Take Me Higher (19 page)

He was outraged to think this chit of a girl was about to outflank him in the Napa Valley and told her, ‘Without Ruy Blas and Ethan’s wine cellar, Richebourg-Conti is much less interesting to me and my American ambitions.’

By eleven o’clock that evening the Baron had had enough of Syrah and her team who kept throwing up illegalities at every turn. The Baron tried to save his position as owner of both Ruy Blas and Richebourg-Conti.

‘Syrah, what if I were to assume, which I am not doing, that you and your lawyer’s allegations are true? What are the options open to me for sole possession of Ruy Blas?’

‘Baron, there is no avenue left to you. You are not a Richebourg,’ she told him not unkindly.

Always cool and charming, the urbane Frenchman sensed that it was finished.

Charm, the good life, frivolous chatter had always been a game well played by Syrah. It had after all been her world before Ethan’s death. And that afternoon she had played brilliantly. The Baron watched her with admiration. For all her feminine charms he was now able to see her as a clever and ruthless predator who, if given what she wanted might be persuaded to minimise the tremendous embarrassment of his having lost the prize he had so brazenly flaunted. He hoped that he could extract from Syrah sufficient money to cover his enormous financial loss and Château Brilliant Vivier’s reputation in the wine industry. The Baron had no doubt that to fight Syrah Richebourg and Ira Rudman in the American courts would be a battle of many years, expensive, scandalous and hardly appealing.

It was nearly midnight when he asked for champagne which was ordered by Syrah and served to everyone in the room. A strange silence settled over everyone. The tension of the last few hours, the dickering and all the fighting seemed to go out of the two principals and their teams. The Baron, sitting on a settee next to Syrah, had only one consideration: the continuity of his French wine empire.

Turning to face her, he told her, ‘You are playing a game of what you Americans call hard ball with a master, but I am at least willing to play. What will it take for Richebourg-Conti not to be snatched out from under me and be given to the Yurok tribe?’

Syrah felt a serge of triumph run through her. She held back tears of relief, just prevented herself from shouting with joy for her victory. She gazed into the faces of the people in the room and could see the astonishment on every one of them. Her heart was full of joy and love for Ethan. With great humility, having brought herself under control, she studied the Baron’s face.

In a strange way she was grateful to him for being so clever, quick to understand that she was prepared to give a great deal to have Richebourg-Conti for herself, that she was there to negotiate with the Baron rather than Ira for his share of the Richebourg-Conti vineyards and winery.

After another day and a half in Paris, Syrah Richebourg flew from Paris to Los Angeles having achieved the unthinkable: owner of Ruy
Blas, Ethan’s wine cellar and the Baron’s stake in Richebourg-Conti, she was now the major stockholder of all the Richebourg vineyards.

She arrived in California with the Baron. Together they approached Ira with the news that he had lost control of Richebourg-Conti in a bloodless business coup.

Brazenly, before he could shout treachery a second time, Syrah pounded hard on Ira’s desk for his attention and in a hard voice took her last, most dangerous, gamble.

‘Ira, I will buy you out of Richebourg-Conti for the exact sum it cost you to ruin Caleb and not a penny more,’ she told him.

The Baron followed up with, ‘I insist you take the deal offered you, Ira, because if you don’t and condemn us all to years of litigation in a case that no one will benefit from, plus ruining a great vineyard, I will have no choice but to label you an embezzler, a liar and a thief, who walks on the edge of respectable business. I have enough proof from my years of association with you.’

It was all over in a matter of hours. At the Beverly Hills Hotel, Syrah changed from her elegant power dressing to a black leather jump suit. In her double-winged vintage Boeing Stearman she flew away from Los Angeles, the owner of debt-ridden Richebourg-Conti and Ruy Blas, Ethan’s coveted wine cellar, and with waivers from both the Baron Michel de Brilliant Vivier and Ira Rudman of any right to sue her for fraud over her sale to Ira.

She soared into the air over the ocean at Malibu, flew barrel rolls, dives and spins above the water’s edge as it rolled on to the beach, as she had the day Ethan was brought down by a stroke. She felt so different from the person she had been that day. She was aware that she would never again be the same person she had once been. Her perceptions were different, and her passions. This was her second chance and she felt joyful that she could now appreciate the world and life from a different vantage point.

It was late afternoon when she circled Richebourg-Conti and as she came in to land she saw waiting on the ground at the end of the grass air strip a clutch of people waving their arms: Keoki, Melba, James and his girls, Henri Chagny, Blackwolf, Sam Holbrook and Diana among the dozens of staff from Ruy Blas and Whitehawk Ridge, from Richebourg-Conti and many of the small vineyards she and Diana had
helped. Syrah’s heart was bursting with pride and love as she pulled up into the air and returned, dipping her wings from side to side as she made her landing.