Henri hands me a pair of secateurs at seven in the morning, points to a row of vines stretching toward the horizon, and walks away without a word of instruction.
Sink or swim, his posture says. Prove yourself or don't waste my time.
I crouch between the first two plants and immediately understand why my grandfather never let me work the harvest as a child. The position is murder on the lower back—hunched forward, knees bent, arms extended at angles the human body was never designed to maintain.
Within twenty minutes, my thighs are burning. Within an hour, my fingers have forgotten how to grip.
"You're holding them wrong," a voice says from somewhere above me.
I squint up into the morning sun to find Estienne standing at the end of my row, a crate balanced on one shoulder like it weighs nothing.
"Is there a right way to hold instruments of torture?" I ask, flexing my cramped fingers.
"Thumb on top, not underneath." He sets down the crate and crouches beside me, his proximity sudden and warm. "Like this—see? You want the pressure distributed across your palm, not concentrated in the joint. Otherwise you'll have carpal tunnel by lunch."
He adjusts my grip with careful, callused hands, and my eyes catch on the faded scar running along his wrist.
He got that scar the summer I knew him.
The memory surfaces sharp and unbidden: an August afternoon, the smell of cut grass and copper, his white face as blood soaked through the makeshift bandage.
He'd been clearing vines at twice the normal speed while I watched from the stone wall between our properties. The blade slipped. He didn't make a sound, but I screamed loud enough for both of us.
"Voice of experience?" I nod toward the scar.
"Farming accident when I was thirteen or so." He grins, unself-conscious. "I was showing off for the neighbor's daughter."
My heart stutters.
He remembers.
"The neighbor's daughter?" I keep my voice carefully neutral.
"Yeah, she was visiting for the summer." His expression softens with memory. "I wanted to impress her, so I tried to clear an entire row in one afternoon. Sliced my wrist open on the third vine. Bled all over her pretty shoes."
I remember those shoes. White canvas sneakers that my father had bought me in Paris, ruined beyond saving.
I remember the panic in his voice, the way he'd wrapped his shirt around his arm while I ran screaming for help. Then my grandfather found us.
I remember everything.
"Did it work?" My voice comes out strange, too tight. "The impressing?"
"I never found out." He stands, brushing dirt from his knees. "Never saw her again after that summer."
I look up at him, and for a second, the world tilts.
I’m right here, I want to scream. Don’t you see me?
The impulse is so violent it burns my throat.
But he looks at Valérie, a drifter in a torn shirt with dirt under her fingernails. And he sees a stranger.
Henri whistles sharply from several rows over. Estienne gives me an apologetic shrug and returns to his own work, leaving me alone with blistered hands and a heart that won't stop racing.
By midday, those blisters have split.
The pain is sharp at first, then dull, then nothing. I tape my palms with supplies from the first aid kit and keep cutting, keep lifting, keep moving through the heat.
Estienne works alongside the crew rather than above them. I watch him haul crates that would require two normal men, pause to help a struggling worker with her technique, joke with the veterans in a patois I can barely follow.
He earns their respect through labor instead of lineage. Frank never worked a day in the vineyard. Frank never learned the names of our seasonal staff.
During the afternoon sorting, I forget myself.
The grapes pass through my hands in an endless stream, and muscle memory takes over. The precise thumb pressure against the skin, the assessment of give and tension, the instinctive separation of overripe from optimal.
I've done this a thousand times in our quality lab, though never with dirty fingernails and sweat dripping down my spine.
"Where did you learn that?" Henri's voice makes me jump.
He stands at my shoulder, watching my hands with narrow, suspicious eyes.
"Learn what?" I ask, too quickly.
"The pressure test." He picks up a grape I've just assessed, examines it, sets it back down. "That's not a hobby technique."
Shit.
"My grandmother made wine," I say, the lie sliding out smoothly. "She taught me before she died."
"Your grandmother taught you laboratory-grade quality assessment as a family hobby." Henri's tone makes clear exactly how much he believes me.
"She was very thorough."
We stare at each other for a long moment. Then he grunts and gestures toward the sorting table at the far end of the tent.
"Quality control needs help," he says. "You're reassigned."
It's not an accusation, but it's not absolution either. He's filing me away as a problem to be solved later, a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit the picture I've presented.
At the midday break, my hands tremble so badly I can barely hold my water bottle. I try to hide it by pressing my palms against my thighs, but Estienne appears beside me with a fresh bottle and a knowing look.
"Give me your hands," he says quietly.
"I'm fine."
"You're shaking." He takes my hands without waiting for permission, turning them over to examine the damage. "Jesus, Valérie. Why didn't you say something?"
"Because I'm not here to complain." I try to pull away, but his grip is gentle and firm. "I'm here to work."
"Pride is admirable." He produces a tube of salve from his pocket and begins applying it to my blisters. "Stubbornness that leads to infection is just stupid."
His fingers are warm against my ravaged palms. I watch his face as he works—the concentration in his brow, the slight purse of his lips, the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones.
"You're staring again," he murmurs without looking up.
"You're touching me," I counter. "It's hard to look anywhere else."
His hands still for just a moment, and when he meets my eyes, there's something new in his expression—curiosity shading into something more interested.
"Tell me about America," I hear myself say. "Why you left, and came back here."
He studies me for a long moment, and I can see him deciding whether to answer or ignore me.
"My grandfather's health has never been the same," he says finally, and the rawness in his voice makes my breath catch. "He refuses to admit how much the heart trouble has slowed him down, but I can see it every time he avoids the vineyard during working hours."
"I'm sorry," I whisper, and mean it.
"The company nearly went bankrupt two years ago." Estienne's jaw tightens. "One of our main competitor launched a coordinated campaign against us. We lost forty percent of our contracts in six months. The stress accelerated his decline."
"Do you know who exactly it was?" The question scrapes my throat.
If someone had done this to my grandfather's company—if I'd returned to find him dying from the stress of watching his life's work crumble—I would burn their world to ash without a second thought.
Estienne's eyes harden, and for the first time, I see the anger beneath his easy charm—patient, banked, waiting for the right moment.
"Domain Pasquier," he says quietly. "Their strategist nearly destroyed us. So wherever she is, I hope she's suffering."
________________