughed. It came out more like sobs.
“We’re fucking idiots,” he said.
“Occupational hazard,” she said.
He shook his head. “Stop making that work,” he said. “It’s weird.”
She shoved her hands into her hair, trying to smooth it. It was pointless.
“This doesn’t…change anything,” she said. “About…closing. About the deal.”
“Of course it does,” he said. “It changes…everything.”
“It can’t,” she said. “We can’t let it.”
He exhaled. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
They stood there, two people who’d just detonated a bomb and were trying to pretend they hadn’t.
“Don’t tell Aanya,” he said suddenly.
She blinked. “What?”
“She’ll kill me,” he said. “She warned me. Repeatedly. About…this.”
“About me?” she asked, one eyebrow lifting.
“About getting…involved,” he said. “With borrowers. With…anyone. While we’re negotiating.”
“And you listened,” she said dryly.
“I tried,” he said. “You’re…very loud.”
She smirked. “I am,” she said.
His gaze dropped to her mouth again. He looked away fast.
“We should…” He gestured vaguely. “Do anything else. Literally anything.”
“Punch down the Cab,” she said. “That’ll cool us off.”
He snorted. “You say that like it doesn’t involve long, rhythmic motions,” he said, then winced. “Sorry.”
She laughed helplessly. “You’re impossible,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “So are you.”
They went inside. Down to the cellar. The Merlot and Cab waited, oblivious.
As they worked, hands slipping on handles, bodies carefully not touching, Nora made a mental note.
Once was too much. Once was nowhere near enough.
They were in trouble.
Big, huge, catastrophic trouble.
And there was no deed restriction in the world that was going to save them from that.