Twenty-four
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vivian said. “I have no interest in reading this.”
She’d been watching the sunset on the veranda when Leah appeared and handed over the old book. Leah, dressed in leggings and a T-shirt with long sleeves that almost covered her hands, looked like a teenager.
“Why not? Don’t you remember it?”
Of course she remembered it. The sight of the cover, the woman in the black evening dress, with big hair and heavy brows like Brooke Shields, brought her right back to the eighties. One thing she loved the most about books was that they never changed, and when you picked one off the shelf after years, it brought you back to the moment you first held it. Vivian cracked it open, inhaling that old-book smell.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found it in the library. You know, I used to sneak these books when you weren’t around. All I wanted was to be part of that book club.”
The book club had been, in the words of Virginia Woolf, a room of her own. It didn’t matter how big and luxurious the house was because that house was an extension of her marriage to Leonard. And she treasured their partnership. But the assembly of women who gathered once a month on the veranda? That was hers. There was a special joy in dressing up when it wasn’t to impress anyone, when it wasn’t for work or any special occasion but her own mood. And there was a catharsis in discussing love and life—and, yes, sex—through the lens of a novel. It was one part of her life that was lived completely on her own terms.
Until Leonard fired Delphine and any illusion of control—even over the book club—was shattered.
“Of course I remember it,” she said. “I’m surprised you do.”
“Are you kidding? You and your friends looked so glamorous to me. All I wanted was to be part of the conversation, but you never let me stay.”
“Oh, Leah. The books weren’t appropriate for you.” They had been, however, perfect for her. The stories of outrageous love affairs and kinky sex and beautiful people had been just what she and her circle of friends needed. She’d even started a journal, chronicling their get-togethers and the books that kept them entertained.
“Yeah, I’m realizing that. I’m an adult, and this one is making me blush.”
Vivian hadn’t thought about the book club and her journal in years. But then the other day, packing up the family albums to protect them from the prying eyes of the new buyers, the journal appeared. She moved it to the back of her bedroom closet without reading it. Looking back was painful.
But how had it gotten mixed up with the stack of photo albums and books?
Had Leah been snooping?
She handed the copy of Chances back to Leah. “Well, you can put this back where you found it. Since you clearly know your way around the library.”
Leah averted her eyes. So she was snooping!
Decades earlier, when Vivian oversaw the expansion and renovation of their house, she asked their architect to model library shelves after the walls in a celebrated French estate. He had taken her direction literally, down to every last design quirk, including hidden locked compartments. This was where she’d hidden the journal. She couldn’t imagine how Leah had found it. If she’d found it.
“Mom, it might be fun if we read it together. I just started it and, I don’t know, it brings me back to a simpler time.”
“I have no interest in old books. There’s too much going on right now.”
But Leah wasn’t listening. The sight of something in the distance distracted her.
“That’s Javier. I need to talk to him.” She kissed her on the cheek. “Think about what I said.”
Leah rushed off. Only after she disappeared into the darkness did Vivian realize she’d left behind the copy of Chances. She reached for it, opening to the first page.
Bitch. Child. Liberated lady. Temptress. Costa knew her as all of those things.
“So you see”—she fumbled in an oversized Gucci bag and produced a pack of cigarettes—“no way is it the right time for my father to come back into the country. No way. You must stop him.”
A simpler time, Leah had said. Well, simpler for her. She had just been a young girl. Vivian, however, had been an adult. An adult making adult mistakes.
She stood and began to pace in the darkness. The mention of cigarettes on the page made her yearn for one now. Decades after quitting, she still dreamed of smoking.
Yes, the book brought her back. She’d read it on the flight to France to see Natasha de Villard’s grand cru vineyard.
She could envision the Bordeaux countryside like it was yesterday even though it had been nearly forty years since her visit. Natasha sent a car to pick them up from the airport, and it had been from the back seat of that sleek Mercedes that she first caught sight of Château de Villard, rising in the distance like something out of a dream. When Vivian had embarked on renovating their own home, she had imagined something grand in French Renaissance tradition. But Château de Villard was the real deal, and her wildest imagination had failed to equal it. The château’s steeply pitched roof seemed to go on forever. With its gables and spires and turrets, it was like the skyline of a small city.
The driver whisked them up through an allée of linden trees, and closer proximity to the house only heightened its grandeur. The limestone building featured an entrance tower and several prominent wings. To the right of the entrance, an open loggia with pillars and topped with stone gargoyles.
Staff emerged from the house to take their luggage, and they were shown into a marble entrance hall. Glasses of champagne were pressed into their hands before a uniformed housekeeper led them up a spiral staircase. Vivian’s jaw dropped as she realized the stairs wrapped around a four-story chandelier.
The third-floor hallway was lined with paintings by Sargent and Boldini. They passed several rooms before the woman stopped and opened a door to a baroque extravaganza.
“Please, make yourself at home. The baron and baroness look forward to seeing you at dinner. I will return to bring you to the dining room at eight.”
Alone in the bedroom, Leonard walked around, silently admiring the walnut paneling, sixteenth-century tapestry, and Louis XV–style furniture. He finally turned to her and said, “What do you think all of this is about?”
“I have no idea,” Vivian said. “But I can’t wait for our luggage to get here so I can figure out what to wear when we find out.”
The housekeeper returned, as promised, to escort them down to the dining hall, a cavernous room with a seventy-foot-high ceiling and an oak table that could seat over sixty people. A triple fireplace spanned one end of the room, more antique tapestries on the walls.
Natasha de Villard rose to greet them. She was even prettier than Vivian remembered, the grand surroundings serving to heighten her beauty instead of dwarfing it. Dressed in a Chantilly lace suit with ribbon appliqué, she looked like she belonged in the pages of Vogue. She greeted Leonard and Vivian with a kiss on both cheeks.
“This is so much fun!” she said.
The baron rose from his seat at the head of the table. He was tall and lean, with sandy-colored hair, slate blue eyes under thick brows, and a long nose.
“Welcome, welcome,” he said, approaching them. His smile was tight, but his voice was warm. He opened his arms to Vivian, and she dutifully stepped in for an embrace. As he kissed her once on each cheek, she felt an odd shiver.
“Thank you for the generous invitation,” Leonard said.
“My pleasure,” the baron replied. “I’m only sorry it took this long. We travel all summer, but as soon as we were back in residence, we were delighted to reach out.”
He wasn’t necessarily handsome—not with those cold eyes. But he had undeniable charisma, a sort of palpable energy that signaled he had power and ambition running through his veins.
It felt strange to sit at one end of a long, mostly empty table. Leah was certain they must have had a dining room that was more appropriately scaled. Later, Leonard would point out that it had been a power move. As if summoning them to the château weren’t enough of one.
The truth was, they could have dined in the stables. The wine was so extraordinary, it rendered the backdrop for the meal irrelevant. The highlight was a grand cru white Burgundy Montrachet that made Vivian gasp.
The conversation was surprisingly easy. The baron’s English was flawless, and although Natasha had lived in France for several years, she remained obsessed with American pop culture, leaving her eager to discuss Dallas and the new TV phenomenon Dynasty. Vivian glanced at Leonard from time to time, and his exchange with the baron seemed equally congenial.
“Your husband tells me you’re a rider,” the baron said.
“Well, not for quite some time,” Vivian said.
“Tomorrow I’ll show you our stables.”
After dessert, the baron stood. “If you ladies will excuse us, we’re going to the billiards room to have a few cigars.”
Natasha took her on a tour of the formal gardens, all five of them, breathtakingly lovely even in the dark of night. But the travel and the wine caught up with Vivian, and she had to sit on one of the stone benches for a break.
“I’m sorry! Of course you must be exhausted. I’m just so excited to have a new friend. Come—let’s get you back to your room.”
Vivian was disappointed to find Leonard was still downstairs. She changed into her nightgown and waited for him.
By the time he showed up, reeking of cognac and cigars, she’d fallen asleep. The click of the bedroom door woke her.
“What on earth have you two been doing all this time?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows.
“Celebrating,” he told her. “We’re going into business with the baron.”
Natasha, the baron had apparently informed Leonard, “is very sentimental about her home state. Now that she has seen the wine country there, it seems a New York winery is simply not something she can live without. And I like to make sure my wife is happy.”
The baron, not being a patient man, determined that the fastest and most efficient way to get his wife a winery would be to pair up with an established vineyard. His proposal was thus: a joint venture with Leonard, fifty-fifty, with small production of just five thousand cases. Both the Hollander and the de Villard names would be on the label. They would look for a parcel of land to start a new vineyard, but in the meantime, Hollander Estates would provide the grapes and make the wine for the joint venture until the new winery could provide for itself.
Now, all these years later, Vivian could still remember the sense of excitement on that trip, the belief that finally, after all the years of struggling to get their vineyard off the ground, things were going to change.
And change they did.
Vivian looked out at the field, but there was no sign of Leah. She picked up the copy of Chances and carried it back to the house. Maybe reading a few pages before bed wasn’t the worst idea in the world.
Leah followed Javier as he traversed the property heading toward Field House.
If Mateo was looking for another job, Javier had to know about the sale. She just hoped her father had ultimately done the right thing and told him directly—that Javier hadn’t found out from someone else first. Either way, she owed him an apology.
“Javier—do you have a minute?” she called out.
He stopped walking and waited for her to catch up with him.
“Has my father spoken to you about what’s going on?” she said.
“Yes. Your mother must be very sad.”
Her stomach churned. How very typical of Javier to be thinking of others even when his own livelihood and home were in jeopardy.
“It’s a shock,” Leah said. “But she’ll adjust. I’m concerned about you, though. And I have to apologize: Mateo asked me the other day if my father was selling the winery and . . . I lied. I said I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Javier shook his head. “He shouldn’t have asked you. It’s not your place to tell.”
“No—no. He had every right to ask. I just wish there was something I could do. But I can’t imagine that the new owners wouldn’t keep you on. Aside from my father, you’re the backbone of this place. And now with Mateo managing operations . . .”
“Your father said not to count on it.”
Leah felt stricken. As for Javier, she didn’t know if it was the evening darkness—shadows falling across his brow—or just end-of-the-day fatigue, but he looked years older than the man she had greeted in the field when she first arrived. It was hard to reconcile the man standing before her with the boy of her girlhood dreams.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
He glanced back toward Field House.
“It’s late,” he said.
“Of course—I don’t mean to keep you.”
“Leah, if there’s anything you can do,” he said. She looked into his troubled dark eyes, the eyes that used to light up her day when she was a girl. She was painfully aware that he’d been at the vineyard for nearly her entire life.
“I’m going to try. I promise.”
She watched him disappear into the night, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and go back to the house. She didn’t want to face her empty bedroom—nor did she want to face the fact that Steven was right: although she’d stayed behind to “help,” she was powerless.