‘No. I’m talking to the vines.’
‘You talk to the vines?’
She shrugged, her blue eyes intent on him, flashing out a challenge. Was he calling her weird? ‘Sure I do. Something wrong with that?’
‘What do you talk about?’ he said, the corners of his lips twitching like he thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard but he was too polite to laugh out loud. ‘The weather?’
‘Sometimes,’ she said, deadpan. She was good at what she did. She didn’t have to defend herself or her methods, however unconventional, to anyone. ‘I’ve known these vines all my life. They’re like old friends. And like old friends, they like to hear if they’re looking good, and at other times they need a word of encouragement or two.’ She raised her chin. ‘What’s so hard to understand about that?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘So is that why they call you the wine whisperer, because you actually talk to the vines?’
She pulled a face as she tossed the dregs of her coffee onto the grass and stacked the empty cup in the basket.
She didn’t have to explain anything to him.
She was still cranky about him proving to be such an excellent pruner.
She was even more cranky thinking that the way he was going, sooner or later he might even beat her up a row, and wasn’t that going to sting!
She didn’t want to think about how cranky it made her that she’d actually enjoyed this break.
‘Isn’t that just the dumbest name?’ she said, standing up and brushing imaginary grass from her trousers and putting a full stop on the conversation. ‘We should get back to work.’
CHAPTER SIX
THEY’D PRUNED FOR two and a half days straight and her back knew it and her neck knew it. At the end of a row she straightened to stretch the kinks out of her spine while she rubbed her neck and looked at her watch. Good timing. If she stopped now she’d have just enough time to get showered and grab a bite to eat before she needed to head off to her appointment down at Port MacDonnell. She was looking forward to the trip. If nothing else, it would give her a few welcome daylight hours’ respite from the man who’d been shadowing her along the rows.
Two and a half straight days and she felt like she’d been through the emotional wringer. First had come the anger that Franco had arrived expecting to waltz in and waltz out on the next plane with the rights to their next vintage tied in a big red bow. How many times that day had she thought she’d prevailed and that Franco would soon be on his way?
Wrongly, as it turned out. Because she’d been cornered—blackmailed, really—into a deal at the last moment, with only the glimmer of hope that his claims to pruning were overblown to buoy her.
That glimmer had been extinguished the first morning, so then had followed the dull grey blanket of resignation, the knowledge that any hopes of an early escape from this deal were gone.
She felt like a woman who’d fallen overboard and was waiting for a lifeline.
That lifeline now rested with someone in his family tripping up on the world stage in the next few weeks.
It shouldn’t be a big ask. It really shouldn’t. They were Chatsfields after all. It was in their DNA to mess up. Hadn’t the youngest one, Cara, been in the news lately—something about a card game in Las Vegas? Surely she couldn’t stay out of trouble for too long?
And yet the knowledge that she was going to be scouring the web every night looking for a story—a scandal—that would save Purman Wines from the clutches of Chatsfield Hotels seemed a pretty shabby kind of lifeline.
But it was all she had.
That and the promise of a few hours away from the man who had caused all this trouble in the first place.
And right now the promise of those few hours was like a beacon.
‘Lunchtime!’ she called, wondering where the hell Franco had got to, given they’d started at the same time. She caught a glimpse of movement but it was a couple of rows on and finally she found reason for a smile. They’d agreed to do alternate rows and clearly he’d started on the wrong one.
Not such an expert after all.
‘You missed a row,’ she called when he looked up, and he scowled and shook his head and for a second she assumed he hadn’t heard her, until she took a few steps closer and realised that the row she was accusing him of missing was pruned as neatly as one of her own.
‘How did you do that?’ she asked, not a little bit peeved, as he came closer, pulling off his gloves.
‘Simple. I don’t waste time communing with the assets.’
‘I’ll have you know it’s not wasting time, Mr Chatsfield.’
‘And I’ll have you know I was teasing, Ms Purman. I told you I’d done this before. I just took some time getting into my stride.’