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“It’s my fault,” Natalie said quietly.
That broke Julian out of his haze of discomfort, his attention whipping to the right. “What are you talking about?”
Even in the muted light, he could see the red staining her face. “If you didn’t have to save me, if I hadn’t put you through that, you wouldn’t have lost it in front of him. I shouldn’t even have gone into the shed. The fire was moving too fast—”
“Natalie. Don’t be ridiculous.” Realizing how harsh he sounded, he softened his tone. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing is your fault.”
She made a sound, kept her face averted. “Could have fooled me. I mean, we weren’t exactly the Tanner family to begin with, but we’ve barely spoken at all since then.”
“I take responsibility for that. I should have been better about . . . being in your life. Obviously you’ve needed some—”
Natalie stopped walking abruptly, a glint in her eye that he could only interpret as dangerous. “Some what? Guidance? Advice?”
“I’m going to go with ‘support.’”
A few degrees of tension left his sister, but her expression remained suspicious. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Turned in a circle and looked out at the vineyard. “Okay, since you’re so deeply concerned, Julian. I . . .” The corners of her mouth turned down. “I made a play on an investment and it tanked. Hard. Like . . .” Her tone turned choppy. “A billion dollars hard. I was asked—forced, really—to step down at the firm. And my fiancé . . . ex-fiancé . . . broke our engagement to save face.” A lump moved up and down in her throat. “Morrison Talbot the third was too humiliated to be associated with me. And, of course, since I am no longer being paid, I was the one who moved out of the apartment.” She splayed her hands. “So here I am. Half-drunk, talking shit about blond men and writing love letters with my brother. Wow, that really doesn’t sound good out loud.”
Julian couldn’t hide his shock. She’d just been quietly living with this baggage since arriving in St. Helena? He didn’t have a clue where to begin . . . what? Comforting her? He really should have clarified his goal before he started to question her. “Your ex-fiancé’s name is Morrison Talbot the third and you’re calling blond men unrelatable?”
Natalie stared at him blankly for long moments, but it only took Julian half of one of those moments to know he was not good at this. At least, until his sister burst into laughter. The loud kind that rang out across the vineyard and loosened that elusive something inside of him a little more. He started to think maybe—maybe—he would join her in laughing, but a voice sliced abruptly through the evening and cut off the sound.
“I had a feeling you weren’t just home for a visit,” his mother said, coming down the porch steps of the main house. Her features were backlit by the flickering lanterns hanging on either side of the front door and mostly hidden, but Julian swore a flash of hurt crossed his mother’s face before she replaced it with a mask of indifference. “Well.” She ran a hand along the loop of her silk scarf. “How long were you planning to wait before asking for money?”
His sister’s spine snapped straight. Julian waited for her to issue a denial, to say that she wouldn’t be asking for money—if for no other reason than pride—but she didn’t. In the end, she looked their mother square in the eye and took a king-size pull from her flask.
“Lovely,” muttered Corinne.
It wasn’t lost on Julian that they were standing in the same spot—or close to, anyway—where the Vos family had been informed the fire was moving faster than originally predicted. Of course, they were minus one member. His father was in Europe racing Formula One cars. But they were here. They had problems to solve. Was he going to let an absent presence dictate how and when that was done?
No. Julian didn’t think he would. What had four years of silence yielded, except for the three of them suffering alone, stubbornly refusing to turn to one another for support or solutions? “Corinne.” He coughed into his fist. “Mother. Natalie isn’t the only one who has been hiding something.”
“What are you talking about?” Corinne snapped, quickly. Too quickly.
When he noticed the layer of panic in her eyes, he softened his tone. “The vineyard. We haven’t quite made it back after the fire. Sales are down. Competition is fierce. And we can’t afford to implement the changes that will make us viable again.”
Natalie dropped the flask to her hip. “The vineyard . . . isn’t doing well?”
“We are doing fine,” Corinne stressed, letting out a forced laugh. “Your brother was probably speaking to Manuel. Our manager is a worrier, always has been.”
