Page 98 of Blush
“I’m sorry. It was so long ago... I never meant to hurt you.” He held up his hand to stop her from talking.
“I can’t hear any more right now.”
He paced back and forth for a minute while she watched him, feeling helpless. She just prayed he wouldn’t leave. It felt like a long time before he looked at her. When he did, his eyes were cold.
“I can’t go through with the sale. I’d sooner watch it all turn to dust than sell to him.”
She nodded. “I understand. But maybe it’s for the best. We can—”
“No sale. No money. A tax debt. We’re in big trouble, Vivian.” He stood and walked to the bedroom door, turning back one more time. “You might not have screwed him, but you screwed us.”
With that, he walked out of the room.
Forty-eight
Leah stood in a secluded stretch of grass behind the barn, angling her phone to avoid the glare of the sun. Steven, on the other end of the video call, stood behind the counter at the cheese shop. She could see the shelves filled with jars of olives and packages of crackers.
“So your motherdidn’thave an affair?” he said.
“No. But enough of a line was crossed that my dad is going to have a real problem.” She hadn’t heard from Vivian since their conversation the day before and didn’t know when—or if—she was going to talk to Leonard. Either way, Leah’s conscience was clear now that she’d said her piece.
“So what’s your plan?” Steven said, clearly impatient.
“You mean, as far as coming home?”
“Leah, I don’t want to be the bad guy here. But one minute we’re about to make an offer on a new space, and the next you’re gone again.”
“I know, I know. But this was a conversation I had to have in person.”
“I understand that. And you did. So are you coming back now?”
“I mean, if there’s nothing for me to do here, then yes, I’ll leave...” Leah averted her eyes from the screen and saw her father a few yards away. It seemed he was just doing his routine inspection of the grapes, but then it became clear he was headed toward her. “Let me call you back. My dad’s here.”
Leonard’s face was half-hidden by his black Hollander Estates baseball cap, but as he drew closer she could see the white stubble along his jaw. His gait was slow; it was as if he had aged overnight. She knew, in that moment, that her mother had told him about her history with the baron. Her heart ached for both of them.
“What are you doing all the way out here?” he asked, his breathing labored.
“Just taking a walk,” she said, reaching into her bag for her water bottle. “Drink something, Dad. You look... tired.”
He waved it away.
“Remember all the times I brought you out here as a little girl?” he said.
“Of course.”
“When I used to thin the crops you’d insist on collecting all the fruit off the ground.”
Leah smiled. As a girl, seeing the discarded grapes on the ground seemed unnatural. She’d gather them up and stick them in her pockets or in a straw basket she carried with her. It seemed sad to leave them in the grass like that, even though they were hard and inedible and, off the vine, would never ripen.
“You were always so enamored with the plants,” he said.
“I still am.” Their eyes met, the deep brown a mirror image of her own. Yes, she’d shared his passion for the vineyard, and whether it was by nature or by nurture, she would never know. And it never mattered—at least not to him. She had been cast aside in favor of his heir apparent, his only son. It was a story as old as time, but it felt uniquely theirs in light of how things were turning out.
“I know I haven’t been... welcoming to your suggestions this summer,” he said.
“Or ever,” she said, crossing her arms.
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you see a way forward?”
