in the valley, which ticked Nate to high hell—and she was the granddaughter of Charles Baudouin, placing her on the wrong side of the sixty-year-old Baudouin-DeLuca feud.
“Is this another one of your stupid jokes, Nathaniel?” Frankie demanded when she’d made her way across the bar and right into Nate’s face.
No one knew what Nate had done to get on Frankie’s shit list, but whatever it was had landed him permanently at the top. Not a good list to be on, since Frankie was a master grudge holder—and dartboard champion.
“Why are you looking at me? I make wine. He’s the one planning the Showdown,” Nate said, pointing to Marc and selling him out. So much for brotherly support.
“Yeah, well, if your goal was to humiliate me, the DeLucas get a gold star.” She held up a copy of the newspaper as proof. “Do you know how hard I’ve worked to be taken seriously in this industry?” That she’d had to work twice as hard to gain any respect from her family went unsaid.
“No one’s questioning your qualifications, Francesca.” Nate’s expression was soft, but his body was ready to respond should Frankie start donkey kicking. “We were as shocked as you were when we saw the article.”
“How can you be shocked? You were the ones who ran the list, which pretty much says that a dog is more qualified to represent my family than I am.”
“A dog?” Marc gasped.
“Simon is old man Charles’s bulldog,” Gabe supplied, picking up Marc’s beer. The foam hadn’t even touched his lips when he stopped and with a mumbled curse slammed the glass back down.
“This is going to make the Summer Wine Showdown look like some kind of redneck moonshine crawl.”
“You really didn’t know?” Frankie asked, her eyes narrowed in disbelief.
Marc put his hands up in surrender. “I followed the bylaws to the letter. Five people sit on the Tasting Tribunal: the mayor, the wine commissioner, a celebrity judge, and one member from each founding family. We chose Nate. Your grandfather chose Simon.”
Which made no sense at all. Sure, a lifetime ago Charles Baudouin and Geno DeLuca had been the best of friends; they had also fallen in love with the same woman. And Charles had chosen Geno’s wedding day to publicly express his undying love for Marc’s grandmother, ChiChi. The ceremony continued, a lifelong friendship ended, and the feud between the DeLucas and the Baudouins began.
Although the dog would complicate things for Marc and his family, it would also hurt the town’s reputation. And Charles Baudouin might despise the DeLucas, but he loved St. Helena.
“My grandpa did this?” Frankie held the paper limp in her hand, and had she been any other woman, Marc would have sworn she was about to cry.
“Looks like it.” Marc shoved back in his chair. “I worked my ass off to get the town behind hosting this event at my hotel. Not to mention I have so much money tied up in this thing if it goes under, I go with it.”
“Christ, Marc, you said you had this under control,” Gabe said, going all brother-knows-best.
“It is under control,” Marc defended.
“You have a fucking dog for a judge.”
“I’ll check the bylaws tonight. See if there is a clause that states the representative has to be human.”
“You should have done that before you announced to everyone that you were going to host the Showdown.” Gabe shook his head. “This is why I told you to wait a few years, to make sure your foundation was laid so you could handle it.”
“The town council approached me about hosting the event, remember? And this,” Marc said, pointing to the headline announcing the Showdown, “will shave five years off my ten-year plan. I knew the short timeline was going to be a challenge, but I would have been an idiot to turn them down. They wanted it brought back to the Napa Grand for the centennial, and it’s a chance to really show what the hotel can do.”
“You’re willing to bet everything you’ve built because you want to challenge yourself? And you choose the most high-profile event you can find to do it?” Gabe shook his head.
“A lot of people are counting on this fund-raiser,” Nate said in his most inoffensive tone, which Marc took immediate offense to. The only thing missing in this touching moment of brotherly bonding was the youngest DeLuca. Thankfully for Marc, Trey was in Madrid, selling a hotel chain on DeLuca Wines as their house specialty of choice.