Twenty-six
The rain left the vineyard smelling fresh and alive. If Vivian ever lost sight of what they were doing there—growing fruit, creating life—the calm after a storm always reminded her.
Vivian pulled on her mud boots and walked through the rows of Syrah. She still took pleasure in the blooming vines. There was no amount of external stress that could diminish that for her. She especially loved seeing the red varietals, the Syrah and Merlot, when they were little green berries. It felt like glimpsing a secret of nature. It amazed her how many people didn’t know that red grapes always started out green. Living at a winery, she found that the world of nature was like a second language she’d needed to learn. And then, once understood—never mastered—making a living off the land felt like belonging to a private club. After that first vintage, she never saw the world the same again.
Her phone rang. She sighed, missing the days when a walk in the fields meant she was unreachable. She should have left the damn thing back in the room.
“This is Vivian,” she said. The incoming number was from the winery landline.
“It’s me,” Leonard said. “Can you bring a stack of invoices from my desk to the loading dock? I’ve got a situation here and I can’t get back to the office.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Okay. If I can find it.” For all of his meticulous care of the grape plants, Leonard’s desk was a bit of a mess.
She trudged back to the winery. Leonard’s office was stuffy and hot. She opened a window before shuffling a few things around, looking for the invoices. Something else caught her eye, a slim booklet printed on cream-colored paper. The front cover read “Hollander Estates Vineyard, North Fork, Long Island.” She flipped it open and realized immediately it was a sales brochure. Their home, their life’s work, on the chopping block. She felt a flash of anger toward her husband.
The stonework around the property is imported European red slate. The landscaping of both the winery and the private residence reflects rustic North Fork authenticity; the house evokes the sophistication and elegance of the great châteaux of Bordeaux, France.
Who had written this? “Evokes Bordeaux” indeed. No one who had spent time at a grand cru vineyard would ever make that comparison. Sometimes, when the weather was cool and misty, she was pulled back to that long-ago visit to the château. As hard as she’d tried to forget, it still snuck up on her. The first morning, she had woken up to moody skies and a dampness that permeated the walls of the château. She had wrapped herself in cashmere before making her way downstairs for breakfast. Leonard, shivering in his wool blazer, said, “Have the French ever heard of heating?”
At breakfast, the baron made good on his promise to show her the horse stables; he announced they would be going riding.
“Oh! I didn’t pack any clothes . . .”
He waved away her concern. “Natasha has everything you could possibly need.”
Vivian borrowed breeches and boots but was disappointed to find that Natasha wouldn’t be joining them.
“I’m recovering from tennis elbow,” she said. “I haven’t been able to ride in weeks. Henri is ready to kill me.”
Despite the convivial evening the night before, Vivian wasn’t comfortable around the baron. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about him set her on edge. Back upstairs in their room, when she was supposed to be changing for the outing, she shared her misgivings with Leonard.
“If you don’t go, he’ll be insulted,” Leonard said.
“So come along.”
“I don’t ride, and it will make me look weak. Please—just be a sport.”
Leonard was so excited about the potential partnership he would have offered up their firstborn to seal the deal.
“Fine,” she said.
Vivian knew that once she was in the saddle she would feel in her element—possibly the only scenario at the estate that would let her feel in control.
A servant led her to the stables, where two horses, a bay mare with beautiful coronet bands and a smaller palomino, were dressed in English saddle. The baron stood next to the mare, patting her shoulder. He smiled when he saw Vivian, and this time, it seemed to actually reach his eyes.
“I’m happy to have company for my ride today. Natasha injured herself over the summer during a much less refined sporting activity.”
“Yes, she told me. Well, I’m always happy for the chance to ride. I don’t have time for it back home.”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “One must always make time. Do you have stables?”
She smiled. “We just renovated our house, so we have stables. But they’re empty.”
“You must fix that. Come.” He beckoned her toward the palomino. “He’s a very gentle soul.”
She approached the horse’s left side, patting his neck. She looked around for a mounting block, and the baron said, “I’ll help you up.”
“Oh no—that’s fine. I’ve got it,” she said. But he moved close to her as if she hadn’t said anything. His eyes, which had seemed gray the night before, were now the same blue as the sky. He smelled faintly of tobacco and something she couldn’t identify, but the combination made her feel weak in her riding boots. In his nearness, she realized why he made her so uncomfortable: she was desperately attracted to him.
He bent down, linking his gloved hands together to offer her a platform for mounting the horse. Only when she was firmly in the saddle, the reins in her hand, did her breathing steady. She knew that no matter how fast she galloped, it wouldn’t be nearly as fast as her racing heart.
It was the only time they were alone together that trip. And for the remainder of their stay at Château de Villard, she found herself mentally returning to that moment again and again.
She eagerly anticipated dinner, longing for him from across the table. Every time she looked at him, especially on the rare occasion when their eyes met, she felt a shameful heat deep inside. She was a married woman, a mother of two, and yet she was experiencing the first true “crush” of her life. With Leonard, there had been no painful yearning, no wondering if he thought about her. They’d met, and he’d made his interest instantly clear. His courtship of her had been immediate and dogged. She wanted him, but at the same time she felt their union was an inevitability. With the baron, she looked at him and thought, I will never know the feeling of his touch.
Except, one day, she did.
Vivian set the brochure back down on the desk and looked around for the invoices. There was no sense being angry at Leonard about losing the winery. There was plenty of blame to go around.
Leah found her father wandering among the Syrah grapes. She made her way out toward him, following the dirt path carved between the rows of plants, adjusting her hat against the bright midday sun.
She experienced a moment of déjà vu, of being a young girl in that very spot, of her father teaching her about bud break, about veraison, about canopy maintenance. How he had always loved his vineyard. And he had seemed to love sharing all his wisdom and experience with her.
He looked so entirely at peace, so utterly at home among the flourishing vines, she almost didn’t want to disturb him.
Almost.
“Dad,” she called out, drawing closer to him.
He looked up in surprise. “I’m thinking we need to drop more fruit.” He glanced at her. “What do you think?”
“Maybe just from the short shoots,” she said.
He looked back at the plant, kneeling down and touching the soil. “It’s been dry and sunny so far. We’ll see what happens next month. We had a wet August last year and Botrytis was a problem with the whites.” He pulled off some fruit. “These grapes will turn in a few weeks.”
Oh, she knew the rhythm of the vineyard. She had tried to forget, but it was a part of her, just like the breath of her own body.
Her father busied himself clipping away at the plants. She stood, the sun hot on her back, summoning the nerve to say what she had to say. Her father did not take kindly to “suggestions,” but he had at least listened to her about telling Javier. Or maybe he would have done it anyway. But she couldn’t stop with that conversation, as much as she hated being the object of his wrath.
“Dad,” she said. “I understand you have to sell. I know you wouldn’t do it except as a last resort. But you need to do something to protect your employees. Can you make it part of the deal that the buyers keep them on? At least for a few years?”
He stood, dropping the clippers to the ground. “You’re a lawyer now? You want to negotiate the contract for me?”
“No, I’m just saying . . .”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Leah, I know your heart is in the right place. But you need to let me handle my business. I want things to work out—for everyone involved.”
“What if you’re handling it wrong?” she said, her heart pounding.
“You would do things differently?”
He seemed more amused than angry, and that made her furious. She looked up at the sky, a bird circling overhead. In a few weeks, the fruit would be ripe enough to attract them.
Her father was waiting for a response. His question hadn’t been rhetorical. She said the first thing that came to mind.
“Well, for one thing, I would have produced a rosé,” she said. “Not that that solves the problem at hand. But it might have bolstered sales over the past few years.”
He nodded, rubbing his chin as if contemplating this. When he spoke, it was very slowly. “Do you know what the French do with their rosé?”
“Um, no. Not exactly.”
“I didn’t think so. We are in a global market. Rosé is the only wine with an annual expiration date.”
“Rosé doesn’t go bad in one year.”
“No, of course, the wine itself can last a long time. But the French, the Provençal rosé people, flood the American market every February with that year’s vintage of rosé. They buy back old vintages of rosé from Manhattan restaurants because they only want the current rosé available. And because they are so powerful and because they control the market around the world, every other winery now does that.”
“Okay, so—”
“So if you have leftover rosé, restaurants won’t buy it. You’re stuck holding the bag. I’m not playing that game. You hear me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I hear you.”
How could she not? His voice was raised. But she would not be shouted down. She would not be shut out.
Not this time.