So Far Into You (12 page)

Why was Seth Lasrey buying a winery here in the Adelaide Hills? Why did it have to be
Max Montgomery's
damn winery? He'd bought most of Margaret River and the Swan Valley in the last few years.
Hell and Tommy.
Wasn't that enough?

Zac chattered on. ‘Dad reckons Max got over three million for it. The property, the restaurant, cellar door, the brand and the wines. Sue Mont is already in Sydney. It'd be a helluva shoppin' trip, Mum says, only Dad reckons the bank's probably gonna get most of the cash.'

‘Banks usually do,' Remy said. She ducked her head, bending low over Breeze so the messy swirl of hair that escaped her plait fell over her shoulder and covered her eyes.

Zac had three older sisters and a knack for knowing when a girl was about to cry and Remy—trying desperately to keep her shit together and contain the scream that wanted to escape her throat—could sense him watching. Scratching at the paving with the toe of his boot, he said, ‘Remy?'

‘Yep?'

‘You look like you might faint on me or somethin'. Not that I mind,' he added hastily. ‘Like, I'll catch you. I promise.'

‘I'm not going to faint.'

‘You always said the Monts were like fairy godparents. Is that what you're worried about? That the new owner won't take your fruit? You've got a contract with Montgomery, haven't you?'

‘Not in writing.' Remy shook her head. ‘Max did everything on a handshake.'

Zac kicked the pavers again. ‘Maybe that's why he had to sell.'

Remy knew what he meant. The locals said Max Montgomery was too soft. He'd kept paying top prices to his grapegrowers when other winemakers were slashing rates. These last few years of drought had coincided with a worldwide glut of wine. So many wine companies had gone to the wall and when the wineries started pinching pennies, first to get squeezed were the growers who sold them fruit.

In all that, Lasrey Estate had got bigger and bigger.

Pity Seth had earned a reputation in the industry for being ruthless in the process, but then … you only had to look at his mother.

‘You'll be right, Rem,' Zac said, when he couldn't handle her silence anymore. ‘You've got the best sauvignon blanc vineyard in the Adelaide Hills. Everyone around here says so. Max Montgomery has all those gold medals to prove it. These new guys will want it and if they don't, they're dickheads.' He shook the bag of tomatoes as he said it, like that made it final.

‘I wish I had your faith.'

‘Well, if all else fails, you could always pull out that vineyard and run sheep,' Zac winked. ‘Long as you can keep that dog from eating 'em.'

Breeze yawned, rolling out her long pink tongue. It was almost like she poked it out at him.

Zac pulled his sunglasses over his eyes. ‘I gotta go, Rem. Me and Dad are going across to Murray Bridge this arvo to look at a new ram. Catch you later. Thanks for the tommies.'

She might have said ‘no worries' before Zac opened the gate. She might have said ‘seeya' or ‘tell your folks I said hi', or any of those myriad meaningless things neighbours said to neighbours all the time. She hoped she did. She didn't want to be rude.

Truth was: Zac was there one minute and pretty much gone the next and when she thought about it later she couldn't remember saying a word of goodbye, because right after that her head filled with visions of Ailsa Lasrey's finger sliding that cheque across the boardroom table, and the day that changed her life forever.

‘What the hell is this?' she'd said to Ailsa.

‘It's an incentive,' the older woman said.

Remy recounted the zeros. ‘It's for $100 000, Mrs Lasrey. That's not an incentive. That's half a house.'

Ailsa shrugged. ‘You quit and it saves me a lot of paperwork. If there's one thing I don't like, it's hassle.'

If there was one thing being Wayne Hanley's daughter had taught Remy, it was there was no such thing as a free lunch. Whoever picked up the tab, you owed them something. There were always strings.

‘What's the catch?'

‘I want you to stay away from my boys. Like right away. Like out of the state away.'

Remy glanced at the neat swirls of Ailsa's handwriting. She had loopy, elegant handwriting. Little tails at the tip of the zeros. All those zeros. More zeros than she had ever expected to see written on a thin black line alongside her name. It wasn't a business cheque. It was from Ailsa's personal account. Perhaps it was easier to hide that way.

She'd be Ailsa's dirty little secret.

Remy sucked in a breath and wished the boardroom would stop swaying.

It was a brand new life for herself and her mother, $100 000. She could pay off Mulvraney and start again in a place where no one knew them. Lexie wouldn't be that drunk's wife. She wouldn't be that drunk's daughter. Nor would she be the girl left heartbroken when Seth married Helene Bouchard.

Still Remy hesitated. She waited so long, Ailsa sighed and leaned across the table and said, ‘Do I have to take my money back?'

‘There is someone in WA who I can't walk away from without paying.'

Ailsa fixed her with a hard stare, waited, as if measuring her up. Then she reached out and yanked the cheque from Remy's grasp. The thought of watching it be torn in shreds proved to Remy how much she wanted the money.

The older woman reached beneath the table, to her handbag Remy presumed, and emerged with her chequebook. Flipping to a new page, she started writing.

‘Will 10 000 cover it?'

‘No,' Remy said, feeling like the whole thing was a dream. A nightmare …

‘Fifteen?'

Remy shook her head. Mulvraney's debt was eighteen grand.

‘I'll give you $20 000 now.' Ailsa wrote the new cheque. Then she flipped to a new page and wrote another. Pointing at it, she said to Remy, ‘This is the balance, but it's forward dated for two weeks. This $80 000, you call me before that date so I know you're gone. Otherwise I call my bank and cancel it. And you never contact my sons. Ever. You got that?'

Remy did. ‘I'll pay it back, Mrs Lasrey.'

Ailsa actually laughed. ‘If it helps you to think that way, dear. You do that. I won't hold you to it.'

‘Will you make sure they … Seth and Blake … know it was an accident? You'll explain to them … I'd never try to poison their vines on purpose?'

‘Of course.'

‘Okay,' Remy said, and she held out her hand for the cheques.

Chapter 9

‘Jennie Grey from Channel 7, Mr Lasrey. Can you tell us what it was about Montgomery Wines that first caught your interest, in terms of your latest merger?'

Seth turned his attention to the journalist sitting in the second row of restaurant chairs. She had straight blonde hair parted fiercely on top of her head, and bright pink lipstick on a mouth that seemed to frown, ever so slightly.

Merger
sounded so much better on a journalist's lips than
buyout,
or
takeover,
or
acquisition,
Seth thought. That's why he instructed his communications team to use ‘merger' in their press releases about Lasrey's buyouts, takeovers and acquisitions.

‘We thought it was a good match for us right now, Jennie,' he said, waiting a beat: ‘Max was ready to sell and the price was right.'

‘Dammit, I knew I should have held out for more,' Max Montgomery, standing by Seth's side during the press conference, said. The journalists huffed with laughter and Max's ruddy cheeks reddened.

Seth laughed with them.

They were almost finished and the media had lapped the story up. South Australia needed a good news story. There'd been lay-offs in the local car manufacturing industry, plus the wine industry was in freefall.

‘On a serious note, if you like: Montgomery Wines is a jewel in the Adelaide Hills. I couldn't ask for a better introduction for Lasrey into South Australia. We think there's a lot of upside for us here and we can't wait to roll our sleeves up and get to work.'

‘So this year's vintage? Will we see a Lasrey style of wines, or Montgomery's?' Jennie Grey followed her first question.

‘Max's people and ours will work hand in hand through this vintage so we can get a good feel for how they do things. Then, if we don't stuff everything up, they'll let us go it alone.'

‘I'm sure you won't stuff it up.' Max smiled again, but the sweat had begun to glint on the bald patch on top of his head. The old guy was feeling it and fair enough, Seth thought, Max wasn't used to fronting a camera.

Not like me.

Whenever Blake rang from Brazil, or Hawaii, or Jervis Bay, or wherever the latest surf competition was being held—as long as it was a place with internet—he'd say:
‘Saw you made the news again, bro. You make such a great talking head.'

‘What about local grapegrowers, Seth? Are their contracts with Montgomery safe for this year?'

Seth turned toward the new voice. It was a woman who asked the question. He recognised her as an editor of one of the wine trade publications based in Adelaide. He'd spoken with her before and like most of the questions he'd been asked so far, he'd anticipated this one. Fruit pricing and grower contracts were the hottest topic in the industry.

‘We're still working through all the fine print,' Seth said. ‘Max has been very strong throughout the negotiation process that his growers get looked after, and we're certainly amenable to that. At the same time, it's tough in this industry. Everywhere we can, we have to tighten our belts. That's just the way it is.'

The woman nodded, and added seriously: ‘The latest price estimates coming out of the Riverland are down on last year …'

‘That's the Riverland. That's different to here,' he said.

Beside him, Max shuffled his feet. He'd put shoes on in honour of the press conference, tan lace-up ones that had probably never been out of the box.

‘I'm sure you've done your due diligence, Seth,' another journalist, male this time, spoke. ‘But I wouldn't be the first to suggest you might be overextending. How many acquisitions is that in the last three years?'

‘We have done our sums and as I said before, we obviously see a lot of upside to this new
merger
,' Seth said, ignoring the second part of the question. ‘Sauvignon blanc is going to be the wine of the next decade—now there's a tip for you.' He laughed and clapped Max on the back as a camera clicked. ‘The Adelaide Hills makes great sauvignon blanc. We can give the New Zealanders a run for their money.'

That was about it. He fielded a few more questions as the sweaty patch on Max's crown expanded, and when the questions dried he thanked the journos for coming. Maggie Castle from Montgomery's admin team, along with Seth's PR manager, handed each journalist a two-pack of Shiraz. The show was over.

‘Thank God for that,' Max said, pulling at the tie cutting into his neck. ‘Thought I was gonna expire. Now I know why these news things make me nervous. Guess you're used to them?'

‘Pretty much,' Seth said. ‘Most of the time journalists don't know anywhere near as much as they'd like you to think they do. The trick is only to answer the questions with stuff you want them to know.'

‘I'll take your word for it.' Max wiped his hand over his head. ‘Shit. I need a drink. Is it beer o'clock yet?'

‘Must be near enough.'

Seth let Max lead him out on the balcony toward a table beautifully laid for the lunchtime trade.

‘Can't quite believe it's the end of all this, you know?' Max indicated the landscape that fell away beneath them. White-puffed pampas grass bordered the edge of an enormous dam where a jetty had been built out into the middle. A young couple was out there, slowly making their way back to the shore. The guy had his arm around the girl and cuddled her close.

‘Think of it this way, Max. No more call outs in the middle of vintage when the bloody filter clogs or the press breaks or some idiot driver's bogged a tractor up to the axle because he went too close to the bloody dam …'

‘Yeah, I won't miss that.'

‘Yeah,' Seth agreed … and waited, because he could tell Max was working up to something. He'd spent enough time with Max Montgomery in the last few months to read the man's signs.

‘Jeez. I don't know, Seth. I just hope I've done the right thing. Wine's a young man's game. It was easier twenty years ago. Now it's all about the branding and marketing as much as what's in the bottle. What do I know about that? I thought I did it right. Got good advice … Every man and his dog planted grapes as a tax dodge in the nineties and now look at it. No one's making a dollar.' Max squinted at Seth. ‘Well, except for blokes like you. You must be doing something right.'

The waiter arrived carrying a bottle of Montgomery's sparkling white and Max sat heavily in his chair. ‘Thank God for that, my feet are killing me.'

‘You and me both,' Seth said, although his feet felt fine.

The waiter poured two bubbling glasses.

‘Your health, Max,' Seth said, tipping the glass in a toast. ‘And a happy retirement.'

‘To you and your team, Seth. I hope this venture brings you every success.'

They drank.

Seth could see Max tasting the liquid on his tongue, testing for flaws. It was a winemaker thing; Rina always did the same.

‘So now we've done the three-ring media circus, where do you want to start?' Max said.

‘Rina's meeting with your winemaking team today. They're showing her around.'

‘Lewis Carney is a good bloke. You won't have any trouble with him.'

‘Good,' Seth said.
If I do have trouble, Carney will be out on his arse.