Chapter 1

Mercy

The smell of fermentation usually grounds me. It’s the scent of legacy, of crushed grapes and damp earth, the perfume of three generations of Boyds turning California dirt into liquid gold.

Today, though, it smells like rot.

I barely make it to the private executive bathroom before my stomach revolts. I hit my knees on the cold tile, the expensive Italian porcelain biting into my shins, and empty everything I have into the bowl. It’s violent and humiliating. I am Mercy Boyd. I am the CEO of Boyd Roots Winery. I do not heave into toilets while my vineyard manager waits outside with quarterly projections.

But apparently, my body didn’t get the memo.

"Mercy? You okay in there?"

Zoe’s voice is muffled through the heavy oak door. She sounds worried, which is the last thing I need. Worry leads to questions. Questions lead to answers I don’t have.

"I’m fine," I call out, my voice raspy. I clear my throat, forcing the professional steel back into my tone. "Just a splash of bad coffee. Give me five minutes, Zoe. Check the pH levels on the Pinot blocks while you wait."

"You sure? You sound—"

"Five minutes, Zoe."

I wait until I hear her footsteps retreat down the hallway before I flush the toilet and drag myself to the sink.

I look like a wreck.

The woman in the mirror usually stares back with the composed, icy demeanor of a queen guarding her throne. Today, the rich, deep brown of my skin looks ashy, drained of its usual summer glow beneath the harsh vanity lights. My waist-length knotless braids, usually swept up in a severe, architectural bun, have escaped their pins, a few tendrils falling against my cheek. I look soft. I look terrified.

I turn on the tap, splashing freezing water onto my face, watching the droplets cling to my thick lashes. I pat my skin dry with a paper towel, pressing hard against the high curve of my cheekbones, trying to push the color back in. I straighten my blazer—a tailored cream piece designed to make me look wider at the shoulders.

My hand trembles as I reach into the inside pocket of that blazer.

I pull out the plastic stick I smuggled in inside my sleeve.

I don’t want to look. I want to throw it in the trash, bury it under paper towels, and go back to arguing about irrigation budgets. But I’m a Boyd. We don’t run from the harvest, even when the crop is bitter.

I force my eyes down.

Two pink lines. Solid. Unapologetic.

The room tilts. A wave of vertigo hits me so hard I have to grip the marble countertop to keep from sliding back down to the floor.

Pregnant.

My index finger drifts up, tracing the line of my collarbone, a nervous tic I’ve had since I was a girl trying to memorize French varietals. I press down until the bone aches.

It’s impossible. It’s an error.

Except it isn’t.

My mind, traitorous and cruel, snaps back two months. To the funeral.

The hotel bar in Chicago was dark, smelling of lemon polish and grief. Outside, the rain was relentless, washing away the grime of the city, but inside, the air was thick with the suffocating weight of loss. Judge Prentiss was dead. The man who had married me and my estranged husband. 

I sat at the bar, swirling a glass of amber liquid I hadn’t touched. I felt hollowed out. Prentiss had been the only one who looked at me and didn’t see "The Vintner". He just saw Mercy.

"You’re not going to drink that."

The voice was low, clipped, and irritatingly familiar. I didn't turn. I didn't have to. I felt him. Cillian Thorne has a gravitational pull that sucks the oxygen out of any room he enters.

"Go away, Cillian. I’m mourning. I don’t have the energy to draft a cease-and-desist letter tonight."

"I’m not here as your enemy, Mercy. I’m here because the old man liked you. God knows why."

He slid onto the stool next to me. Close. Too close. The scent of him—rainwater, expensive scotch, and the crisp, sterile smell of a freshly pressed suit—invaded my personal space. He looked tired. The usual arrogant gleam in his silver-grey eyes was dulled by the same grief I felt.

He signaled the bartender. "Two whiskeys. Neat. The good stuff."

"I don't need your charity," I snapped, though the bite was weak.

"It’s a toast, Mercy. Shut up and drink."

We drank. And then we drank again. The silence between us stretched, but for the first time in five years, it wasn't hostile. It was shared. We were the only two people on earth who knew the truth of what Prentiss had done for us. The lie we were living.

I don’t know who moved first. I just remember the shift. One moment, we were staring into our glasses; the next, his hand was gripping the back of my neck, his thumb digging into my pulse point.

"Stop looking so shattered," he murmured, his voice rougher than I’d ever heard it. "It doesn't suit you."

"I hate you," I whispered. It was the truth. It was a lie. It sounds like a prayer.

"I know."

His mouth crashed onto mine. It wasn't romantic. It was a head-on collision. It was five years of insults, legal threats, and public mockery distilled into a desperate, starving need to feel something other than the void Prentiss left behind. We stumbled to the elevator. We reached his room. In my grief, he made me feel alive. 

It was unprotected. Reckless. A temporary lapse in rationality induced by grief and 18-year-old scotch.

I shake my head violently, forcing the memory back into the dark cellar of my mind where it belongs.

"It was a mistake," I whisper to the empty bathroom. "A glitch."

But the two pink lines on the counter don't care about glitches. It’s a receipt. A bill coming due.

I wrap the test in layers of toilet paper, burying it deep in the trash can. I’ll burn the trash later. I can’t risk Zoe or the cleaning crew finding it. If the tabloids got wind of this—Mercy Boyd, the champion of soulful, organic tradition, pregnant by the corporate magnate in a bespoke suit known as Cillian Thorne—it wouldn't just be a scandal. It would be a brand implosion.

My phone buzzes against the marble counter, vibrating like an angry hornet.

I jump, my heart hammering a furious rhythm against my ribs. I grab the device, expecting a text from Zoe.

It’s a notification from the bank.

ALERT: Loan 404 Maturity Date approaching. Payment of $2.4M due in 20 days.

The nausea returns, sweeter this time. Panic.

I stare at the number. The harvest was good this year, but the distribution costs were astronomical. We’re liquid poor. I have the assets—the land is worth millions—but I don't have the cash. And if I miss this payment, the sharks circling Boyd Roots will smell blood. They’ll try to force a sale. They’ll try to take the land my great-grandfather bought with sweat and blood and sheer, stubborn will.

I can’t let that happen. I am the custodian of this history. I am the imposter who is terrified every single day that she isn't strong enough to hold it up.

I need money. Fast.

My eyes drift to the contact list on my phone.

Cillian.

We have a contract. A prenup that looks more like a hostage negotiation. If we divorce, I get a settlement. A large one. Enough to pay the loan and fund the winery for five years.

I chew on my lower lip. I intended to ask for the divorce eventually, but doing it now, while I’m carrying his... accident? It feels dangerous.

Cillian is a wolf. That’s what they call him on Wall Street. He deals in acquisition and leverage. If he knew I was pregnant, he wouldn't just write a check. He would assess the asset. He would calculate the value of an heir. He would try to take over.

And Cillian Thorne doesn't share custody. He acquires controlling interests.

"No," I mutter, smoothing my hands down the front of my blazer, re-armoring myself. "I do this alone. I get the divorce, I take the money, and I raise this baby on my own terms. He never has to know."

It’s the only way. He’s too cold, too insufferably arrogant to be a father. He’d probably try to schedule the baby’s feedings in an Excel Spreadsheet.

My phone rings in my hand, startling me so bad I almost drop it into the sink.

I look at the screen. The blood drains from my face.

THORNE HQ

The universe has a twisted sense of humor.

I take a deep breath, pressing my hand to my stomach for one brief, protective second before straightening my spine. I answer, putting the phone to my ear.

"This is Mercy Boyd."

"Ms. Boyd, please hold for Mr. Thorne." The assistant’s voice is crisp, terrified.

A click. Then, silence. Not the empty silence of a dead line, but the heavy, pressurized silence of a room where someone is watching you.

"Mercy."

His voice is exactly as I remember it from that night in Chicago—low, smooth, and vibrating with an authority that makes hair on my arms stand up. But the heat is gone. It’s been replaced by the arctic chill he reserves for boardrooms and our Twitter spats.

"Cillian," I say, my voice steady, though my knees feel like water. "To what do I owe the displeasure? I’m busy running a business that actually has a soul, so make it quick."

"Cut the branding pitch," he says. He’s not in the mood for the game. That’s new. Usually, he lives for the banter. "Where are you?"

"I’m at the vineyard. Where I belong. Why?"

"Pack a bag."

I bristle. "Excuse me?"

"Pack a bag, Mercy. My plane will be at the county airstrip in a few hours."

"I’m not going anywhere with you," I snap, my anger finally overriding the nausea. "I have a harvest to manage, a loan to—" I cut myself off. "I have a life. If you want to see me, make an appointment with my lawyer."

"We have a problem," he interrupts, his tone dropping an octave. It’s not a request. It’s a command, stripped of all pretense. "It’s Nana Rose."

My hand reaches for my collarbone, tracing the line rapidly. Nana Rose. She has treated me like a human being and not a portfolio diversity hire. "Is she... is she okay?"

"No," Cillian says, and for the very first time, I hear a crack in the ice. A tiny, microscopic fracture in his perfect control. "She’s dying. And she’s asking for my wife."