Too Close to the Sun (31 page)

Her eyes shone with tears that didn't fall.
"You're right," she told him, then moved away. "I totally agree."
Then she walked out, clicking the door shut behind her, and leaving
Will to wonder if they'd even been talking about the same
thing.

It all looked just as she remembered.

Then again, Gabby thought, hurtling her tiny
rental Fiat south on an
autostrada
that sliced through the
heart of Chianti, Italy didn't change much over centuries. Why in
the world would she expect it to change in little more than a
year?

Because I'm so different
. She pushed
her foot down even harder on the accelerator, jerking the red
needle on the Fiat's speedometer past 130 kilometers an
hour—amazingly, the official speed limit on the Superstrada del
Palio. No longer was she the lovesick girl who'd been so head over
heels over Vittorio Mantucci that she'd been willing to toss aside
country and family to be with him. Nor was she the brokenhearted
wretch who'd fled Tuscany for home, cursing the man who'd hurt her,
cursing herself for being such a fool as to let him.

Now, a year later, she was stronger, more
sure of herself and what she cared about. There was nothing like
losing something precious to learn a fast lesson about what really
mattered. The older, wiser Gabby knew. Her family. The valley.
Suncrest. For her, they were the holy trinity of what was dear.

Yet something else was becoming dear, too.
Someone.

When Gabby thought of Will, tears blurred her
vision, made the highway lines run together in strips of fuzzy
white.
I love you
, he had told her. Would he ever say that
to her again, after this?

What a terrible choice she was forced to
make. And how very ironic. In the last days she'd come to
understand Vittorio better than ever before. Now she grasped what
he had gone through, now that she, too, had to choose between her
family and her lover. Now she understood the guilt, the anguish, he
must have felt.

You could go back
. The temptation was
always there, needling her.
Turn around and drive back to
Florence airport, get on a plane home. You're risking too much.
Give up. Give in.

She shook her head. She couldn't do that, not
really. She was the only thing standing between her family and
"economic inevitability," or whatever phrase Will might use to try
to mask how real people got hurt. People like her father. Now,
after the heart attack, he needed the stability of what he was
accustomed to. She didn't think he could handle the pressure of a
big, corporate winery—which clearly was what Suncrest would turn
into.

No one even knew she had engaged in this
battle. This trip was secret to everyone but Vittorio. Her family
thought she was in San Francisco visiting a girlfriend from
college, and Will had no idea where she was. She'd simply found a
discount airline ticket and bought it. Now she was here.

When Will found out what she was doing, he
would be enraged. He would think it a massive betrayal. He might
even lose his job if the acquisition of Suncrest fell through, and
naturally he would blame her. He was always telling her he was only
as good as his last deal, and that he'd been in a dry spell.

The horrible truth was, Will would be right.
She was betraying him. But her only other choice was to betray her
family. For if she didn't fight to protect what they loved and
needed, what had been precious to them for twenty-five years,
wouldn't that be a betrayal, too? She could only hope that in the
fullness of time, Will would understand. And forgive her. Though
that might be the most foolish hope of all.

She sped past a highway sign that read SIENA,
7 KM. From Siena it wasn't far to Castelnuovo. Nervousness shivered
through her as she realized how close she now was to the task that
lay ahead. It was time to dry her tears, shove all doubt aside, and
do what she had come to do.

Briefly she considered stopping in Siena—a
gorgeous walled medieval city—for a bowl of pasta and a glass of
the local wine. What could be more natural? It was past lunchtime,
she'd been traveling for twenty hours now, and was exhausted and
hungry.

Yet who was kidding whom? Gabby forced
herself to ignore the turnoff. She would only be procrastinating,
and postponing the inevitable, and Vittorio would be insulted that
she'd eaten at a restaurant rather than allow the Mantucci family
to feed her. And now was not the time to insult Vittorio. Not with
what she wanted him to do for her.

And for himself too. I'm doing him a favor,
giving him an enormous opportunity. Which is far more than he
deserves.

Clearly he'd been shocked at her phone call
from California. He'd stepped all over himself trying to be
gracious, even offering to send a driver to Florence airport to
retrieve her. No, of course she must not stay at an inn but at the
winery, in her old room. No, of course he could accommodate her
visit, even though Chiara was days away from giving birth to his
first child.

Gabby knew Vittorio would keep his former
lover and his pregnant wife far, far apart. She knew she would not
see his parents. She knew that his hospitality would not extend
beyond the perimeters of the winery. Yet all that was appropriate,
and just as well.

Minutes later, she turned onto a country road
that twined through the mountains and valleys that separated the
historic rival cities of Florence and Siena. Dark green cypresses
on both sides of the narrow asphalt pierced the perfect blue sky.
Ahead lay Castelnuovo Berardenga, the sunbaked land that gave birth
to so many of Chianti's premier wines. As the Fiat chugged up one
slope and hastened down another, she caught a glimpse of an old
church, a grove of olive trees, a small vineyard. Centuries-old
villas hid behind low stone walls, their residents the descendants
of Siena's rich banking and wool families. She drove past one
village, then another—barely more than a few farmhouses grouped
together, sharing a
trattoria
, maybe an
ufficio
postale
. Here and there a door was open, revealing a cool dark
interior. An old woman wearing a kerchief swept a stoop; an old man
eyed her passing car as he puffed on his pipe. It was all as
heart-stoppingly beautiful as she remembered, and as timeless.

Her heart thudded as she turned onto the
private lane she knew so well, every bend and dip, every puff of
dust from its age-old surface. As she ascended a gentle slope,
trees eventually gave way to vineyards, well tended as ever and
heavy with the sangiovese grapes the region was famous for. Ahead
atop the hill, where it had stood since the Crusades, perched the
Mantucci family winery, Castello di Corvo. Shimmering in the sun as
if plucked from a fairy tale, it rose from the ground in
wheat-colored stone, with the ravens it was named for swooping and
cawing above its crenellated battlements.

Gabby brought the Fiat to a halt on a
dirt-packed courtyard in front of the winery. She stood to stretch
her legs and collect herself, the sun baking her shoulders, the
midday quiet broken by distant church bells. Then a motion caught
her eye, and she turned to see Vittorio rushing toward her,
smiling, both hands outstretched in greeting.

*

Tuesday morning, as Max trotted past the
foyer table on his way from the kitchen to the pool, he noticed in
the pile of mail that Mrs. Finchley had brought in that the latest
issue of
Wine World
had arrived. There it lay among bills
and glossy magazines and junk-mail flyers.

He stared at it, then stubbed out his
cigarette on the table's ashtray. A cold sweat broke out on his
back. With nervous fingers, he picked it up and continued outside,
his bare feet padding on the hardwood.

He shed his white terry-cloth robe in a heap
on the grass and took up a poolside position on a chaise longue.
Then he picked up
Wine World
, a weekly newsprint periodical
the size and shape of the
New York Post
. That was where the
similarities ended. Max doubted the
Post
had ever seen fit
to print words like
viticulture
or
meniscus
or
viscosity
, many of which he only half understood
himself.

Joseph Wagner's chatty column was easy to
find. Max took a deep breath, then scanned it quickly looking for
the word Suncrest.

Damn
. There it was, in bold type. Two
whole paragraphs followed.

He took a second, deeper breath, and started
reading.

What's truth and what's fiction? Depends on
who you ask. Suncrest Vineyards owner and general manager Max
Winsted denies that the esteemed winery founded by his father
rebottled its 2003 sauvignon blanc. But other insiders say
otherwise, as do an assortment of usually reliable Napa Valley
folks in the know.

What makes this story an even greater
mystery is that apparently the decanting wasn't due to a problem
with the wine but a change of heart with regard to the bottle.
Seems that Mr. Winsted's taste for all things French lingered even
after his return to California from
cette belle
patrie
.

Problem is that as appealing as I, too, find
this vintage's heavy French bottle, the wine itself leaves a bit to
be desired, particularly at thirty bucks a pop retail. And I'm not
the only one turning up my nose. Sources tell me that sales are
sluggish, a real turnaround for a winery whose offerings typically
fly off the shelves. . . .

Fuming, Max threw the paper aside, where soon
the breeze carried the pages all around the pool and pergola area,
some on the grass, some against the low mesh fence that separated
the residence from the vineyards, some even into the pool
itself.

That's where the whole damn thing deserves
to be!
Man, it would be none too soon that he unloaded this
albatross his mother kept insisting on calling a legacy. And
bidding adieu to traitor employees like Gabby DeLuca, who clearly
was the "insider" Wagner referred to. She'd threatened to spill the
beans, and by God, she had. And the bitch probably considered
herself loyal.

Max shook his head in disgust. Women. But
thinking of women made him think of his mother, and that made him
smile. The signature he'd wrested out of her would make a
thirty-million-dollar payoff possible. He relaxed his head against
the chaise and closed his eyes, enjoying the hot sun as it beat
against his skin. Did he play her like Menuhin played a
Stradivarius or what? His performance in Paris had been nothing shy
of sublime.

Someone loomed over him, cutting off the sun.
"Good morning, Max. I take it you've read Joseph Wagner's
column?"

Max's eyes fluttered open. It was Henley,
sounding and looking mildly amused.

Arrogant prick
.

Max levered himself into a sitting position,
wishing the strewn pages of
Wine World
didn't make it look
like the column had sparked a hissy fit. "I glanced at it," he
said.

Henley helped himself to an adjoining chaise,
on which he sat his trim, tall, well-dressed body. "Sorry to
disturb you at home, but there's something we need to discuss." He
glanced at his watch—pointedly, it seemed to Max. "I wasn't sure
when you'd find time to make it down to the winery."

Another dig. Max wouldn't miss this Henley
guy once their business was concluded. But until that happy day, he
had to be nice. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Well, as you know, we've been going through
the due-diligence process."

"And how has that been progressing?"

"Just fine. But new facts have emerged that
have a bearing on the acquisition price that we discussed."

Max sat up straighter on the chaise. "We
didn't just discuss a price. We agreed to one."

"True. But that price is contingent upon
certain assumptions I made about Suncrest's financial health. And
some of those are proving to be unfounded."

Max didn't like the sound of that. He
narrowed his eyes at Henley. "A deal's a deal."

"So it is. Max, don't get me wrong." Henley
chuckled and raised his hands in the air. "I very much want to
acquire Suncrest; that hasn't changed. But given what we've learned
through the due-diligence process, it's obvious that I can't do it
at the price we discussed. Let me tell you why. . . ."

And Henley embarked on a dissertation about
how the sauvignon blanc wasn't selling and how by now everyone knew
it was rebottled and how they might have to write the whole vintage
off and who knew how much collateral damage would be done to sales
of the cabernet sauvignon, which accounted for 80 percent of
revenues.

Max listened to all of this with his heart
pounding and sweat starting to run from his armpits down into the
too-tight waistband of his trunks. Just when he thought this damn
deal was done, Henley was trying to retrade it! By how much? It
sounded like mucho millions! How was Max supposed to get his mother
to agree to that?

Henley finally wrapped up. "As far as I'm
concerned, we should just withdraw the sauvignon blanc from the
market. Admit that it's ruined and write it off entirely."

"That's ridiculous." Max rose from the chaise
and stared at the pool. "It may not be totally perfect but it's
still great wine."

"That may well be, Max," Henley's voice said
behind him. "I'm not the connoisseur you are."

Max shook his head. Even when Henley
delivered a compliment, it sounded patronizing.

"But the fact remains that it's not selling,"
Henley went on. "And that it'll be years before it sells as well as
it has in the past. And there's no doubt that sales of the cabernet
will be affected. And that accounts for—"

"I know, I know. 80 percent of revenues."