Page 2 of Corkscrew You
“Shelby—”
JP again.
“You know I say it straight.”
I do know this. He’s like Dr Phil with hair; he doesn’t sugar coat.
“You don’t have the skills to manage Flora Valley Wines,” he says. “You make excellent wine, but you lack commercial experience and—forgive me for being blunt—so did your father. Billy Armstrong was a visionary, but he was a winemaker first and foremost, not a businessman. He scraped by because people loved him and wanted him to succeed. Flora Valley needs to be run properly from now on. By a business manager.”
Damn it, I feel tears welling up. First gawking, now crying. And not all of it’s grief for Dad. There’s a goodly load of humiliation and frustration in there, too. I didn’t convince JP I could do it, and now he’s going to bring someone in over and above me. All I can hope is that it’s someone whogetsus – who shares the same ideals and wants to achieve the same vision. Dad will haunt me if I let a stranger mess with his life’s work.
“You and your father have built a great brand.”
JP dips the knife in salt and jabs it in my heart again.
“And with you making wine, and Nate here managing the commercial side, Flora Valley will be guaranteed a great future.”
Waitwhat? No!
“Nate has an MBA from Harvard.”
So? I have a Player of the Day certificate for peewee soccer. Takes more than a piece of paper to make you an expert on wine.
“And over the last four years, he’s managed to turn around a failing French winery and make it a global success.”
Don’t care. I don’t like him. Well, OK, I don’t know him, but I know histype. Harvard business folks are all about the money, profit before people, and they don’t hesitate to, as they so charmingly put it, “cull the dead wood.” Flora Valley Wines is afamilybusiness, and we treat each other well. We pull together, through hard times as well as good. Wealwayshave each other’s backs.
I notice a flicker of something cross Nathan Durant’s face. Gone too quickly for me to register the emotion. If I were in a charitable mood, I might call it sympathy. But because I’m furious and humiliated, I’ll choose to see it as gloating amusement. He’s enjoying seeing me brought low. He’s looking forward to destroying all that Dad and I have created, and replacing every Flora worker with a robot. I’m so angry, I’m making stuff up, but I know in my heart that he’s wrong for our business. I can’t – Iwon’twork with him.
“Nathan’s appointment is a non-negotiable part of our contract, Shelby.”
Guess what? I’m working with him.
JP smiles at both of us in turn, like we’re the oldest grandkids he’s trusting to mind all the younger ones, so he and Grandma can leave the house and go line dancing.
And thenhesmiles, and damn it, my nervous system lights up in a traitorous response.
But only for a second, because that’s how long the smile lasts.
“Let’s talk,” he says.
Nathan Durant, my new boss. Breaking his jerk vow of silence.
“I’ll run through the changes I intend to make.”
ChapterTwo
NATE
Ishould cut her some slack. Guy she’s never met—doesn’t know, doesn’t trust—taking over from her late father, shaking the place up. I saw her face back there in JP’s office. Fear as well as hurt. And I know how willing to cooperate I’d be if I were in her shoes.
But after a solid half hour of her stonewalling any discussion on my business plan—a plan that JP has already one hundred percent approved, I might add—I’m looking around for something to brain her with. We’re in a restaurant within walking distance of JP’s office that doubles as an upmarket kitchen shop, selling status gadgets like oyster-shucking sets and vinegar crocks. I spy a cast iron spice grinder. That’d do it. I wonder if I can reach it from here.
“You don’tknowFlora Valley,” she says for the forty-millionth time. “So how can you expect to impose a one-size-fits-all plan on us and have it work?”
“I don’t need to know it,” I reply, yet again. “A winery is a winery. Like an apple orchard is an apple orchard. The only variables are the climate, the soil, and the skill of the workers. The former Idoknow, and workers can be managed and trained.” And I add, because she’s pissing me off, “Or fired.”
She screws up her mouth. No lipstick. No makeup at all that I can see. Shelby Armstrong goes for theau naturellook, which in this place makes her stand out like a drunken gatecrasher at a wedding. I grew up just outside this town, and I’ve watched it move up the social scale. Right now, we’re surrounded by the kind of wealthy women who consider Natural-ville a hellhole to which they never intend to return. I’ve seen more than a couple of polished taut-faced specimens glance our way, take in Shelby’s Daisy Duke outfit – cowboy boots, denim shorts, and a shirt that looks like she snatched it off the floor of her bedroom.
