The champagne cork hit me square in the shoulder while I was kneeling in mud, trying to save a million dollars’ worth of grapes from an early frost.
I looked up to see my sister standing on my terrace in a white designer gown, laughing with people I’d never met. She pointed at me and said, loud enough to carry across the garden, “Don’t worry about the gardener. She’s just hired help we keep around out of pity.”
The gardener. The hired help.
I was Catherine Aldridge, sole owner of Aldridge Estate and Winery, one of Napa Valley’s most respected boutique vineyards. The woman in the muddy coveralls owned every square inch of the property my sister was currently using to throw what appeared to be a very expensive party.
And Bella had no idea I was supposed to be in Paris right now.
My name is Catherine Aldridge, and I’m thirty-four years old. Behind my back, the staff calls me the Ice Queen, which I’ve earned through seven years of twelve-hour days, personally inspecting every vine, tasting every barrel, and running one of the tightest operations in the valley. I don’t smile much. I don’t do small talk. I show up before dawn and leave after dark, because that’s what it takes to keep a small winery competitive against corporate operations with unlimited marketing budgets.
Two weeks ago, I’d scheduled a critical business trip to Paris—meetings with French distributors, tours of Bordeaux vineyards, the kind of networking that could open doors for a boutique operation like mine. Everything was arranged, briefed, packed.
Then the weather forecast changed. An unusual cold front was sweeping down from Canada, threatening to destroy my entire Merlot harvest—grapes at that delicate stage where they’re ripe enough to pick but not yet picked. One night of freezing temperatures would turn a million-dollar harvest into compost.
I didn’t hesitate. I cancelled Paris, rebooked my flight home, and drove straight from the airport to the North Vineyard wearing the first work clothes I could grab—heavy waterproof coveralls, rubber boots up to my knees, a wool cap pulled over my ears. The ground was already cold, mud thick and clinging.
I was directing the crew to roll out wind machines and set up irrigation sprinklers when I heard the engines.
At first, I thought it was a lost delivery truck. But when I looked up from checking soil temperature with my bare hands, I saw a convoy of black limousines winding up my private driveway. Expensive cars, moving in stately procession like a funeral for someone very rich.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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