True to You (A Love Happens Novel Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  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

  Epilogue

  Another Epilogue

  Note to readers

  About the Author

  Other Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jodi Watters is in no way affiliated with any brands mentioned in this book.

  TRUE TO YOU

  Copyright © 2017 Jodi Watters

  Excerpt from Next to Me © 2014 Jodi Watters

  Excerpt from Wrong then Right © 2015 Jodi Watters

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, including electronic or mechanical, without prior written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Editor: Virginia Cantrell, Hot Tree Editing

  Cover Design: Sommer Stein of Perfect Pear Creative Covers

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  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

  Epilogue

  Another Epilogue

  Note to readers

  About the Author

  Other Books

  “Marriage hath in it less of beauty but more of safety, than the single life; it hath more care, but less danger, it is more merry, and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity, and those burdens are delightful.”

  —Bishop Jeremy Taylor

  Some people said that love and hate couldn’t coexist.

  That such deeply passionate, yet radically opposing emotions could never be assigned to a singular thing at the same time. That much like roller coasters or Brussels sprouts, you either felt love or you felt hate, but never both. Common ground was nowhere to be found, forcing a person to pick a side.

  Olivia Quinn would tell those people that they’d never met Asher Coleson.

  Never met him. Never touched him. Never loved him.

  And never hated him.

  “Hate. You use that word often during our sessions, Olivia.” Marie’s voice was textbook clinical as she peered over her black-rimmed bifocals. “What does it mean to you?”

  Olivia laughed without humor, glancing around the small office. “You’re the expert. I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Jesus, wasn’t somebody who had a psychology degree and charged three hundred bucks an hour supposed to provide the answers, not the questions? Olivia had been sitting on this sofa once a week for the last four years waiting for them, too. Waiting for a little enlightenment. Just her and a fistful of Kleenex.

  “That’s not how therapy works.” Pushing the glasses to her head, Marie settled back in the chair, folding her hands. “What is your definition of the word hate?”

  Swallowing back a sarcastic response, Olivia played along. Her gracious southern manners were genetic. She’d been a California girl for almost a decade, but her Savannah roots ran deep, both in her accent and amicable nature.

  “The same as everyone else’s,” she said, wondering how her vocabulary had anything to do with this. “A strong dislike for something or someone.” Him. “And a strong dislike for something someone’s done.” Like what he did to me.

  A clock ticked in the heavy silence that followed, Marie’s prodding stare forcing Olivia to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Reluctantly, she did. “Fine. A strong dislike when bad things happen to good people.” Like what happened to us.

  And in the case of a former Army Special Ops Delta Operator named Ash, Olivia’s hate was followed by a bittersweet chaser of love, despite her distaste. Four years cold turkey from the man should have cured her addiction, but it hadn’t.

  Not the slightest.

  Marie tilted her head, eyes softening. “Dig deeper. Let’s get really honest with ourselves today.”

  “You want me to get really honest? Dig deep and tell you what I really hate?” Her voice rose an octave as old resentments flared to life. “I hate that it happened to me and not to somebody else. I hate that the people who know look at me with pity. I hate that I look at myself that way. I hate that I’m a statistic. I hate that she came between us.” Guilt-induced tears sprang to her eyes, and she bit the inside of her lip.

  The acrid taste of metal filled her mouth as she whispered her deepest shame. “And I hate that I hated her because of it.”

  Silence settled around them, punctuating Olivia’s confession.

  “That’s a normal emotion. It’s human nature to focus on the source of the fracture.”

  Olivia nodded, as if Marie’s disclaimer made everything okay. As if absolution came that easily.

  “Your hate is a symptom of anger. Anger is safe. Our subconscious guides us toward the easiest route when primal emotions caused by trauma threaten to overwhelm us. Destroy our functioning selves. Hate is a safety net for the mind, if you will, until the time comes when we’re best able to deal with the intensity of our experience.” She paused, shifting in her seat. “It’s my belief that you’ve adequately dealt with these primal emotions and come to terms with your situation. You’re a highly functioning woman in nearly every area of your life. You have a thriving career, along with your select circle of family. Because of your strength and resiliency, you’ve come out the other side.”

  Choking on a watery laugh, Olivia rolled her eyes. “No offense, but if that’s your professional diagnosis, then why am I sitting on this couch every week?”

  “I have a theory, but I’ll ask you the answer to that question first.”

  “Because this is the only place I go where I can shut my phone off?”

  Marie smiled at her deflection but didn’t drop the pressure. “Because no more counseling means you’re moving on with your life. And that isn’t something you want to do, is it? Moving on means letting go. Do you rea
lly want to let go of him?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” It sounded convincing, even to her.

  “Great. Then let him go. Let him off the hook. Tell him goodbye and good luck, once and for all.”

  “Well, since I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in four years, that’s not gonna happen. Not so much as a text asking if I’m alive or dead. That doesn’t leave me with many opportunities to say goodbye. And I’m okay with that. I really am. But I’m telling you right now,” she added, hitching a thumb over her shoulder with authority, “good luck can go fuck itself.”

  Ignoring her sarcasm, Marie pressed on. “Are you? Deep down in your belly, are you really okay? Or do you think the reason you haven’t been able to move on without him is because you don’t want to? That maybe he’s meant to be in your life, just as she was meant to be in your life?”

  “Jesus Christ, Marie! Stop with all the fucking questions.” Olivia flashed an apologetic grin in the electric hush that followed her outburst, softening the bluntness of her words. The F word, no matter that it was spoken in the honeyed accent she’d never been able to kick, was still the F word. “I hate these questions.”

  Her play on words fell flat. Marie was all business.

  “You don’t hate the questions, Olivia. You hate the answers. And for the record, moving on from him doesn’t mean moving on from her. They are two separate issues.”

  Balling up the tissue, she tossed it on the cushion next to her. “It doesn’t really matter what I want. Life goes on.” But for some, it didn’t. It was over before it started. “And I hate that, too.”

  “It goes on whether we’re living it or not. It’s time for you to participate again.”

  Focused on the acrylic reproduction of a sailboat hanging on the wall, Olivia absently rubbed the ring on her left hand, twisting the emerald-cut diamond around and around. Back and forth. Love and hate.

  “And given your history”—Marie dipped her head in agreement—“I might throw that word around, too. But it’s become your cloak. Your emotional shield. Begin to practice conscious thinking. Each time the word hate crosses your mind, replace it with the word hurt. And when you do, repeat the sentence out loud. Examine it. Break it down. Get real with it. Then replace the word hurt with the word heal.”

  Marie issued the homework assignment and glanced at the clock, her hint time was up.

  Olivia was halfway to her car, navigating the parking lot in heels and a pencil skirt since she’d come straight from a mid-morning presentation, consciously thinking that she hated when Marie dug too deep. No, she hurt when Marie dug too deep. And while it didn’t ebb her anger, she healed when Marie dug too deep. Even at a snail’s pace, it was progress.

  Sure, she put on a happy face every day, but the four-year-old wound still festered, invisible to the rest of the world. It was time to rip off the band-aid, stem the bleeding, and truly move on. God knew, he had.

  Ignoring the sweeping rage that thought brought on, she focused on her biggest problem at the moment: Coleson Creek Winery’s national distribution. Or lack thereof. A scroll through her phone showed no missed calls from Trey Gillis in the last hour, but five from the vineyard—three from Marshall Coleson’s direct line. No doubt anxious to know if she’d sealed the deal with Trey this morning.

  Operating at a smaller scale than a commercial vineyard, Coleson Creek produced enough wine to put them on the map regionally, but not nationally. Moving a respectable five thousand cases a year and turning a decent profit, the real money came from having your product on the shelves of every store across the country. Thanks to antiquated laws still on the books from Prohibition days, a liquor producer could only sell their product to a wholesale distributor, who in turn, sold it to retailers. And while the vineyard had a rock-solid contract with a local distributor in the greater San Diego area, Olivia wanted to go big. All across America, big.

  Gillis Wine Group, the leading national liquor distributor in the industry, was big. They placed wine on store shelves from sea to shining sea. With no pipeline to sell directly to the drinking public, they were the equivalent of a drug dealer, and Olivia had spent the morning pushing Coleson Creek product. She’d given the hard sell to Trey and his board of directors via a stellar power point presentation, touting quality boutique wines backed by a thriving vineyard and a passionate winemaker.

  She’d needed that winemaker with her today, presenting a unified front to a fellow family-owned business. Moral support aside, Marshall’s presence would have reinforced his power position at the helm of the winery. But in normal, stubborn male Coleson fashion, he’d refused, leaving her to handle it alone. And as vice president of sales for Coleson Creek Winery and second runner-up for Marshall’s title as president, it was her job anyway.

  She said a silent prayer, knowing her fate resided with the conservative distributor. If she could bag this deal, it would be the biggest win of her career, and Olivia needed the accolade like a ravenous tiger needed red meat. She was practically salivating with it. If Trey Gillis declined, then her reputation in the industry—and with some of her staff—wouldn’t be about sixty-hour work weeks, endless efficiency reports on maximizing profits, and devastating personal sacrifice.

  It’d be that she’d teased and tempted the lion, manipulating her way into the third in command position. Little did they know, that was one king of the jungle she’d tangled with and lost, limping away the loser.

  Hate. Hurt. Heal.

  Pressing the unlock button on her key fob a little too hard, she mumbled her own word. “Horseshit,” then jumped when Marie’s voice sounded behind her.

  “Olivia? One more thing,” she called out, catching up to her.

  Thinking she’d left something behind, her grateful smile fell when she saw the older woman’s face.

  Scanning the lot, she dropped the doctor-patient persona. “It happened to me, too. I was just out of college, only married a year, living my ideal life. I had it and I lost it, and it almost killed me, too.” In the beat of silence that followed, a thousand words were spoken. Two vastly different women with something tragic in common. “There’s no shame in it. There’s no room for blame, either. That will only zap any happiness you might find. I’m not suggesting you forget, just that you forgive, and that includes yourself. You’re young, you have a full life ahead of you, you can find love again. Trust me,” she added, placing a hand over her heart. “The hate is holding you prisoner. Set yourself free, any way you can, even if that means confronting it.”

  By it, she meant him.

  Probably the worst professional advice on the planet, but if your best girlfriend recommended it during a night of two-for-one margaritas, then it wasn’t half bad.

  Olivia spent the hour-long drive from metro San Diego back to the vineyard debating the genius of Marie’s words. Her tires ate up miles of narrow highway, snaking along rolling countryside past several rural communities, Lady Gaga blasting from the speakers and competing for space in her mind.

  Love—the crazy, lust-fueled kind that swept a girl off her feet and onto the nearest horizontal surface within hours of the nice-to-meet-yous—had gotten her to this point. How the hell was it supposed to get her out? Especially since she’d sworn off true love and the one man she’d associate with it forever.

  It might take a lifetime on Marie’s sofa to find that particular answer.

  The scenery grew more forested the farther she got from the Pacific Ocean, ranch properties and family estates sprawling across this exclusive part of San Diego county. Rundown shacks and old cabins still peppered the valuable landscape, longtime owners who valued open space, refusing to sell out to rabid developers. Marshall had been approached by the deep-pocketed corporations, as well, eager to bulldoze the hundred-acre vineyard to build cookie-cutter houses.

  He’d flat out refused, of course. He’d forsaken his own blood for the vineyard. For his wine. He loved it with such passion, no person could ever compete.

  When it came down to i
t, Olivia supposed she loved it much the same way.

  Turning onto a smooth blacktopped road, she zoomed through iron gates featuring the Coleson Creek Winery logo, passing a mile of neatly groomed landscape before cresting a hill to see the enormous valley laid out below.

  Rows of lush grapevines clung to regimented wood and wire, growing in marching band uniformity in the fields lining each side of the winding road. Bathed in California sun and rooted in mineral-rich soil, the drought tolerant vines were cultivated to create wines widely known as the finest in the region. A skeleton crew of workers roamed the rows, their white shirts stark amongst the greenery. A fork in the road led to a modernized barn where the manufacturing process took place, but Olivia headed straight toward the house, which served as both the family home and the winery’s office.

  The Mediterranean-style villa sat high on the hillside, its tall arching windows providing a panoramic view of the vineyard beyond. A weathered yellow stucco with a terracotta tile roof, it was plucked straight out of Tuscany, with fuchsia bougainvillea and green ivy climbing the corners, adding to the vintage feel.

  Coleson Creek was a majestic property. Surprising in size, breathtaking in beauty.

  The first time Olivia laid eyes on it, she’d almost peed her pants. A decade ago and her second week in San Diego, she’d driven her dented Honda down this road, answering an employment ad for an administrative assistant. Managing the office for a small vineyard wasn’t rocket science, but her experience keeping books at her father’s hardware store in Savannah hardly qualified her. Down to her last tank of gas, desperation rode her like a rented mule, but if Marshall Coleson noticed, he didn’t let on. She’d aced the standard questions he’d lobbed from behind his desk, this interview the tenth she’d had in as many days. If growing up watching her single dad peddle flat head screwdrivers and cans of latex paint had taught her anything, it was how to schmooze her way through a sale. And in this case, it was her ability to implement a filing system a monkey could understand on the auction block.

  Thinking the distinguished man thirty-some years her senior would call her bluff and send her packing, he’d surprised her.