Chapter Fifteen

Maxine’s preparations for the Fourth of July party at the winery became a full-time job for her by mid-June. She had rented elaborate decorations from a theatrical company in LA that provided movie sets. She insisted on having long tables instead of round ones that she said were in style but twice the price. The flower bill was going to be astronomical, and Camille was wondering if it was really worth indulging her, before the big day arrived.

But when it was all put together it looked incredible, and their fireworks show at the end was supposed to last for half an hour, as long as the big fireworks displays in the city. And this was just a private party in the Napa Valley. Maxine turned it into an event, and the winery tweeted about it daily. Under Camille’s supervision their followers on Facebook and Twitter had multiplied exponentially.

Simone had agreed to come to the party, and Camille had promised her a table in the shade before the sun went down. It would be hot at the beginning of the party and cool in the evening.

Maxine had had her outfit sent by a designer in New York. It was a one-piece white jumpsuit that showed off every inch of her body and what spectacular shape she was in. She had hired a photographer and a videographer and she wanted to put it all on the Internet after the party. Camille agreed that it was good publicity, especially for their wedding business, which had really picked up.

“You should make me your marketing director,” Maxine said smugly as she and Camille surveyed the scene before the party started. Camille readily agreed that everything looked great, except the bills. The initially excessive cost had tripled in the last two weeks.

“I couldn’t afford you,” Camille said honestly. But the PR was good. It was by invitation and they were expecting a huge crowd. People had been begging to come. There would be line dancers and lessons after dinner. And square dancers she flew in from Texas, and a band from Vegas. Maxine had gone all out, at Camille’s expense. But it was a good showcase for Maxine too.

Alexandre and Gabriel were both wearing white jeans and long sleeved blue shirts, with Hermès alligator loafers without socks, and looked straight out of Palm Beach or Saint Tropez. Camille had worn white jeans too, with a red T-shirt and flat sandals. It was a work night for her. And she was relieved when she saw Sam in the crowd halfway through the party. It touched her to see a familiar face.

“I was looking for you.” He smiled warmly and hugged her, which reminded her of her father and she had to fight back tears. “How’s everything going?”

“Smoothly so far,” she said, surveying the scene.

“I didn’t mean the party. How’s everything else?” he asked her so no one else could hear.

“Okay,” she said and wondered if Phillip had told him about his visit before he left for Sun Valley. She was sorry he wasn’t there. But he had texted her several times to say he was thinking of her.

“I’ll take you to lunch sometime,” Sam promised, “so we can talk.” The party wasn’t the right place for it, and he wanted to hear more from her, not just his son, who might have been overreacting with what he described. It sounded a little far-fetched to Sam, even if he didn’t like Maxine. And Phillip had always been protective of Camille.

Maxine had spotted him as soon as he arrived, and made her way through the crowd to join them a minute later. She glanced coyly at Sam, and there was no way to avoid looking at her remarkable figure. The outfit was meant for that. Sam wasn’t impervious to it, but he clearly didn’t like the woman who was wearing it. She was flirtatious as she greeted him, and hugged him a little too tight. Elizabeth was at a political rally in LA and couldn’t come, which seemed to give Maxine the impression that Sam was fair game, which wasn’t how he viewed it, at least not with her. He couldn’t stand her and it showed when he talked to her.

“I can’t wait for your Harvest Ball,” she told him. “You set such an example to us all. No one could top that.”

“It’s a tradition in the Valley, people expect it now. Sometimes I think it’s a bit too much. The wigs and costumes are so damn hot,” he said casually, wishing he could get away from her, but she didn’t move an inch. He noticed how sensuous her lips were, and couldn’t keep his eyes off her breasts, even if he disliked her. He knew exactly what had ensnared Christophe. There was a kind of heady sexuality to her that was impossible to ignore, and he suspected she’d be great in bed. But she reminded him of a praying mantis who would kill her lover when she’d had use of him. There was something dangerous about her. She hadn’t killed Christophe certainly, given how he had died, but it was easy to believe that she had skeletons in her closet and all of them male. He hadn’t been listening to her and turned back in time to hear her say something about having dinner with him, and he glanced at her in surprise.

“Why would you want to have dinner with me?” he asked her, looking her right in the eye. Her eyes were deep and dark and sucked you into them like magnets.

“You’re a very exciting man,” she said in a voice just loud enough for him to hear her. Camille had left them by then, and gone to check on Simone, who seemed to be having a good time, and was chatting with everyone around her, with a cigarette and a glass of red wine in her hand. She hadn’t brought Choupette because she knew it would be too hot. But Simone was doing fine.

“What makes me exciting?” Sam asked, playing with her, and she looked pleased that he had responded. “Would it be money?” he said, and her eyes narrowed as she watched him. He was one of those men she would never catch and she suspected it at that moment, but was not yet ready to accept defeat. He was on to her, and always had been. She had had her eye on him since before she met Christophe. She had wanted Sam, but Christophe had been easier to pull into her net. She didn’t answer Sam’s question, and he went on goading her. He couldn’t resist. “It’s fascinating how some women respond to money, isn’t it? It’s almost like a drug.” One of the things he loved about Elizabeth was that she didn’t care how much he had. She liked him for the man he was, regardless of his income or his success. She wasn’t impressed by him. Maxine was practically drooling. “I don’t like you, Maxine,” he told her honestly. “And I don’t think you’d like me either, once you got to know me. I’m tougher than you think, and I’m not as polished as Christophe. You’re damn lucky you caught him. But some hands fold early in the game, and you have to take your losses and leave. This may be one of those times.” He was looking past her in the crowd as he talked to her, as though she didn’t even deserve his full attention. “I don’t think you’ve got a winning hand here. The odds are with the house. And I’ve got my eye on Camille.” He looked her dead in the eye then, to let her know that whatever she did to Camille, she would pay for it in the end.

“What did she say to you?” Maxine’s eyes sliced through him like a knife.

“Not a thing. But I know what’s going on here. I’m watching you and so is my son. She’s like a daughter to me. And I’m not going to let anything happen to her. Keep that in mind.”

“I’ve been nothing but kind to her since her father’s death. She’s a very difficult girl. She’s very rude to my sons.”

“I doubt that. She’s got her father’s sweet nature. And does your ‘kindness’ include having her sleep in a horse barn instead of the château she owns, where you’re living with your sons? It may just be time to move on,” he said, fixing her with a merciless gaze.

“Her father wanted me to keep an eye on her until she turns twenty-five.”

“I don’t think she needs that. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t believe you’re going to find what you’re looking for here. Christophe was a lucky lottery ticket. There aren’t many of those here. Have a nice evening,” he said, then, “Nice party,” and moved away from her into the crowd. She had done the whole party to impress him, and it didn’t mean a damn thing to him. He had only come there to lay down the law. She was sure that Camille had said something to him, or she had played poor little rich girl with his son. There was going to be hell to pay for that. She was getting tired of Camille. And Sam was right, the Napa Valley wasn’t for her. The really wealthy ones were married, or boors like Sam. She doubted she’d last another year. What she had to do now was find a way to make Camille pay, so she could move on to better playing fields. She was utterly fed up. “Striking oil, Mother?” Alex asked as he sidled up to her. “I saw you talking to Sam Marshall. Another stepfather in your sights?”

“Actually, no. He’s not my style,” she said, as she went in pursuit of other fish to fry. But there weren’t many there that night. Sam had been her principal target, and her mission had failed. The party was a bust for her. He left before the fireworks, and she watched him go with hatred in her eyes.

The Fourth of July party Francesca’s parents gave in Sun Valley was less fun than Phillip had hoped. They had a lot of very conservative friends, and most of the guests were their age, and not their daughter’s. The entertainment they had hired was a banjo player and an accordion player that were painful to listen to. All Phillip could think of was what he was missing in the Napa Valley. He knew his father was at the party at Château Joy that night, and he wished he could be there too.

“Fun, isn’t it?” Francesca said, smiling at him, happy they weren’t in Napa for a change. Sun Valley was much more her cup of tea.

“It’s a little quieter than I expected,” he told her honestly. And he wondered if the wedding would be that way too. They were getting married in Sun Valley in September at a country club her parents belonged to, and there were going to be two hundred guests, mostly her parents’ friends. Phillip had had no say in the wedding. Francesca’s mother was planning everything, and it was going to be very traditional. It made him long for the slightly rowdy, more down to earth, even nouveau riche side of Napa, which seemed like a lot more fun to him.

Francesca had an older sister and brother, both of whom were married and lived in Grosse Point, Michigan, like her parents. They spent summers and Christmas vacations in Sun Valley, and Francesca expected them to do the same. Phillip had met Francesca at a wedding in Miami that they were both in, and they’d had a lot of fun, with a salsa band and a boisterous crowd at the wedding.

Since then, they had met for weekends, and she’d come to the Napa Valley, but she didn’t like anything about it, and compared to her parents, she thought Phillip’s father was a little rough, and he made no pretense of being otherwise. Phillip was more polished and more educated. He had an MBA from Harvard, and she couldn’t understand why he wanted to waste it on the wine business in the Napa Valley, even if they made a lot of money. She thought he should work at a bank like her father. Her mother had never worked and was the head of the Junior League. Francesca had been living in San Francisco for the last six months, in order to be closer to him, and she wanted a job at a museum, but she had been a receptionist at an ad agency since she’d arrived and hated it. She missed Michigan, where her family and all her friends lived. She kept complaining that California was so different, and he kept thinking she’d get used to it.

She was talking to him about the flowers at their wedding while the accordion droned on in his ear, and the banjo got on his nerves. He was feeling claustrophobic, and wanted to go away somewhere with her. He had suggested Tahiti for their honeymoon, Bali, or the Dominican Republic, and Francesca wanted to go to Hawaii or Palm Beach.

“Don’t you want to go somewhere more exciting?” he asked gently. “What about Paris?” She looked blank for a minute and then shook her head.

“I don’t think so. The weather is terrible. My sister went there for her honeymoon and it rained the whole time.” She didn’t have a spirit of adventure, but he had liked that about her at first. He thought she’d be a good person to settle down with, instead of the girls he’d been dating who wanted to go out all the time and party, but he had started to miss them, and felt guilty that he did. The only time he had ever seen her cut loose was at the wedding in Miami, where she was drunk on margaritas all weekend. She’d been a lot more fun then.

The party seemed to last forever, and finally the guests left. They had dinner at the country club that night, and afterward, he took Francesca out for drinks. He wanted to see something more exciting than the dreary people he’d been with all day. And he was sitting in the bar with her, when suddenly he felt as though he’d been hit by lightning, or had gotten sane. What was he doing with this woman who already bored him before they were married? And she said she wanted four kids in the next five years. He felt trapped thinking about it, and he didn’t know what to say to her. He decided to sleep on it that night and not do anything hasty. But by the time they went back to the country club for lunch again the next day, all Phillip wanted to do was bolt and run.

He took her for a long walk afterward and told her the bad news.

“I don’t think I can do this. I’m either not ready for marriage, or this isn’t right for me. I love the Napa Valley, you hate it. I love the business I’m in, you don’t. I love traveling to exotic places, that’s your worst nightmare. I don’t feel ready for children, I just stopped being one myself. You want four immediately, which terrifies me. I think we need to call this off before we both make a terrible mistake.”

“I think you’re phobic about marriage,” she said and blew her nose on a tissue she had in her pocket. He felt awful doing this to her, but he felt worse doing it to himself. It seemed as though he had to give up his life to marry her. And he didn’t want to do that, ever. She was shrinking his life day by day. And he was never going to become a banker in Grosse Pointe like her father. He wanted to be like his father and run the biggest wine business in the Napa Valley, even if his father was rough around the edges. He loved him that way and he was the smartest man he knew.

He booked a seat on the plane to Boise for that night and they told her parents before he left. He hadn’t expected it to turn out that way, but he knew it was the right thing for him. She gave him back the ring before he left. And as he got on the plane that night and they took off, he felt liberated, and had never been as relieved in his life. He had done the right thing. He was thirty-one years old and a free man again. He had never been happier in his life.