"You look like you're auditioning for a horror movie, lady!" the driver says irritably through the open window. "The kind where the girl in the fancy dress runs through the woods and makes terrible decisions."
His French is flawless, but the accent underneath is unmistakably American.
I squint against the headlights, my chest heaving, my feet screaming against the asphalt. "Are you going to be one of those terrible decisions?"
He laughs, actually laughs, like I've said something delightful. "Depends on where you're headed. I draw the line at shallow graves and cult compounds."
The car is a late-model Peugeot, well-maintained but unpretentious. The kind of vehicle that says its owner has money but no particular need to announce it.
When I come closer to the open window, I see the driver lean across the passenger seat. The interior light catches his face: dark hair, strong jaw, easy smile that doesn't quite reach his blue eyes. Late twenties, maybe early thirties.
No wedding ring. No visible weapons.
Not that visible weapons are the ones you need to worry about.
"I need a ride," I say, stating the obvious because my brain is still catching up to my body. "Please."
He studies me for a moment—the torn evening gown, the bare feet, the mascara I can feel streaking down my cheeks—and something shifts in his expression,softens.
Don't you dare. Don't you dare pity me because I—
"Get in," he says instead, and pushes the door open.
I slide into the passenger seat, and the smell hits me immediately: earth, green things, something fermented and familiar.
Wine.
The footwell is littered with soil samples in plastic bags, and there's a clipboard wedged between the seats covered in handwritten notes about sugar levels and acidity.
"Seatbelt," he says, already pulling back onto the road.
I fumble with the clasp, my fingers clumsy and cold despite the August heat. The motion pulls at muscles I didn't know I'd strained during my climb down the trellis.
"So." He glances at me sideways, his tone conversational. "What's a girl like you doing alone on a road like this, in a dress like that, at an hour like this?"
"What's a guy like you doing driving alone on a road like this, at an hour like this?" I counter, because deflection is the only defense I have left.
"Fair point." He shifts gears. "I was checking on a late fermentation. One of our tanks has been temperamental, and I don't trust the night crew to babysit it properly. Your turn."
So he works at a winery. Which means he probably knows exactly whose property borders this road.
"I had a job interview," I say carefully. "The potential employer turned out to be an asshole, so I quit."
"Must have been quite an interview." His eyes flick to my dress again, then back to the road. "Most job interviews don't require couture."
Smart little ass.
"It was for an event position." The lie builds itself. "I work in catering coordination. The employer wasn't happy with my work during an important party, so we had a... disagreement."
"A disagreement that ended with you running down a dark road barefoot?"
"He was very unhappy with my work."
Something close to suspicion flickers across his face. But he's too polite to push, or maybe too smart. Either way, he lets the silence stretch for a moment before asking, "Where were you working? Before the disagreement?"
"A winery." I watch the plane trees flash past, their shadows reaching like fingers across the windshield.
"Let me guess…" He trails off, and when he speaks again, his voice has an edge I hadn't heard before. "Domaine Pasquier."
"You know them?" I ask, though I already know the answer.
"Everyone in this region knows them." His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "The Pasquiers have a reputation. Especially the current owner—Frank Chevotet."
"What about him?" I dare ask.
"Word is he once fired a sommelier for pouring him a glass of his own wine and asking if he enjoyed it." He smiles. "Frank couldn't identify it. Blamed the sommelier for embarrassing him and had him terminated by morning."
A smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it. That story is true—I was there when it happened.
Frank had been entertaining distributors, and the poor sommelier had no idea the man signing his paychecks couldn't tell a Merlot from a Malbec.
"Something funny?" He catches my expression, curious.
"Just sounds like a special kind of asshole," I say, and the understatement almost makes me laugh again.
"The specialty kind, yes." He shakes his head. "So what's your name, stranger?"
He turns toward me as he asks, and the interior light catches his eyes—pale blue, almost glacial, framed by laugh lines that seem too deep for someone his age.
The question shouldn't feel dangerous. It's the most basic social exchange. But my name is a liability now—a trail Frank can follow.
"Why do you want to know?" I ask instead of answering.
"Because I'm about to offer you a job, and it seems rude to employ someone whose name I don't know." He says it casually, like he's offering me a stick of gum.
This is how women end up on true crime podcasts, the rational part of my brain whispers.
But the irrational part, the part that climbed out a window tonight, is already calculating the odds. Frank is a guaranteed threat. This stranger is only a potential one.
"Why would you do that?" I keep my voice flat, unimpressed. "You don't know anything about me."
"Harvest season starts tomorrow." He glances at me, his expression open in a way that feels almost naive. "We're short-staffed, and you clearly know your way around a winery if you were working events at Domaine Pasquier."
I stare at him, waiting for the catch. It doesn't come and I do need a place to hide while I figure out how to destroy Frank and reclaim what's mine.
"Valérie," I hear myself say, and the fake name tastes strange on my tongue. "Valérie Martin."
"Nice to meet you, Valérie Martin." He extends his hand without taking his eyes off the road, and I shake it automatically. His palm is calloused, warm, roughened by honest work. "You start tomorrow."
"I don't suppose the job comes with a place to stay?" The words scrape past my pride. "I left my previous situation somewhat... abruptly."
"We have staff quarters." He says it like it's the most natural thing in the world. "Nothing fancy, but it's clean and private. You're welcome to it."
The car turns off the main road onto a gravel drive, and a vineyard emerges from the darkness.
It is smaller than the Pasquier estate, but beautiful in its simplicity—stone buildings weathered by centuries, vines climbing ancient walls, a farmhouse with warm light glowing in the windows.
My stomach tightens with recognition.
No. It can't be…
"What estate is this?" The question comes out strangled, though I already know the answer. I know it in my bones.
"Domaine Côté," he says, and the name lands like a verdict.
Côté.
The family my grandfather despised with a fury that frightened me as a child. The home of a blue-eyed boy who taught me that growing grape is patience.
Shit.
"It's not much," he says, misreading my silence as disappointment. "But we're rebuilding slowly. After... well, after some setbacks two years back."
He parks near the farmhouse and leads me inside, up a narrow staircase to a small room under the eaves. Simple furniture, clean linens, a window overlooking the vineyard.
It's nothing like the gilded cage I've lived in for years.
It's perfect.
"Bathroom's down the hall," he says from the doorway. "Breakfast is at seven. We start work at eight. Any questions?"
"Just one." I turn to face him, and the moonlight through the window catches his features differently now—the angle of his cheekbones, the particular shade of his eyes. "I gave you my name. What's yours?"
He smiles, easy and open, utterly unguarded in a way I'd forgotten men could be.
"Estienne," he says. "Estienne Côté. This is my grandfather's estate."
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