by Violet Paige
“Okay. I’ve got the lower level access ready,” Kimble announced. “We can go down to the tunnels now.” I jumped when he walked briskly from the dark hallway. I had lingered too long thinking about Knight.
“Great.” I smiled.
I brushed over the pendant once more. Maybe one day Knight would know what I had done. Maybe one day he would know it was for him. Maybe there was a way we could heal our families. Make the changes no one else could. Modernize the organizations. Right now, he had to pay his penance and I had to pay mine.
It was hard to imagine a time when I’d ever be able to tell him. I knew he had flown home for Seraphina’s wedding. His picture was posted everywhere. I stopped looking at my phone for a week, just to avoid seeing his eyes in someone else’s snap story. It didn’t keep me from waiting for him to call, but I never heard from him. Not a text. Not a DM. Nothing. Neither my father nor I received an invite to the ceremony or the reception. It was obvious that the Corbans were sending a clear signal. There was no way it could be muddled. We weren’t welcome. The damage was done.
I didn’t sleep the night of the wedding. I thought Knight would show up in a red sports car and try to convince me to leave one more time. That didn’t happen either.
It was over. He was gone.
The elevator door closed, and I descended beneath the street. Absorbed by the darkness and the cold. Shielded from the sunlight and plunged into the damp earthy scent of the tunnels. For now, I knew this was where I belonged.
2
Knight
I stared at the phone resting on the table. It was new like the other parts of my life. There weren’t many numbers saved in contacts. One in particular I had made sure not to add. It was better this way. She was better off not hearing from me. False hope was a dangerous poison. I’d done enough to her.
A month after landing in France and everything still felt as if life was happening around me. I’d hastily chosen a flat that overlooked a park. Did it matter where I lived? My baby grand was delivered last week. I hadn’t had the stomach to open the keyboard yet. Every time I looked at it, I thought of her and nothing else. How was I supposed to play the fucking thing with that kind of memory haunting it? Her legs. Her whimpers. Her lips. I’d almost torched it the first night it arrived. I sat on one side of the room with a bottle of bourbon, the piano on the other. Even if I burned the instrument into a pile of ash, I wouldn’t be able to erase the memories of what I had done to Kennedy—how I had treated her when she followed me to my apartment. Those images were seared in my mind permanently.
A woman pranced past my table in red high heels speaking impeccable French. She smiled casually as she ducked into the café. Her lipstick matched the shoes.
I lit another cigarette. I didn’t give a shit anymore that I had quit. Nothing about my decisions in New Orleans made a difference now. This was Paris. I should have enjoyed the freedom. Instead, it felt as if I was imprisoned in someone else’s life. A life I didn’t sign up for.
I checked the time on my phone. I had thirty minutes before the train left for Epernay. I paid my server and stepped away from the café. There were fifty more just like it on the way to the station. I dodged waiters straightening chairs back into long rows. I decided to walk around the block to kill time.
As soon as I turned the corner, I saw a flower cart. It happened before I could stop the onslaught in my head. I knew which ones to buy Kennedy. The ones that would make the corners of her lips turn upward. Make her eyes sparkle. She could carry them while we walked the crooked streets and ate croissants, drank red wine, and talked about where to make ten o’clock dinner reservations. I’d look for a hole in the wall. She’d want something elegant. I saw the entire scene play out in less than a second. It happened that fleetingly.
Fuck. I glowered at the flower cart worker while I snuffed out the cigarette only a few feet from the wheels. I quickly moved on, trying to forget that in an instant I had fallen off the wagon again.
When would she move out of my head? Maybe I needed to burn the piano after all. It was the only way to save myself from the constant torture.
I jogged down the steps to the train platform. A gust blew through the tunnel with the arrival of another train. I hopped onboard and found a seat near the window. It wasn’t long before I was headed to Epernay. The city walls whizzed past, transforming into the French countryside. There was something restorative about seeing the vineyards, the abundance of grapes, the green and brown vines twisted together in long chains. During my first trip through the champagne fields, all I thought about was how to move more bottles. How to maximize production. How to prove to my father I could handle the French arm of the business.
But now? I looked forward to the train and the drive. I fell into an easy pace with the landscape that had nothing to do with grape quality, and everything to do with rebuilding something inside me.
Within an hour I arrived at the small station. There were occasionally a few women selling postcards outside. Sometimes, a man asked to shine my shoes. But it wasn’t busy. It was quiet, almost eerie. The Corban vineyard was ten minutes beyond the village. I paid a cab to take me to the main entrance, asking to be dropped off at the front gate. I needed the walk to the offices.
The sun blazed overhead as I swung my jacket over my shoulder and rolled up my sleeves for the walk. I didn’t mind the dust or the heat. Maybe I was numb to my surroundings. I existed, that was it.
The first swirl looked like a wisp of clouds, hanging too low to the barn. I lifted the sunglasses to the top of my head to study the odd formation. Shit. It wasn’t a cloud. It was smoke. Plumes of gray. Thickening by the second. Covering the horizon and the roofline of the cottage up ahead.
I dropped my jacket and began to sprint. I passed the second gate to the side path that circled the north vineyard. I choked as I ran into a low cloud. Where was it coming from?
“Monsieur Corban!”
Peter waved his arms wildly. I changed course and met him on the path. He was as out of breath as I was. He gasped several times before I could get him to focus.
“What the hell is happening?” I screamed. “Where did it start? Did you call the fire department?” I tried to intersperse French with my English, but I couldn’t catch up to the words.
His face was covered in black streaks of ash.
“Peter.” I shook his shoulders.
“Oui. Pompiers.” The firefighters. That was something, but I didn’t hear the engines. The only thing I heard was the roaring fire.
I dropped my grip on him and turned toward the building that was now engulfed in flames.
“The champagne, Peter! The grapes!” I rushed forward but was immediately shoved backward. I hit the gravel drive roughly. “What the fuck,” I snarled. “That’s my office. This is my vineyard.”
It wasn’t Peter standing over me, it was a man in a dark blue uniform. The baton in his fists explained how he had knocked me on my back. I spotted a motorbike leaning on its side. He was the first to arrive on the scene from the local emergency dispatch.
“Stay.” He eyed me.
I dusted myself off as the truck pulled into view and the pompiers dismounted and started pulling the hoses over their shoulders. The man barked orders at the team. They began to surround the stone cottage.
Peter and I watched from a distance while they began to line up.
“What happened?” I asked the vineyard manager. “How did the fire start?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I was in the cellars and when I came back up, there was smoke. I grabbed my phone and ran outside.”
“How long ago?” I pressed.
The Frenchman shrugged. “Twenty minutes?”
“Twenty minutes.” I sighed.
“Oui.”
“The tunnels?” I glanced at him. “Do you think it spread in the tunnels?” Beneath the offices were twenty-five connecting tunnels that spanned almost fifteen miles. If they had been breached by the flames, th
e entire vineyard was lost. I’d never be able to recuperate that kind of production.
“I don’t know, Monsieur Corban.”
“Was there anyone else here?” Occasionally, Peter provided guided tours of the cellars and hosted champagne tastings for tourists. Our cellars were lesser known and didn’t have the kind of traffic the others did in the village.
“No,” he answered. “Only me.”
“Thank God.”
By now, the men who worked in the grape fields had begun to gather close to us. I saw their eyes. The fear and uncertainty the fire brought. Every time a spark launched off the roof I watched to see if it would hit one of the vines. What then? I was about to lose all of it. Was I going to lose the grapes too?
“Monsieur Corban?” The man who had knocked me on my ass approached. He had returned the baton to his holster. I glared at him, my arms folded over my chest.
“Yes.” I stepped forward.
“The fire is contained.”
“Did it spread to the tunnels?” I asked. “How much damage is there?”
“Come with me.” He led me away from the vineyard workers. We stopped on the other side of the rescue engine. “I’m sorry, but the offices are a total loss.”
“What about the casks? The wine and champagne? I have a million bottles under our feet.”
“I sent a team to the first level. I think you might have some heat damage, but there was no fire.”
I exhaled. I could rebuild a cottage. I could rebuild a tasting venue and a gazebo for weddings. I couldn’t reproduce a hundred years-worth of priceless grapes.
“Thank you.” I nodded at the report.
“I will begin an investigation as soon as I’m able to set foot in there. It’s still too hot.”
“You think someone started the fire?”
“We will find out if that’s what happened.”
My brow furrowed. The officer walked away. I rubbed the back of my head, trying to make sense of what happened. I had to catch my breath and figure out what I was going to do next. When I glanced at the workers, I noticed their families had started to join them. One man put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. She leaned into him as they watched the weeping smoke curl in tendrils over the roof.
The vineyard was going to require all of my attention now. Were the burning embers the escape I needed? A salvation in disguise. I wasn’t religious. Barely spiritual, but maybe God had tossed me a line. I needed to grab on and take hold before I drowned.
3
Kennedy
Present Day
I read the headline on my phone, but I struggled to reconcile the news story was about my casino project. The one Knight was trying to destroy. I turned the screen over on my desk. I couldn’t look at it again. It also hid the texts and calls from Knight. I had no plans to answer any of them. He got what he wanted. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing the pain in my voice.
“Good morning,” Renee marched into my office. She tossed her briefcase in an open chair and poured a cup of coffee.
“I don’t think we see the morning the same way.” How did she smile under these circumstances?
“It’s a setback. Only a setback.” She sipped her coffee. “I have a meeting set up with a new lobbyist at two today.”
She didn’t know about the emotional grenade the chain of events from the Crescent Towers had set off. This wasn’t solely about losing the biggest deal of my career, it was about being stabbed in the back by the one person I trusted.
“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows. “Who is the new lobbyist?”
“She has connections to both Senators Merritt and Hyde. She’s been recommended by a friend.”
I turned my back on my attorney. Even from this distance I could see the crane hovering next to the Crescent Towers construction site from my window. I could also pick out the Vieux Carre from here. They were in different directions.
“Kennedy?”
“Hmm?”
“I was trying to tell you about Victoria Banks. The new lobbyist.”
I peered closely at the boutique hotel, as if I could make out an athletic build in an expensive suit exiting the front lobby. I wondered if Knight had found my note. Did he realize I had left the necklace with it? Was he looking for me? Or did things go according to plan? My chest tightened with the realization that the entire night together was more than likely a setup. The first battle point went to him, but he wasn’t going to win the war.
I had said and done things last night that exposed the cracks in my armor. It was okay. I had more armor lying around.
“Kennedy.” Renee sounded testy.
I spun on my heels. “Get Victoria in here. I want in on the meeting.”
“It’s at two. I’ll tell her—”
“No,” I corrected her. “Now. Get her in here now.”
“But—”
My eyes were as cutting as my voice. Renee backtracked her steps. “All right. I’ll see if she can rearrange her morning.”
“Good. And send Crew in for me on your way out.”
Within a matter of minutes my assistant stepped inside the glass doors.
“You look horrible.” I stared at him. There were dark circles under his blue eyes. His shirt was wrinkled. “I take that back—it’s worse. You look like you slept in the office.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head.
“Did you sleep on the couch?”
“It was a late night. We were all here,” he answered. He looked away, but I got the message. My team was here trying to put out a fire while I was in the Vieux Carre suite. Crew had no idea how much I wished I could change the decision I made last night. My stomach twisted in knots every time I thought about Knight’s hands canvassing my body.
“Thank you.” I tried to soften my tone. “For working so late.”
“Of course.” He paused. “Renee said you needed something?”
“Right.” I shook Knight from my head. “I need everything else on my schedule cleared for the day. The Crescent Towers project is my main priority. My only priority until we can get the votes we need.”
“Okay. What else?” he asked. His head was buried in his phone, taking notes. It was possible he had already re-ordered the day for me.
Crew had been with me for three years. I had trained twenty assistants before finally landing on him. He was a fast learner. He didn’t try to weigh me down with personal conversations. He had been reliable and trustworthy since the day I hired him.
“I’ll let you know.”
He turned to leave.
“Crew?”
“Hmm?” He stopped in the doorway.
“See what you can find out about Knight Corban’s tech investments. I need everything you can dig up on it.”
“Excuse me?” It wasn’t often he didn’t understand my instructions.
“He has new money. Money he’s using to fund the PAC. Renee told me you are up to speed on this.”
“I am. I know all the players.” His voice was clipped with defiance. I wondered if I’d ever seen him this short and edgy before.
“Good. I didn’t want to have to bring in someone else. It should be easy for you to tell me everything about the tech. I want to know all of it.” Whatever Knight was capitalizing on with the tech, I was going to strip it down to its bare bones and render it useless. I would find a way to cut off his funding.
“Got it.” I sensed uneasiness on his part or maybe it was the exhaustion from working nearly twenty-four hours straight.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. “I’m good. Going to get a coffee refill now. I’ll be back with the information before the end of the day.”
The door closed and I felt the heaviness of the quiet room. I wanted to pull my staff back inside. I wanted incessant chatter and constant questions. I needed the distraction. I needed to be steered on course and drawn out of the darkest parts of the ocean. Right now, all I felt was the murky water squeezing the air from my lungs.
I had to sit. I gripped the side of my desk before I stumbled. Shit. I had let Knight in, and I had to find a way to shut him back out before I drowned in my mistakes.
4
Knight
Had my little sister ever been on time? I strolled through the open barn, eyeing the horses in their stables. She had added several since the last time I was home. Seraphina often texted pictures when she was deciding between her first and second picks. I couldn’t keep up with her decisions, though. She changed her mind at the last second. I patted a chestnut stallion while I waited for her to arrive.
The upgrades were noticeable. She had obviously taken my advice and used the Castilles steak fortune to her advantage. There were two fully furnished apartments adjacent to the building that were new. I wondered why they had been built.
It had been years since I had spent any time at the stables. It was always Seraphina’s favorite place to escape. I assumed it still was. I continued my walk, leaving the horses behind. We used to run through the fields together as kids. Half the time I was chasing her with a frog or mouse I had found near the barn, the other half she was trying to catch up to me. I was older, faster, stronger. There were days I didn’t want my little sister on my heels or next to me. I’d outrun her and end up at one of the equipment buildings. I stopped outside the door and let it creak open when I turned the handle.
I spotted the tractor on the other side of the giant room. I couldn’t believe it was the same one. I ran my palm over the hood. I smiled at the small dent in the side. My grandfather had given me the wheel and I was over eager to prove how I could maneuver around tight spaces. My index finger rested in the groove. Childhood was simple. I barely recognized the life I lived now.
“You’re here? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
I stepped back from the tractor. My sister strolled toward me in black riding boots.
