Blush - Jamie Brenner Page 0,103

was paying them any attention. Everyone was too busy enjoying themselves, as they should be. Vivian, alone, was suffering on the picture-perfect day. “We can talk here—or not at all, preferably.”

“Take off your sunglasses,” he said. “I hate that you hide your beautiful eyes.”

She began walking away, and he grabbed hold of her arm. She shook off his hand.

“What’s this about? Surely you can’t be angry that I refused to be your mistress all those years ago. You can’t possibly care after all this time.”

“Successful people—truly successful—always care about the one that got away: The deal. The woman. Whatever it may be. That’s what separates winners from losers.”

She shook her head. “Fine. So you’ll have your American vineyard after all. But I’m not part of the deal.”

He smiled and reached for her sunglasses, pulling them off.

“For you to say that—it’s adorable,” he said, trilling the last syllable for the French pronunciation. “And naive. Do you forget what happened last time?”

Vivian snatched the glasses back from his hands. He reached for her arm, gripping it tightly at her elbow. Surprised by his force, she suddenly felt unsafe.

“Mother!” Leah called, rushing down the steps toward them.

The baron dropped his hold of her. Vivian, rattled and perspiring, tried to appear normal.

“What are you doing here?” she said. But Leah didn’t look at her, focused instead on the baron.

“I need to speak to my mother,” she said. “Alone.”

* * *

Leah hadn’t decided what she would say to her mother. The thought kept her up all night and preoccupied her the entire drive out from Manhattan. There was the measured, mature version: “I know life is complicated . . .” There was the business version: “Considering your history, is this really the best person to sell the winery to?” There was the aggrieved daughter version: “You betrayed Dad!” But as soon as she saw her with the baron, anything she’d planned was forgotten. The moment they were alone, sequestered in the flower garden behind the house, she burst out with a simple “How could you?”

Her mother’s expression, no doubt telling, was hidden behind her damn sunglasses. The visible acknowledgment that she’d even heard her was the slightest twitch of her lower lip.

“What’s going on?” Vivian said. “I thought you were staying in the city.”

“I know about your affair,” Leah said. Before Vivian could respond, she pulled the letter out of her handbag and waved it at her. “You saved this in one of your books. A memento, I guess.”

Vivian reached for the letter, scanned it, then crumpled it into a ball.

“I wasn’t saving it—I was hiding it. He was threatening me.” She pressed her face into her hands, stifling a sob. “And now he’s back.” She sat down on a stone bench, trembling. She pulled off her sunglasses, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her pretty yellow dress, smudging it with makeup.

Leah, confused and near tears herself, sat next to her, putting an arm around her. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her mother come undone.

“What happened?”

Her mother hesitated for a moment, and then the story came out in a rush: The visit to Bordeaux, the horseback riding. The tour of their own empty stables, and a fleeting moment of passion that was never fully consummated.

“And then he pulled out of the business partnership. I was relieved—the calls and letters stopped. He was out of our lives. But financially, it almost ruined us.”

Vivian explained that they were left with huge losses after the investment in the joint venture didn’t have time to pay off. Desperate to replace lost cash, Leonard saw only one way forward: he sold the development rights to all of their land back to the county in a deal that would prevent it from ever being sold for use other than for farmland—a move that brought them a windfall at the time, but limited how much they could sell their property for in the future.

“It was a decision that’s left us vulnerable to the baron’s buyout today.” She dabbed at her nose with a tissue.

Leah noted that the creases around her mother’s eyes looked deeper than just at the start of the summer. Or maybe she was imagining it. Either way, she knew she couldn’t stay angry at her mother. What she’d done was wrong but not unforgivable.

“I’m not upset with you, Mom,” she said. “But you have to tell Dad.”

Vivian looked at her in surprise. “What? Leah—no. I can’t.”

“He has the right to know who he’s handing