Page 49 of A Vine Mess
So I did. While we waited for our food to arrive—and even after the fact—I told Ella about William Preston Danvers the first.
“He’s been more of a father to me than my dad ever has,” I started. “It’s honestly a wonder people as incredible as my grandparents created such a monster.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,” Ella piped in.
“No, it definitely wasn’t. They were both busy when my dad was growing up, and he developed that classic rich kid, single child mentality thanks to nannies and years of boarding school. By the time Gran and Gramps realized he’d gone bad, it was just too late.”
I’d never understood how my mother, my sweet, kind, nurturing mother, ended up with an asshole like him.
“But Gramps…they vowed not to let him turn us into the same kind of man. It worked on me, not so much on Sammy.”
“Aren’t you Canadian?” she blurted.
I barked out a laugh at her outburst, grinning widely as Inodded. “I have dual citizenship. Right before I started high school, Gramps decided he wanted to move the company to somewhere more centrally located so we could service a larger area. The board ultimately settled on Portland, and that first summer, he got me a job at a winery that the company had recently done a major renovation on.”
I’d been a glorified errand boy that summer, spending more time pushing paper than working out in the vineyard. Being cooped up hadn’t suited me, and I’d been damn near coming out of my skin by mid-July.
Then I met Mellie, and everything changed. We’d met one day when I’d dropped by her father’s office to deliver some reports from the CFO, and she’d been waiting to go to lunch with him. I quickly realized she had no idea who I was, thinking I was some middle class summer hire and not the heir to the Danvers Architecture empire.
I hadn’t bothered to correct her.
Sneaking around proved thrilling for both of us. Those early kisses snuck when one of us pulled the other into a supply closet when no one else was looking.
The picnics deep in the rolling hills of the vineyard where no one would ever find us.
The first time we had sex, right there on a blanket between the vines.
When she eventually learned who I was, she wasn’t even mad. She reacted by finally introducing me to her family—as William Preston Danvers, III, which to this day still grated; I’d change my last name if it wasn’t also my grandfather’s. For years after that, we were on again, off again, a truly chaotic love story bettersuited for television teen dramas than real life.
And then, it all came crashing down, and I ran away to Michigan.
I didn’t tell Ella any of that, though, and she didn’t press me about my momentary silence while my mind was a thousand miles away.
She only said, “We never really got to know our grandparents.” She chuckled softly and gently shook her head. “Although Great-Grandpa Andreas is such a legend in our family, Ifeellike I knowhim.”
“Why is that?”
“Oh, he was a bootlegger during prohibition.”
I inhaled so sharply a piece of egg lodged itself in my throat. Once I’d cleared it and chugged my entire glass of water to soothe my burning throat, I implored Ella to start at the beginning.
“They started construction on the main building, which now holds the restaurant and offices, in the summer of 1917. Thanks to those wonderful Michigan winters, it took ages to finish. They’d been planning to open in the spring of 1920, but Prohibition went into effect that January, so they never got the chance.
“But while the winery was being constructed, Andreas had been tending to the vineyards in preparation for opening the doors,” she continued. “Despite Prohibition, they opened the doors anyway. With Great-Grandma’s help, they sold grape jam, juice, and other grape-based products out of what should’ve been the tasting room, using that legitimate business as a front for the smuggling.” She leaned closer, and I mirrored her so I could hear when she dropped her voice and whispered, “There’s a smuggler’s tunnel below the winery that leads right to the Villa,which Andreas built for the family before construction on the winery started.”
I sat back in my seat, scrubbing a hand over my beard, absolutely floored by this knowledge.
Ella chuckled at what I’m sure was a gobsmacked expression on my face. “Who knew, right? The Chateau Delatou legacy was built on a criminal enterprise.”
“Your family history is so cool,” I told her. “It must be amazing to live in the place your ancestors actually settled.”
“It has its perks…but also its downfalls. Everyone knows you, for starters.”
“Good or bad?”
“Bad,” she breathed out on a laugh. “At least recently. But most of the time, it’s good. The history part of it is cool though. To look at old drawings and schematics of the vineyards and see how much it’s grown. To realize how much the area has changed in the last hundred plus years.”
“But you didn’t want to be part of the family business?”
