Chasing Venus (54 page)

That put him at his mahogany desk at 5:45 AM, a ball-busting
early arrival even by the type A standards of Will's employer, the
private-equity firm General Pacific Group, known among the business and
financial cognoscenti as GPG.

Will settled in to sip the low-fat latte he'd had sent over
from the building's dining room. Strewn across his desk and file cabinets and
handcrafted bookshelves were dozens of Lucite cubes, each representing a GPG
deal he'd helped transact. On the north wall hung a flat-panel screen flashing
real-time stock quotes from Europe and the closing numbers from Asia. Wall
Street wouldn't begin trading for nearly another hour.

But Will's first task that morning had nothing to do with
financial markets or private-equity transactions. He lifted his phone and
punched in a Denver number he knew by heart. And even though a voice-mail
announcement came on saying Rocky Mountain Flowers wasn't yet open for
business, Will began speaking at the tone.

"Hey, Benny, pick up." He waited a beat. "Pick
up, Benny. I know you're there. It's Will Henley in San—"

"Hello." The voice was slightly out of breath.

"Hey! Thanks, guy. Did I catch you sweeping?"

"First thing every a.m."

"Sorry to interrupt."

"No problem." Benny clattered around a bit.
"So what is it this time, Will? Anniversary? Birthday?"

"Birthday. Beth's."

"Roses or tulips? Or I could do some sort of combo for
you—"

"Do a combo." Will squinted, thinking. "Pink
and yellow—she'd like that. And send it to the office, not the
house."

Benny laughed. "So everybody can ooh and
aah
over it. The usual message?"

"Please." Will smiled. It was a good message. It
made her happy every year.

"You got it, sir."

"Put '
em
in a vase rather
than a box, please, Benny, and try to deliver them early in the day, okay?"
Will glanced up to see Simon
LaRue
, one of GPG's
general partners and hence a truly big dog, hovering at his door. He waved him
in. "Very good," he said into the phone. "Thanks, my man."

Will hung up while
LaRue
halted in
front of his desk, six feet two inches of perfectly groomed American male in a
three-thousand-dollar handmade suit. Simon
LaRue
might be dark-haired, but he was a golden boy, just like Will, just like all
the partners at GPG.

He arched a brow. "Sending some lucky lady flowers,
Henley? Anybody we should know about?"

Will laughed and tried to look enigmatic. Given his
perennial bachelor status, which at age thirty-four was rapidly becoming a
point of fascination not only within his family but also among his conservative
colleagues, he didn't want to admit the bouquet was for his sister.

Nor did he want to admit, even to himself, one tiny part of
his motivation for the gift-giving. It was residual guilt, even after all these
years, for leaving Beth in Denver to run Henley Sand and Gravel while he
traipsed off to chase his dreams. As the elder child and only male, custom
demanded that he follow his father at the helm of the family business. But Will
had wanted a bigger stage. And by God, had he gotten it.

LaRue
smiled. "Ah, those were
the days. Bachelorhood with all its infinite pleasures and variety." His
slim, manicured fingers lifted a Lucite cube from Will's desk. "So you
gonna make lots of money for us in Napa Valley?"

Will settled back in his chair and linked his hands behind
his head in a deliberate gesture of confidence, though that was hardly what he
felt in this regard. "Don't I always?"

"There's no such thing as always."
LaRue
toyed with the cube, has dark eyes focused on it as
if mesmerized. "There's only your last deal."

That was one of the machismo-laden truisms GPG partners
bandied about. There were others, even less clever, all of which basically
boiled down to
What have you done for me
lately?

Will laughed again. "Hey, my last deal made us ten
times our money!"

"And is still in business. These days that's a stunning
success. But from you we'd expect no less."
LaRue
replaced the cube, next fingering a framed photo of Beth, posed in Aspen
alongside her husband and twin sons and an assortment of skis and poles. All
four sported matching sweaters, Will's own Scandinavian coloring, and the
goggle-eyed sunburn produced by a Rocky Mountain ski vacation.
LaRue's
brow arched. "You ever
heli
-skied,
Henley?"

That was the sort of testosterone-driven extreme sport of
which
LaRue
—and all right-minded GPG
partners—would approve. "Do you mean was I ever dropped from a
chopper in a remote location to ski solo down a kick-ass pristine mountain with
no one around to save me if I screw up?"

LaRue
nodded.

"Nope. But it sounds like good old-fashioned fun."

LaRue
laughed out loud this time,
the desired response. He set down the photo, focused briefly on its
mate—a fortieth-anniversary shot of Will's parents—then sauntered
back toward Will's door. "Give my regards to the lovely Ava," he threw
over his shoulder, and then he walked out.

Will sighed and unlinked his hands, then leaned forward to
rest his elbows on his desk and sip his cooling latte. The last thing Ava
Winsted wanted from Will Henley—or from anybody else at GPG—was
regards. She'd much rather the entire firm disappear from her life and that
Will Henley in particular stop making offers to buy her winery. She'd told him
no, and apparently she'd meant it.

But that didn't mean Will Henley would give up. He hadn't
gotten where he was by caving.

He grimaced, imagining the look on Ava Winsted's
Hollywood-perfect features when he crashed her son's homecoming party. Not
crash,
exactly
—he had finagled
his way in as an invitee's date—but barging in where he wasn't wanted was
not among Will's favorite activities.

 
Still, he had to
go. As far as he could make out,
Suncrest
was his key
to making money in Napa Valley. And he had to make as much money as possible to
satisfy GPG's general partners and investors, whose lust for huge returns was
unquenchable.

Will drained the last of his latte. Yup, he'd gotten that
bigger stage, all right.

***

Ever the actress, Ava Winsted forced herself to
laugh—to sound positively gay—as she turned from the French doors
in her casually elegant, light-filled living room to face Jean-Luc
Boursault
, the Paris-based screenwriter she hoped would pen
a new, post-
Suncrest
chapter for her already storied
life.

"I'm just thrilled to see Max take over," she
lied. "He learned so much in France, he'll bring an entirely new
perspective to
Suncrest
. Who knows? He might even end
up a better vintner than his father."

Ava watched Jean-Luc decide—wisely, she
thought—not to challenge that fantastic pronouncement. From his perch on
a cheerful blue-and-yellow Cottage Victorian armchair, he merely took another
sip of his
Suncrest
sauvignon
blanc
,
which Ava considered a delightful late-morning libation. Slight of build, with
thick graying hair and eyebrows that threatened to run one into the other,
Jean-Luc looked bohemian, affluent, and intellectual, much as he had when she'd
met him fifteen years before. "Porter Winsted," he offered mildly,
"is a difficult act to follow."

Who knew that better than Ava? Her late husband had been a
man among men, the scion of a Newport, Rhode Island, family who'd built two
stunning careers—in commercial real estate and winemaking—yet
remained to the end hardworking, self-effacing, and kindhearted.

Ava's eyes misted. She turned her back on Jean-Luc to gaze
out the French doors, the familiar panorama of vineyards and olive and
eucalyptus trees blurring into indistinct masses of green and gold under the
valley's unremitting midday sun.

She felt Jean-Luc's hand soft on the small of her back.
"You miss him still."

Still
. Two years
only he'd been gone. Two years already he'd been gone. Sometimes when she
awoke, Ava forgot Porter was dead, and reached out across the cold, cold sheets
only to remember. The stab of pain that followed was astonishingly raw, every
time. But it happened less and less often now, which in its own way saddened
her. She was growing used to him being gone.

"I will always miss him," she told Jean-Luc.
But I'm only fifty-five and I still feel
alive, most days anyway
. She turned her head to meet her friend's eyes.
They crinkled with a smile, and she was reminded again that Jean-Luc was in
love with her, and had been for some time, and would wait however long it took
for her to be ready for him.

Which might not be that long anymore.

"Will you miss running the winery when Max takes
over?" he asked her.

At that, Ava had to laugh, but didn't have to lie. "Not
in the least. You know me, Jean-Luc. I am many things, but a businesswoman is
not among them." She turned from the view to wipe nonexistent dust from a
round glass-topped table crowded with art books and photo frames. "I had
to run
Suncrest
after Porter died. And I think I
managed it reasonably well."

"Better than that, Ava."

She shook her head. "My heart was never really in it,
not the way Porter's was." She cast her mind back to those long-ago years
when she'd resented Porter's passion for
Suncrest
.
Perhaps
obsession
was a better word.
No woman could be as demanding a mistress as a fledgling winery, and it had
caused their young marriage real distress. But they had emerged intact, and the
winery prospered beyond anything they'd imagined. "Porter loved
Suncrest
, Jean-Luc. It is his legacy."

But it is not mine
.
Hers was as an actress.

Hollywood would have no room for her, Ava knew. She might
have assiduously protected her blond,
Breck
-girl
looks, and no one could deny that she had some impressive credits to her name,
but she was still a fifty-something has-been. Fortunately Europe was more
willing to embrace women
d'un certain age
who still knew how to light up a screen. Screenwriters like Jean-Luc
Boursault
even wrote parts for them.

Ava's mouth pursed in wry humor. Imagine that.

Jean-Luc returned to his armchair, his wineglass refreshed.
"And you are certain Max can manage as well as you?"

"Oh, of course." On went Ava's megawatt smile, for
even with a friend as dear as Jean-Luc she felt compelled to maintain the
fiction that she had complete confidence in her son. What she'd learned in
Hollywood was equally true in Napa Valley: Image was everything. She would not
derail what chance of success Max had by appearing to doubt him from the start.
"He grew up in the wine business. And now he's had this apprenticeship in
France. He's far more knowledgeable than I ever was."

And far more reckless.
And far less disciplined. And so stunningly oblivious of his own limitations
.

Ava sipped from her wineglass, thinking back to those
painful weeks before Max had decamped to France. The whole episode was so
unseemly and embarrassing and she hated even to think of it. Such a classic
tale: a young lady, the daughter of a small Sonoma vintner, who, the morning
after, regretted what she had done. Started to think it hadn't been her choice
at all. Ugly accusations flew from her father, and veiled threats, and Ava
hastily cobbled together a face-saving solution. She wrote a massive check to
charity in the family's name and packed Max off to the Haut-Medoc, claiming a
long-planned apprenticeship.

She shut her eyes. Why was there so little of the father in
the son? Where was Porter's caution, his thoughtfulness, his good sense? True,
Max had many natural gifts. He was intelligent and nice-looking and didn't lack
for confidence or charm. But there was a wildness to him that frightened Ava
and made her worry for the future.

And now of course there was the problem of
Suncrest
. She knew that the most prudent course would be
for her to continue to run the winery. Yet, though it made her feel horribly
guilty to admit it, she was done with it—
done
. She'd had enough of marketing strategies and distribution
agreements and P&L statements. She could play the vintner no longer. It was
a role she was handed against her will and she'd hated it from the moment she
walked onstage.

Of course, the other option was to sell it to Will Henley
and GPG.
Suncrest
would survive if she did, though
probably not in a form of which Porter would have approved. Those buyout firms
changed businesses—she was a savvy enough businesswoman to understand
that. But sometimes it was hard to believe
Suncrest
would fare any better in Max's hands.

Ava abruptly set down her glass. "Shall we have
lunch?" she asked, and swept toward the sun-drenched terrace beyond the
French doors without waiting for Jean-Luc's answer. "I've asked Mrs.
Finchley
to lay a table for us in the pergola."

Jean-Luc looked confused. "Didn't Max's flight land two
hours ago? Shouldn't we wait for him to get here to eat?"

"Oh no, let's not." Ava knew her son well enough
to know it was unwise to wait for him for anything.

***

Ninety miles south of his mother's intimate lunch with
Jean-Luc
Boursault
, Maximilian Winsted was doing some
entertaining of his own. He stood at the foot of a San Francisco Airport
Marriott queen-size bed, puffing on a
Gauloises
cigarette and eyeing
Ariane
, Air France flight
attendant, First Class. Her bodacious Parisian self was draped across the bed,
the top half of her uniform strewn all over the industrial-strength blue carpet
alongside her bra and pumps and pantyhose. She was giggling so much, she kept
spilling her champagne on her breasts, where it ran across her nipples and only
made her laugh harder. At this rate, Max didn't think it'd be a huge challenge
getting off the bottom half of her uniform, too.