Read Chapter 5: Uninvited Guests

The call came at 6:47 in the morning, a time Camille had long associated with catastrophe. She was already in the vineyard, her boots wet with dew, examining the hail-pocked leaves on the third row of Cabernet Franc when her phone buzzed against her hip.

"Mademoiselle Delacroix." The voice on the other end was crisp, professional, and vaguely familiar. "This is Claire Beaumont from *La Revue des Vignobles*. We're in the region on short notice—a last-minute cancellation freed our schedule. We'd like to visit Château Bellevue and Château Laroche this afternoon. Say, two o'clock?"

Camille's throat tightened. *La Revue des Vignobles* was one of the most influential wine publications in France. A favorable review could shift her entire allocation list; a poor one could seal her father's financial coffin.

"Of course," she said, her voice steady despite the panic coiling in her stomach. "We'd be honored."

She hung up and stood there for a long moment, the phone heavy in her hand. Then she dialed the one number she never thought she'd voluntarily call.

Étienne answered on the second ring. "Camille. You're calling me before eight in the morning. This must be either very good or very bad."

"La Revue des Vignobles is coming at two o'clock. To both properties."

A beat of silence. Then, "You're joking."

"I wish I were."

"Two hours before the tasting, they'll be walking through your cellars and mine. With our water rations, our damaged vines, and—" He stopped. "Where are you right now?"

"The vineyard. Third row of Franc."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

He arrived in eight, pulling up in a battered Land Rover that looked like it had survived a war. His hair was uncombed, his shirt untucked, and Camille felt an irrational spike of irritation that he could look so disheveled and still manage to be infuriatingly handsome.

They stood at the edge of the row, both staring at the damaged canopy as if it might repair itself under scrutiny.

"We need a strategy," Étienne said.

"We need a miracle."

"Those are not mutually exclusive." He pulled out his phone, typing rapidly. "I have two cases of the '19 reserve that's still resting. What do you have that's ready?"

Camille listed her portfolio from memory—the whites, the rosés, the reds in various stages of élevage. He listened, nodding, then shook his head.

"The '18 is too tannic for this crowd. They'll want something fruit-forward, something that shows we can adapt to the heat."

"The '18 is our flagship," Camille said, her voice sharpening. "It's what we're known for."

"It's what you were known for. The critics want to see progress, not nostalgia." He met her eyes. "Your '20 is better. It's more structured. More honest about what these grapes are becoming."

"I haven't finished aging it."

"Neither have I," he admitted. "But we don't have the luxury of waiting for perfect. We have critics arriving while my water ration runs out by Thursday."

Camille closed her eyes. He was right, and the truth of it stung. Their vineyards were changing, the climate shifting, and her insistence on tradition was a slow poison.

"Fine," she said. "The '20. But we present it together, or not at all. A joint story—'Two Estates, One Future' or something equally insufferable."

"The uninvited guests are about to get a lesson in modern Bordeaux," Étienne agreed. "Now let's move. We have hours of work ahead."

---

The next two hours were a whirlwind of controlled chaos. Camille called her cellar master, barking instructions. Étienne did the same, and they worked side by side in the narrow stone passageways of Château Bellevue's cellars, dusting bottles, rearranging displays, arguing about cork versus screw cap until Camille wanted to scream.

"The screw cap is practical," Étienne insisted, holding up a sample. "For a vintage like this, the critics will understand—"

"The critics will see it as sacrilege." Camille pushed his hand down. "We present the cork. We present the tradition. We let the wine speak louder than the cap."

"The wine can't speak if it's tainted by TCA."

"It won't be. I QC'd every batch myself."

Their faces were inches apart. Camille could smell him—sawdust and salt, the faint trace of last night's wine on his breath. His eyes were a deep green she'd never noticed before, flecked with gold in the dim cellar light.

The lights flickered.

They both froze.

The flicker became a stutter, then a gasp, then darkness so complete it was like being blindfolded. Camille's heart hammered against her ribs. She reached out instinctively and her hand met his chest, solid and warm beneath his shirt.

"The generator," she said, her voice coming out higher than she intended. "It's in the back shed."

"The back shed is thirty meters away. Through the dark."

The backup batteries in the cellar were supposed to last for emergencies, but they had failed the month before in a storm, and the replacement had been postponed due to what her father euphemistically called "budgetary discipline."

They were trapped in the dark, in the oldest part of the cellar, where the walls were thick stone and the door seals were ancient iron.

"Great," Étienne muttered. "Just great."

Camille fumbled for her phone in her pocket, but it wasn't there. She'd left it in the tasting room when she'd gone to fetch the decanter. Étienne's hand moved somewhere in the dark, patting his own pockets, and she heard his curse when he came up empty.

"Okay," he said slowly. "We wait. Someone will come when they realize we're missing."

"At two o'clock," Camille said flatly. "When the critics arrive and we're not there."

"Assuming they can even get in. The front door was set on automatic lock for the event."

They stood in silence, breathing. The dark was absolute, pressing against her eyes. Camille could feel his presence beside her, the heat of his body in the cool cellar air.

"We used to play down here," Étienne said suddenly.

"What?"

"When we were kids. Your father and mine were still on speaking terms, briefly. We'd hide in the barrels, see who could stay quiet the longest."

Camille blinked into the darkness. She didn't remember that. She remembered Étienne Laroche as a boy who threw stones at her bicycle and called her father a cheater. But now, in the dark, she heard something else in his voice—wistfulness, maybe.

"You hid in barrels?"

"I always won," he said. "You'd give up after five minutes and start talking about grape varieties."

"I did not."

"Did too. You were eight years old and you'd deliver a lecture on the differences between Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon if no one else was there to listen."

A laugh escaped Camille before she could stop it—a surprised sound, almost a giggle. "My parents told me I was charming."

"Your parents also told you that my family was the root of all evil. They were wrong about one of those things."

The words hung in the dark. Camille's smile faded. She should follow up, push the thread of his implication, but she was tired—bone-deep tired—and for once, the enmity between them felt less important than the simple fact of another body in the darkness, warm and breathing and stubbornly alive.

"Why did you offer to fix my pump?" she asked. "The truth this time."

A long pause. She heard him shift, felt the slight displacement of air as he moved closer.

"Because I saw the invoice for the replacement from your mechanic. And I remembered that Marcel Ouvrier's daughter does your accounting on the side."

Camille's stomach dropped. "You had someone look at my books."

"I had someone look at your pump. The invoice went through the wrong email, and I have a good memory for numbers." A pause. "You're in trouble, Camille. Real trouble. And I don't think it's the kind of trouble you can fix with a good harvest."

The lights flickered back on, harsh and yellow, illuminating the cellar in all its stone and dust glory. They blinked at each other like creatures surfacing from deep water. Camille's hand was still on his chest. She pulled it away.

"The critics," she said.

"Right." Étienne straightened his shirt. "The critics. We can still do this."

They moved as one toward the tasting room, and if their shared laughter from the dark lingered somewhere between them, neither acknowledged it. When the critics arrived—a chic woman in her fifties and two younger men with expensive cameras—Camille and Étienne stood side by side, presenting their vintages as a unified front.

The '20 was a revelation. Camille saw it in the critics' eyes: the depth of the flavor, the subtle notes of blackberry and leather, the way the wine had adapted to the heat without losing its soul.

"An interesting approach," the lead critic said, swirling the glass. "Shared resources. Does this signal a permanent arrangement between the two houses?"

Camille glanced at Étienne. He gave the barest nod.

"We're exploring the future of Bordeaux together," she said carefully. "The region's challenges require innovative solutions."

"Indeed they do." The critic took another sip, and something like approval crossed her face. "I look forward to seeing where this leads."

They left an hour later, promising a full review within the week. Camille waited until their car disappeared down the gravel drive before she let herself breathe.

"That was close," Étienne said, coming to stand beside her.

"Too close." She watched the dust settle on the road. "But we survive."

"For now. Until the review comes out. Until the rains come or don't. Until our debts catch up with us." He turned to face her, something unreadable in his eyes. "You need to look at your father's accounts, Camille. Before it's too late."

"And you need to stop telling me what to do with my family's money." She said it without venom, more exhaustion than anger.

"I'm telling you because I've seen the debts at Laroche eat into everything I thought I'd have." He paused. "The fire in 1985? It wasn't an accident. And I don't think it was your family's doing, no matter what mine said."

Camille froze. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that when you're ready to know the truth, I have some documents that might help. But you have to ask for them." He turned and walked toward his car, then paused with his hand on the door. "And you have to be prepared for what they might tell you about your father."

He drove away, leaving Camille standing in the cooling evening air, a bottle of the 1961 burning in her coat pocket, and the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on her shoulders.