Chapter Thirteen

Having been driven from her home, and living in a horse barn, Camille got tougher on everyone at the office, and here she knew she was in control. Whatever Maxine’s title or the conditions of her father’s will, Maxine knew nothing about running the winery, and Camille did. She kept a tight eye on everything, and was watching Cesare’s accounts closely. She saw an irregularity in them, and a considerable amount of money she couldn’t account for, and Camille went to his office to discuss it with him. The door was closed when she got there, and she knocked and opened it immediately, and stood stunned by what she was seeing. Cesare had stacks of cash on his desk, and was dividing it between Maxine, Alexandre, and himself. All three of them looked up like guilty children, and he rapidly slid the money into a drawer, as Camille saw Alex shove a thick roll of bills in his pocket and Maxine closed her purse with a haughty expression.

“You won’t get away with this for long,” Camille told them in a fierce tone, and asked Cesare to come to her office, as Maxine and Alex left the room without a word. It was clear what was happening. Cesare was stealing money from the winery, and sharing it with them. And even if it wasn’t huge amounts, even the idea that he was clearly stealing from her made her sick, not just for her, but for her father who had defended him for years. And Maxine and Alex sharing it with him was icing on a very bitter cake. She was living and working among thieves. The three of them were no better than common criminals.

Looking angry, Cesare followed her to her office and exploded immediately. “What right do you have to come into my office, and act like the police? You think you own the world now, because your father left you this winery. You don’t know what you’re doing and you’re going to run it into the ground,” he ranted at her and she looked at him with icy eyes.

“You’re fired.” She hurled the two words at him like rocks.

“You can’t do that. You need Maxine’s permission to do anything now,” he said confidently.

“No, I don’t. I can take her advice if I want. And in this case, I don’t. You’re fired. You’re a thief and a liar. My father would be disgusted if he could see you now.” No matter how talented Cesare was with the wines, Christophe wouldn’t have tolerated blatant stealing to this degree either.

“I’ll go to work for her,” he threatened. “She’s going to own this place one day.”

“She’s going to be out of here in sixteen months. And you’d better be out of here in sixteen minutes, or I’m calling the police. I’m going to have an accounting firm audit our books for embezzled funds now, and if they find anything, Cesare, I’m pressing charges against you. If I were you, I’d run.” He hesitated for a long moment and she watched the wind go out of him. He knew when he’d been caught, and she shuddered to think how much he had taken in small amounts over the years. He had gotten bolder since her father’s death, with Maxine to protect him. The three of them were thick as thieves and had been stealing from her. Cesare had been a perfect source of petty cash for her and her son, without getting her own hands dirty. Camille looked at her watch. “If you’re not out of here in five minutes, I’m calling security. In ten I’m calling the police. You overplayed your hand, Cesare. You’re done. Get your things and leave.” Tears welled up in his eyes as she said it, and he decided to play the sympathy card, but it didn’t work with her.

“You would do that to me? After I loved your father for so many years? It would break his heart if he knew what you’re doing.”

“No!” she cut him off. “It would have broken his heart if he knew what a crook you were. You’re finished here. And don’t go back to Maxine to save you. She doesn’t own this winery, I do. I will allow you to quit officially, which is more than you deserve.”

He started to say something else, then saw the look on her face and turned around and left her office. She saw his battered Jeep drive away five minutes later. She went to his office, and saw that he had cleared it remarkably quickly, and left all the photos of himself with her father on his desk. So much for sentiment. She pulled open his desk drawers, and in the bottom one, she found the money he’d been dividing up. She sat down and counted it. There was seven thousand dollars in cash there. She took it with her to give to accounting, slammed the door with her foot, and went back to her office, wondering how much he had withdrawn in the first place.

She called their personnel office and told them that Cesare had just quit, and was not welcome back in the building, and a ripple went through their offices as word went out that the vineyard manager had quit or been fired, and half an hour later, Maxine was in Camille’s office in a rage.

“How dare you!” she shouted at Camille.

“How dare you steal from me!” Camille fired back at her, but she didn’t shout. She didn’t need to. The tides had turned.

“We were just settling some petty cash expenses he made for us.”

“Where are the receipts?” Camille said coldly.

“You can’t fire an employee without my permission,” Maxine raged at her, which confirmed that Cesare had been a money source for them. At least that had been stopped. She’d been lucky to walk in on them when they had the cash in their hands.

“It doesn’t say that in the will. It says you’re here to help me make good decisions. I just did. Without your help. And if you or Alex steal from me again, I’m calling the police. Is that clear?” Maxine was nearly shaking with rage and frustration, and she stormed out of Camille’s office, and crossed her son in the hall.

“She fired Cesare,” she whispered to him.

He didn’t look surprised. “I figured she would when she saw the money.” He wasn’t nearly as upset as his mother. He thought the vineyard manager was an old fool. And his mother was a bigger one for having given him twenty-five thousand dollars to help him cook the books. They’d only gotten about ten thousand dollars out of him since. “Don’t worry, Mother. There’s lots more where that came from. And you have time.”

“He says she watches everything like a hawk.”

“I’ll bet she does, she’s smart, but you have time on your side. There’s no rush. And sooner or later, she might pay you what you want. Or our other ideas will work.” He smiled knowingly, although his mother evicting her from the château made her a little less accessible than she was before. But the problem wasn’t insurmountable, she wasn’t far away.

“I’m not going to sit here for almost two years in this backwater,” Maxine stormed at him. She needed to find another husband, she thought as she drove back to the château. Christophe hadn’t panned out. And even if he hadn’t died, maybe he wouldn’t have been as generous as she’d hoped. She was thinking about it, and the single men she’d met in the Valley, when Alexandre came home, walked into the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of wine. He drank it without pausing, poured himself a second glass, and smiled at his mother.

“What are you looking so happy about?” She could tell he was up to something.

“You just worry about getting what you can out of the winery, and find me a new stepfather. Leave the rest up to me.” And with that, he went upstairs to lie down. The wine had made him sleepy.

Camille had dinner with Simone that night and told her what had happened with Cesare. Nothing surprised her. She said Alexandre had stolen money as a child too. She used to lock her purse up so he didn’t get her grocery money when he lived with her, and he was always stealing money from friends and it had caught up with him at the bank where he worked. They had allowed him to quit instead of pressing charges, but word got around and he hadn’t had a job since. He was known to be a thief.

Camille had called their accounting firm and asked for an audit. She didn’t think Cesare had taken huge amounts or she would have seen it, but a steady flow of relatively small amounts, particularly if he was giving money to Alexandre and Maxine.

She was disgusted with all of them, and wondered if she should talk to Sam, to ask his advice, but she didn’t want him to think she was incapable of running the winery or losing control of her employees. She was thinking about it as she walked to her little horse barn after dinner with Simone. It was a chilly night, but the space heaters kept her warm. She was careful to turn them off before she went to sleep so they didn’t start a fire in the old wooden building that was barely more than a shack.

The house was dark when she walked in, and she turned on the light and jumped when she saw Alexandre sitting on the couch. He’d been waiting for her in the dark.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him, frightened, but she didn’t want to show it. He looked drunk and unsteady when he stood up. He was tall and good looking, but she knew what a slimy character he was. His looks didn’t compensate for it any more than his mother’s did. The only one who’d been fooled by her was Christophe.

“I was waiting for you,” Alex said as he made his way toward her, weaving slightly, and he grabbed for her breast when he got close enough to touch her. She took a step back, afraid he was going to rape her or worse. She was suddenly aware that if he killed her, Maxine would get half of everything. She hadn’t understood at first that the clause in her father’s will was a potential death sentence for her now, and didn’t know how far they’d go.

“Go back to the house,” Camille said harshly, hoping to scare him. But he looked undaunted and amused as he tried to kiss her. Alexandre loved seduction scenes, particularly those that involved force used on his victim. He had been planning this all night, had been drinking steadily, and didn’t bother to eat dinner, which had been a mistake. The wine hit him harder than he’d planned, but he still knew what he was doing, and what he planned to do to her. He was powerful and nothing was going to deter him. There was too much money riding on it to allow anything to stop him. There were no locks on her doors, so he’d had easy access. Camille tried to push him away, and he dragged her toward the bed with him. He was more powerful than she was, and pinned her down easily once he got her there, and she realized the worst was going to happen. She fought with him, pushed him away from her with every ounce of strength she had, and leapt off the other side of the bed as he leered at her. He had her cornered and victory was in his eyes.

“Come on, Camille, you know you want me. Let’s have some fun. I’m so bored here, I can’t stand it. We’d make a good couple, you and I.” He was inching slowly toward her, trying to convince her, and she jumped onto a chair, and managed to open a loose window, which slid up easily behind her. Without saying a word to him, she jumped out the window, dropped onto the wet grass, and ran as fast as she could to Simone’s cottage. It wasn’t far, and she could hear Alex shouting at her to come back, and then finally calling her a bitch as she kept running, and exploded through Simone’s door without knocking, as the old woman stared at her in amazement, and Choupette barked, happy to see her. Camille was breathless and she’d torn her jeans on the windowsill, and her knee was bleeding.

“Good heavens, what happened to you? Are you all right?”

Camille nodded, she was shaking. “Alex,” she said in a single word and sat down. “He was waiting in the barn, in the dark. He was drunk, but he grabbed me and forced me onto the bed. He was going to rape me. I climbed on a chair and jumped out the window, since the windows in the barn are higher than normal.”

“These people are savages,” Simone said with a look of fierce disapproval. “I’m ashamed to be related to them. You can stay here tonight, or as long as you want. And we’re getting locks on your doors and windows tomorrow. Maybe you should have a gun.” Simone meant it, and Camille smiled at the suggestion. She didn’t want to shoot anyone, although in his case it was tempting.

“I’ll be fine without a gun. I’ll get a whistle, you can call for help if you hear me.” She had thought of calling the police but didn’t want to cause a scandal, and in the end, no matter what his intentions, he hadn’t hurt her, just scared her.

“It might be too late by the time you whistle and the police come,” Simone said, looking worried. “What’s wrong with him?” She looked genuinely distressed over what her grandson had done to her young friend, or tried to do if she hadn’t been resourceful and faster than he was.

“He said we’d make a good couple,” Camille said, calming down, as Simone went to get peroxide and a bandage for her knee.

“And he wanted to prove that by raping you?”

“He was drunk,” she said pensively. But he would have raped her if he could. She was certain of it.

“That’s no excuse.” But she could tell that Maxine and the boys were desperate to get the money Christophe hadn’t left them, any way they could. It had been quite a day. Camille had fired Cesare and nearly been raped by her stepbrother.

“Maybe it’s a good thing you’re not living in the château with them.” She took out a flowered nightgown and handed it to Camille. Camille put it on in the bedroom, and Simone made her a cup of chamomile tea, which was her remedy for everything. And then she tucked her into bed, which no one had done for Camille since her mother died. Simone kissed her gently on the forehead and turned off the light. “Now go to sleep,” she whispered, and Camille smiled as she drifted off, safe and warm in Simone’s bed.

“You are my fairy godmother,” she said sleepily, as Simone smiled, and went to sit in the living room with a glass of port and a cigarette, her favorite pleasures, as she stroked Choupette’s head, and thought about what a wicked piece of work her grandson was. He was just like his mother, perhaps even worse. And there was no telling what they’d do next.